Big Picture - October 2020 - 23

SUSAN BR AVERMAN
PRESIDENT

THE FLAG SHOP | VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
flagshop.com

"Susan is unique, not just for being the secondgeneration woman owner of a digital print
business, but for her knowledge and innovation in
digital print. She has transformed the use of digital
print in the flag space."
- DAVID LINDSAY, PR MANAGER, EFI

You have served as a board member for the Common Thread Co-Op, a non-profit providing sewing
training and production coaching for newcomers to
Canada, people living with mental illness, and others
who thrive in a flexible work environment. Can you
share why Common Thread is important to you?
Whenever we make banners for our customers we always
have some overruns, so we make bags for Common Thread.
We let our customers know if you want to do this with your
banners after you're done with them, you contact Common
Thread. And now Common Thread works out of our sewing
department and their contract sewers walk around our sewing
department just like our employees do. It's a fantastic
relationship. To me, being in business is not only about the
bottom line. It's about making a difference in your community.
If you can't donate money, then do what is often better, and
donate your time and your heart.

BIGPICTURE.NET

Your mother founded the business in 1975. What did
you learn from her and what does it mean to be a
woman in the wide-format digital printing industry?
I've been in the flag and banner industry for 40 years, since I
was 7 years old. My mother founded the retail flag industry by
opening the first retail flag store in the entire world. There
were others stores that sold flags, like map and army surplus
stores, but flags were always an add-on. There were two
main flag manufacturers in Canada, and their product lines
were identical. The stores that sold flags were limited to what
these two flag manufacturers made. Whenever we went on
vacation, which was twice a year, the first thing my mom did
was open the yellow pages in the hotel room, rip out the "flag"
page, and then we'd go and visit all the stores listed. Whether
it was Hawaii or Milan or London or Paris, none of them were
stores that exclusively sold flags. So my mom saw an opportunity to stand out and make a name for herself.
My mom was new in the business and saw things from a
different perspective. She formed partnerships with different
manufacturers from different industries. My mom didn't know
what she was doing, so she made a lot of mistakes in the early
years, but she also did things that had never been done before.
She found a way to stand out from the others and give customers more options and better service, as well as help them find
new solutions and ideas they had never considered before.

I grew up in a matriarchal family. I didn't know until I got
to university that women weren't always treated equally or
how much women had to, and still have to, fight for equal
rights, or even just to be treated fairly. In my family, my mom
was in charge (my dad was her lieutenant) and when my
grandma, my mom's mom, came over, she was in charge. In
our family, women were rightly respected because women had
to juggle more than men. They carried the babies, had the
babies, nursed the babies, were the main caretakers for babies,
did most of the cooking and cleaning and family chores, they
got jobs and went to school to better themselves, helped the
kids with their homework at night, and sewed buttons onto
shirts when the buttons fell off.
In my family, my mom brought me up with a very clear
understanding that giving is more important than getting. You
give, aka volunteer, as much as you can, not because it's a
good thing do and makes you look good, but because that's
what being an active person in your community looks like.
My mom also taught me there is no such thing as failure
unless you keep falling down and stop trying to get back up.
And when you make a mistake, you say you're sorry. When
you have hurt someone's feelings, even if it was unintentional
or the other person is being too sensitive, you do what it is
right, which is be kind. If you want to be right, be kind. That's
what being right looks like. My mom brought me up believing
that women can do everything that men can do. And if a man
tells you otherwise, it's just because that's how he was brought
up, and if he insults you, you bite your tongue and smile.

http://www.flagshop.com http://www.BIGPICTURE.NET

Big Picture - October 2020

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