Women's Enterprise Centre
It's your business. Start. Grow. Succeed.

Our Mission:
Entrepreneurship is viewed as a valuable option for women of all ages.
Women have access to capital and services that assist them in the development of their businesses.
Accomplished women entrepreneurs are profiled and recognized.
Betty Barton

Betty Barton , Director
Women's Enterprise Centre

Betty Barton , Director

Betty Barton has been a resident of B.C.’s northwest since 1955 and currently lives in Terrace with her husband Grant Piffer. She has owned and operated a residential, commercial and industrial construction company for several years, working mainly in Terrace with other customized projects throughout the province.

For five years, she worked as a liaison with the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) through Northwest Community College. In this position, Betty helped local innovators and inventors with the business side of bringing an invention or concept to fruition, for the purpose of diversifying the regional economy.

Betty is a past president of the Terrace and District Chamber of Commerce, has been a board member of the Terrace Economic Development Authority, Terrace Tourism Society, Nechako Watershed Council and is the founder and vice chair of the Northwest Science and Innovation Council.

Betty also sits as a director and one of the owners of the Shames Mountain Ski Corporation. In addition to making policy decisions and working in the company operationally, Betty’s construction company, Barton Construction Ltd., has planned, developed and constructed many of the facilities. For eleven summers, Betty operated a weekend tea house at the Shames daylodge to give hikers a homemade dessert and afternoon tea.

Betty graduated from Simon Fraser University in Commerce and worked in Edmonton, Vancouver and Indonesia before returning to Terrace in 1989. With Canada World Youth, Betty worked as a group leader between Canada and Indonesia guiding young adults through eight-month learning/living experiences with billeting families and counterparts in small rural communities. Since then, she has mentored young people and women in career preparation, particularly in the trades and has been an inspirational role model. In 2006 Betty was a speaker at the Celebration of Northwest BC Women put on by Women’s Enterprise Centre in Terrace, BC. She was awarded the Female Innovator of the year at the Northern B.C Today’s Woman Awards held in Prince George in 2006.

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