Welcome to Saskatoon Fire and Flood. It’s a Friday afternoon and Brennen Mills is showing me and my photographer, Rona Andreas, around the building. It’s a really impressive space full of tools and equipment designed to help people recover from an incident such as a house fire. 

I feel lucky to say I have never had to call on Brennen and his team for their help. In fact, Brennen was not on my radar for podcast guests until his colleague, Candace Chickowski nominated him through the YXE Underground website. Her email was compelling and it really got me thinking of how important communication is in Brennen’s line of work. 

Here is a portion of Candace’s email that really connected with me and got this episode in motion. 

Brennen was born and raised in Saskatchewan’s construction industry. He knows this work inside and out, but what makes him different is his ability to see the human side of it. We deal with people going through some of the hardest days of their lives, fires, floods, and major loss and Brennen never lets us forget that we’re not just fixing buildings; we’re helping people get their lives back. 

Helping those in need and giving back to the community are priorities in Brennen’s leadership style and his personal life. He is the Vice-Chair of the Saskatoon Public Schools Foundation and his willingness is volunteer his time and energy led the SPSF to recognize Brennen and Saskatoon Fire and Flood at this month’s National Philanthropy Day. 

Here's the thing about Brennen; he would rather talk about anything else than himself, which made for some very funny moments in our conversation when I would press him for a story. 

You can listen to YXE Underground wherever you find your favourite podcasts including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or on the website: yxeunderground.com

Please feel free to leave a 5-star review if you like what you hear.

You can follow YXE Underground on social media. Simply search YXE Underground on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. That's where you will see some lovely photos of Brennen and his puppy dog taken by Saskatoon photographer, Rona Andreas. My thanks to Rona for her amazing work on this episode. 

Thank you to my cousin, Andrew Dickson, for creating the original theme music for the podcast.

Thank you to Saskatoon’s Danger Dynamite for creating and maintaining the website.

These interviews were gathered on Treaty Six territory and the traditional homeland of the Metis.

YXE Underground is a production of the Salthammer Production Company. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll talk to you soon, Saskatoon. 

• Host, Producer, Editor: Eric Anderson
• Theme Music: Andrew Dickson
• Website: https://www.yxeunderground.com
• Recorded: On Treaty 6 Territory and the traditional homeland of the Metis