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Entrepreneur STORY BY STACIE GAETZ | PHOTO BY JACEY CONWAY
delivering affordability to residents “Airdrie has responded extremely well to our presence here and welcomed us with open arms. Right from the time we did our first order ... we have seen a perpetual increase in support from Airdrie.”
T
homas O’Brien understands the saying “You can’t have a rainbow without rain” better than most. The tragic loss of the Airdrie dad’s wife was a devastating blow that inadvertently led to the idea of his now successful delivery business. After losing his wife to acute myeloid leukemia on Feb. 6, 2018, O’Brien was struggling to come up with dinner ideas and did not have the energy to make dinner for himself and his one-year-old son. However, after a few negative experiences with Skip the Dishes, O’Brien thought there had to be a better option. “I was shocked to find that most of the original delivery services had disappeared,” he says. “The ones I did find, unfortunately, did not deliver from the
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restaurants I wanted and did not have great recommendations.” Not willing to sit idly by and continue to pay high delivery fees for less-than-ideal service, O’Brien took matters into his own hands and by December 2018, Airdrie Dash Delivery Ltd. was a registered corporation. O’Brien has combined his former experience in the fast food and pizza delivery industry with his college training in graphic design and marketing into an increasingly successful delivery business with 43 independent drivers. “We are always hiring as our volume of orders continues to increase daily,” he says. Airdrie Dash Delivery currently delivers food, liquor and convenience items. During non-peak hours, O’Brien says, they try to
