Meet the team
Adrian Jones – Shareholder; Chief Maintenance Officer
Adrian is our main reason for being. Younger than most when looking to invest in business, he sparked the whole sequence of events that led to the creation of Millstream Beverage Company. Originally from Ontario, he moved to the west coast to apply his marine engineering background in the private and public sectors, and decided to stay and support local. His friendship with Duncan started via the Happy Homebrewer as a customer, and continued through developing joint business plans and making a brewery happen. Adrian balances his shifts on the boats with doing the odd jobs that keep MBC running smoothly equipment-wise.
Ian Conn – Shareholder; Chief Executive Officer
Ian can often be found chatting up the tables or replacing tanks for the patio heaters. He comes from a long family tradition of bringing flavor and joy, carrying on the 3rd generation of work in hospitality businesses.
Ian and Lisa moved from Ontario to Victoria in 2017 to pursue opportunities in tourism through a travel service. The MBC partnership began when Ian reconnected with Adrian through a work channel, hung out around a firepit one evening and tried some of Duncan’s beer. Believing there to be a market for yummy brews, the crew started making it real. After a few more stops, starts and resets, here he is as CEO!
Lisa Conn – General Manager
When Lisa moved to B.C. with Ian in 2017, she fit right into the hospitality scene. So when the option came up to make MBC a family deal, Lisa was all in. With a background running kitchens for tankers on the great lakes and in top restaurants, she dove into the menu and front end operations with a killer pizza dough recipe (it has beer in it!) and a whole lot of logistics management. Lisa does ALL THE THINGS, and embodies the doctrine of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. She also has an incredible diverse wardrobe for a variety of occasions, and likes roses. You could bring her roses, she’d like it.
Duncan Blackman – Shareholder; Brewer
Duncan likes beer. Duncan likes making beer. Duncan has an uncanny ability to understand and apply the complexity of biochemistry in order to create delicious flavor profiles for everyone to enjoy. And, he found a way to do it! Starting with the Happy Homebrewer in 2012-2017, he has taken the experience and expertise gained from making hundreds of different custom small-batch beers, and scaled up for broader distribution. His time with Specific Mechanical selling brewing and distilling equipment in 2018-2021 means that he knows the equipment inside and out, and uses top quality ingredients, a bespoke brew system and years of brewmaster expertise to create the growing range of MBC offerings. He also wears a hat. A lot. The sun gets him anyway.
Rich & Vanessa Fields – Shareholders
Rich and Vanessa also met Duncan through the Happy Homebrewer, and quickly became family friends that stayed in the same bubble through COVID-19. The recent opportunity to invest in bringing beer and pizza (and seltzers, and pretzels, and nachos) to the community was too tempting, and the two bought in as shareholders early in 2022. Serving the Island through their work in health care and law enforcement, Rich and Vanessa take pride in (and provide key insights for) the quality and quantity of MBC’s growing product lines, while bringing in all their friends and family to try everything out.
