HR Associates, or HRA as it became known, began in 1998 with the founding partnership of Wayne McMillan, Frank Gillan, Ron MacLeod, and Michele Dorsey. The company formed to address a need for HR-related service offering in the public sector. At that time, provincial government work accounted for the majority of the firm’s activities.

In those days, the partners worked in such close proximity that they rarely had to schedule meetings with each other – they were always around.

The firm became well known for its success with public sector HR issues and employer-side labour negotiations, which eventually helped to build a reputation beyond their roots in public sector work. The firm’s private sector work gained momentum, and eventually a built an enviable reputation which followed HRA beyond Prince Edward Island to include both public and private sector clients in the rest of Atlantic Canada and beyond.

Over the years, the team grew carefully, always remaining true to the cohesiveness that characterized HRA’s small but mighty team approach.

As the firm grew to tackle workplace woes in other provinces, it faced an identity crisis. While the name HRA was familiar to many businesses and public sector organizations in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, it has not always been apparent, to the uninitiated, exactly who or what HRA was.