The long-time manager of Clearspring Centre in Steinbach will retire at the end of this week. Bob Frey has managed the mall almost from day one. He reflects on his beginnings there.

"I started in August of 1981 and the shopping centre opened in May of 1980. So now it's just about 37 years that I've been here and time flies."

Frey says the mall was started by businessmen Jim Penner and Ernie Penner, who were not related. He explains Jim Penner needed more parking for his grocery store (Penner Foods) and Ernie Penner needed a proper retail outlet for his growing contractor-lumber supply business in Blumenort (E.G. Penner Building Centre). Over the years the mall sold pieces of land to companies like McDonalds and Canadian Tire, which had its first local store at what is now Staples. They also added a couple of buildings on the property such as the Smitty's building, Dominoes-Subway building and also the Boston Pizza building.

Frey says they have had to re-invent themselves over the years as the retail environment changed.  He recalls one of those times was about a dozen years ago.

"We put a lot of money into bringing in some big name retailers, for example, Winner's, SportChek, Dollarama and Walmart. And, you know, Ontario licence plates began to return. They had a reason to stop here instead of heading on to Winnipeg. And it also gave our customer base more reasons, again, to come to Steinbach, to come to Clearspring."

Frey says the mall has been big part of his life's work.

"Well it's been a huge part of my life journey. Prior to this, I was actually involved in politics. I worked for both Bob Banman and Jake Epp and was very privileged to do that. But it's been 37 years. I'm really proud of our accomplishments, I feel that I've fought the good fight and I feel good, but I think it's time to leave it to new people and, hey, everything is subject to being re-invented."

Frey, who is 66, says he has no immediate plans for his retirement although he is looking forward to some stress-free, unstructured time in the weeks and months ahead.