About Us — Three Generations, One Mission

Travel Built on Service

More than a travel company

For over 30 years, our family has served communities through both public service and travel. From RCMP officers and first responders to military families, healthcare workers, teachers, and community leaders, the people around us have always dedicated their lives to helping others.

Today, Vacations For Heroes is a community of family, friends, former colleagues, first responders, and trusted travel professionals who share the same values: service, integrity, and taking care of people — proudly family-owned, with the next generation now helping lead the future.

Her Love of Travel

It started at a dining-room table

Long before there was a Vacations For Heroes, there was a dining-room table in Punnichy, Saskatchewan — a town of barely 200 — covered end to end in travel-course papers. That was our mother, teaching herself the trade.

And she built that career while holding a whole family together. As Dad's RCMP career took us to a new posting every few years, she was the one who packed us up and settled us in — and who taught us family first, and the strength to make friendships that last a lifetime. Loyalty, love, and integrity: she lived all three. She became a top-producing, award-winning travel agent in Whitehorse, Yukon, and then kept going north.

The move to Hay River came with Dad's commissioning as an RCMP officer — a significant promotion. Connie went north to support it, a sacrifice she made without hesitation — but she wouldn't give up the career she'd built, either. For two years she commuted across Great Slave Lake to Yellowknife: out every Monday, home every Friday, back when "remote work" didn't exist — only tenacity did. The famous Buffalo Airways flew her back and forth, rarely taking a dime for it. She would not give up the work she loved or the man she loved. My parents have loved each other like no couple I've ever known.

Eventually they landed in British Columbia, and she did the boldest thing of all — she opened her own agency. That agency became the company you're reading about today.

Erin with her mother, the founder of the agency

His Life for People

Service, in a red serge

While our mother built a life in travel, our father built one in service — in the red serge of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was awarded the Commanding Officer's Commendation for a courageous act: talking a distraught woman into handing over a loaded rifle she'd pointed at him.

With every posting came a promotion — and he earned each one by working for his members, never above them. Loyalty, friendship, fairness, and unwavering integrity are what made people follow him: first in the RCMP, and later here at Vacations For Heroes, leading our own staff the very same way.

Our father served. Our brother served. Our nephew serves today, and our niece works for the force as a civilian employee. Dad retired from the RCMP at 55, around the time I joined the business — and at almost 80, he's still part of it. Officers still stop to remember the kind of leader he was; our team sees the kind of leader he still is. That's the standard I try to lead by.

Newspaper clipping: Constable Jack Skrine receives the Commanding Officer's Commendation

Constable Jack Skrine, Waskesiu RCMP — Commanding Officer's Commendation for talking a woman into surrendering a loaded rifle. Service has been in our family from the very beginning.

Where It All Began

The founders — RCMP red serge and a lifetime in travel

"Service and travel, woven into one family."

Jack & Connie Skrine · The founders

Carrying It Forward

Three generations, one mission

I'm Connie's daughter, and I grew up inside this story — moved from town to town, raised on the values she lived every day. It taught me early that the people you meet, and the bonds you keep, are everything.

I worked alongside my mom after university — but it was in 2001, after 9/11 and with newborn twins, that I left my corporate management job to join the family for good. It's been a ride: learning everything from her, and growing what the company is today.

From my mother: focus, discipline, hard work, and a love of travel. From my father: a life lived for people. I carry both — and I hope to pass them to my own kids, the way they were passed to me. Olivia and Jack are in the trenches now — learning the business from the ground up, starting in sales and earning their place the way everyone here does.

To this day, I rely on my parents' wisdom and direction, and I love the time it has given me with them — and now with my own kids. I look forward to seeing what's next.

Three generations. One family. One mission: take care of the people who spend their lives taking care of everyone else.