By Patrick Wood, Director, Canadian Self Storage Association | May 2026
It is a real honour to share that I have been elected to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Self Storage Association. I do not take the seat lightly. The CSSA has spent more than two decades building the institutions our industry now takes for granted, and stepping onto the board means becoming a custodian of that work rather than simply a beneficiary of it. To the members who put their confidence in me, thank you. I intend to earn it.
I want to begin where any incoming director should, which is with gratitude to the people who built the foundation I am inheriting. The outgoing directors gave the association something that is hard to quantify and easy to underestimate: continuity. Through a pandemic, a historic run-up in construction costs, a sharp move in interest rates, and the steady institutionalization of an asset class that used to sit at the margins of commercial real estate, they kept the CSSA stable, credible, and member-focused. They defended the industry’s interests with regulators and municipalities, and built an annual conference that has become the place Canadian operators actually meet each other. None of that happens by accident, and very little of it happens on a salary. It happens because a small group of busy operators and service providers decided the industry was worth their volunteer hours. On behalf of the members who benefit every day without seeing the work, I want to say clearly: thank you for your service, and thank you for leaving the association in a stronger position than you found it.
I also think it is worth naming why this matters now, because the Canadian self storage industry is at a genuine inflection point. We are no longer a cottage business of owner-operators with a few hundred doors. Institutional capital has arrived, public and private platforms are consolidating regional portfolios, lenders understand the asset far better than they did a decade ago, and customers increasingly expect the same digital, climate-controlled, professionally managed experience they get from the largest brands. That maturation is good for valuations and good for the credibility of the sector. It also raises the stakes for an association that has to represent both the single-facility operator in a secondary market and the national platform with dozens of sites. Holding that coalition together, and making sure the smaller members are not crowded out as the industry institutionalizes, is the central challenge of the next few years. It is the lens through which I am approaching my goals for the coming year.
Growing and deepening membership
My first priority is membership, both the number of members and the depth of their engagement. The CSSA does its best work when it speaks for a broad and active base, and there are still too many Canadian operators, particularly newer entrants and owners outside the major metros, who are not yet members or who joined and then drifted to the sidelines. I want to change that on two fronts. The first is reach. We should be actively present in the regions and provinces where membership is thinnest, making the case directly to operators that the cost of dues is trivial against the value of the association’s insurance programs, legal resources, benchmarking data, and collective voice. The second front is engagement. A membership card that sits in a drawer does nobody any good. I want to see more members contributing to committees, sharing operating data, attending regional gatherings, and treating the CSSA as a working tool rather than a logo on a website. Engaged members renew, recruit their peers, and make the whole organization more valuable. That virtuous circle is what I want to help accelerate.
Education and advocacy
My second priority is the twin work of education and advocacy, which I see as two sides of the same coin. On education, the industry is changing quickly enough that even experienced operators benefit from structured, current information: how lenders are underwriting storage in a higher-rate environment, how revenue-management software is reshaping rate strategy, what changing use patterns mean for unit mix, and how to think about climate-controlled product, automation, and security as customer expectations rise. I want the CSSA to be the first place a Canadian operator looks for that knowledge, through webinars, written resources, and conference programming built around the questions members are actually asking. Investors and new entrants in particular need a trusted, Canada-specific source, because too much of the available material is written for the American market and does not translate cleanly across the border.
On advocacy, the association’s role is to make sure the industry is understood and fairly treated by the people who write and enforce the rules. That means staying close to developments in lien and tenant-protection legislation, which still varies meaningfully by province and which directly affects how operators recover unpaid units. It means engaging with municipalities on zoning and development questions, where self storage is too often misunderstood as low-value land use rather than the quiet, low-traffic, tax-generating neighbour it actually is. And it means being ready to speak with one credible voice when provincial or federal policy touches our members. Advocacy is unglamorous and largely invisible when it works, but it is one of the clearest reasons an industry association exists, and I want to make sure the CSSA continues to punch above its weight on it.
Connecting the industry
My third priority is networking and events, because relationships are the connective tissue of this business. Some of the most valuable things I have learned about operations, financing, and deal structure came not from a report but from a conversation with another operator who had already faced the problem I was working through. The annual conference is the flagship, and I want to help keep it sharp, well-attended, and genuinely useful rather than merely a place to collect a lanyard. Beyond the main event, I would like to see more regional and informal opportunities for members to connect through the year, so that an operator in Atlantic Canada or the Prairies does not have to wait for one national gathering to feel part of a community. The more our members know each other, the stronger and more resilient the industry becomes, and the easier it is to do the harder work of education and advocacy together.
Bringing both sides of the table
I take on this role at a personal turning point. In 2026 I became a self storage owner for the first time, stepping across the table I have spent my career standing beside, while continuing my work as a broker specialized in this asset class. I mention it because I think the combination is useful to the board. As a broker I see a wide cross-section of the Canadian market: what is trading, how lenders are pricing risk, what buyers and sellers are actually thinking, and where the next wave of supply and demand is forming. As a new owner I now live with the operational realities that no spreadsheet fully captures, from lease-up and rate management to the daily work of running a facility well. Holding both perspectives at once keeps me honest, and I intend to bring that combined vantage point to the association’s work rather than the view from any single seat.
Underlying all three priorities is a simple belief: a strong association makes for a stronger industry, and a stronger industry serves owners, investors, and customers alike. Whatever perspective I bring, my job as a director is to represent the membership as a whole, not any single segment of it. I intend to listen more than I talk in my first months, to learn from directors who have been doing this far longer than I have, and to be useful rather than merely present.
To the outgoing directors, again, thank you. You have handed off something worth protecting. To my fellow board members and to the membership, I am genuinely excited to get to work. If you are a member with an idea, a concern, or a problem the association should be helping with, I would like to hear from you directly. That is, after all, the entire point of the seat.
Please feel free to contact me about an association related items at Patrick.wood@Cssa.ca