After a year in the market, this steel supplier continues to pick up steam By Colleen Birchwood When Rick Cable and his then-girlfriend Melissa Butler left the East Coast and arrived in Vancouver with nothing more than a suitcase full of clothes in 1996, he never imagined that 20 years later he would be the president of Pacifica Piling Ltd.
The construction industry needs to attract more women to the trades - one Canadian partnership is attempting to bridge this gap
Formula Contractors stepped in to construct an emergency bridge when a rainstorm washed out an important thoroughfare By Heather Hudson When Mother Nature rages, Formula Contractors gets to work. British Columbia's Ministry of Transportation called on the Prince George, B.C.-based company, which specializes in innovative construction solutions for bridges, structures, foundations, civil construction, rental bridges and more, to restore access to a road after a massive weather event. It was their expertise in bridge construction that landed them the recent emergency job building a temporary bridge on pile foundations in British Columbia's Peace Region in June. An early summer rainstorm caused flooding, completely washing out twin culverts on Rolla Road, a well-travelled thoroughfare connecting two main highways.
How innovative products from American Piledriving Equipment are proving their worth in the Canadian North By Mark Halsall It's called the Polar Penetrator. When it comes to piling work in the Canadian North, it's hard to think of another piece of equipment that's more aptly named. The Polar Penetrator drill bit was invented by American Piledriving Equipment (APE) and is part of the company's HD Driver system that's uniquely suited to deep foundation construction in cold, northerly locations. “It's a drill bit that executes typically in frozen tundra or ground with permafrost or discontinuous frost, and I tell you what, it's a game-changer,” said Colin Grindle, Canadian regional manager for APE. “We've been able to tackle any project in any terrain with our HD system.”
PND Engineers tackles tough projects in the north
For over 40 years, Waterworks Construction Inc. has been building its toolkit of experience and reliability By Kelly Gray When the chips are down and the needs are high, it's just another day for Dartmouth, Nova Scotia-based Waterworks Construction Inc. Since 1975, this Atlantic Canada company has been earning a solid reputation as the go-to guys for all types of piling and unique or challenging heavy civil infrastructure. Today, Waterworks undertakes projects all over the Atlantic Coast including Labrador and Nunavut, as well as the Northwest Territories. According to project manager Greg Kerr, his father started the business in the '70s while studying engineering at university.
Ledger Foundations has been doing deep foundation work for oil and gas projects - mostly in northern locations and under challenging conditions - for 10 years now By Mark Halsall Workers with Ledcor Foundations have been specializing in deep foundation work for oil and gas projects in northern Alberta and British Columbia since 2006. One of the things they've learned this past decade is that it takes a strong commitment to work in remote locations in the north. “It's tough on the people being away from home and in a work camp for 14 days straight. Not everybody wants to get out of bed, get on a plane and go to work for two weeks, and then only be back home for a week. It takes a commitment to work in this sector,” said Jerrod Dersch, operations manager for Ledcor Foundations.
Canada's remote northern communities rely on a network of challenging winter and ice roads. Transport firms have stepped up with logistics and experience to get goods to isolated residents. By Kelly Gray Canada has some very unforgiving northern territory when it comes to moving freight. The weather is brutal and the infrastructure is a constant challenge with thawing permafrost, heaving roadbeds and winter ice roads open fewer weeks than ever. Indeed, just getting cartons of milk to remote First Nations communities can be a daunting task. Consider the challenges of getting multi-ton construction piles, turbine blades or heavy equipment to sites that are accessible only during winter months along a network of ice and winter roads that add to the complexity of construction projects.
As baby boomers retire and the traditional labour pool shrinks, the construction industry is focusing on alternative workforces. Canada's young, fast-growing Aboriginal population is an attractive proposition for an industry eager to engage the next generation. By Lisa Gordon For years, analysts have sounded the alarm about the coming retirement of the baby boomers and how their exit from the workforce will impact the Canadian economy. According to a special report published in e Globe and Mail in November 2015, Canadian labour market growth is expected to stagnate in the 2020s as retiring boomers create vacancies that employers will struggle to fill, keeping real economic growth below two per cent annually over the next decade. Add to that the country's declining birth rate, and it's clear that something must be done to tap into and develop new labour sources. Many in the construction sector have turned their attention to the country's Aboriginal communities - including First Nations, Metis and Inuit people - who combined represent the fastest growing, youngest segment of the Canadian population. According to an article published by Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. of B.C., it is estimated that more than 600,000 Aboriginal youth will enter the labour market between 2001 and 2026.
Lost time can be prevented by properly planning the project, having the recommended parts on site, and scheduling sufficient time for inspections and maintenance on the equipment By Lisa Kopochinski One needs only to watch the television show Ice Road Truckers - which features drivers who operate trucks across frozen lakes, rivers and tundra in both Alaska and Canada's north - to get an idea of the challenges involved when transporting equipment and supplies to remote locations in extreme and often treacherous conditions. These conditions also spotlight the importance of diligent planning to help ensure that heavy equipment will perform at peak capacity once they reach these locations. Machines must not only be prepped and maintained prior to transport, but inspected and maintained regularly on site.
Mario Roussel, Selix Equipment Describe your current job.My day-to-day job is to organize everything with suppliers and manufactures for all the equipment brands we represent and make sure all financial aspects of the company are in order. What are your areas of responsibility?Sales would be my major responsibility, but I oversee almost everything to be sure we do the best possible jobs for our customers in a timely fashion. How did you get to where you are now?I started renting and selling heavy equipment back in 1985 for McIntosh Equipment of Ottawa, then I represented Holder of North America, a German municipal tractor company covering all of Canada and approximately 23 states. I was working with a dealer network, and then I started developing a liking to the rock breaking and drilling industry. In 1992, I helped develop and introduce a new Japanese hydraulic rock drill brand, called Furukawa, to our country for almost 20 years. In the summer of 2011, I took the opportunity to start my own distributorship, and Selix was born.
Failure to take reasonable safety precautions and provide adequate training can result in hefty fines By Kirk A. Vilks, Fillmore Riley LLP In the Q4 2013 edition of Piling Canada, James Wishart wrote about the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in R. v. Metron Construction Corp. (Metron). In that case, the Ontario Court of Appeal handed out fines to corporate defendants for criminal negligence that were large enough to potentially bankrupt the companies. It was held that that the courts should not take companies' financial situation into account when determining fines for criminal negligence. More recently, Canadian courts have continued to follow this approach by awarding large fines without consideration of the financial implications for the companies In 2013, the Ontario Court of Justice convicted Sunrise Propane Energy Group Inc. for multiple regulatory offences under the Ontario Environmental Protection Act (EPA) and Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). The judgement - R. v. Sunrise Propane Energy, 2016 CarswellOnt 3399 - pertained to an incident that caused propane explosions in Toronto in 2008 that killed a young worker and caused a fire. There were a series of explosions that caused extensive damage to surrounding properties and injuries to neighbours. Some surrounding homes were left uninhabitable for over a year. Approximately 12,000 residents had to evacuate the area within a 1.6-kilometre radius. Local businesses were forced to close, and one nearby car dealership was completely destroyed. At the time of the explosion, there were two employees on site; one was able to escape with minor injuries, but the other was killed.
Piling Broker bridging the need to buy and sell equipment
How to manage a safe and efficient worksite By Deb Smith Safety is a core value for every construction project, woven into most construction companies' DNA. Yet carrying out a comprehensive safety plan can be a complex and time-consuming process. In response, CorePoint Solutions Inc. developed an innovative, easy-to-use and highly configurable safety software program that ensures compliance and convenience for companies of all sizes and employees at all levels. “Our company has been in business for 15 years,” said Lisa Heitrich, CEO and product manager at CorePoint. “It all started in B.C. when I was working with one of the top five global forestry companies.” To better handle safety, in 2003, Heitrich developed a solution for the forestry giant. With the new safety software's success, Heitrich received permission to develop a comprehensive solution to improve and better manage health and safety programs for other forestry companies and in other industries. e result was a suite of user-friendly and reliable occupational health and safety (OHS) management software.
Le Monde International is a new player on the Canadian piling scene By Jim Timlick New company, new country, same philosophy. Those six simple words tell you a great deal about Le Monde International Drilling Equipment, a Gatineau, Que.-based drilling, piling and geothermal engineering equipment distributor. Le Monde was formed by owner Goran Zivkovic and his father Branislav as a family-owned venture in 2012. In 2014, the company became a serious player on the national piling and drilling scene when it became the official Canadian distributor for IHC IQIP office Netherlands and MORI SRL of Italy. While the company is still relatively new, the principles behind it have a long history when it comes to heavy equipment sales and distributorship. Branislav Zivkovic was the founder of Le Monde Underground, which has distributed several big-name brands of horizontal drilling and excavation equipment in Eastern Europe for more than 30 years. Following the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the Zivkovics moved to Canada in the late 1990s to start life anew. Several years later, Zivkovic decided to form his own company, this time with a focus on distributing vertical drilling and pile driving equipment to the Canadian foundation industry.
Diversification sees company through downturn of traditional market By Kim Beggar Morton Jagodich Incorporated (MJI), headquartered in Calgary, Alta., certainly faced a challenge when the oil and gas downturn began in 2014. Just a few years old at that time, the company relied heavily on the oil and gas industry for its livelihood. “A huge portion of our work was in that sector,” said Jason Jagodich, managing partner of the civil, structural and geotechnical engineering firm. The company had to refocus, and it did so quickly. The last couple of years have taken MJI to Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Korea, and into the public sector across Canada, in its efforts to diversify in terms of both geography and industry sector. This diversification and a focus on safety and innovation have allowed the firm to flourish in tough times. Company overviewIn addition to its Calgary head office, MJI has offices in Grande Prairie, Alta. and Huntsville, Ont. Jagodich, the company's geotechnical principal, is based in Alberta; Jon Morton, the civil engineering principal, works out of the Ontario office. With 40 employees, the company is a full-service civil, structural and geotechnical firm specializing in deep foundation design and testing, permitted to practice in nearly all provinces in Canada.
A driven pile is a tested pile
ECA provides innovative equipment solutions for Walsh Construction By Brian M. Fraley, Fraley AEC Solutions, LLC A BAUER BG 18 H rotary drilling rig sits wedged between an earthen embankment, a shotcrete-covered bridge abutment, a maze of rusty steel trestles and the underside of a historic railroad viaduct in Swarthmore, Pa. The rig, working in a low overhead configuration, was supported by a BAUER BG 20 H, both of which prime contractor Walsh Construction of Chicago rented from the nearby Aldan, Pa. office of Equipment Corporation of America (ECA).
