Asked how AGM has managed to survive and thrive over the decades, President Greg Young cites three factors: workforce, vendors, and clients.

“The team we have is obviously our strength,” he says. “And then also our vendors—we find them to be equally important. And we want to work for good clients, we want to use quality products… our relationship with all three of those is very, very important and has contributed to the longevity and growth of the company,” states Young.

Specific services rendered by the firm include contract glazing, installation and repair, and remedial repair.

“Remedial repair is basically looking at leaking buildings, sick buildings, and determining what’s going on and then remediating it. A lot of times it’s something as simple as caulking or replacing flashing or something along those lines,” explains Young.

Markets served include automotive, pharmaceutical, banking, education, office, healthcare, interior, museums, mixed use, and religious institutions. “We pretty much do anything non-residential,” Young explains. “Sometimes we will [do residential] if it’s helping out a client, but for the most part, we stick to commercial projects. We’re doing quite a bit of work for universities here in Indiana—Purdue University, Indiana University, Butler, Marian. So, between healthcare and education, that keeps us pretty busy.”

In addition to its Indianapolis headquarters, the company has branches in Cincinnati, Ohio and Nashville, Tennessee. Each branch maintains separately managed contract and service departments. The former handles most installations while the latter takes care of maintenance, repairs, and small installations. AGM also offers a 24/7 emergency response service for property management companies.

While primarily serving clients in the Midwest and Mid-South, AGM has traveled as far afield as St. Martin, an island in the Caribbean, for installation work. One such project was completed at the behest of a Cincinnati-based client. “We will venture out… If it works for our client and it works for us, we will do it,” says Young, citing assignments in Florida and the Research Triangle—an area renowned for universities and R&D facilities in North Carolina.

On design-build work or remodeling projects, AGM may be hired directly by the client or owner, but the firm is typically brought into projects by a general contractor. For most construction jobs, AGM works as part of a team of tradespeople.

Sometimes, due to schedule requirements, AGM may subcontract items such as caulking, but otherwise nearly all work is done in-house; “for the most part, we self-perform. We buy the material, we fabricate it, we install it,” states Young.

Founded in 1984 by Greg Menefee and partners, the firm “started small” and was initially based in a “dilapidated building,” recalls Young. The company grew and became a major success story, adding a Cincinnati office in 2004. That same year, Young became a minority owner in the firm. A Nashville branch was launched in 2008, and Young became sole owner on October 31, 2017.

There have been a few bumps along the way. The opening of the Nashville office coincided with the 2008 – 2009 economic recession, says Young. Then, in early 2020, the COVID virus went pandemic, unleashing global economic turmoil. “We were fortunate to be considered essential workers, so we were able to work,” says Young.

The firm applied Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines regarding masking and social distancing. Of course, AGM also had to cope with COVID-related supply chain disruptions, including longer lead times for receiving products and price hikes.

Employment at the firm fluctuated from a pre-COVID high of over 140 to around 120 people today, and now that COVID has subsided, AGM is on the rebound. When considering job applicants, the company looks for certain traits. “Reliability is huge, dependability is huge, and trainability… I tell [people], if you show up here and you want to learn, I will hire anyone. We will give anyone an opportunity,” says Young.

He strongly encourages a “team environment” in the workplace: “Everyone has a role to play here, and we value each of these roles… But we’re all willing to help each other be successful. That’s something that also sets us apart,” he states.

Young served in the U.S. Navy and as such, AGM is a certified veteran-owned business. The firm hosts golf outings and other fundraisers, many of which are organized to benefit veteran organizations. For example, AGM once hosted a golf outing to raise money for Indy Honor Flight, a charity that flies veterans of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars to Washington, DC to visit military monuments.

“This year, we’re supporting a program called Pets Healing Vets, through the Humane Society. They supply trained emotional support animals to veterans that have PTSD or traumatic brain injuries at no cost. They cover the cost for the pet for the rest of their life,” says Madeline Young, Greg’s daughter, an Indiana University graduate, and AGM’s first Marketing Coordinator.

In addition to its community involvement, doing high-quality work on high-profile projects is another way AGM stands out. Greg Young points to an assignment involving the IU Health Neuroscience Center in downtown Indianapolis. A striking building with a primarily glass façade resembling an ocean wave, the facility is operated under the auspices of IU Health and the Indiana University School of Medicine.

“It was a very challenging job both in the design and then having our fabrication manager [fabricate it], and then getting it installed in the field… It was successful, for all the complexity to it. That’s one we like to showcase,” says Young.

Other key projects include the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Indianapolis Children’s Museum; the Forum Credit Union headquarters in Fishers, Indiana; National City Bank in Cincinnati; and CapStar Bank in Nashville. The company’s automotive projects feature glasswork for Porsche, Mini Cooper, and Lexus dealerships, all in Nashville.

Given that AGM works with glass, it’s no surprise that safety is paramount at the firm. AGM has two full-time safety workers—a Safety Director who handles administrative tasks, and a Safety Officer who goes out in the field to assist with safety efforts. Each branch maintains a safety leader who liaises with the head office in Indianapolis.

“All of our management, project managers, and field foremen are OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) 30-hour certified. Every other AGM team member in the company, regardless of their role, does the 10-hour OSHA course. That’s kind of unique; even the receptionist does the 10-hour course,” adds Young.

Representatives of each branch convene on a quarterly basis with the Safety Director and Safety Officer to discuss safety issues. Participants at these meetings “talk about any situations that might have happened—near misses, anything like that,” explains Young. Each branch is a drug-free certified workplace and staff also receive training in First Aid and CPR.

Young cites labor and recruiting new workers as the biggest challenge facing AGM at present, an issue that reflects a broader, industry-wide trend in which existing workers in skilled trades are approaching retirement age and insufficient numbers of young people are stepping up to replace them. AGM’s woes are compounded by the fact that many people are unclear about the work the company performs. “Our trade is not necessarily well-known. If you go into a high school and ask, ‘What does a plumber do?’ they know. You ask, ‘What does a glazier do?’ and they just look at you,” notes Young.

To get the word out, AGM runs an apprentice program and raises awareness about glasswork and the firm’s services by reaching out to high schools and attending trade shows. Madeline Young is also spearheading an effort to enhance the company’s social media presence.

“We have Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn,” she explains. “LinkedIn is probably one of our most popular. We have started doing more lunch and learns—going to general contractors and other clients of ours and providing lunch for them while presenting our capabilities and how we’d like to be trade partners. We’ve really grown our reach and presence within the last year.”

Going forward, AGM is looking to introduce some new products but is keeping the details under wraps at present. Greg Young is more forthcoming when it comes to demonstrating his pride in the company he leads and the people who work for AGM. After reaching its 40^th anniversary, Architectural Glass & Metal Company changed its logo to mark this milestone achievement.

As for the future, “I would like to see us back up on our growth trajectory that we were on before COVID. Looking at other markets is important… I think with things we’ve learned and done over the years, another market would help us with that growth plan, make us more diverse.” We look forward to seeing how the next 40 years play out for this longstanding and dynamic company.

The post Looking Ahead After Reaching a Milestone Anniversary<p class="company">Architectural Glass & Metal Company</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

From public buildings to mansions, townhouses, and apartments, there is almost nothing the company cannot build in this way. Avalon is even building hotels for some of the biggest international names in the hospitality industry. To date, it has erected nearly 2,000 durable buildings along the East Coast since its inception in 1999.

Despite Avalon’s longevity, there is still confusion about what modular homes are. In the United States, it is common for people to mistake manufactured and hybrid modular homes for genuine modular homes. While both types of structures are prefabricated in factories, a truly modular building comprises a collection of wood-framed cubes, or modules, expertly engineered and fitted together to render beautiful, custom homes and even multi-story buildings up to five floors high, all while adhering to high-quality building standards. None of these attributes are a given when it comes to manufactured homes.

Avalon Building Systems’ structures are so well-designed and fabricated that it is easy to confuse them with site-built ones. That is, of course, in contrast with manufactured homes which are traditionally one-story high. And since the building codes in the area are of such a high standard, the company’s modular construction automatically complies with most Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) specifications. Beyond relying on its own expertise, the company partners with longstanding suppliers throughout the Northeast.

At times, it also happens that the team gets called in to do renovations on existing, traditional buildings. In many cases, President Paul Oliveira points out, the renovation cost is so high that, while still following strict local building regulations and code, demolishing and replacing them with modular homes often results in lower or similar expenditure for a brand-new home.

“Every home is engineered and stamped to meet local and national codes—which is not required in site-built construction,” he says.

As part of complying with energy efficiency ratings, Avalon’s modular buildings are as tightly sealed as well-built traditional buildings. Naturally, that means adding thorough ventilation to meet health and safety codes. “Our buildings are probably tighter than most,” he continues.

Many of Avalon’s clients are in highly urbanized areas like New Jersey, Boston, and New York, where labor costs are higher to match the cost of living but benefit from the company’s strategic, more rural factory locations. Since this allows for a considerable reduction in construction costs, it is also ideal for affordable housing.

Beyond the financial, environmental, and speed advantages, modular construction is far less disruptive to communities. Sites are becoming trickier to navigate in urban areas, so without the months of noisy construction and hardly any additional traffic, modular construction is a godsend. Adding to this is the added gain of incorporating recycled materials into modular construction.

After a quarter century of the exciting possibilities of modular buildings, the market is now increasingly accepting of this modern, more environmentally friendly building method—but this was not always the case. Oliveira saw the writing on the wall with regard to traditional construction—and the accompanying labor and cost challenges—more than two and a half decades ago. As an engineer, he decided to take matters into his own hands by building a company that is not just future-proof but also progressive in its methods.

Now, as fewer young people train in traditional trades, factory fabrication makes more sense every day. To Oliveira, modular buildings are superior in every way. “We can build anything,” he says. Modular buildings, he says, are superior “in terms of construction, efficiency, speed and timing.” With taller buildings, like hotels, featuring parking garages beneath and topped with as many as five stories, load bearing is typically solved by fortifying the base structure or podium with steel and/or concrete. That is then loaded with room boxes stacked on top of one another. As with the company’s homes, these buildings are completed in record time, with a standard hotel assembled in one week on average.

The value Avalon offers speaks for itself. Through high-volume bulk purchasing and fabrication by expert hands in a controlled environment according to strict specifications and quality control, these buildings stand head and shoulders above traditional wood and concrete construction, particularly in the current economic and environmental climate, Oliveira believes. “All the inefficiencies of site-built construction are gone. Many people think [modular] is very limited when, in fact, it is very expansive,” he continues.

Avalon Building Systems not only specializes in fabricating modular buildings; the team also uses modular foundations made of purpose-specific, pressure-treated lumber combined with concrete panels. These usually take only a day to place with a crane, further improving lead times. Furthermore, the company ensures that its equipment stays current, and this includes the software it uses to provide customers with a range of drawings and visualizations of future buildings. “Once people see the manufacturing process, they understand the quality of the product,” Oliveira says.

Growth in the industry continues to be driven mainly by cost considerations and striving for shorter lead times, and because of this, the company’s clientele and the size of its projects are also growing. This benefits Avalon, as doing business is not about hard selling as much as sharing information with prospective buyers. In essence, the selling is done by the product itself.

Acquiring one of these homes from the company is a process that is made exceedingly simple. Instead of selling clients an ideal, the team works to discover what people need. Initial meetings where exact customer needs and budgets are mapped are followed by preliminary designs, and once the client is happy, the engineering process starts. A professional engineer signs off on the plans and the building phase starts, with an approximate 10-week fabrication lead time.

The best part is that delivery day means these homes are complete with utilities, cabinetry, and absolutely everything they need to function as a home. “There’s nothing more amazing than having a family walk into a brand-new home. We have had people cry from happiness,” Oliveira shares.

Another great joy is, of course, the speed at which labor progresses. Clients may leave the building site with nothing but a memory of the foundations, only to return to an entire building welcoming them a day later.

As a result of its many happy customers and suppliers, Avalon has been honored with a number of industry awards. But the business would be nothing without its team of diligent, hardworking people. Following the firm’s established ethos of honesty and a clear work ethic, its staff members are all here because they excel at what they do. Priding itself on doing good, honest work has meant a lot of repeat business and word-of-mouth recommendations as satisfied customers refer friends and family to Avalon Building Systems.

The team takes customers’ needs to heart, with expedited service for disaster survivors being one way in which it gives back to the community. One case in point was when Avalon completed and delivered 30 homes to replace residences after Hurricane Sandy, the Category 3 Atlantic hurricane that cost New York and New Jersey over $69 billion in damage. Oliveira feels strongly about supporting disaster victims. “We’re happy to help people. They should come to us when there’s an issue like fire or some type of catastrophe; we will take proper care of them. We won’t take advantage of them,” he says.

Increasing numbers of developers are turning to Avalon Building Systems for solutions in the wake of rising subcontractor costs and the labor crisis, so there is an even more promising expansion on the horizon for this visionary firm. As its projects grow in size, the company continues to refine its systems and improve its processes, all to meet and exceed its customers’ needs.

The post Affordable and Modern Modular Buildings<p class="company">Avalon Building Systems</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Years before founding Specialty Technology and Research, Inc.—better known to its many customers as STAR—Dubey earned his master’s degree in inorganic chemistry from Gorakhpur University in India, later pursuing chemistry at Ohio’s Wright State University. This led to a position at Denmark-founded and based Hempel, one of the foremost global manufacturers of sustainable coatings used in marine containers, oil and gas, industrial, infrastructure, yachts, and other sectors.

Inspired by his experience at Hempel and seeing a need in the sealcoating market, Dubey created STAR Inc. in 1986.

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, STAR has grown to 15 plants across the United States and three international manufacturing facilities in India, Australia, and China.

“We’re always looking for new territories, and there are some interesting candidates,” says Dubey. “Generally speaking, we’re looking to expand on the West Coast and in Canada, and we’re diligently exploring certain areas on the Eastern Seaboard.”

Developing new and exciting products over the years has led STAR to offer customers four major lines of sealcoating, with each sealcoating having three or four variations. The company is also behind other established lines of products including primers, traffic paint, additives, crack fillers, and many more.

“We are always expanding our product lines, the most recent being one that was introduced last year,” says Dubey. “This is an additive called STAR LTCA: Low-Temperature Cure Additive.”

For years, one of the biggest challenges for customers was cold weather. But thanks to STAR LTCA, the sealcoating season has been extended.

Sealcoatings can be applied at temperatures below 50°F (10°C)—from around 40°F (4.5°C) to 45°F (7°C)—but not below freezing, which is the cut-off. Specifically formulated and manufactured for optimal curing at cooler temperatures, STAR LTCA extends the season for sealcoating application by about four or five weeks in both early spring and late fall.

Drying and curing at lower temperatures, STAR LTCA provides a durable coating and is ideal for applications ranging from apartment buildings and office complexes to gas stations. “This product has been very successful, and is well-liked by sealcoating customers,” says Dubey, “and we’re starting an ad campaign for it.”

STAR LTCA is available from all STAR plant locations and comes in five-gallon plastic pails, 55-gallon drums, and 275-gallon plastic totes for projects of all sizes.

Along with STAR LTCA, the company is actively promoting STAR® RUST ARREST™. A unique rust-inhibiting specialty primer/coating, STAR RUST ARREST is well suited to addressing unsightly and destructive rust spots and streaks caused by pyrites (iron sulfite minerals) in pavement.

Freshly laid asphalt is black, and if anything is wrong at first, customers cannot see it. As it oxidizes, the color bleaches and after about a year turns slate grey. Unless addressed, these rusting areas will show through the pavement, allowing rain, snow, and salt to penetrate, creating cracks and potholes. “If the aggregate contains pyrites—which is fairly common—as a pavement is laid down, it will start oxidizing. Those iron ore contaminations start turning to rust and become very visible on the new pavement,” Dubey explains.

“Sometimes you will see all kinds of rust coming through on pavement that’s just a year old. You have to address the rust; it’s not only unsightly, but it damages the pavement. This primer and coating is water-based, and once applied, it stops rust from starting. It creates a barrier coat that reduces the oxidative reactions to rust in the pavement.”

Made for asphalt surfaces, STAR RUST ARREST creates a black satin finish as it dries, protecting and beautifying the asphalt surfaces found in airports, parking lots, schools, home driveways, and other areas. Once the pavement is swept, cleaned, power washed, and dried, just a single application is needed. “You don’t have to even apply another coat. Just one coat of RUST ARREST gives a beautiful black finish to the pavement,” says Dubey.

Safe, simple to use, and easy to clean with water, the product dries in just 30 minutes and cures in as little as two to four hours.

Made for ease of use and formulated for longevity, STAR Inc.’s product lineup includes STAR-TRITON®—which can extend pavement longevity by approximately 300 percent—durable and colorfast STAR SPECTRUM® coating products, and many more. For the protection of concrete surfaces, STAR’s MACRO-DECK® safeguards against the destruction caused by water, salt, and chemicals.

Operating with a licensee model, STAR has an “Own a Star Seal Plant” section dedicated to entrepreneurs on its website at https://starseal.com/own-a-u-s-plant/. Providing all the tools needed for success, from technical expertise to research and product development, to sales and marketing support, STAR helps licensed plants across America grow and thrive through its unique, cost-effective program. Best of all, becoming part of the growing STAR family often saves more than the cost of start-up fees when compared to starting a manufacturing operation on your own.

All STAR products are carefully crafted and made to last. From concept to product development and commercialization, it often takes two to three years for a product to come to market—and Dubey wouldn’t have it any other way.

With the company refusing to take shortcuts, all new products are tested, manufactured, and subjected to field trials at several plant locations, where they are applied on pavement and observed. “It’s very important that the product goes through at least one cycle of freeze and thaw,” says Dubey.

Usually applied in late fall, the product and its performance are observed and recorded during the winter and spring. Only when a product successfully meets its benchmarks is it made available. Sometimes, new sealcoating products undergo third-party testing if required.

Sealcoatings, primers, traffic paint, crack fillers, and other STAR products are made to work under all weather conditions, and STAR’s President Girish Dubey warns potential customers of the risks of using other, less expensive, products. These typically contain excessive amounts of water, compromising the coating and resulting in a much shorter service life.

“To safeguard against that, it’s extremely important that you check the differences and talk to property owners for whom the contractor has done the job,” he says. “Check with suppliers and ask questions. Some contractors have even said they are using STAR Seal but are in fact using other products. It’s important to check references.”

STAR dedicates itself to providing a superior product with consistent performance, excellent value, and the highest quality—and it shows.

The post Girish C. Dubey Is Inspired by Sealcoating. It Explains a Lot About His Products.<p class="company">STAR, Inc.</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

In the years since, the company has shown a remarkable degree of resilience, forged over decades of success. Allied Blower is celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year, and Bruce Wendel is bullish about the U.S. expansion and the prospects for the company’s future. Wendel is one of three owners of the business; he is Principal and General Manager of Allied Blower & Sheet Metal Ltd.—the Canadian side of the company—and President of Allied Blower USA Inc.

Based in Surrey, British Columbia, the company now has a manufacturing facility in Mobile, Alabama. This manufacturing centre will ultimately support several service centres in the area. “We’re licensed in five states, with projects in most of them,” Wendel says, “and we’re working on two more.” The company currently works in Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, and Georgia.

The lumber industry in the Southeastern United States is rich with opportunity and is driving the expansion. South of the border, there are more independent lumber producers than in Canada, and this provides companies like Allied Blower with openings to connect directly with more owners making decisions for their business.

“These companies have deep connections to their communities,” says Wendel. “You’ll go into a community where ‘XYZ Lumber’ has operated for 100 years, and see ‘XYZ’ high school, ‘XYZ’ medical pavilion, ‘XYZ’ golf course. The owner is right there in the community, running the business with their family.”

Natural resources are big business for Allied Blower. The company serves the lumber industry in both Canada and the United States, in addition to the potash and uranium mining sector and some customers in manufacturing as well. Wherever a process produces airborne dust, there is a potential role for Allied Blower’s equipment and services, and those services are end-to-end.

“We design the systems for our customers. We manufacture 90 percent of what we put in, both the equipment and the ductwork, and all of that equipment is certified to various National Fire Protection Association standards,” explains Wendel. “We do the installation, commission the systems, perform inspection and maintenance. We do upgrades when a customer wants to increase the throughput in their plant or when they install a new machine.”

Allied Blower’s in-house capabilities are complemented by a network of strategic partnerships that it has built with other companies in the industry. These partners include companies like Air Cure, a baghouse filter technology company; Fargus-GreCon, a supplier of spark detection and extinguishing systems; and Albarrie, a manufacturer of non-woven filter fabrics and bags.

The team stands behind its systems, providing rapid support when a customer’s critical equipment malfunctions. Whatever the industry, downtime is costly.

“Breakdowns always happen on Friday night, of course,” Wendel laughs, “but we answer the phone and get right to it. We’ll get a crew there on the weekend and get it done. We’ll drive parts there if we need to or send them air freight—whatever it takes; we won’t walk away from a job until it’s right. We have strong relationships with our customers, and we protect those relationships.”

This commitment to its product and service has created loyal customers. “We’ve got a broad install base and a great reputation in the market,” says Wendel. “When it’s time for new equipment or upgrades, our customers come back to us.”

Like every other industry, technological developments are changing the game for Allied Blower. The next big step? Automation.

“Right now in the market, there’s a lot of instrumentation. Sensors are monitoring equipment and processes end-to-end. But automation? Not yet. That’s the push; that’s the future. Automation will mean that we’ll know what a piece of equipment is doing based on differential pressure or velocity or volume of air. We’ll know whether something’s wearing out or not working correctly, and we can provide that information to the customer,” says Wendel.

He is mindful of the fact that these kinds of proactive insights prompted by data may be perceived as intrusive. He understands that there is a balance to be struck: providing just as much information as the customer needs and no more. However, the potential to reduce costs for customers–particularly costs resulting from downtime–makes some level of automation a logical next step for Allied Blower.

With loyal customers returning to Allied Blower for additional equipment and services and a burgeoning expansion in the United States, there are few things that provide an impediment to growth. The biggest single challenge is people, specifically the availability of the highly skilled tradespeople that Allied Blower needs to serve its customers.

The people the company needs are primarily sheet metal workers certified by the Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) in Canada and the American Welding Society (AWS) in the United States, having some experience working in industrial environments. Those people are in short supply and extremely high demand on both sides of the border.

“Access to skilled trades is certainly a challenge,” Wendel says. “It’s worse right now in the U.S. than in Canada; the labour market is tight here, but it’s even hotter there.”

When talent is in such high demand, there are a number of ways to approach the problem. A company can try to compete with compensation packages or provide a working environment and culture that attracts talent from other companies. It is more difficult when high-demand talent is also in extremely short supply. In that case, a company has to do all those things and more.

For Allied Blower, ‘more’ means developing its own talent pools. The company deliberately creates breaks for younger people with limited experience to enter the company and train as they work, and apprentices are a key pillar of the talent strategy.

“It’s important for us to create a career path,” Wendel says. “We provide opportunities for people to come in and have a great job and one that they can translate into a career path. Some of the tradespeople will ultimately move off the tools into an estimating role or eventually a management position.”

Allied Blower supports the growth and development of these employees by funding training provided by local educational institutions. This may include technical training in the trades or estimating or even leadership training for those on the road to management roles. “We’re doing the same in the U.S. You have to have a certain number of journeymen before you can hire apprentices, of course, but that’s started.”

Not surprisingly, another challenge associated with a shortage of talent is succession planning. When younger employees are staying for shorter periods of time in any particular job and company, it is tough to build the kind of strength that a business needs for sustainable growth. “Succession is definitely a challenge. We’ve got key people moving toward retirement age, and it’s tough to lose that experience. We hope to bring more people in and transition those people into the leadership of the company in the future.”

In the meantime, as Allied Blower approaches its golden anniversary, it has both a proud legacy and a very bright future to offer that next generation of leaders. Renovations to the facility in Surrey are underway, and there are plans afoot for well-deserved celebrations marking 50 successful years in business.

The post Clearing the Air<p class="company">Allied Blower</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Serving a clientele that includes the biggest and most well-known industrial contractors in the country in addition to do-it-yourselfers and residential and commercial contractors, Delta’s continuous technological investments allow its team to offer precise batching, prompt delivery, and information on the status of every job.

A family-oriented company from the start, with an initial focus on concrete, Delta has also worked in a number of related businesses such as aggregate mining, lightweight mining, and concrete block, along with some unrelated sectors like catfish farming in the Mississippi Delta.

“We’ve ended up with concrete, aggregates and some related construction materials as our primary product lines. It’s morphed and changed over the years,” explains CEO Lance Bonner. “Two of the founding families are represented on our board, grandsons of the original founders.”

Bonner stresses one of the biggest reasons behind the company’s success. “Our people are what make us different,” he says. “We’re in a commodity business selling concrete and aggregates, and so are a lot of others, but we focus on service and professionalism: being on time, thanking the customer for their business, and treating them with respect and fairness.”

The company’s enduring success has stemmed from its focus on the customer—and very much on its employees as well, including numerous 30- and 40-year employees choosing to spend their whole career with Delta.

“That makes a huge difference because they have a wealth of institutional knowledge and loyalty and they buy in to our business approach,” Bonner says. “They know our customers and customers know them.”

One of the concerns Bonner has had as the company has grown is not wanting to lose the teamwork and connectedness everyone has in a culture that has developed to being highly focused on exceptional customer experiences.

“It’s a challenge to grow and maintain connectedness and a family feel. Simultaneously, we aim to innovate, improve, stay customer-focused, and achieve high-level results,” he says. “I’m not claiming perfection, but we’ve found a way to manage both aspects, and it works for us.”

Taking the time to train employees properly is also extremely important, teaching them what’s expected of them and supporting them through that training as well.

“We have something we call the Delta Difference, an acrostic that spells out our name Delta, that describes our culture emphases,” Bonner says. This Difference embraces a focus on consistent quality excelling in customer service; love to communities, employees and families, with involvement in the broader community as well; and reaching out to employees’ families to bring them into the organization.

“I think that’s critical—family members being part of and supporting their work with our organization,” Bonner says. “One that really resonates is the T in Delta in our acrostic: Treat others with respect and fairness. We consistently discuss the values of integrity and honesty in our actions, ensuring that everyone is treated with respect—customers, coworkers, vendors and suppliers. This message strongly resonates with our employees.”

Indeed, Delta is committed to telling its customers the truth every time. “If we didn’t do it right, we tell them upfront, and then we talk about a solution,” Bonner says. “In instances where things aren’t going perfectly, such as falling slightly behind schedule, we are proactive. We call them ahead of time and let them know what’s going on. Our employees buy into that approach.”

Part of employee engagement with Delta involves taking pride in being accountable for one’s work and ensuring it’s done correctly. Delta places a strong emphasis on its commitment to safety and secure operations. “It’s really about us all caring about our fellow employees, our communities, and our families that live in those communities,” Bonner says. “I don’t want to go home injured; I don’t want anyone going home injured. In that sense, I am my brother’s keeper.”

The company has strongly promoted the idea that safety is a team effort. “Sometimes you don’t see for yourself what’s happening behind you or around you, but maybe your teammate does. So, we look out for each other. And that’s a critical focus that’s essential for our success.”

As for future growth, the company grew slowly over many years, exercising a “very cautious” approach to ensure that its ability to deliver on its service commitment to customers never wavered. Delta never overextended itself, and now has all the necessary infrastructure in place for ongoing growth.

“We’re looking strongly at growth in a number of new markets, but the key to that is having the right selection, training, and culture programs in place where we can replicate what we have now,” Bonner says. “We’re not going to put our name and our brand out there if we’re not certain we can fulfill our commitment.”

Growth includes expanding the company footprint—perhaps fairly significantly—from its base in Jackson, Mississippi across the South and Southeast over the next few years, as well as moving into some complementary product lines, most notably the sand and gravel mining sector.

Being in a cyclical and seasonal industry presents its share of challenges, but right now, everything looks good, including a few years without a recession, says Bonner.

“We learned valuable lessons from the events of 2008, and when COVID hit, we took a pause to conduct a multi-tiered assessment. We asked ourselves, ‘What if this scenario plays out? How do we ensure the well-being of our people, as we value our loyal, long-term employees?’ Simultaneously, we recognized our duty to shareholders, aiming to prevent substantial financial losses. Through this process, we developed strategies that, I believe, assist us in scaling up and down effectively without disrupting people’s lives any more than necessary.”

Facing various challenges such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and other storms in the last four or five years, Delta has consistently embraced proactivity. Lessons learned from these experiences emphasized the importance of proper preparations and reinforcement of its plants, including the construction of resilient batch offices to withstand storms. Delta remains steadfast in its commitment to providing customers with high-quality service, regardless of the challenges it encounters behind the scenes.

“It’s just part of the business that we hope our customers don’t have to dwell on, but we engage in open conversations when they do,” Bonner says. “For instance, fuel prices spike occasionally. We may need to discuss a slight adjustment in the fuel surcharge to manage the impact. But our goal is to never surprise the customer; we prefer to talk it through with them and make sure they understand why. We approach it as a collaborative effort, refraining from any attempt to recover all of the cost on such matters. We’re in this together.”

Delta’s future plans also have room for some impressive projects, like the ones it has done previously for St. Jude in Memphis, and as primary suppliers on a Nissan automobile manufacturing plant located in the Jackson area and the Continental Tire plant in Clinton, Mississippi. Delta is presently supplying concrete to the largest concrete project ever in the state, a new aluminum mill being built near Columbus, Mississippi for Steel Dynamics and their subsidiary, Aluminum Dynamics. “It’s an impressive project. We’re excited about the partnership and the impact it will make on the surrounding community,” Bonner shares.

Despite all of its impressive success, however, one of Delta’s biggest accomplishments is having employees who love to work at the company for their entire career. “That speaks to me,” Bonner says. “I think that’s great and I love seeing that.”

That employee satisfaction has indeed led to exemplary customer service and satisfaction as well, and Delta aims to maintain that in the years to come. “We’re continually trying to improve how the customer relates to us, and that includes adopting new technology, honing our training programs, and holding customer panel forums for direct feedback and relationship building,” Bonner explains.

“I think what sets us apart is this fanatical focus on customer experience. Most people in our industry are focused on their own capabilities, and their plants are good and their trucks are maintained, and that’s important,” Bonner says. “But ultimately, to meet customer expectations, you have to be there with the right product, at the right time, every time—that’s the Delta Difference.”

The post All Together Now – Where Customers and Employees Feel Like Family<p class="company">Delta Industries</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

One of America’s best-known suppliers of concrete, aggregate, and precast, Bryan Materials Group (BMG) has been part of some of the most notable construction projects in the history of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from the Jenkins Arcade Building in 1915 to the current terminal modernization of the Pittsburgh International Airport.

Bryan Materials Group is proud of the outstanding products and services the company has provided contractors big and small over the years. “I think our biggest contribution to Pittsburgh has been our consistency in providing products and services that our customers can rely on,” says Justin Bryan, who—along with Josh Bryan and Caleb Bryan—represents the fifth generation of this family-owned business.

“We’re not the biggest, but we continually strive to improve our products and services to meet the needs of our customers,” he says. “We have attempted to advance the ready mix concrete industry by focusing on what we do and doing it to the best of our ability.”

Hard work works
Almost a century and a half after its creation, Bryan Materials Group continues building on the success of its founder.

Back in the 1880s, Pittsburgh was booming, thanks largely to the iron and steel industry. Seeing opportunity, Frank Bryan started his own excavation company with a horse, a cart, and a shovel. According to the company, Frank “moved earth, one shovelful at a time, for foundations and roadways. His stock in trade was hard work and value.”

As a respected Western Pennsylvania construction materials supplier, the business continued finding success from one generation to the next, all the while maintaining Frank’s values: honesty, hard work, and relationships. The fourth generation was spearheaded by David Bryan, Matt Bryan, and Thomas Bryan III.

Before his passing in 1998, Thomas (Tink) Bryan served as a bridge between the third and fourth generations. A true leader and visionary, he led the business on an even greater growth trajectory and helped lay the foundation for Bryan Materials’ future success. According to the company, “The values and work ethic he embodied will be passed down to future generations.”

Family values
Although the world has changed immensely since Bryan Materials Group was founded, the company’s mission and values have remained consistent. All customers, vendors, and staff members are treated with respect. Providing professional services and valuable products for so many years, Bryan Materials Group is—literally—part of the foundation of Pittsburgh’s past, present, and future.

To keep up with customer demand, BMG has developed into a multi-disciplinary business, involved in concrete manufacturing, distribution, and construction. As specialists in many areas—including concrete, aggregate, precast, and marine transportation—the company’s entities include Frank Bryan Inc., BMG Marine, Georgetown Sand & Gravel, Neville Aggregates Company Inc., Concrete Concepts Inc., Riverside Concrete, Tri-State River Products, Quality Concrete Inc., and others. Including its concrete, precast, aggregate, and marine operations, BMG is now at 10 locations.

Amidst such growth, the family is quick to credit its dedicated staff for much of the success of the Bryan Materials Group of companies.

“Our biggest strength is the people who work for us, they’re all family,” says Justin. “Without their time and dedication, we would not be here today. This core value has transcended all of the previous generations of family members who have been involved in the business. Our company mission statement is to value equally our employees, our vendors, and our customers. It’s a three-legged stool,” he says. “Without one of those components, we could not achieve anything.”

At BMG, every employee has a specialty, including drivers, technicians, accounts, mechanics, and plant maintenance workers. “It’s our job to provide them with the things they need to do their job to the best of their ability,” says Justin. “We strive to empower all of our people to make decisions on their own and to support them in reaching our common goal of being a very good service and product supplier.”

Sustainability matters
While “green” and “sustainable” have become buzzwords in myriad businesses today, they lose their meaning unless backed up by action. At Bryan Materials Group, sustainability and corporate responsibility have been integral to the company for many years; in fact, the company has an entire section on its website dedicated to ‘Responsibility.’

Taking environmental action is never a one-step solution, and at BMG, the view of sustainability is a broad one, encompassing recycling, reuse, methods of production, and logistics—how and where materials are sourced and how they are transported. The future of the planet is something to be taken seriously, and BMG is known and respected for its environmental leadership while providing the core products our society relies on.

“Our key focus related to sustainability is in the use and reuse of post-industrial and consumer products,” says Justin. “A lot of our concrete contains at least 35 percent post-industry by-products as part of the design. We also recycle our by-products into other materials that can be used in construction. Our aggregate yards routinely blend materials to be reused in commercial applications, still meeting the rigorous requirements outlined in commercial building standards.”

Many projects require unique concrete mixes for unique applications. An emergency repair to the deck of the Fort Pitt Bridge, for example, necessitated 4000 psi in 12 hours, while the Allegheny County Jail needed 14,000 psi columns. Others, like the UPMC Mercy Hospital, saw 10,000 yards of 10,000 psi structural concrete, while PNC Towers needed 13,000 cubic yards of 113pcf Lightweight Concrete pumped 40 floors (more than 500 vertical feet).

All materials are sourced from within 500 miles of its facility, and concrete mixes from Frank Bryan Inc. usually contain a minimum of 20 percent recycled content. This is achieved by using “Pozzolans—fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace cement (GGBFS), and silica fume in place of portland cement,” according to the company. “This can replace up to 65 percent of the total quantity of cement used.”

Additionally, recovered surplus concrete is separated into its constituent components and reused, and water from surplus concrete is reclaimed, minimizing waste.

Along with product manufacturing, another key area for reducing carbon emissions is product delivery. BMG has strategically located facilities on inland rivers and transports most of the aggregates to these facilities on barges. “River barged materials use a fiftieth of the fuel that over-the-road trucked materials use,” Justin explains. “This is somewhat unique to our business model in this region… Reinvesting in our delivery fleet and marine division is costly, but it provides us with the most up-to-date fuel-efficient modes of transportation available.”

In addition, the company bids on and supplies projects close to its manufacturing hubs. “We avoid supplying projects that are not regional to our hubs. Maximizing the number of yards of concrete we can supply ‘per hour of delivery truck time’ is a key metric in our attempt to become a ‘greener,’ more efficient supplier,” says Justin.

Time to celebrate
To acknowledge its anniversary, the team at BMG designed a special 140^th logo and is making t-shirts and sweatshirts. “We’ve seen them out and around the city and it’s been exciting to see all the engagement,” says Justin.

Despite its decades of success, he adds, there is still plenty of work to do today, and in the years to come.

“Someday in the not-too-distant future, they’ll be reading about Bryan Materials Group celebrating our 150^th and 175^th anniversaries. If we and future generations stick to our core values of honesty, hard work, and dedication, it will happen.”

The post Written in Concrete – 140 Years of Success<p class="company">Bryan Materials Group</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Leading with a clear vision and a dedication to singular, premium quality delivery, the group prides itself on pioneering new concepts. When not serving local governments, it dovetails its companies’ services with general contracting and construction management services for civil works and private customers.

As Peter Luizzi & Bros Contracting, Inc. expanded into Luizzi Property Management LLC and Luizzi Construction Services and Development LLC, the company’s presence has been a force to witness. Established by founders Carol and Peter Luizzi Sr., and following years of success in the civil arena, the Luizzis added the property management division to their original offering toward the end of the 1980s, as market demand created an early opportunity too good to ignore.

Property management in focus
This upstart addition started gaining momentum in the 1990s when the company began acquiring real estate. It was Peter Luizzi Jr.’s arrival in 2000 that heralded the turning point for the company’s property management arm, changing its trajectory forever.

Luizzi Jr. invested considerable time and effort transforming the property management division into a fully-fledged management company by adding residential properties to an existing portfolio of land, warehouses, and other industrial real estate. Walking bravely in his parents’ footsteps, the young leader spent the next 13 years growing the company to where it could erect its first luxury apartment community in 2013.

That was followed by the Starbuck Island Luxury Apartment Community in Green Island, New York, a $64 million-plus development comprising commercial and residential units built on repurposed land over an old oil landfill at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers near Troy, New York.

The achievement is a first-class development based on a condominium-type, premium lifestyle approach. The timing could not have been better, either. “It gives people that feeling of being in their own space, but it is maintenance-free; it is luxury,” says Olivia Metchick, Marketing Manager, of what customers describe as a singular living experience.

Loving the lifestyle
Naturally, the Luizzi Companies’ vision is not simply to create luxury but instead to establish human-friendly living spaces where people love their lifestyle and flourish. Evidence of this is the recent addition of a garden to one of its projects—which didn’t have one in the original plans—at the request of a resident living in the development.

“Peter is a forward thinker. He’s always trying things that haven’t been done before. It gets attention, and then that becomes what everybody else tries to do,” Metchick says. “He is very visual; he’s a true visionary. He’ll take abandoned, deserted properties where nobody sees potential and has a way of completely flipping it. It really helps the economies of such areas,” she notes.

Working hand-in-hand with BBL Construction, a trusted construction partner of several years, on key projects like Starbuck Island Luxury Apartment Community and Rivers Ledge of Niskayuna in Schenectady County, New York, Luizzi Companies is proud to be associated with an industry stalwart such as this. “We have a really good relationship with BBL Construction. We foresee their role to continue for years to come,” Metchick adds.

146 Marketplace
Luizzi Companies’ next big game changer is 146 Marketplace, a project that promises to deliver the kind of community-based living the area has never seen before. “146 Marketplace will be like nothing we have in upstate New York. It is going to be all-encompassing. It is taking luxury and convenience to a new level.”

With around 300 apartments in a series of buildings, with restaurants, onsite shopping, and entertainment, the development is set to become the first of more communities of this type that Luizzi intends to establish. The company is selecting existing businesses to move to the premises to achieve this vision and help create a sense of familiarity alongside convenience.

“Peter likes to do things full-throttle and give people the highest quality,” Metchick says. “We stick to our values, but we do not say no often; we are open to a lot.”

Naturally, unlike in its private projects, the company’s civil contracts for public entities such as municipalities require it to adhere to carefully prescribed agreements where the team has to work within the set principles and agreed scope of the work according to established guidelines. In its own offices, however, the sky is the limit.

Luizzi Companies moved into its sophisticated new facility around 18 months ago, giving it the tremendous benefit of having one of its commercial developments right next door. That means having a convenient, walk-in portfolio displaying the team’s deep design insight and capabilities while showcasing the benefits of working with its team of industry experts and the novel ways it leverages technology.

Worth showing off
A proud member of the American Concrete Institute, the company has won many awards in its time—and so have its projects.

Recently, the American Public Works Association (APWA) honored the company with the 2019 Project of the Year Award in the ‘Emergency Construction Category under $5 million’ for its sterling work on APWA’s Sage Avenue Emergency Project, where it acted as a lead service provider on repairs alongside roadways in Troy, New York following a destructive storm.

In 2019, the company received the Hot Mix Asphalt Showcase Award for work on the Walmart Supercenter in Clifton Park, New York.

Luminary members of its team also regularly garner recognition for outstanding performance. Peter Luizzi Jr. received the ‘Albany Business Review Power 50: New Momentum’ award for leaders in the region, while Chuck Pafundi Jr., Project Manager and head of real estate development, made it onto the ‘Albany Business Review 40 under 40’ list for 2023.

It’s no surprise, then, that the company was named ‘Business of the Year in 2022’ by the Albany Business Review.

A sense of family
The legacy of caring about the details and its people that was first established by Luizzi Sr. is continued today by Peter Luizzi Jr. and his wife, Laura.

“You get that sense of family here. They do things for us that you don’t get from a corporate or national company. It’s something that has helped us get those awards,” says Metchick of the generosity and care the Luizzis show their staff, which numbers around 100.

This family atmosphere is supported by regular events like employee appreciation events as well as team lunches where everyone gets to break bread together and engage on a more personal level. “The Luizzis do a lot of little things that make a difference. They’re things you don’t get everywhere,” she continues, underscoring how this generosity cultivates employee loyalty and strong morale amongst team members.

Thriving in this focused care from the Luizzis, the team also likes to do its part to share its appreciation beyond office boundaries and project sites. Each year it supports various charities in their missions, participating, for instance, in the Breast Cancer drive in October alongside a raffle for the local Alzheimer’s Association.

Whether the team donates time by physically attending charity events or contributes financially, giving back is a big part of its identity as a group dedicated to the greater good and the future of the communities in which it operates. As property trends lean increasingly toward low-to-no-maintenance and as apartment and condominium-style housing becomes more popular, Luizzi Companies is positioning itself to answer the growing demand for more.

Poised for consistent growth across the region, Luizzi Companies is working to become the go-to partner in the area, delivering practical high-end construction and property management. Whether the rest of New York State knows it yet or not, it soon will. This proud Albany team is clearly readying itself to make big waves.

The post Building Inspiration Into Property Management<p class="company">Luizzi Companies</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Polyvision got its start in 1954 in Alliance, Ohio, producing ceramic-coated steel for building exteriors. Around 1970, Polyvision introduced CeramicSteel to the education market, creating whiteboards that would become the premier choice to replace chalk boards and other writing surfaces.

Vice President of Global Marketing and Sales Kevin Taney asserts that Polyvision’s product now “spans two billion square feet of corporate, education, and public spaces globally.”

Polyvision is the only provider of the CeramicSteel material in North America, and its primary use now, as when it began in the 1970s, is for writing surfaces where it is “the choice surface for K-12 schools,” Taney explains. Hard-wearing CeramicSteel is also used as a wall solution for offices, metro stations, and airports.

Taney explains that Polyvision’s premium writing surfaces are superior due to their durability and clarity, tougher than alternatives like melamine or painted steel and clearer and less reflective than glass. CeramicSteel is also used for such purposes as digital printing on coils since the material has roughly the thickness of a fingernail but a print can be baked directly into the ceramic. Whereas other digital printing applications typically layer the material on top of a surface, this method guarantees durability for decades.

Taney is proud that Polyvision has been a people-first organization since its inception. After nearly 50 years, the business was acquired in 2002 by Steelcase, one of the largest office supply manufacturers in the world, before being sold to investment company Industrial Opportunities Partners in 2020. Throughout these moves, the core values of the business remained as strong as ever.

“We stay true to our people and our guiding principles,” Taney affirms, and this includes encouraging a long-term culture among its workers, some of whom have been here for 30 to 40 years.

Held on a similar level of importance is sustainability—but the company approaches it a bit differently from its peers.

“Limiting our current environmental footprint is important to us,” Taney states. All of its manufacturing facilities are ISO-certified and in 2006, CeramicSteel also became the first European product to be certified as Cradle to Cradle certified. This certification emphasizes the reusability of ingredient materials and product and water conservation, among other elements. In 2020, the company exceeded a decade-long goal to reduce its ecological footprint by 25 percent through water conservation, lowering emissions, and more.

The company’s sustainability efforts extend beyond protecting the natural environment to protecting people in different ways. It has embraced the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which are seventeen sustainability- and humanity-focused goals. These include eliminating poverty and hunger as well as emphasizing good health, responsible consumption, climate action, and generally calling for greater equity.

Polyvision accepted the challenge from the UN in 2022 and aims to become an SDG Pioneer by 2025. Its business-wide attention will be on improving well-being at work, reducing its electricity consumption, and continuing to move toward more sustainable materials and more sustainable use of those materials.

Currently, Polyvision is concentrating on promoting its CeramicSteel surface in its primary market of education while continuing to educate designers and users about the surface and its capabilities. Taney observes that education is still a robust sector despite a slowdown in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic pausing traditional classes. A 35 to 40 percent drop in school construction caused a bottleneck in the industry. Thankfully, construction efforts have come back in a big way since the end of 2022 and look to be returning to normal levels, a good sign for the overall health of the industry.

A great boon for both Polyvision and its customers during the height of concern for COVID-19 transmission was its introduction of hygienic surfaces. Discussion during 2021 was dedicated to how people can work together to save space while remaining separate for safety, so the company introduced a self-cleaning, hygienic, CeramicSteel divider screen called Boundri™ containing silver ions baked into the surface, as silver is a natural antimicrobial.

COVID-19, coupled with supply chain delays in the market, caused what Taney refers to as “air in the hose,” to refer to the disruption in historical flow. Shortages of labor and supplies like steel, in turn, caused customer delays of up to 16 weeks and further disruption in overall construction. These challenges were mitigated, however, and lead times began to return to normal.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year and beyond, the company has robust plans in place for its original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and panel sales channels. Steelcase, is a major OEM customer, so Polyvision will be continuing to push further in that area to create new channels of business and new customers within those channels.

Taney is firm that all steps will be taken to protect the core business of serving the education space, especially with favorable industry headwinds foreseen for the rest of 2023. As a result of recent actions like the acquisition of manufacturer Marsh Industries in 2020, Polyvision is now offering Marsh’s series of visual boards amongst its offerings, proving that the company is still finding new opportunities in the education space.

The team is, however, interested in prospects in emerging channels that will allow more customers to become educated about CeramicSteel. Spaces like digital printing and newer office manufacturing companies are examples of sectors that could benefit greatly from such a product. A new state-of-the-art digital printing machine was recently installed in Oklahoma and will go live in July of this year in tandem with one in Belgium to help raise the visibility of the company’s signature material.

“We see the beauty of CeramicSteel and putting an image onto that is stunning,” says Taney. Polyvision Corporation still sees a great deal of potential in its signature material, and will be spreading the word about it for a long time to come.

The post Making CeramicSteel a Household Name<p class="company">Polyvision Corporation</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Bringing tenacity, curiosity, and hard-earned experience to the industry, Matt Young, President and Chief Executive Officer of Republic Developments, may be a new name in Toronto’s highly competitive property development market, but don’t be fooled; he’s been a rising star and has now branched off on his own, looking to make his mark in some of the city’s oldest communities.

His business philosophy is tethered to doing good and leaving the city better off than he found it, taking on projects he sees as being city-building opportunities. He believes that, by going into any project with an attitude of only reaping as much money as possible from it, developers are less likely to invest in the health and wellness of communities. “When we think about success in a project, we recognize it has to be a financially successful project… but it also has to contribute positively to the community. It has to be an addition and a benefit, not just something that takes away or utilizes what the community already has,” he says.

“It has to add something that all of the stakeholders—local residents, politicians, city staff, purchasers, our team—can feel proud of.”

When it comes to challenging projects, Republic Developments does not shy away from complexity. “We see ourselves as the developer who takes on the most complicated, challenging projects and over-performs. We’re very focused on execution excellence. We’re ambitious. We focus on the details,” says Young. “I’ve jokingly described us as the Navy SEALs of development. You bring us in when the problem is particularly challenging, and we execute.”

His passion for property became evident during a summer vacation from university, when he was a labourer working for an uncle doing property renovations. The results of his hard work sold Young on exploring a career in the property industry where his knack for analytical and creative thinking could bring more of this to life. As he had been particularly fond of architecture since childhood, exploring real estate became the obvious next step. After graduating from Western and eventually completing a post-graduate qualification in property development, he was offered his first position in 2009.

Young joined one of Canada’s leading firms, Lifetime Developments, known for its high-rise buildings of 200 to 800 units across as many as fifty storeys. He learned everything he could by removing “no” from his vocabulary, working as hard as possible, and treating his time there as on-the-job training. He then leveraged his experience to secure his next role with Capital Developments, where he continued learning and establishing a track record and reputation for himself in the industry.

His aim in searching for these positions was to find companies executing large, challenging projects with a small team because, he figured, he would get the most exposure and gain the most experience this way. In both cases these “were big, impactful, high-profile projects that I got to experience at [companies] where there was a small and lean team, so I was able to touch and explore most parts of the business,” Young says. “We were doing great architecture, working with incredible consultants, and I was able to work with the best people in Toronto [and] have a meaningful impact.”

Following his tenure at Capital Developments, Young was eventually ready and fully equipped to become the leader of his own development company.

Today, Matthew Young is a dynamic leader who brings a tremendous energy to everything he does. Navigating a newly formed company during COVID was a daunting task but by hiring a team of bright young minds with whom Young could establish his vision and requirements for excellence, combined with some seasoned industry experts, he struck upon a winning outcome. With eight people on staff and more joining soon, Republic Developments is off to a strong start and growing rapidly.

The fledgling business purchases difficult-to-develop plots with multiple challenges, and one such plot is in Scarborough, near where Young grew up. He went looking at sites to purchase in the area and found one he passed on his school route every day as a teenager.

As fate would have it, the well-hidden site was ripe for development. It is supremely located adjacent to the Scarborough GO station on a line giving access to areas in all directions, and is only an 18-minute ride away from downtown Toronto. After buying four-and-a-half acres of land surrounding the plot, Young managed to get the owner of the neighbouring 20-acre plot to agree to a sale at the end of January 2020. The property came with its own needs, however; environmental contamination, zoning challenges, and other issues have made the development of the property difficult.

Yet, armed with knowledge and expertise, the Republic team knew that this property was ready to be transformed into a 15-minute community with all the amenities that have historically been out of reach for those without cars. The vision for the site is of beautiful buildings overlooking parks and public spaces, with views to Lake Ontario, and access to a new community centre, daycare, a direct connection to a new GO Station, and everything else needed to create a thriving and complete urban hub.

The project is ambitious in an area known to be one of the larger food deserts in Toronto—something the company has plans to remedy by including a new grocery store. Now, all that is needed is zoning permission before it will establish what is likely to be the best thing that has happened to this part of town in a long time.

“In the development industry, I probably know Scarborough better than anyone,” says Young. “It’s has had bad PR over the years… but I know that was absolute nonsense. Cities change and evolve over time with investment, and Scarborough had seen very little investment for decades.” Once on a roll, Scarborough Junction will be one of the biggest developments in the Greater Toronto Area. As an experienced industry player, Young knows that a neighbourhood’s story can be changed, and who better to initiate it?

Another up-and-coming project, Bellwoods House, a 13-storey brick and glass gem comprising 322 units at 111 Strachan Avenue, Toronto, will be a promising addition to this verdant section of the city. The vision with this project is to create a livable and stylish community catering to urban tastemakers, entrepreneurs, and professionals who love being downtown, but want a real neighbourhood feel.

“Given that it is my first project, I wanted to do something timeless—something people would want to live in. We want something that when it is built and finished, will be a very desirable place to live,” Young says. A lot of unexpected detail and little luxuries will enhance the condominiums’ impact. They will be so lovely that Young plans to live there himself.

“The first project we do sets the tone for our brand and for the types of buildings we build, our quality and our reputation,” he adds. Some of Bellwoods House’s best features, perhaps, are the unobstructed skyline and sunset views and access to over a dozen beautiful parks within walking distance—including Trinity Bellwoods Park—only a short walk away. The building will also integrate a gorgeous heritage structure that will add character and romance to this modern but contextual design. But there are also little touches of details that can be found throughout the building. A lobby scenting system will ensure the building smells like a 5-star hotel at all times. Smart technology throughout the building including smart locks, thermostat, and light switch for suites, smart security, and a building app will ensure the lived experience for residents is as seamless and effortless as possible.

Sheltered at the calm centre of these parks, the building is only a five-minute walk from four of Toronto’s liveliest neighbourhoods, namely King West, Queen West, Ossington, and Liberty Village. Retail space, a D.I.Y. bike mechanic shop, a pet spa, co-working space, a podcast studio, and a high-end gym are also on offer at Bellwoods House.

1266 Queen Street West, to be situated in Parkdale, is the company’s next big project, and this is another area of Toronto that has not seen much investment in a while. Republic Developments is champing at the bit to turn this land into another thriving community. Its approach to this project is to leverage the assets that already exist, like an adjacent park, and expand on them to improve the condition for the local community and residents alike. The company will also be creating a community space within the building to serve local residents, though the use of this space is still being determined. To date, public engagement has been positive, with the community recognizing investment in new housing needs to happen, and the team is excited to help shape the future of this gateway to Parkdale.

Young’s choice of the term “city builder” to describe Republic is purposeful, and reflects his philosophy on investing in and improving the communities in which he builds. And sometimes, these investments are in people and organizations that are doing their part to strengthen communities.

Since meeting the founder of FEED Scarborough, Suman Roy, shortly after purchasing the land for Scarborough Junction, Young and his team have seen an opportunity for an important partnership that has helped strengthen and provide support to this evolving community. Roy established the charity to help answer the need for food security that exploded in the wake of COVID-19. Republic Developments supports the effort by giving the charity an industrial warehouse from which the charity’s main distribution depot operates.

In addition, Young came up with the idea of funding urban farming with raised vegetable beds on the property, which Roy established with the help of volunteers. “It’s become an outdoor events space, which was particularly exciting during COVID. The food that was grown went into food boxes that the food bank was handing out to families in Scarborough,” Young says.

The benefit generated from this initiative goes beyond feeding people, however; the site is also farming honey, children are learning how to cultivate their own gardens, and many friendships have been and continue to be born around this marvellous community project.

“As we gear up for eventual development on that property, we will look at moving [the initiative] to [another] location on the site over time. In a perfect world, we will find a long-term home for them in the community. They are incredible people doing great work,” Young says of the project that has grown into six food banks and numerous other programmes since its inception.

In addition to this good work, the company also supports Scarborough Health Network through Young’s work on their real estate committee raising money for the Love Scarborough campaign. He also has a cycling club, UNC, which commits itself to popularizing cycling in Toronto. As an avid cyclist, growing this network is one of Young’s greatest pleasures.

Republic Developments is also looking into establishing its own charity that will work toward providing affordable housing in and around the city. “Obviously, we want to be successful but I care about people,” he says. “I love this city. I grew up here. I want to see the city grow and thrive. But it needs help. It needs investment. It needs support, so I am doing what I can to fill some of the holes I see,” Young says of what he considers to be his moral obligation and his burgeoning company’s trademark.

The post Creating Transformative Communities<p class="company">Republic Developments</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

With a high demand for skilled tradespeople both in Canada and the U.S., these jobs are essential to daily living whether through manufacturing, transportation, or construction, and while there are still widespread misconceptions that a skilled craft is merely a job and not a career, many trades demand technological expertise and extensive training. However, the serious shortage of youth in the trades has left many positions unfilled, with concern rising that this trend will persist as many long-time employees start to retire.

Enticing younger workers is imperative and Lépine Apartments, with more than 60 years of experience in the development of new rental markets in eastern Ontario, has recently created a series of television commercials to do just that. Airing during Hockey Night in Canada to expressly promote careers in the trades, Lépine aims to actively work to recruit more youth into a lucrative and satisfying career.

“Instead of advertising our products, which is building rental apartments, we’ve modified it to promote the construction industry and the various skilled trades there, showing them to a younger portion of the workforce,” explains President Francis Lépine. “Apprentices are the newcomers into the industry, so we’re putting younger faces in the ads and hoping children and young adults in this province realize maybe there’s something else.”

In the last 30 to 40 years, the government, the media, and the school system have pushed for computer knowledge and university education, he says, overlooking the potential and benefits of the skilled trades. Lépine’s television ads aim to rectify this by bringing more awareness to this area of education.

“This is something they encourage very young in school, asking kids, ‘what do you want to do when you’re older?,’” says Lépine. “Children have two years of kindergarten, then 12 years to get through high school, and then you’re telling them to go to university for another five—nearly two decades of a young person’s life sitting on a bench listening to other people telling you things. Basically, they’re coming out of school at 18 years old and nobody has taught them any trades.”

While a university education doesn’t guarantee any kind of career and is still pushed more heavily, Lépine isn’t convinced there’s still a stigma attached to the trade industry.

“The education industry is simply promoting its own industry,” he says. “The higher the degree of education [there is], that increases the workforce and the education system. The education industry is working for its own benefit, not necessarily for the total society and all the different people we need to run a society.”

While Lépine is working to help change that with its advertising, the crux of the problem still lies with governments and educators to continue to push for students to consider the trades, he says. In the 1970s and ‘80s, for instance, Quebec heavily promoted the building of all kinds of infrastructure projects and from hydro dams to highways and bridges, with industry workers at the forefront.

“People building these things spurred people to join the construction industry in that province,” he says. “I think this type of advertising is not too dissimilar than when the Armed Forces used to do serious recruiting aimed at young people.” Maybe the message being sent presently isn’t strong enough, he adds, especially when it comes to the dire need for a construction force in this country.

There’s also a basic lack of knowledge of the trades, with many people not realizing both its financial stability and the ability to learn while engaged in a paid apprenticeship.

“They can go and really start learning and making money right away from the start and they don’t have to spend five or ten years in school before being able to practice their trades,” Lépine says. “It does pay well, and the risk of not having a job in this industry is next to nothing.”

Targeting young people also includes women, says Lépine, who adds that the industry’s technological advancements have made it easier than ever for women to do the work. And when it comes to advertising, it’s also important for young girls and women to see themselves reflected, he adds.

“From doing electrical work to driving equipment, many of the skill sets that a woman can do are similar to a man. The industry is evolving at a good pace, and with the use of hydraulic or electrical equipment, a lot of the big, heavy, manual chores of the past also now have some software adaptation to them so everyone can actually perform most of the tasks.”

When not striving to attract young people to the industry, Lépine is busy with its own endeavours, some of which endorse the company’s dedication to ecological stewardship. For example, large solar panels have been erected on the rooftops of a number of projects, and although still in its first year, Lépine hopes the technology will prove beneficial, both environmentally and financially.

“Hopefully it works out well. I don’t expect it will make a big difference with consumption, but it should reduce it,” he says. “If everything goes as planned, it should be maybe 15 to 20 percent of electrical consumption at least in summer. And the quality of these panels is supposed to last for 25 years, so over the long run, what will be the cost of energy in 10 to 20 years from now?”

As Ontario has come up with a solution for the metering, charging, and billing of power to the consumer for apartment buildings or condominiums—similar to public charging stations which use credit cards with a QR code—Lépine has also been installing a number of charging stations at its projects.

“It’s a pragmatic solution and it’s financially feasible. We’ve been wiring underground garages for electric cars since 2010 and we’re going to add another 400 charging stations throughout a number of buildings.”

On the innovation side, the company has done some amazing work with prefabricated concrete walls as seen at The Normand in Kanata. At this all-prefabricated concrete apartment building, Lépine has created a maritime theme featuring bright, nautical colours that replicates wood siding—complete with woodgrain imprints—and white wood frames around the windows, recreating a typical maritime dwelling.

“It’s an innovation with the quality of the form liners and the placement of different reliefs with form liners, and an application of a five-step paint stain and sealer on the building,” Lépine explains. “We raised the bar still another step with precast, and we’re regularly pushing new frontiers of design to create more masterpieces out of concrete while still using the same quality techniques for long durability but also giving them a different flair.”

Looking ahead, the company will continue to raise the bar in construction while promoting Canada-based production. The pandemic exposed the dangers of relying on offshore supply chains for a wide variety of industries, which is why Lépine is committed to encouraging more made-in-North America products.

“This interdependence on global supply chains puts our countries at risk. We’re dependent on materials that come halfway around the world,” Lépine says. “We talk about sustainability and the greening of things, so why would be bring something from halfway around the world that is more environmentally friendly to get from closer by?”

The company is also encouraging the warehousing of materials to reduce dependence on time-sensitive deliveries of material.

“Construction is like manufacturing—it’s a production chain,” he says. “If you start missing a product here or there in the production chain, the whole thing bogs down eventually. So securing product is important and then having warehousing capacities to have a reserve of material to be able to supply jobs without being so time-sensitive.”

Lépine also stresses the importance of keeping industry within the country instead of “farming” everything out. “Becoming a consumer society will spell doom for a country in the long run,” he says. “No one can just buy, buy, buy, and not produce.”

This decision will also inevitably lead to healthier, thriving communities. “These manufacturers create more vibrant communities where they are, which gives the people in our communities work.”

This ongoing commitment to keeping labour, manufacturing, and supply local is a mainstay of Lépine’s business vision and one exemplified by his pride in Canada.

“We’re in the best country in the world; if you can’t make it happen here, where in the world are you going to make it happen?” he says. “I think often as Canadians we’re a little bit too modest or too shy, but at one point, we have to acknowledge a few things and then take the initiative and move forward.”

Moving forward in this industry means continuing to reach out to youth, educating them, and letting them know the benefits and importance of trades for the future. “Our workforce really is already here,” says Lépine. “Our next generation are here and they can do this. They can work this, but we need to guide them.”

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