What do you like about running a small business?
I like the variety of challenges. You get involved in a lot of the bigger strategic issues but you are also intimately involved in the nuts and bolts.

What was your biggest challenge and how have you overcome that?
Our biggest challenge has been finding skilled trades people.

In custom metal fabricating, the real skill is in the fitting and welding and it has been very difficult in the current market—and in Ontario—to find very good fitters and welders.

The job involves a lot of creativity, math skills and geometry—the guys doing the fitting and welding have to be pretty smart. We have tried to overcome that by training workers in-house, but even that has not been enough.

Have you invested in technology to improve your business?
Submerged arc welding is a technology that has revolutionized our business. We weld much faster and with a much higher quality and consistency. It’s automated, not a hand-held welding process. The material is submerged in a powdered flux similar to the consistency of sand . The welding takes place submerged in a “puddle” of this stuff, so you don’t actually see the welding arc.

Our welds are usually X-rayed as part of our quality control. Prior to using this technique, it wouldn’t be uncommon to find a defect during the x-ray and have to go back and weld it again. We have virtually eliminated these repairs, so the time, materials and process savings are huge.

What is the best advice you would give an aspiring small business owner?
Find good people. Small business owners are accustomed to doing everything themselves and its very difficult to hire someone to take over a crucial part of your business. But as we have brought on good people, we have been able to do a lot more. When we hired our purchasing manager, it freed a large amount of time for us to pursue other work and new customers. It’s a scary thing to think that your going to hire a complete stranger who doesn’t know your company to do a crucial task for your business. But if you hire the right people they can do a lot of heavy lifting and take your whole business to a new level.

Has being a small business owner made you a better decision maker?
I think so. It’s probably made me a lot more flexible. As a small business owner, you are trying to please your customers, your employees, your bank and your family...and everyone else! You have to become good at compromise.

Can you describe your company’s growth over the last year?
Moving into the bigger building was the biggest factor in our growth. Our new building gives us 50,000 square feet, compared to 24,000 and our ceiling height and crane capacity are double what they were--we can now lift 70 tons inside our building. We manufactured 125 pressure vessels in 2008. That surprised us--it’s an incredible amount of output for 50 employees and shows us what this new facility can do. Within the last five years we have doubled the size of the company in terms of revenue, throughput and pretty much every metric.