Barry Osmun spent 35 years selling masonry, windows, and cladding across the Maritimes before pivoting to renewables. Now his Halifax rep agency, AzSpecd Solutions, is putting solar panels on building facades — starting with what became North America's tallest solar-integrated building. Here's what envelope contractors and developers need to know.
In the spring of 2022, Barry Osmun looked at 42 cranes on the Halifax skyline and saw a city full of missed opportunities. Every one of those towers was going up with conventional cladding — aluminum composite material, masonry, glass — and none of it was generating electricity. That bothered him. He'd spent the prior year learning a product line that could replace ACM panel-for-panel with building-integrated photovoltaics, at a cost delta that, he'd argue, is smaller than most developers assume.
Osmun is the founder of AzSpecd Solutions, a Halifax-based manufacturer's rep agency that sources green-energy building products for the Atlantic Canada architectural and construction market. He reps three manufacturers: Mitrex (BIPV solar cladding and glass), Solar Vision (off-grid solar street and park lighting), and Rainstick (a real-time water-recycling shower). None of these are mature commodity plays. All three are early-stage product categories in this region. And that is, simultaneously, the opportunity and the challenge.
The sell is simpler than it looks
The first objection to BIPV cladding is almost always the price. Osmun's answer is to change the comparison. Standard ACM panel runs around $30 per square foot. Mitrex solar cladding runs around $50. On a pure cost-per-square-foot comparison, that sounds like a 67 percent premium. But that framing is wrong, because the building envelope was getting replaced regardless.
"you were going to spend that so this stuff here you know it's probably gonna cost you about 50", he explains — the delta is ~$20, not $50. The payback on that marginal cost runs around five years in energy offsets. The real delta is roughly $20 per square foot — not the full $50 — and the payback on that marginal cost runs around five years in energy offsets. When you frame it as a $20 premium on a product you were already buying, and one that pays that premium back within a single renovation cycle, the conversation changes.
The retrofit case turns out to be stronger than Osmun expected when he first took on the line. "i had thought when i took it on it was just for new construction but it's as much or maybe more so for retrofit", he says. Buildings from the 1970s and 1980s often need re-cladding anyway. Solar cladding delivers the renovation and the energy offset in the same scope of work.
The proof of concept for Atlantic Canada is now standing at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. The Loyola student residence — a 22-storey building — was retrofit with 6,150 square feet of Mitrex BIPV panels on the south facade, generating approximately 94,000 to 100,000 kWh per year. EllisDon served as general contractor. The project has since been confirmed as the tallest solar-integrated building in North America.
Ground floor has its costs
Being the first rep for a new product category in a region is not a fast path to revenue. Osmun is direct about this: "the good is getting in on the ground floor the bad is that the sales cycle is going to be a little longer". In Atlantic Canada's relationship-based market, a long sales cycle is measured in months of education, specification work, and persistent follow-up before a project closes.
His response to that reality is to operate as something more than a product broker. Rather than simply selling panels, AzSpecd coordinates the engineers, architects, and installers required to execute an install — "offering more of a turnkey acting as a consultant almost a project manager type of approach". For a contractor or developer looking at BIPV for the first time, that coordination function de-risks the decision. There's no need to separately source an integrator; Osmun's firm covers the handoff.
The adoption curve is also shaped by what governments mandate. Nova Scotia has outlined a target of 25 percent renewables in new government buildings. But Osmun's reading of private-sector developers is more skeptical. Most forward-thinking developers — he names PolyCorp as an example — are genuinely interested. Margin-focused ones are not, until the rules require it. His conclusion: "my hope is that there's going to be a combination of legislation and reward" — both mandate and direct financial incentive, because neither alone moves the market.
Off-grid lighting removes the trench
Solar Vision makes autonomous solar lighting systems for streets, parks, wharves, and municipal sites — roughly 400 Canadian projects completed, manufactured in Shawinigan, Quebec, using ClimaLUX technology built for northern winters. In Atlantic Canada, Osmun reps it to municipalities, developers, and First Nations communities.
The practical case for solar street lighting is not primarily environmental. It's the elimination of excavation. "the great thing is you don't need to dig a trench", Osmun says. No conduit run, no civil disruption, no coordination with the utility. For remote sites, waterfront development, or any project where trenching is expensive, the install advantage closes the deal before you get to the energy savings.
That no-trench argument also applies to First Nations reserves, many of which face high costs for conventional grid-tied infrastructure. Osmun has been working First Nations communities as an early-adopter channel — partly for that practical reason, and partly because, as he describes it, "in the reservations their young people are becoming educated they have their own architects their own engineers focused on green energy". These communities tend to be organized, motivated by energy sovereignty, and connected to government funding streams for sustainable infrastructure.
Water next
Rainstick is the third product in Osmun's line, and the most consumer-facing: a recirculating shower system that UV-sanitises water in real time, recycling up to 80 percent of both water and thermal energy. Named a TIME Best Invention in 2023, it's made by a Kelowna, BC cleantech startup and tracked via an app.
Osmun has been piloting units in First Nations homes and with 12 Neighbours — a Fredericton non-profit tiny-home community of 99 units for formerly homeless residents, founded by Marcel LeBrun, the New Brunswick tech entrepreneur who co-founded Radian6 (acquired by Salesforce). Solar panels are already part of that project's infrastructure, making it a natural fit for layering in a water-recycling system.
The vision Osmun describes is a home that combines Mitrex cladding on the walls, Solar Vision lighting outdoors, and Rainstick in the showers — a passive-house model in Kirkland Lake demonstrates the combination. Each product solves a discrete problem (energy from the envelope, light without excavation, water without waste), and together they compound. That integration is the medium-term play.
Thirty-five years of reading the room
The last section of the episode pivots to sales philosophy, and it's worth the time for anyone in construction-products sales in Atlantic Canada.
Osmun's market is relational in a way that contrasts sharply with high-volume markets like Toronto, where call reports and pipeline metrics drive the day. "our customers really expect and respect a relationship they don't want that revolving door of sales reps", he says. Continuity earns attention; churn kills it.
A single sales call might span a site visit with a contractor and a spec meeting at an architecture firm. Those are different conversations, requiring different registers. "you need to bring yourself from the cursing and squaring level with the contractor to the technical level with the architecture" — same visit, same rep, fully different mode.
The credibility rule he applies with architects is counterintuitive: admit what you don't know. "don't pretend you know everything i don't know everything...they're surprised that you actually do follow up". Bluffing a detail and getting caught costs far more than saying you'll confirm and calling back within 24 hours. Architects, who are responsible for what goes into specs, need to trust that what they're told is accurate — and following up with a correct answer within 24 hours is more credible than a confident wrong one.
For prospecting new manufacturers to rep, Osmun found Rainstick through LinkedIn — not a trade show or a cold call. "linkedin is a great source...if i can give any advice to a young entrepreneur spend some time on linkedin". In a market where novel products are still finding their reps, the platform surfaces opportunities months before they'd show up at a conference.
AzSpecd is a one-rep agency at the frontier of a category that has not yet gone mainstream in Atlantic Canada. The Saint Mary's Loyola facade is a completed proof of concept. The sales cycle is long. The mandate pressure is building. For envelope contractors and progressive developers, the window to get familiar with BIPV — before it becomes a code requirement — is open right now.
Featured businesses
AzSpecd Solutions Inc. is the Atlantic Canada manufacturer's rep and turnkey integrator for Mitrex BIPV cladding, Solar Vision outdoor lighting, and Rainstick water-recycling showers. Barry Osmun coordinates the engineers, architects, and installers — a full-project approach designed for clients encountering these products for the first time.
EllisDon Corporation is an employee-owned Canadian general contractor operating nationally across commercial, institutional, and industrial sectors. Its Atlantic Canada team served as GC on the Saint Mary's University Loyola Residence recladding — the first, and tallest, BIPV commercial facade in North America.
Guest: Barry Osmun, Founder, AzSpecd Solutions Inc.. Atlantic Construction Podcast, Episode 28. Watch the full episode. SMU Loyola project details: Mitrex project page. Rainstick: rainstickshower.com. Solar Vision: solar-vision.ca.