Design-Build Steel in Atlantic Canada: Merit Industries on Projects, Pricing, and Why Tradespeople Know Best

0:03Welcome to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Arsenault. We're extremely excited to bring you this podcast media platform, bringing together the construction community in Atlantic Canada in conversation. On today's episode we have Marid Industries. Our guests are Tim Houtsma, Greg Schofield, and Jason Nowak. We'll be chatting about Marid Industries as a company, structural and miscellaneous steel, design-build, and some of the interesting projects Marid's been working on. Hope you enjoy. Welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today we're very happy to have Marid Industries with us.

0:44We have Tim Houtsma, CEO. Tim's also a board member with CANS and a board member at the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction. And we have Greg Schofield, COO, 20 years plus experience in the steel industry in Halifax, in Atlantic Canada. Greg is involved in estimating, project management, and wears many different hats. We have Jason Nowak, project manager, 14 years at Marid, done several landmark structural steel and miscellaneous metal projects, notably recently Queen's Marque, Nova Centre, and many others, and recently the Brian Mulroney project at StFX.

1:27Jason's a certified Gold Seal project manager, and he's also a chair on Marid's JOSH committee for safety. And I think that's a good starting point. We'll just dive in and just chat a little bit, Jason, about the safety of Marid and sort of how you guys keep things under wraps there. Yeah, for sure, thanks for having us. Yeah, for safety, you know, we have a great safety program, a great safety manager, and we're continuously promoting the safety culture that our staff buys into. You know, we

1:56have competent employees doing the work, we don't cut corners. I just said, you know, we have a chair of the JOSH committee, we have a well-run JOSH committee that I'm happy to say, like, our two owners, Tim and Greg, you know, they help push initiatives and deal with things as they come up. You know, we don't like things sitting on our minutes for months and months, so we just want to hammer it, get it done, and do it safe, and continue to push that for everybody in the

2:20organization. Yeah, that's great. And I know, just for the listeners, when you're talking about 100 employees and 40 to 60 guys on the shop floor and installers, I'd say that's a little more vast, that's a tough job, and it's amazing you guys are doing a great job of that. And Greg, just tell us a bit about Marid, tell us a bit about the history, and just tell us a bit of the story of how things kind of came together. Yeah, so

2:48Marid's been around a long time. We've been in business for about 38 years. So in 1983 we were incorporated, and back then the owners were David Alton and Connie Alton ran the business, and then the management team bought out the business — I think it was around 2007 — and we continued to work and grow the business through all these transitions. And then eventually Tim and I bought the rest of the remaining interest in the company, and we've been doing that for almost two

3:18years. Yep, two years, two years. And we continue to look for new ways to grow the business and try new things, and then grow the structural side of the business, and whatever else leads us. That's great, that's great. So tell our listeners who don't know a lot about Marid — anyone in the construction industry who doesn't have a lot of knowledge about miscellaneous metals and structural steel — just kind of tell us about what Marid does and how you fit into that. Sure, so like our core business is

3:43structural steel and miscellaneous metals, and then that would be like your box stores, your retail stores. We do a lot of those through Burnside and in Halifax, so we've done several Sobeys over the years, and we've done the box stores like Best Buys and those kinds of things, and we've done a lot of tilt-up with general contractors — that's very popular in the Burnside area — and miscellaneous metals. We like to tackle anything, we'll say nothing's too small, nothing's too crazy.

4:09We'll try, you know, fancy stairs and railings, whatever you can imagine, we'll take a stab at it. We don't always get them, but we will price pretty much. I imagine the miscellaneous metals gets pretty intricate on some jobs. It can be complicated, just because you're trying to envision with somebody else's vision and making their dreams. So it's not always the case in construction, you've got to try and build someone's vision and make it work, and hopefully they align, right,

4:34because sometimes they don't, and it gets to be a little tricky sometimes getting it all figured out. So what else is included in miscellaneous metals, like other than railings? Like how much of that, like what's the definition of that scope? It could be anything. I mean, we didn't do this particular project — what I'm thinking of is a big whale that we priced one day. I'm not sure who did the whale, but it's the whale that's at the Nova Centre. Yeah, we put a

4:55number to that, and we think we had the right number, but you... I've seen that sketch, someone showed me the tender invite or something about that, and we would tackle stuff like that. Is it built now? I'm sure it's up. Yeah, it's built, it's painted, and it looks awesome. What street is it on, is it on the front or on the side? No, on the back side, it's on the... it's kind of by the Grant Thornton, by the... it is by the, and then, okay.

5:27So we'll price stuff like that, you know. We've done some crazy things in the past, and just for one reason, like, when it comes to me I'll tell you later. Yeah, you'll think of it. Let's give Tim a chance to chime in here. Tim Houtsma, I know our team at the Atlantic Construction Podcast keeps telling me, like, Doc, we don't want to bring up the pandemic, we don't want to bring up COVID, but you're in an industry that has quite an

5:54intricate supply chain and stuff, so just maybe speak to what it's been like. So I mean, compared to the rest of the world in COVID, we actually have been really... here in Nova Scotia, I think everybody recognizes that we've been very fortunate to be in our bubble and relatively safe and whatnot. So when COVID hit a year ago basically, the construction industry sort of banded together and figured out, you know, what can we work safely through COVID, and we worked with the Construction Association and with

6:24Safety Nova Scotia and with the province. And we in construction, we're used to dealing with safety-sensitive issues and dealing and working safely and whatnot, so it's really for us just a matter of implementing new protocols and ways of protecting yourself. So we're used to wearing glasses and steel-toed boots, we put face masks on and face shields and whatnot, and we found ways to work safely through COVID. So Nova Scotia was very fortunate, so construction just kept on rolling. For our shop operations, our welders,

6:59they're always more than six feet apart, so we just kept on fabricating. There's been certainly some hiccups in terms of transportation and some delivery issues and whatnot, but we've been able to manage our way strictly with lead times on that. Yeah, yeah. But most governments around the world — and steel's very much a global... they recognize that steel makes... steel builds infrastructure, infrastructure's hospitals and schools, and we need to keep those projects going. So there's very much an appetite to keep those plants open and keep them

7:35operating and stuff like that. So compared to like the restaurant industry and whatnot, I haven't missed a day in the office, and we've just kept on going, and we've had zero, knock on wood, at Marid Industries, and we've been able to operate safely ever since. Yeah, I think it's a testament to a lot of people in the construction community, not just in Atlantic Canada but all over, just how the reaction was to the pandemic.

8:03Everyone kind of rallied together, even though, you know, it's hard to price jobs that are six months out or a year out when you don't know, especially when it first comes along and there's so much uncertainty, and especially for you guys where you're, you know, seven days or 14 days for your steel prices, and then on the best of times it's hard to gauge, up and down all the time. So what was that like to manage? It's crazy, I mean, crazy. I remember

8:31pricing one job, and I got prices from the local the day before, and I priced the job, and then after I'm done closing and send my number out, one of my estimators goes, the price has changed again, it's gone up another eighty dollars a ton. I'm like, the price is already... so 80 a ton, for our listeners who aren't that familiar, that would be a lot, right? It's a good amount. Yeah, it's a big jump in there, we're using thousands

8:56and tons on something, for sure. And this was ongoing there for a while. It's a little more stable now, but it's still high, right, it's not where we're used to being, but still not as high as what wood is right now though, right? I mean, because we all... softwood lumber's up three, four times, plywood's double, steel's a lot more too but not as much. Before Christmas I'll admit I smirked a little bit because the cost of a 2x4 had gone

9:18up, had doubled or tripled, right, and at that point steel hadn't started to escalate, and then come January, February it really started creeping up there, and I got a taste of that. But I mean, we've been able to manage our way through, and we've got good relationships with our customers, and they understand the nature of the market and whatnot, and you find a way to get it done. Yeah, that's great. Sure. And you know, it's great that you three are on here

9:44on our show, because at the Atlantic Construction Podcast, what we like is to get, you know, two or three people from one company, where you have the visionaries and the owners, and you have guys like Jason who are making the operations run, the project managers out there, you know, imagine that, and so we can have, you know, the table discussion where we can see all aspects. And I know you're involved heavily in estimating and budgeting and that too. Sure. Maybe Jason, just take us through, like, a typical

10:10scenario when a job gets bid and you get a PO, sort of like how it works from kind of start to finish. I know you've worked on some big ones lately. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Just trying to think of it, because I mean, I could be talking hours about just, you know, what one process is, more time on the show. Yeah, but what it really comes down to — and I'd like to say this saying, I know, teamwork makes the dream

10:32work, right? So the good thing is we have an engaged staff right from the pre-construction to project completion. You know, we all respect each other and respect each other's jobs. At a time we have typically 60-plus projects on the go, so clear communication and transparency is key in executing these projects smooth, safe, and successfully. In-house, you know, we have our own detailing and engineering department, we do a lot of our modeling on computers, which is really neat. You know,

11:05basically you can visualize things. And what's the software that you're using? So we're on Tekla. Okay. So Tekla is a 3D structural steel modeling software. Yeah, so it's for structural steel, yeah. So for, I mean, 99% of our projects, unless it's just a house beam or something like that, we will create a complete three-dimensional model of the structure right down to the last nut and bolt, right, so that all gets put together in CAD. And now, especially today, if it fits in the model

11:46it fits outside, right? So out of that 3D we produce our shop drawings, we also produce CNC files that get fed to our fabrication machinery, so nobody touches any of that data and it goes straight to the machine. The machine cuts it, drills it, copes it. So that automated process is a huge part of your operation. You know, you say a picture says a thousand words, right? So I mean, it helps us review and strategize for our fabrication and erection sequences, you know, how we can

12:18build frames. And, I didn't touch — more back to kind of the safety stuff, you know, what we try to do, we try to prefab everything as much as we possibly can in a controlled environment in our shop, which reduces, you know, the risks of person-hours on site. Yeah, right on, right on, you guys. Maybe just to stick to that, like, maybe just talk about, like, how many employees are at Marid, like how many on the shop floor, how many

12:45involved in estimating, like just to give an idea, in context, about how... Sure, so on the shop floor I guess we have around 40, and then in the office, you know, the main staff is probably eight with accounting included in that. You know, we've got about four full-time project managers, Tim and myself, and our CFO's not here, three engineers. Three engineers, can't forget the engineers. They're here to remind you. Yeah, you don't want to leave them out, they don't like that, I'll hear about

13:18that later, I'll be on the drive home. And then as for, in the field, we use a unionized ironworker workforce. You know, shout out to Local 752. You know, they're trained professionals, they work safe, they're readily available. The good thing about it is the pool, right, whether you need two guys or you've got to ramp up for a dozen guys, you know, they're there, they're trained, you know what you're getting. Yeah, so that's... so you guys are union labor in the field. Yeah,

13:44and then for installing only. Yes, that's correct. And this is, because this is an Atlantic podcast, where we have an office and operations in Newfoundland as well, so I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Local 764. Yeah, so that union is not consolidated, like, there's a different steel union in each and every province, because that can be different from the carpenters union, and certain unions are consolidated in certain areas. Yeah, well that's really neat. Maybe it's

14:13early to dive into design-build, but because I know once we start talking about that it's going to take us right to the end, but maybe just between the three of you guys, like, I know design-build is kind of Marid's sort of main offering, is that... is that a significant... It's a big part of our business model, and I think it comes down to, it's kind of a reflection of the culture that we have at Marid, where it's all

14:41a lot about customer service, right. So I guess the sort of core aspect to our design-build approach is really listening to what our customers need and want, and so that's... we listen to what they need. What makes a customer a good design-build customer? A customer who already knows what they want, or who already has a pretty good idea of what they want. We're not set up to sort of work through multiple iterations and a whole bunch of

15:14stakeholders and stuff like that. We need a customer who's got a bit of a handle on what they want. So it's not... the first thing you guys do is kind of filter the customer to say, is it worth our... If you really don't know what you want to build, we'll say, you know what, go find an architect, go find a structural engineer, and work through that with them, because that's a business model, to work you through that process. But if you

15:39already have a pretty good handle on what you need, come to us, and then we'll find the way. What we really bring to the table is we bring an optimization of the whole package, not just the structural steel, but an optimization of what the customer needs, whatever they're going to make or produce or whatever, with the whole building envelope. So I'll work with the siding and the wall guys and try to optimize, you know, what if I make my roof structure a little bit shallower, they buy less

16:10wall panels, and maybe it cost me an extra 500 bucks in the roof structure but it saves them a thousand bucks in the walls, so overall the project is 500 bucks better. So you're collaborating with other subtrades. Yeah, and which would include who, mostly roofers? Oh, roofers, it could be the... anyway, so we like to work with that team spirit, so we're working with — it's usually a general contractor most times — and they've got together the people they

16:40like to work with, and we work as a team to come up with the best price and the best solution for their client at that time. Okay. Yeah, and I mean, we look at really sort of a holistic perspective on the building, so there's all kinds of ways to put together roofs and walls and stuff like that, and we like to put in details that just make the building work better, right. Can you give an example? Can you give a... like here's something that comes to mind,

17:05here's a very... I'm not trying to call you out, I'm just saying. No, it's good. So if you've got a low roof marrying into a wall, right, a low roof, I like to put a girt at like a foot above the roof level, because it gives the roofer an opportunity to build his roof up and have a nice termination at that girt, and then they'll build like a steel stud wall on top of that for a parapet wall. Well, into like, if you

17:30had another story going up, right, okay, type thing. And it's just a really nice detail that's easy to waterproof and makes the building perform better. It's an extra piece of steel, but ultimately we want to give the customer a building that doesn't leak and performs well, and having somebody on board that's thinking about the details like that, and is willing to work with the siding guy and the roofer and whatnot to come up with that detail. Yeah, that's like, ultimately, whether the steel package

18:01costs a million dollars or a million dollars plus 50, if their roof leaks it doesn't matter, right. Yeah, everybody wants a building that performs well. Yeah, and that gives context to the listeners too, because when you guys say design-build, like, yeah you design-build the structural steel scope of the building, but you're also taking into perspective, like, how can we make the building envelope, you know, more weatherproof, with our design, and how can we make it easier for the roofers, how can we make it

18:31easier for the guys doing the steel stud. Yeah, and that's where the team model works, because there has to be some level of trust about what you're building together, and you're all trying to build the best building you can within the budget that's been supplied, right. Right, so having you guys on the job, you're making other trades' lives easier and you're saving costs. I'd like to think so, yeah. The client appreciates it as well. That's all right, guys. So what else about design-build? I mean, what, like...

18:58Like, can you give examples of some recent design-builds, or some maybe ones that stand out in your memory, or any showpiece projects that were design-built for you guys? Well, as Tim and Greg were saying, you know, the tilt-up steel, that's kind of our bread and butter. So I mean, like right now, if you drive just going towards the airport on the highway, you look to the right, we're doing the AJA

19:22cargo building, so it's a nice tilt-up. Another one we're doing, closer in Dartmouth on Lancaster Drive, we're doing a First Baptist Church. So whether it's churches, warehouses, new office buildings... and on your website, like, potato barns are a... or anything along those lines, like barns. Well, that's a good one, Tim could probably talk to you forever. Oh yeah, that gets away from... well, I know your wife's in PEI and I'm from PEI, so they have to bring out potatoes.

19:48It's something, some context. So the potato barns on PEI was... and that was a neat one, because Cavendish Farms needed potato storage, and they... I mean, traditionally potatoes are stored at the farmers' locations sort of spread across PEI, and they needed a state-of-the-art facility. So Cavendish came to the general contractor in sort of March and April, they toured some sites and looked at some technology and whatnot in April, and the general contractor came to us to talk about pricing, and we

20:26developed a bit of a scheme and an approach, and we signed with the owner in May. So then we did detailed design, and these... I mean, the barns that we put up on PEI, they're exactly basically the same. Very interesting, intricate system associated with ventilation, and why not, like there's ventilation coming through the floor into the potato pile, and then it needs to go out through the sidewalls. Well, we came up with an innovative structural design that actually took advantage of

20:59the space that was needed for the square solution. How many square feet? I was afraid that you were going to... I said I need to know how many tons go into those. So, to give you a little bit of context, in those buildings there's four cells of potatoes, and the potatoes are 90 feet wide I believe, they're 300 feet long, and the potatoes are piled in there 20 feet deep. All right, so we got an award and... french fries, that's a lot of french fries. French fries.

21:32We got the award in May, went through detailed design, started fabrication, we started putting steel up on the first of July, and they were putting potatoes in those buildings on the first of October. So just like six... compared to the delivery from... to potatoes in the barn versus a traditional approach with an architect and an engineer and tendering and all that stuff, just blew it out of the water. Wow. So that's one of the reasons why that job went forward as a structural building, because of the

22:08timeline that we could save them and the reason they needed to get in. So it all just came together quite nicely. I believe that was all galvanized too, wasn't it? Yeah, so all that steel was galvanized for those buildings. It's a very humid atmosphere. So why would it have to be galvanized there, just because it's exposed to the potatoes? As they... I'm straining... food... you're the guy from PEI, you should know. I'm not the guy who's supposed to be

22:35asking questions. As they're stored, there's a lot of humidity coming off of the potatoes, right, so just in that... so the atmosphere inside those buildings is like 98, 99, 100 humidity, and there's condensation and whatnot, so in order to protect the steel from all that, everything in the structure in the building was galvanized, right. And so, is it galvanized on many projects, or is that a rare thing? That's pretty rare, yeah. I mean, if I can get up on my soapbox, because I'm guessing that's going to

23:06increase the steel costs by... it does increase the steel costs. Like, in a regular building, oftentimes the spec will call for the steel to be primed, but for a building like this one, for your average office building and whatnot, the most practical approach is actually to leave the steel unpainted, and it will not rust under sort of normal room conditions, and putting a coat of primer on it is not an efficient use of money, because you just don't need it. And you're referring to

23:42steel that's not just enclosed in a wall system, but exposed steel? No, they're like inside a building, in a climate-controlled building, you don't need to paint your steel. Okay. Yeah, these... I think we should talk about the IMP Hangar and the truss, the long truss that's in the front that lets the plane in, right, that's the one Jason mentioned, right. We built it probably, I'd like to say, 10, 15 years ago, probably. Yeah, and it was probably the biggest job that Tim's ever designed. So, yeah, and

24:21one of the largest jobs I'd priced at that point in my career, so I think it would be interesting to talk about. So there's a cargo hangar for the planes to be stored in, yeah, so you know how you had to put the other supports underneath when you erected it, so I think that was an interesting story to tell. So the IMP Hangar out there, that's the white and blue one. Okay. Did you see it from the highway? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, every... I think that's the first

24:43building you see, pretty much. Yeah, so there's three buildings in front in that neighborhood. We're putting up the steel for the one that's under construction right now, the Gateway Logistics, that's a tilt-up that BD did a few years ago, and then the IMP Hangar we put up 10 or 12 years ago. IMP maintains aircraft in there. The door opening for it is 300 feet clear, that's the widest clear opening east of Montreal. So I'd been with Marid for probably five

25:17or six years, and we won the contract to do this design-build for this hangar, and yeah, the wingspan's a factor, right, the wingspan and actually the tail of the planes is a big, big deal, right, to make sure that they can fit in and that you don't have to, like, let the air out of the planes' tires. Okay, so what won that one for us? I mean, we were with Lindsay on that, and

25:48we were able to sort of stage the construction in such a way that we could do half the hangar — so one of the sets of doors plus the center core — and get them in there and get them finishing it, and then build the other half of the hangar, instead of building the entire perimeter wall and waiting and waiting and waiting, type thing. But the 300-foot opening, that 300 feet, I was waiting for you to say how wide it was, we had that answer for you. The

26:18what won it for us was, it was just such a massive truss we couldn't prefabricate that in our shop, so you're stick-building in the air, right. And so you build out a piece of the bottom cord and the top cord and the webs that lace it together and whatnot, and what we did was we took a bunch of the wall columns from the other hangar, and we used them as temporary supports to support the truss as we built it out across the opening.

26:47And that was actually an approach that one of our guys from Local 752 came up with, how to sort of provide that temporary support, and then you finally put it all together and you bolt it up. And then the psychology from the union was... so do you want to mention his name, or maybe not, totally up to you. Yeah, totally up to you. Yeah, I'm sure he'd appreciate the shout-out on the show. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that. No, he's, I mean,

27:11so one of the things that... I mean, folks, I went to university and whatnot, and you don't realize the amount of knowledge and insight that guys that are on the tools have, and sometimes that's overlooked by consultants and whatnot. But we've got a great collaborative relationship with Local 752 and our ironworkers and whatnot, and this is something that I say, if I have to speak to a group: pay attention to what the guys outside have to say, because they've put up more steel than

27:43you have designed, and oftentimes they know the best, the safest, the quickest way to put that up. So for any engineers and architects out there listening, listen to the guys that are outside that actually do the work. Well, it's amazing that you brought that up, and it's so true, like some of these subtrades, whether it's structural steel or masonry, you know, even painting and millwork, these guys have so much depth to each scope, and it's like impossible to know everything, and someone who has 20, 30 years' experience,

28:15it's hard to replace that, so it's good to rely on the site guys for a lot of things too. You know, a lot of those, like when you get into the misc metals and trying to figure out these supports or how to get things in buildings, I mean, you can see it on a drawing, but the reality is, how do you actually get it there and make it there. Yeah, you know, you've got to weigh in on those guys. That's really cool. So how... so that would have

28:35been more intensive on the site. I mean, you still prefab a lot of it in the shop, like you always have to, but that was built like a lot of it on-site? Yeah, I mean, all of the smaller wall framing and whatnot was in the shop and trucked out there, but the top and the bottom cords of that, actually, they were so big and so heavy that we had them brought... they exceeded the capacity of our crane in our shop,

29:01so we brought them direct to site, we field-drilled them, and we actually changed the shop details to accommodate the fact that we bought a piece of steel that was 60 foot 2 inches long, because we didn't want to cut, like, if you've got a section of steel that weighs 300 pounds a foot, that's a lot of steel to cut off, right. So we changed the details to reflect the fact that it came in at 60 foot 2 inches, and adjusted the bolt locations and stuff like that to take

29:27advantage of that piece of steel. That must have been a tough job to price, Greg. Oh yeah, well, it's not like you see one like that across your desk every month. It was two of us actually working on that one, because we would price several options in order to find the most economical price, so it was a lot of long nights on that one. Like, anyway, if you wanted to... it turned out okay. Oh yeah, we're still here. Yeah. And if you're interested to see a lot of our

29:53past projects, you can visit our website at www.marid.ca. You know, we showcase a lot of our previous projects, and you know, since I'm on that topic as well, you can follow us on LinkedIn at Marid Industries, and on Twitter at Marid Industries as well. You guys on Insta as well? No, two social media platforms is enough. Tuesday, Tuesday maybe sometime. But you know, check us out on there, follow us, and you can see what we're up to. Yeah,

30:22100. Maybe I see, like, you know, some more other current projects... I know the Dallard Centre is kind of one that would have some buzz in the city, I know you guys are working on that, any comments on that one, how that one's going, or just the process there? Well, that... oh, the addition, or just... it's not my personal project, but I know our project manager... it's one of those projects, any kind of project when you're dealing right in the

30:49downtown core, it's a tight site, right, so delivery for everything, steel erection, cranes, anything logistics-wise, so, you know, a lot of planning, a lot of planning involved, and as I said, you know, just weighing in on the team, and yeah, you know, trying to meet the client's expectations. So other than that, you know, we have... what's other cool... I know we're doing the new Porsche dealership on Kent Road, there's a tilt-up with a structural portion on the front of that.

31:15We're always doing reinforcing work for new fit-ups and existing buildings, you know, we do a lot of... we're supplying steel for a lot of wharves and barges and bridges and building additions. What's the Brian Mulroney job, did you... were you working on that one, Jason? Yeah, I was there for a few years, a couple years, finished that recently, last couple of years, yeah, last year, a year and a half or so. Projects.

31:41Yeah, no, we do... you know, because you're working on Queen's Marque, Nova Centre, yeah, there's lots, yeah, there's a lot to pick from. But you know, something else we're doing that's pretty cool too is we do a lot of structural framing on some really cool homes, custom homes around the province. Is that just in places where they need load-bearing steel, or is it just for other reasons? It's an architect that's come up with just a really challenging building that you can't

32:10build out of wood anymore, the cantilevers, the clear spans and whatnot, so, right, what would you do. And once you do a few of them, and they're kind of... people know those on your website. Yeah, that's right, thank you. Yeah, so people know we do that stuff, so I mean, we don't shy away from the challenge and stuff, we like the challenging work, you know, we've got to. And their extravagant designs, yeah, they're cool, right? Yeah, exactly, you know, we've got a dedicated, you know,

32:32we have some great fitters and welders in our shop, you know, that like taking on the challenge as well, so it's, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, the other thing that I would suggest that we'd be good at is we do a lot of work on the Halifax Harbour Bridges, right, so the MacDonald Bridge and the McKay Bridge. Just most last summer, the HHB did a program where they're inspecting the cables on the McKay Bridge, yeah, and you, I mean, you just want to make sure that you keep an

33:01eye on that, it's kind of like checking your oil on your car, right. You guys are responsible for the traffic control? HHB. But so, what they do is they need to look at the main suspension cable and evaluate and make sure that the cable is still right. So what we did last year, and what we've done a number of times, is we'll build a platform underneath the cable and wrap it and enclose it, and we will cut the shielding off of the

33:35cable, pry apart the cable, so that the engineers can look at the cable and make sure that it's still safe, then wrap it back up again and take the platform off. All doesn't sound so bad, except the last one was, like... yeah, the last one last summer was at the very top of the tower, so you're building a platform at the very top of one of the towers in the McKay Bridge,

34:05every bit of 150 to 200 feet above the bridge deck, yeah, and then you've got the water below, so it's another... from the water it's probably, yeah, 200 feet. Yeah, I would say. Look at some interesting shots, cool shots. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but just... we'll have to throw some of those shots up on the screen. Oh, for... that's really neat. Yeah, but hey, I mean, to try to find a way to make sure that that's safe and that you're not damaging the bridge, and

34:31just sort of the logistics, because the bridge is designed to have a big donut or a sausage wrapped around the cable, has been interesting, and I mean, we're fortunate, we work very well and very closely with HHB and with our consultants, and we find ways to solve those problems. So is your labor force there working on that bridge, like, evening shifts and, like, whenever you're there? Whenever it needs to be done, it needs to be done.

34:59Yeah, yeah, it's usually day work, but some days evening, yeah, we've been there a few... It's not like you'd have 40 people to pick from to send to the bridge to work at that height, like, it'd just be a handful of people. That's a comfortable role, you won't catch me up there looking at it. Yeah, you're not going to catch... 50 feet on the scissor lift is pretty... it's good for me, yeah, I don't... have you gone up

35:20to it? Yep. I mean, one of the things that I like about this job is I get to go to heights every now and again. I was able to, you know what, I need to inspect the... I took a GoPro, and so myself and one of our ironworkers and another one of our engineers went up to the tower, because if you're to attach a platform to the tower, you really need to see, like, the drawings don't tell the whole tale, right, you need to see what's

35:49up there and what you can hang on to, and so I enjoy that part of my work. That's pretty neat. That technically doesn't fall in the CEO job description. I don't know, how many CEOs do you know that climb bridge towers? That's awesome that you went up there, that's really neat. Maybe we should talk about that, I was just going to say, that on top of the major project, yeah, we have that on the go right now, so that's another one of our

36:17milestones and larger projects that we've taken on in the, probably, 20 years. We've been at that now for just about a year, yeah, we would have started. Does that mean you've been on site for a year, or you started bidding on it? Right, yeah, so Tim's really involved in that one, so that's why I picked it, so I won't have to talk as much. So I mean, we're picking on the salt mine — salt eats steel — so they've got an

36:51existing head frame, the structure that they pull the salt out of the mine up out of the ground, and then it goes off for processing and whatnot, but because it's a salt mine and just deterioration and whatnot, the lifespan of one of those structures is some 30 or 40 years. So their existing one is deteriorating, and they've got an ore body in the ground that's got another 30 years in it, so they decided to replace the head frame. And so what we've been doing for the past year

37:18is figuring out how to build the head frame. So this is not a design-build, but we're working with a consultant set of drawings, but the big challenge with this one is it's a shutdown job, so their business model is based on them being able to continuously pull salt out of the ground and sell it, and if you shut that line down you eliminate that source of revenue, so everything needs to be planned perfectly so that we hit that shutdown. We'll shut the mine down for six

37:51weeks, and it cannot be... it can't be seven weeks, it can't be eight weeks, we need to minimize the amount of time that that mine is shut down. On intervals, or like six weeks at a time? We're going to, like, on July the 5th, we're going to start knocking down the existing head frame, and then six weeks later they're going to start pulling salt back out of it. And this is not sort of you can go in

38:14and do a little bit and come back out and stuff like that, you knock it down. How large is the crew? So depending on, we'll probably peak out at probably 40 or 50 ironworkers on site to put that together. And that would be more than... that would be a bigger... that's bigger than 10, that's a big job, usually it's probably 10, 20, 30, around those numbers. Wow. Yeah, but it's a tougher environment, and just the shutdown nature and the amount of planning that we need to

38:39do is a challenge, but it's a lot of pressure, yeah, on the guys too, yeah. Yeah, we should maybe even talk about some of the jobs we do over in Newfoundland, I was thinking, because, you know, 100 percent. So would that one be coated with anything special, because it's a salt mine? I just want to bring that up before you go. Very fancy painting, cut me off again before I get it wrong. Yeah, so a fancy three-coat paint system on that, and lots and lots and lots of QA/QC, you know.

39:06What's in the paint, what kind of chemicals or anything? Yeah, I'm just... I'm doing too deep there, I'm a steel guy, my others... what's that, by others. By others, I love that, I love those two words that I quote, right. When you said tilt-up for the IMP Hangar, like you said tilt-up steel, you mean like a combination of, or what does it mean for our listeners that don't... the tilt-ups, the concrete, yeah, we're doing the steel framing on the inside of it. Yeah, I mean,

39:31yeah, so they would cast the concrete on the ground and then tilt it. Yes, yeah, I just didn't know if there's another kind of steel erection, that's all, that they would then brace it, and then we would infill it with our structural steel, right. We've got a partnership with those guys. Yeah, so tilt-up concrete's kind of like structural steel along with that, just in tandem. Exactly, for sure. What were you going to say, Greg, what would you say? I was trying

39:53to get over to Newfoundland, because I don't want the Newfoundland people to feel left out, so we want them to know, this is Atlantic, that's right, holy Atlantic, we understand this is an Atlantic podcast. So we do a lot of design-builds over there, but we were talking about big projects, and so I was thinking about our project with Allied, yep, who we've had 40 or 50 workers on that particular project as well, and then we did that, or we just finished that probably about

40:21six months ago I guess. The legalization of marijuana has been a huge boon for the construction industry, because it's all been a lot of buildings built for growing operations. So the project that Greg's talking about is a two-story grow, a cultivation facility, just outside of St. John's, and most of our warehouse theme would include structural steel, yeah, this particular one had a mezzanine in the whole level as well, so the footprint was around 100,000 square feet, so with the mezzanine, which covered almost the

40:54whole thing, yeah, so we're looking around 200,000 square foot warehouse in Newfoundland, so it's a big project for us. When was that completed, are you still working on that? It's done now, yeah, and so I think we started working on that, yeah, a year and a half ago maybe, yeah, and we basically finished the structural. I mean, a big thing in Newfoundland, if you're going to work in Newfoundland, is you don't want to be erecting steel through the winter in Newfoundland, so

41:20we finished erection, I think, we broke ground and we started in June or July, and we were putting up our last couple of pieces of steel in December just before Christmas, right, so that's a big thing, taking into perspective your schedule and when you're going to be on site, yeah, sure, especially in Newfoundland, but here as well, and the climate's somewhat similar, similar but colder, it's not nearly as harsh, not as harsh with the winds that they... Yeah, I think another notable project was

41:52the Coast Guard, because it's like anybody that goes to St. John's, if they're down around the waterfront, they're going to be able to see this building that we put up. It's kind of on the other side of the harbor where people aren't, but if you look across there's the Coast Guard building, which is a nice red and white building, looks like a shed, white building, but that was a nice big conventional steel building, right, and if you want to see the framing on that one we've got some pictures on the web,

42:11on our website there, if you want to actually see the steel component to it, right. Cool. And so how long does it... like, just for an average, like with what you mentioned there, the 100, 200,000 square feet, how long does it take typically to install that, what size of crew, because that sounds massive? 20 weeks, yeah, we were on that for 20 weeks. We wouldn't have started with 50, you know, probably, yeah, at some point, yeah, a crew of 8 or 12, and then it just slowly

42:37builds as you get more steel on site and get it rolling, yeah, yeah. That was a nice job, neat job. I'm trying to get one other one, you guys have a satellite office there? We do, yeah, it's over in Mount Pearl, yeah, it's got a few office staff and then a crew as well, with the union there, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's important, I mean, what we found in Newfoundland is you really need to have the presence on the ground, and you need to have Newfoundlanders

43:01working with Newfoundlanders, it's just there's a culture over there. We came over 10, probably 10 or 12 years ago, we followed some of our customers, Lindsay and Beatty Stevens, and that's why we set up an office over there, and it's worked out well, because we're one of the only design-build steel companies in Newfoundland that are willing to take that on. So, I think you brought up culture, I think in Atlantic Canada, and I think, you know, construction not only is a

43:35backbone of the economy, but it's very cultural too, it's very core to all of us, and sort of a big part of our culture for everyone, and I think it's a huge sector for Nova Scotia and PEI. And yeah, I mean, you guys do some work in New Brunswick too? Well, the potato barns were... potatoes, that's right, New Brunswick, we've done a few jobs, we don't do as many, that's for sure, I'm trying to remember the last job we did over there,

44:04I'm sure something will come along as we talk, but we... normally we're following our clients there, because we're not up there looking constantly for that work, but like the Lindsays and the BDs will go there, and then if we're... we're happy to tag along, to work with them when it happens. Yeah. What else, guys, anything else you guys want to get out there for Marid, or why would you build a building with steel? There you go.

44:32Yeah, so we mentioned the cost of wood, yeah, save the best for last, why steel, simple question. Yeah, so I'm going to... I'm a board member with the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction, that's a big thing for them, is trying to make sure that people are educated about why choose steel, and it comes down to: it's safe, it's sustainable, and scheduled. So safe — over any of the other materials, the wood and the concrete, we prefabricate as much as we possibly can

45:07in our shop where it's safe and it's warm and it's dry, and we really try to minimize the amount of on-site labor in uncontrolled conditions, right. And it's environmentally friendly, yes, sustainable, so that goes to that. So I was in another discussion at one point, and the wood guy put up a slide of this beautiful rainforest and trees and moss and stuff like that, and it was lovely, and he was trying to pitch himself as very green as well, on

45:37the heartstrings, absolutely. And I'm thinking, it doesn't look like that after you cut the tree down for a 2x4, right. So steel is recycled, so the steel in this building used to be a car or a washing machine and stuff like that, so scrap is a huge, huge deal, and most of the steel that's produced today is from old buildings, cars, whatever, they just melt it down, and you can melt it down infinitely, recast it and

46:08make it again. And then the schedule piece — as I like, the potato barns was a great example, and we were able to get in there in July and they're putting potatoes into those barns on the first of October, because you do everything ahead of time, your activities on site are so much more controlled and minimized, and you can get buildings up far, far more quickly and reliably. Yeah, that's why I think that. Yeah, what he said. What do you say?

46:41Yeah, no, I mean, and also...

46:46Like I said, we can do it usually quicker, that's one of the reasons. The big thing of this, excuse is... is where we're a custom fabricator, we can build the building the way the customer really wants it, whereas some other types of steel buildings are more... they're just taken to a certain shape, whereas that's not 100 percent our issue, we can build it any square, rectangle, whatever you want, we'll do the best we can. We'll moan and complain if you make it a curve, but

47:12we'll do it, we'll accommodate it, yeah, but it's easier to make those contours and shapes with our product, yeah, you know, we can roll and maintain structural integrity, yeah, so we have a lot more flexibility, and there's so many things steel can do, they can do a tilt-up building, they can do a conventional building, they can do a freezer panel building, so I mean, we can fit into all those different criteria a lot better than other buildings, yeah, so I think that gives us

47:38a little bit of an advantage, as long as we can keep the price within reason. What about the climate, does that factor in at all, with the high moisture, and just building with wood and steel, is there an advantage in steel because of that? I think you make sure that you coat or you treat your building, yeah, right, we don't rot, and if there's a situation where you think you might rust, you galvanize it or you put on a fancy coat of paint,

48:06there's ways, I mean, as long as you plan and you understand, there are all kinds of ways to deal with those issues. Yeah. Jason, what about... I know when we introduced you, your mention of certified Gold Seal project... is that the Dal course? No, that's through the Canadian Construction Association. Oh, okay, CCA, right. That's the... you know, CANS, the Construction Association of Nova Scotia, you know, you're highly engaged with CANS. Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, they're great, and they're great for, I mean, as I said, Tim's

48:41a board member, Tim was actually the past chairman of the board last year, so you can really kind of... you want to talk to them, but they are great, you know. Yeah, the easiest year. What's that? Yeah, the easiest year, because of COVID, because they didn't meet very often, I assume, well, other than via resume... sorry, no, but the CANS, like, seriously, you know, they advocate for us in the industry, and you know, yeah, and it makes construction happen around here, you know.

49:09Yeah, honestly, CANS was very instrumental in keeping the construction industry open, in the early days of COVID it was... they were meeting once a day or every couple of days just to make sure that everybody's on the same page, understood the safety piece and whatnot, so yeah, they've got a great team over there, so shout out to CANS as well, yeah, 100. I thought Tim was mad at us because the door was shut all the time, but then we just figured out he was

49:34in another CANS meeting. Yeah, but those associations, they really do rally, and they're educating business owners about, you know, funding and CEWS and the rent subsidy and all the government's plans and stuff, and they do a great job facilitating that. Anything else, guys? Where can people find you? I know, Jason, you mentioned all your social media and website, maybe just mention that again, just so we can. Yeah, for sure, so LinkedIn, you follow us on LinkedIn, Marid Industries Limited, Twitter, Marid Industries, and our website www.marid.ca, so check us out and

50:05get in touch if you need to, we'll be happy to help you with any of your steel requirements. Those are great plugs, yeah, he's Jason, he's got a radio voice. Any final thoughts or comments before we wrap up, just anything maybe you wanted to touch on that you didn't get a chance to? Yeah, I mean, maybe we should talk about the company itself, why people want to work with us, yeah, and just work for us too, Greg. I think I was supposed to ask that

50:30question first and I forgot, so that's on me, that's right there to work out. So why, yeah, well, what makes Marid stand out in the industry? I mean, there's lots of things that make companies stand out, I mean, our competitors are good at what they do, we think we're good at what we do as well, so we're all good at what we do, but we think that we add another layer, where we believe we're more flexible to work with, you know, especially on the design-build side

50:53as well, we're willing to go and help the client out, figure their issues out, and we believe that goes a long way. The other thing that we have, a lot of our employees, I'd say most of them, are long-term employees, so if the generals come back and deal with us, they're usually dealing with the same person over and over again, it's not like when you go to the bank, every time you go in you get a new financial manager, it drives you crazy, right, but here, you know, every time you come

51:15you're dealing with the same project manager, dealing with the same estimator, so there's time to build relationships within Marid and with them, within our teams as well, so I believe that really... It sounds like a family. Yeah, for sure, and I think that is what brings people back, because we really build our model on repeat business, return clients, that's what we want to do, that way we can concentrate on figuring out how they want to do things, and we can standardize stuff between the two companies, we know that

51:44they want it done that way, and this customer likes it done that way, and so we just change our hats to make it work for what they're looking for, and I believe they know that that's what we're going to do, and we become easier to work with, as long as we can get in the budget, because sometimes the dollar controls a lot of what we do, unfortunately, but we think that people like coming back to us because we continually give them the service they're looking for.

52:10Wow, that's right, that's pretty good. I... the relationship piece, and we have long-term relationships with our customers, with our employees, I've got... there's a guy who's going to retire at the end of April, he's 72 years old, right, and sometimes they come back, right back, so I mean, we try... we've got a long-term engaged workforce, but then the relationship piece with our customers, they recognize the fact that we listen and that we want to work with them. It's a conversation that I often have

52:47with our people, so I mean, sometimes customers can drive you crazy, right, they want this and they want that and they want the other thing, and the philosophy and the message that I try to make sure that our folks understand and reinforce and whatnot is, our business model is built on our customers and trying to find ways to give them what they need, and either that or educate them, you know what, there's this other way. So maintain that relationship, and it's not Marid's way or the highway, but

53:21how do we work together to a successful outcome, and that's really sort of the core of what Marid does, and why we've got long-term customers, and why they keep on coming back, and why people trust us with their buildings. Yeah, I think a lot of it is the team side, right, you know, you don't feel like you're a number there, I hope, like, everybody tends to get along with everybody for the most part, and we have a fairly good group, like, when we meet in the

53:49board room to discuss problems and situations, it seems like everybody's there to come and find a solution to the problem, we're not in there pointing fingers, it's John Smith's problem... we don't have a John Smith working for us, it's just an easy name to pick, right, so we try to figure out what the problem is, because if something went wrong it's because we've done something wrong, and we try to solve the problem so that we don't have that issue again. How many... what's

54:14as leading up the estimating department in budgeting, is it typically the same kind of four or five people you're bidding against, or is there the oddball central Canada price here and there, like how does that pan out? I said it's pretty tight to give my competitors any air time, but you don't have to, there's at least three major players local, we would probably be one of those three, there's a couple smaller ones that will come in every now and then and probably enjoy taking a job from us, but

54:41it happens, and then if the jobs get big enough we will draw attention from central Canada, Quebec, but COVID has slowed that down a little bit, because it's made it more complicated, well, harder to travel, yeah, so it's good and bad, right, you know, but it keeps you on your toes I suppose, yeah, so there's good competition, there's probably more fabricators in Atlantic Canada than required, so customers continue to get good pricing because of that, yeah, doesn't make your job any easier, no, so we have to learn to be more efficient

55:15and better at what we do all the time in order to stay ahead of the curve. Yeah, right on, guys. Well, listen, I just really want to thank you guys for coming, I really appreciate your time, and the fact that, you know, all three of you guys are willing to come in, I know you're busy, you've got lots to do, so really, really appreciate it, and it's been a pleasure to chat with you guys about Marid. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Thanks, Dan.

55:39Thanks for the opportunity, giving it to us. Structural steel makes up a lot of the buildings that are all around us and whatnot, and it's neat to have an opportunity to talk about that, pass on a little bit of information, and talk about what we're passionate about. Thank you. Thanks for having us.