Geographically, Northridge has expanded its operations into southern Saskatchewan, where the Bakken oil play stayed hot through the darkest days of the recession. While now the decision to open a Saskatchewan office looks like a no-brainer, Harrison says it took some resolve on the part of the company’s management team at the time. By the same token, Harrison today foresees a revival on this side of the 110th meridian. “I believe that the industry is in recovery now. In recent months, you can feel excitement throughout the industry. I believe that Alberta, as everyone knows, is a leader in the oil and gas industry. When the growth starts, it will start here,” he says.
“If you’re going to take a risk, make sure you’ve got a strong base and make sure it’s a risk that you’ve really analyzed and fleshed out,” advises KPMG’s Matthew. “And that it’s a risk that you can afford to take.”
But taking risks isn’t every company’s style and Matthew wouldn’t suggest the Fast Growth 50 companies dive into uncertainty. “Our overriding observation would be they’ve experienced good results, they’ve built a plan, they’ve built a strategy and they’ve implemented it,” he says. “They’ve stayed the course. They may have to alter the course somewhat because of changes in the economy,” but they should stick to what they do best.
What Calgary-based Cyntech Corporation (#23, Over $20 million) does best is manufacturing and installing helical piles (foundation pipes rotated into the ground like screws rather than pounded in like nails). CEO Neale Johannesson and a partner started Cyntech in 1984 as an engineering and construction company serving the oil and gas industry. Just like in 2009, Alberta’s economy in the mid-1980s took a dip, and companies had difficulty finding work. Cyntech re-established itself as a storage-tank repair specialist and pipeline anchor manufacturer. Now it’s repositioning again.
“Last year’s growth was primarily due to huge growth in our helical pile products, and that came about from several large projects that we were involved with that were going on through this time,” says Johannesson. The projects included refinery and electrical utility expansions that had already been approved and underway before the slowdown hit. At this point, the helical pile business is larger than the pipeline anchor business.
Cyntech is also venturing into a new market, green energy. Johannesson’s team has started work on developing its own solar energy project in Ontario and will design and construct the foundation for a wind tower project in Alberta. Both projects are based on Cyntech’s helical pile technology.
“Provided the return is there, we are more than happy to diversify,” he says. “I really believe the renewable energy sector is where a lot of growth is going to come from in 2010.”
Even commodity producers are thinking about diversifying their markets as a way to grow sales. When decreased demand threatened Grande Cache Coal’s first quarter of its fiscal year, Robert Stan’s company saw salvation in China. The world spot market price for coal had fallen to the point where the Chinese steel industry found it more economic to use imported rather than domestic coal.
“The demand in China exploded,” he says. “They imported more coal in March [2009] than they did in the entire previous calendar year. As a result of that, we were able to move a lot of our inventory to new customers in China, and that’s when we really started to benefit from the demand increase for coal imported to China.”
At the opposite end of the scale, by the nature of its business, Grasschopper is geographically limited to the capital region, but has nonetheless found ways to diversify into new markets. It added commercial landscaping to its repertoire three years ago and having recently achieved COR (Certificate of Recognition) safety certification, can now bid on government projects. “We’ve grown really quickly and I wouldn’t want to grow too much quicker than we’ve already done,” Ross says. “If our growth got too much quicker, then the job quality would start to decrease and that starts to work against you.”
If the recession took many Alberta companies unawares, the opportunities afforded by the recovery could come just as quickly. The members of this year’s Fast Growth 50 sound ready, whatever happens.
“What is the new economy going to look like? We’re all unsure,” says Contava’s Nikel. “It won’t look like the old economy, pre-recession. There’ll most likely never be an economy like that again, but the next one may be better. It’ll depend on opportunity and making the best of it. We continually search for new customers, and if the new economy means business growth, we’ll be positioned for it.” They may not have participated in the recession, but the recovery is all theirs.
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