Speaker 1 0:00

Everyone thought I was crazy. Like, you're moving your whole staff to downtown. Like, do you know what's downtown? Everyone's leaving downtown. I would find it's the opposite. Uh, I see a lot of hope and potential. Are we gonna sit here and wait for someone from Vancouver or Toronto to develop downtown Winnipeg? It is gonna be Winnipegers that grow our city. It's gonna be Winnipegers that save the downtown or build the downtown. Like if we want to protect our city and grow our city, I would I would like to challenge everybody to make it happen.

Speaker 0:34

Founders and leaders across Manitoba are building meaningful things, often quietly and without much attention. I'm Nathan Martins. On the Building Manitoba podcast, I sit down with local founders and leaders to go beyond the surface. We talk about the values that drove them, the decisions that mattered, and the lessons they learned along the way. This podcast is for people who care about building something meaningful in Manitoba. Today on the Building Manitoba podcast, I'm talking with Nolan Ploegman, president and CEO of Concord Projects, a Manitoba builder with nearly 50 years and 1,200 projects behind them. Nolan didn't come up through construction. He spent his early career in finance at Great West Life. Then 22 years ago, his father-in-law and Concord's founder Ted Paetkau pulled him into the business. He took over as president and CEO in his early 30s and has spent the last decade carving out his own vision while building on what Ted started. In this episode, we get into what it takes to lead a growing firm that still wants to feel like a small company, why long-term thinking beats short-term wins, and how Concord built a base of repeat clients that drives almost all of their growth. We also talk about the move to 127 Bannatyne, why Nolan is bullish on downtown Winnipeg, and where AI is actually moving the needle in construction. If you care about building something that lasts or about the future of Winnipeg, you'll enjoy this episode. Let's get into it. Nolan, welcome to the Building Manitoba podcast. It's great to have you here.

Speaker 1 2:10

Yeah, thanks, Nathan. It's an honor and a pleasure to be on it with you.

Speaker 2:15

Concord Projects was founded in 1978 by Ted Paetkau. So just for listeners who don't know the company yet, could you talk about what Concord does today and how is that different from its roots and where it started with Ted?

Speaker 1 2:29

Yeah, for sure. Well, Concord Projects is a local Winnipeg-based and founded general contractor, construction management company, and sometimes called a design builder as well. And yeah, very proud to be essentially just building buildings, mostly in Manitoba. Probably 90% of our projects are right here in our home province. But we have built in Ontario, we have built in Saskatchewan, and we have built in Alberta, kind of following our client base. Uh, wherever they ask us to build for them, we'll go. But we're not bidding on projects in in other provinces per se. And yeah, Ted Paetkau is my father-in-law, so I'm very lucky to be in the position that I am today, and it's all thanks to him. He truly has set the vision, mission, values of this company. And I kind of view my role as continuing his legacy carrying the torch. And Ted founded the company really on the principle of getting the general contractor construction company involved in the project very early on in the process. So where he worked before, he's a structural engineer by training, where he worked before they were bidding work. So you would bid the project, get the job, contractor is awarded the project two weeks before it starts. And so he saw an opportunity there and he founded Concord on being collaborative, getting involved early, earning the clients' trust, delivering, building a strong reputation, and being helpful while the project's being designed, and maybe flipping the strip of a typical GC role on the project where you just build the building and do what we tell you to do. So yeah, we we've continued that approach and built a really strong, very proud to have built a strong list of repeat clients, and that's how Concord has grown over the years.

Speaker 4:32

That's very cool. Yeah, the organic growth is uh visible over time. And can you just talk a little bit about like your beginnings with the company? I know you started, you know, 20 or so years ago with the company and coming from more of a finance background and not construction. And can you talk about what that was like coming from a finance background into the world of construction?

Speaker 1 4:52

Oh, yes, for sure. In my 22nd year, and not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined I'd be working in construction. So graduating from high school, went to MBCI, finishing high school. I remember very clearly having no idea what I wanted to do. I liked math. I enrolled or applied for the Asper School of Business, and I thought I'll do finance and accounting. Still no real idea of what I wanted to do. Thought I'd be an actuary one day. Then I realized what that meant, and I'm like, okay, maybe not. And really just I graduated from the U of M with a finance and accounting majors, and was lucky to get a job at Great West Life in the finance world. And yeah, like I said, I did not see the construction career in the crystal ball back at that time.

Speaker 5:45

So you got pulled in then through the family connection, but years later, you're taking on a leadership role in the company. And can you talk a little bit about that transition where you took over the company and you know, the president CEO role and maybe what some of the hardest parts of that transition was and uh how you chose to go about it?

Speaker 1 6:05

Yeah, for sure. I have saved the job description that my father-in-law showed me uh when he offered me a job to leave Great West Life and join Concord. And uh it's in my office here. I don't think I've done even half of the things on that list that he promised me I'd be doing. So it started off with a year on the job site. Then I moved into the office and did a lot of estimating, pre-construction, project planning, budget pricing. And then Concord had a major, major changing of the guard. I believe it was the end of 2013, early 2014, where at that time our president and general manager uh let Ted know that he was planning on retiring. So I got tapped on the shoulder. I was in the right place at the right time. And again, I feel very, very fortunate, very grateful and appreciative to Ted for giving me the opportunity that I have. Uh I'm here because I'm the son-in-law, but I feel like I've earned it as well. And so if that topic ever comes up, I often joke with people. I'm like, oh, go ask Ted if he was offering the job to me because I was his son-in-law. And if that's for the wrong reason, then you're really insulting his intelligence, not mine. But yeah, I was in the right place at the right time and very, very, very grateful to him for the opportunity. And we've really grown the company. I mean, we've we have had a wave of retirements at the management team level, and we simply have an amazing management team right now, and we're planning for growth. We're hiring, we're forecasting some pretty double-digit percentage uh volume growth in the years to come and adding new staff to the team, which resulted in the need for new office space and office locations. So, again, to summarize, very thankful to be growing, and it allows us the opportunity to help more people, really, at the end of the day. That's our our vision and mission here.

Speaker 8:09

So what was the hardest part of that transition? Like when you're stepping into that role, you have someone who's, you know, been leading the company and under Ted's direction, and and then you're stepping into that role. And did you feel like you brought a fresh vision? Were you changed direction? Was it more of a continuation of of the trajectory where things had been on? And what challenges did you face in that step?

Speaker 1 8:31

Yeah, for sure. I think respecting the past, but trying to carve out my own future. And I think in my younger years, so I was pretty young when this transition happened, so early 30s, and I found myself in a leadership role with most of the people kind of senior to me. But I have to get rid of the idea that I had to be Ted or that I had to be Will, who was our president. Um I don't have to be like them, but I have a tremendous uh amount of respect for them and what they've built here. So yeah, respecting what they've built, but also put us on a trajectory for growth where I started thinking about, you know, I've got a pretty good runway ahead of me being a younger president and CEO and business owner. And if I feel very strongly, if you're not growing, then you're shrinking. So I wasn't satisfied with the status quo and really started establishing what is my vision, mission, and values for Concord, not necessarily what has it been for the previous, I guess, 35 years or whatever it was at that time. So I built on a lot of what Ted had uh established and continued that, but also kind of you know trying to do my own thing at the same time.

Speaker 9:49

So how do you go about setting your own vision, mission, and values? And then how do you like actually integrate them in a company in a real way? Because I know a lot of times it's okay, we went through a corporate retreat or uh planning exercise, and it's you know, maybe we put it on a poster on the wall, maybe it's just in a document that sits on a shelf. But how what does it actually look like? Or how do you go about living those values and the vision and mission day to day with the company?

Speaker 1 10:18

Yeah, we have an in-house collaborative learning program. You could call it training program that we've called the Concord Way. And so, what the Concord Way is recognizing that we do things a little bit differently. We don't believe we're the stereotypical construction company. So the Concord Way, every single new person that joins Concord goes through the program, which is at least five or six sessions, and we talk about how we're different. We talk about the vision, mission, and values. And yes, that is a poster on the wall in the boardroom. It's on our website, but we talk about it very openly. Like, how do we do things differently? We're often in a position of power and authority on a project, but that doesn't mean that we should be taking advantage of that. We're really there to serve others. So a few key themes that we integrate into kind of all of our onboarding of new staff and in daily decision making is always think of the long-term approach. Have a long-term approach to every single decision that you make. So in the short term, there might be something that seems like a quick win or you know, extra 500 bucks, whatever the case may be. But it's usually the wrong decision. If you're thinking about the long-term impact of your decisions, you'll probably uh be in a better spot. I mean, further, you can say anything you want. It all looks great on paper and on the wall, but I take my leadership position very seriously, and people will just observe how I operate. If people are watching me coming down on people or not in a good mood or angry, that's gonna rub off. So I feel like a leadership role is different than a management rule. You really have to lead by example. Yeah, if I'm not leading by example, then you know it's gonna be hard for for us to all pull the rope in the same direction if I'm not showing that myself.

Speaker 12:22

You mentioned like one of the the values of taking the long-term view. Like, do you have any examples of projects where you've made that deliberate decision to take the long-term view and and taken the short-term hit along the way in order to uh to follow that?

Speaker 1 12:38

Yeah. My best example of that is just the nature of a construction contract. So the most typical construction contract is a C C D C2 stipulated or fixed price contract agreement. Within all of the beautiful fine print of a CCDC construction document, we do have the ability to call like the swear word of cut of construction is change order. So change order is a bad, bad word. Uh nobody likes to hear that word. So one example of that would be, you know, there's like a there's a change order as per the contract that Concord would be entitled to claim or receive. Whereas in the short term, we could we could make that request, we could get it paid. Perhaps it turns into a legal argument about whether we're entitled to it or not. I mean, that's a lot of pain and uncomfortable conversations with the client, with the architect and consultant team for $600. Or what, you know, I'm exaggerating with a lower number. So it's a lot better just to just to forge ahead. Like it's not worth the paper that it's written on to go for these contractual changes. And that's a good, I think a really, really good example of we could have a short-term monetary win if the client feels like we're nickel and diming them all through the project. Well, we might build one project for them when they're ready to come build their second project. They might not come back to Concord if they feel like we've really uh made a lot of short-term decisions at their expense.

Speaker 14:13

Yeah, absolutely. What's the hardest part you find now about leading a 70 person plus firm that most people outside wouldn't see?

Speaker 1 14:22

Yeah. We were just talking about this the other day here uh with the management team. Is we view ourselves as a small business, a small company. A lot of outsiders would view us as a very large company. In the Manitoba construction industry, we'd be on the you know, medium to larger sized general contractors. On the Canadian landscape, we'd be on the smaller uh to medium size. So we have a lot of uh culture here at Concord that's based on being a small team. And so as we've grown, I think the biggest challenge is I want to know every single employee that works at Concord on a personal level and basis. And now that we're approaching 80 employees, it's a lot harder for us to operate with that small company culture because you know we we need to adapt and and we need to adjust. I want to be the the smallest, biggest contractor all at the same time, but we can't.

Speaker 15:25

Yeah. Does that make the culture shift a little bit over time, then from what you've seen?

Speaker 1 15:30

Yeah, and I think just based on size. When I started at Concord, I believe we had six or seven projects under construction. And today that number is usually ranges between 20 and 25 projects under construction. So it's about three to four times the number of projects. And not quite three to four times the number of people, but two to three times the number of people. So yeah, as we've grown bigger, uh, we didn't have an HR department, you know, 20 years ago. And so Morgan on our team is BP of people and culture, and we couldn't operate without her, but we used to.

Speaker 16:10

Yeah. I I want to talk about your new office because you just moved, you know, a year ago or so to 127 Bannatyne. And, you know, as I understand it, the first new high-rise in the exchange district in quite a while and developed with Alston properties. So can you walk us through that decision to move to, you know, a historic site, the exchange, and not go to the suburbs, but you know, and and kind of what was that partnership like with Alston that, you know, helped make this possible to move downtown?

Speaker 1 16:40

Yeah, for sure. Well, we were situated on Henderson Highway. So we've been North Kildonan, you know, locale since the founding of Concord Projects, always known as Henderson Highway. And we were running out of space. We were starting to double up on offices. We were giving up meeting rooms for office space, and the writing was on the wall with our growth trajectory that we needed more space. So the hunt was on. I guess now this is like four or five years ago. And I started thinking about, you know, like let's forget about all the rules and where we we've been all this time, and let's not think about where everyone lives. If I could pick like the perfect spot for our office to be, where would I want to work every day? So very selfish, very like I was thinking, where do I want to be? And I again I'm biased, but I absolutely love the exchange district. It is my favorite place of Winnipeg. I have become very, very passionate about downtown and and Winnipeg, but I just love the exchange district. It's a it's literally a national treasure for Winnipeg that everyone should should celebrate. So I started looking at where we could build in the exchange district. We have to move. And that's where the partnership with Alston came along. It long story short, I had learned from from Bryce that he had just acquired a series of properties that included uh in park parking lot at 127 Bannatyne. And we shook hands on the sidewalk and agreed that we would develop it together. So it was a win-win. We weren't going to build a 10-story office building just for Concord. So we decided it would be perfect for us to be on the second floor. Alston Properties specializes in multifamily and apartment developments and property management. So there's 80 apartments uh above us from floors three through 10. It's a mixed-use development, so two commercial spaces on the main floor and uh Eats hospitality. So a local restaurateur came along and rented the whole main floor for two new restaurants. They're about to open literally any day now as we speak. They're going to be open for business. And we truly have created something amazing here. We have a mixed-use, two restaurants, an office, a park, 80 apartments. And I'm I walk by and I still kind of pinch myself that, you know, three years ago, this was a surface parking lot in the downtown, and we generated a lot of economic activity, some vibrancy in a time where nobody everyone thought I was crazy. Like you're moving your whole staff to downtown. Like, do you know what's downtown? Everyone's leaving downtown. Like they're scary people downtown. And I would find it's the opposite. I see a lot of hope and potential. Winnipeg's downtown, any city's downtown is key to its vitality. So maybe I can do my small part to just help Winnipeg out and look back on my career and be like, we made a difference for the city of Winnipeg by by just by moving here.

Speaker 19:53

Yeah, no, I love it. Has that led to more conversations or thought around like momentum downtown and the exchange and kind of the future? Or what what are your thoughts on on where it's headed?

Speaker 1 20:05

Yeah, I'm bullish. And again, people might think I'm nuts, but I I am surely bullish. Just Concord alone, we have eight to ten about yeah, I would say over ten construction projects either currently or pending for the downtown, four new buildings at the forks, three or four buildings in the exchange district, uh, one in Chinatown right now, the market lands in front of Red River College. And we have a few development partners with some big, big plans for the exchange district. So I'll drop that as a teaser for today's conversation. But there's some big announcements coming from our office in, you know, I'd say in the next year or so to come. And yeah, I truly see a lot of people investing in the downtown. The city of Winnipeg is really supporting additional housing and getting more residential downtown. I'd really like to see more commercial and office downtown. There's a lot of heritage buildings that have empty floors above the street level and some turnover on the, you know, commercial spaces along the sidewalk. But I think that's where there needs to be an effort to really attract more. We need more offices downtown. Residential is great, but how can we get more people working back downtown again like it used to be and more?

Speaker 21:31

Yeah. No, I love it. And you bring a bit of a developer's lens kind of to a general contractor, like with your finance background, the MBA, you know, some of your education there, plus like you're talking about with the partnership for 127 Bannatyne, you know, some hands on, you know, development and investing yourself. How does that experience change the conversations that you have when you're kind of on the same side of the table as as the developers at times or understand that mindset?

Speaker 1 22:00

Yeah, for sure. I think that's a huge asset to the project team. And that is a service that we offer. And whether we offer or not, there's no stopping me from jumping in with my advice on the real estate side of the equation, which is critical because if you understand that side and where our client developers are coming from, it really informs the design and cost of the building. So I think that's one thing that does make Concord stand out and differentiates us from our competition. And yeah, having that real estate knowledge and expertise and being exposed to it here in in partnership with Alston, I think is a huge help. So and we've done a few more of those collaborations with other developers where they're like, oh, you you get this, right? Like you understand the financing side, or whether it's a CMHC project or there's a you know financial institution with certain requirements. We're like, yeah, we're very familiar with the CMHC MLI select program. And this is what you need to do on your construction budget to meet those numbers. We can't build a building for $400 per square foot. So if that's the budget before you start, like, hey, let's not all waste our time and money on this project.

Speaker 23:19

Yeah, absolutely. So, like from your perspective right now in the market, what makes a project pencil out in Winnipeg, you know, in 2026 now? And and what are you seeing that is killing projects?

Speaker 1 23:32

Yeah. This will be like negative uh advertising, but construction costs are what's killing projects. It's like self-deprecating humor here. But uh yeah, there's a few things. So the housing accelerator fund and other similar type of, you know, government or city grants, you could say good or bad, but it's kind of become necessary for a lot of downtown projects to be able to pencil out. I would suggest eight or nine out of ten have some form of CMHC financing attached to them. There's also a lot of great nonprofit charitable organizations, faith-based groups developing housing. Those are the projects that are penciling out, but it's usually attached to some type of grant, the rental housing construction incentive from the province of Manitoba. That's really helpful on the pro forma for our clients and for developers. And the flip side of that same coin is now if you take a look at private for-profit developers and clients, which we have many of those as well, they're having to compete with subsidized affordable housing projects. So there are creative ways to do that. But it's very, very difficult for a private developer to compete with a nonprofit for obvious reasons. Yeah, it's a big challenge.

Speaker 25:00

And how are the successful ones responding to that? Building in different areas or other solutions?

Speaker 1 25:06

Yeah. I think instead of going head to head with uh an affordable nonprofit, a lot of the private developers are having to differentiate themselves on quality, you know, to try and attract higher rents. It's like, okay, we have a lot of programming and amenity space in our building. We offer meal service. That's very common in seniors or assisted living. There's a meal program, there's activity programming. But again, that often doesn't translate into affordable rents, right? So I think there's a bit of a chasm there. Um what the part B to that answer would be scale. What we don't see as much of is a 20 or 40, if we're still talking multifamily or apartments. You don't see a lot of small projects. We've really benefited from larger projects and larger contracts, but you know, now we're building 180 unit apartments. And the scale and the economies of scale help those pencil up. That used to be three phases of 60. Now we have clients who are like, I can't do three phases of 60 because it doesn't, the math won't work for financing. We have to build all 180 in one shot. Now you can get your cost per door down, but people are taking on these larger projects, larger risks. And sometimes that's what it's taking for private developers to make it work.

Speaker 26:30

Interesting.

Speaker 1 26:31

And getting harder every minute, unfortunately, is the truth.

Speaker 26:35

Where do you think the best opportunities are in real estate right now and kind of over the next five to ten years is is multifamily or industrial mixed use? Like where are you seeing the best opportunities over the next few years?

Speaker 1 26:47

Yeah, I think it's pretty well diversified. I think the housing you hear a lot in the news, there's a housing crisis, a housing shortage. We've seen that firsthand, but there's a time lag, right? There's a lot of projects in the pipeline right now. And when does the market get saturated or absorption rate kind of reach its equilibrium? So I think as that inventory goes up or the supply of these goes up, you're going to see a balancing act. We've also heard from a lot of our clients the immigration rules are actually very difficult for existing apartment owners as well. So the population growth of Winnipeg is a driver for multifamily. Tons of interesting industrial manufacturing opportunities within our province. Centerport is massive. There's been a wave of very, very good news, large announcements for Centerport. And that's really good for Winnipeg as well and the surrounding areas. And you know, Winnipeg is full of uh business owners and entrepreneurs, whether like two new restaurants in our own building. This group here, they are very, very good at what they do. They are excellent local restaurant operators, and that's what Winnipeg's all about. And going back to our conversation on downtown, like, are we gonna sit here and wait for someone from Vancouver or Toronto to develop downtown Winnipeg? It is gonna be Winnipegers that grow our city. It's gonna be Winnipegers that save the downtown or build the downtown. You look at the people doing it and what True North is doing for Portage Place. I know you had Mark on the podcast. Like, it takes people like him and it takes other Winnipeg business owners to do something about it. Like if we want to protect our city and grow our city, I would like to challenge everybody to make it happen.

Speaker 28:43

Yeah, we gotta do our part and can't rely on others outside to do it for us.

Speaker 1 28:47

Nobody else is gonna come here and do it for us. So we better do it ourselves. Yeah.

Speaker 28:52

From your perspective, what's needed to change the trajectory or the gap on affordable housing? Like, do you see that as just a function of a time leg and it's gonna correct itself, or is there something else that's needed to close that gap on affordability?

Speaker 1 29:07

Yeah, that's a great question. I wish I had had that uh answer conclusively. There's a lot of new apartments that aren't affordable, and I think that's okay. There's a continuum, there's a spectrum of affordable housing. The collaborative, I'm getting this wrong, but the collaborative housing alliance REIT is an excellent initiative from the Manitoba Business Council, and they've got a spectrum of housing. You need market rents, you need below market rents, you need affordable, and you need below affordable, heavily subsidized housing. They all have to work together. When someone builds a new apartment with higher rents, people move out of lower to mid-rents to take their next step up. That opens up affordable housing in existing buildings. So it doesn't always have to be let's build a brand new building and rent it out for the lowest, like affordable, very, very cheap rents. It's the whole spectrum that needs to work together to open up affordable rents. Can we renovate office buildings into affordable rent apartments? So I think there's a number of creative ways that it can be done. It's a puzzle. It's a jigsaw puzzle, that's for sure.

Speaker 30:21

Yeah, it's not if there was an easy answer, we wouldn't be talking about it still.

Speaker 1 30:25

If you figure it out, let me know.

Speaker 30:28

What about for someone who's starting out and investing in multifamily? What kind of advice do you typically give them? Is is building new the right approach? Is it buying existing and then kind of building scale before moving to new development? Or what's the right entry point into multifamily in the current market?

Speaker 1 30:44

Yeah. There's so many different ways to invest. And if you're an investor who's not uh necessarily an active builder or developer, then you need to partner with experienced partners. So there's there's ways to enter as an investor. If you have the experience, then there's a different entry point for an experienced investor. If you're more interested in a passive investment, then you have to align and you know do some good due diligence and homework on those who have figured it out and doing it really well. And be cautious too. Like there's a lot of people that will look for investors to join, join uh, you know, in in their project and what they're planning. So there's a lot of due diligence, I would say, before you just invest in an apartment project.

Speaker 31:32

Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk a little bit about technology. I know construction to an outsider often appears, you know, like it's done, you know, maybe the same way that things were done 20, 30 years ago. But, you know, on the inside there is innovation and change that happens. So where is the innovation actually happening in the construction industry right now? And and where is it still kind of stuck in the 1980s, so to speak?

Speaker 1 31:57

Yeah, for sure. The construction industry is known to be one of the slowest to adopt new technology. And I think that's been proven and and and evident if you if you look at the average job site. And there's so many different ways. So on the AI topic of technology, we're heavily investing in various different AI tools, but there's there's a next level that should be explored as well. If you've heard of the term agentic enterprise, that's the future of AI. Not necessarily using an AI software to help us with scheduling. So that's great. And we're doing that. We're using AI for estimating, and there's all sorts of separate individual tools. But I think the future of that is building an organization internally where we can learn from within. We have so much data, and if you build your tools the right way, we can learn from ourselves. So I won't go too far down that road. Procore, yeah, if I could uh tout the Procore software, we've been heavily uh invested and big supporters. Uh Procore, which is a cloud-based construction management platform that automatically integrates everything happening on our job site in the trailer instantly with our accounting ERP system here and the office. So it's connecting the divide between the job site and the office. And then industry-wide technologies, there's prefab, there's modular. You think of Mass Timber, you think of 3D printing, you think of robot bricklayers. We have the cameras on our hard hats that our supervisor will do a job site uh walkthrough. It instantly records, and using an AI program that we've partnered with, it can identify roughened wiring and what percentage complete. It can identify a problem on the drawings just from that camera walking around the job site on a hard hat. So we're doing that kind of stuff. And it can be overwhelming, if I'm honest. Like I get thrown all sorts of different construction technology pitches and sales decks, and all of them sound amazing, but I think you have to be pretty focused on what you want to do and which path you're heading. Like we can't do, you know, 40 different implementations. So trying to uh focus on the most applicable and what can really move the needle.

Speaker 34:23

Yeah, and I imagine the integration piece too. Like at some point they've got to all work together and talk together. So if they're too fragmented of a, you know, here's one tool and another, but if they don't all work together, then you're setting yourself back to Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:39

And we catch ourselves with that too. We we have three or four different tools we're using, but they don't talk together. So like when a new one comes my way for approval, I'm like, oh man, I don't want to add a fifth or sixth that's in a silo from from the other, you know, software programs we're using.

Speaker 34:57

So Which ones have moved the needle the most for you? Is it more like the Procore where you're connecting the finance and the job site side of things, or is there something else that's been most impactful?

Speaker 1 35:08

Yeah, we were one of the earliest to sign up with Procore. That's probably seven or eight years ago, and they had been around even longer than that. But when we were one of the early adopters, and now you can't even tout that as a new technology, right? So that's just is kind of like the new norm. But we it changed our whole workflows here. We we wrote all of our job descriptions and workflows once we connected the field and the office. That hasn't just moved the needle, it's actually changed, it's changed our whole process here. The one I just mentioned, the the cameras on the hard hats, and that program in particular, it's called Oculo. That Oculo program is probably moving the needle, you know, much more than we've seen in the past using AI to learn from our walkthrough. And it's also connected and integrated to the project drawing. So it knows which room you're in. It sees the electrical wiring in that room, and it's only as good as your inputs, right? So if your drawings are accurate, it will tell you that that plugs in the wrong spot. It will also tell us we're 10 days ahead of schedule, or heaven forbid we're five days behind schedule. Notice how I said ahead of schedule first, but yeah, I love it. It will give us a schedule report on the project just by walking through through the job site. And so that's something we didn't have two years ago.

Speaker 36:39

Oh, that's very cool. That's pretty cool that it can actually get to that level of detail. And I would hope you'd be able to catch something sooner or kind of have more accurate information as you go and you know get projects done more efficiently because of that. Can you talk a little bit about the growth trajectory? I think you you alluded to it earlier, but just mentioning that you're on a growth trajectory with Concord. And, you know, when you came in as president and CEO, that was a goal of yours was to grow the company. But what's been driving the growth and what do you think has contributed to the momentum that you have right now?

Speaker 1 37:12

Yeah, our growth is 100% attributed to our client base. So we are very, very fortunate. And I feel like we've earned the right to say that we're fortunate by performing, but we are very, very fortunate to have a strong, long list of repeat clients. So we have one client in particular. I think we are now on our 18th building for this client over the last 20, 25 years. So I think that's a very strong testament to our growth. And we're growing as our clients are growing. So we're we're succeeding because they are doing well. Actually, here's an interesting little tidbit. I had more recently done a client map for Concord projects, and I went back as far as I could to when Ted started Concord in 1978. And there's kind of four or five key clients over the decades, if you could visualize this, that all map out into this like exponential growth of Concord projects. So if I say uh we have done, I think 1,200 unique projects over the last 48 years, I could attribute like 80% of those projects to four or five clients over the years. So it's like this web of either repeat client or if it's a new client, I'm like, how did that new client, you know, find Concord projects? More often than not, it was a referral from one of our repeat clients. So I like I've mapped that all out. And uh we have an automotive niche, so we built a lot of the car dealerships in the city, I think two-thirds of them, plus or minus. And so that goes back to the Vicker family. 1979, Ted got a very, very small project for Ed Vicker, and then now we're like one of the premier car dealership builders in the province, and it goes back to to the Vicker family. Very cool. It's very, very interesting when you you map it all out like that.

Speaker 39:17

So yeah, and you build the niche really experience of doing it, and then all of a sudden you're the ones that have the qualifications and the knowledge and the know-how, and people are coming back to you for it.

Speaker 1 39:28

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 39:29

What about the decision to be based in Manitoba and kind of, you know, you mentioned you go with your clients elsewhere if they want you to, but what's been behind your decision so far to stay focused on Manitoba versus other places?

Speaker 1 39:42

Yeah. The honest answer there is that it's been my own unwillingness to take on a new province. It might sound a little funny for, you know, a CEO to think that way, but it's true. We had a real opportunity to set up an Alberta office. We have a lot of Alberta clients, and there was one opportunity that could have seen us take on kind of seven, eight projects in Alberta, set up an Alberta Concord, Concord West, whatever you want to call it. And I declined. And and it really was a personal, call it selfish in quotation marks uh decision, where I wasn't quite sure what that might do to me and my family, the relationship with my wife and kids, what that might mean, I would have to ask of my staff or team. The risk of of maybe losing control or thinking of, oh man, there's a lot of construction volume happening uh, you know, a 14-hour drive away from here. And so I hesitated and and I declined. And so I think about expanding geographically as a natural solution. But at the same time, we've done double-digit projects in Calgary by working for people we know, working for clients who are choosing us to go to another province. And then you have to think about the quality of your relationships, maybe over the quantity of your relationships, or a lot of the reasons for that decision to say no.

Speaker 41:16

It sounds like you're prioritizing relationships, which is kind of a bit of a theme in what you're saying, too, where it's you know, relationships with the clients you're working with, but also with the other people that matter, like your family relationships and thinking about the sustainability of both of those in terms of you know, not just you know, the short-term wins, but what fits into the life that you want.

Speaker 1 41:38

Yeah. We talk about that here at Concord too, in the Concord way topic. I could tell everyone Concord wants to be the biggest contractor in Canada. That could actually be our mission statement. We want to be the biggest contractor in Canada. And I like very quickly rise, that's not our goal. That's not my personal mission. PCL is about, you know, like 30 times larger than us, more, probably 100 times larger than than Concord. And that's not why we exist. So what is realistic is we could be the best. We could be that smaller, medium-sized uh contractor who's got the best reputation when someone phones an architect and says, Who should we hire? I I want our name at least to be on the short list. I would never go around and and tell everyone we are the best, but that's a realistic goal. I don't want to set our company's goal up to be the biggest. So I'd I'd rather be high quality again over high quantity.

Speaker 42:42

Yeah. No, I love it. And Concord's been, you know, a longtime supporter within the community of community causes. And I know there's the Concorde Projects Foundation. Can you talk a little bit about where that conviction and drive to give back came from for you? Was it something that was modeled for you, or was it just did it just come later on and when you're thinking more about priorities and community?

Speaker 1 43:06

Yep, that's been there since day one. And again, to give full credit to my uh father and mother and looked at and Mary Paetkau, that's been in his his DNA uh as long as I've known him, that's for sure. So he's always supported great causes, always given back to the community. And he'd be the last person to want his name on a building. He'd prefer no attention at all. So he really led by example. So yeah, philanthropy, community, pride of employment, those are some of the values that Concorde was built on. So always had done it naturally, supported clients we've built for. We do have a very strong network in the nonprofit and faith based communities. So those are a lot of the organizations that we've collaborated with over the years. And then establishing the Concord Projects Foundation, which I think was about seven. Or eight years ago. I think that's one of the crowning achievements of Concord. Having a registered, charitable organization and foundation is just a more structured and formalized way to do what Ted and Mary had already been doing for many, many decades. So yeah, super, super proud of that. Concord, we contribute a certain percentage of our bottom line every year to the foundation. So one of my goals and and thinking of my career moving forward is to really, really grow the foundation as well. And again, it's all under the vision of we want to improve the quality of life for all of the people that you know come across Concord and actually genuinely mean that. Like if we can be helpful, we try to we try to do the best we can.

Speaker 44:47

What's your advice to other Manitoba business leaders who want to give back? Or do you feel like the foundation approach was kind of a game changer for your company when you moved to that model? What advice do you have when when people ask you about philanthropy?

Speaker 1 45:02

Yeah, you gotta give from your heart. That's my best advice. You got to give because you want to, not because you're expected to, or you're begrudgingly giving with the foundation, we really wanted it to be focused. So it's not just, hey, let's donate here or donate there. It's a very seriously thought out and and well planned objectives for the foundation. So in the areas of health and education, supporting capital projects, whether or not we're building them, you know, that's not not the primary criteria. And I don't know if I have to give a lot of advice to other Manitoba business leaders because I think we are known as being some of the most generous uh people. Manitoba's one of the most philanthropic provinces. And you've heard the saying many, many times. There's a lot of quiet money in Manitoba. And I think that's a testament to kind of the some of the things I was just talking about. People give because they want to help. You shouldn't be giving if you're looking for recognition, is just my own opinion. That's the wrong reason.

Speaker 46:11

Yeah, no, absolutely. If you fast forward 10 years from now, you know, what does Concord look like and and what does Winnipeg look like if if we get things right over the next decade?

Speaker 1 46:22

Yeah. What does Concord look like in 10 years? I think it's a natural, continuous improvement of where we are today. So learning from every project we do, growing for sure. I mean, like I said before, if you're not growing, you're dying. So I envision Concord having grown. I'm not trying to hit certain, you know, volume metrics or percentage growth, but we will grow and we will be bigger. We can grow by adding amazing great people to our team. If I can't find amazing or great people to add to our team, then we won't grow that much. So I'd rather grow by adding good people than just adding more projects and scrambling to try and find people to build them. So yeah, in 10 years, Concord, I'd say kind of continuing our reputation of being one of the most trusted builders, one of the larger uh Manitoba-based builders in the province. And maybe a few more repeat and referral clients along the way would be fantastic. Uh, and part B of that for Winnipeg and Concord, I'm I'm truly passionate about building the downtown. So I have joined the recently the Winnipeg Exchange District Biz Board, and that's really got me energized. I would love to see Winnipeg's downtown thriving. There's so many good things happening. And I'd love to reverse a lot of perception that I think is out there from people I know, and probably Nathan, from people you know, you hear it all the time. And I probably was one of them. And you make that little comment about Winnipeg's downtown, and now I take those personally, and I'm like, no way. Like our downtown is something to protect, to build. I I want to see it thrive. So that's a huge passion of mine for the next decade. And in the position where maybe I can do something about it myself.

Speaker 48:20

Yeah. I'm with you there too. I think sometimes the misperceptions come from surface impressions of, you know, maybe social issues, for example. But I think if you actually spend time downtown, it's really obvious what's special about it and what's downtown, you know, you can't replicate it in a suburb or or somewhere else too. And yeah, I'm really privileged to be able to come downtown for work, you know, and be based downtown with my my day job as well. And yeah, it's a great place to spend time. And, you know, it's thanks to the work of people who are just setting the vision of remaking downtown and making it into a place that is really a destination and strengthening it. And yeah, I think we just need more people to to take on to that vision like you have. And, you know, like you mentioned, true north and others that are just leading the way.

Speaker 1 49:10

Yeah. And look at what's happening at the forks. Like we're very thankful we're building four of those. I think there's 11 or 12 new buildings at the forks for railside. That's going to be amazing. Like, that's a huge draw for Winnipeg. And and to have another, you know, hub or community at the forks is incredible. Look at our arts and cultural groups. If you look at the concert hall, and there's a huge redevelopment for the Pantages, there's a lot of exciting, like we have world-class arts and cultural establishments and organizations here. But look at the families who are supporting that. I can drop all the names, but you look at the Richardsons and the Chipmans, and it goes beyond. Like I'm never gonna mention everyone, but those are Winnipegers supporting Winnipeg. Couldn't repeat that one enough. Like we have to do it. Nobody else is gonna do it.

Speaker 50:06

Yeah, no, it's a great message and great way to end the podcast there. Thanks, Nolan, for coming on the Building Manitoba podcast. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 50:13

Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a blast. I I truly enjoyed it, Nathan. So thank you again.

Speaker 50:19

If you found this conversation valuable, I'd encourage you to subscribe to the Building Manitoba Review. It's a short practical breakdown of the key insights and lessons from each episode, along with actionable takeaways for building and growing businesses here in Manitoba. You can find the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next episode.