Local Business
The first Snow Wolf SB-1050 prototype being tested at Southport.
Ploughing ahead with a great idea
By Roger Monk J
ust west of Winnipeg, at the Southport Aerospace Centre, near Portage la Prairie, you’ll find Airport Technologies Inc. It’s an unassuming location for a pretty amazing Manitoba company.
Airport Technologies Inc., or ATI, began when three
friends, Barry Smith, Gary Wright and Larry Rushton made a business case to “re-life” (repurpose or rebuild) air- port snow removal machinery in order to help grow the service company they were working for. Changes in upper management led the company they worked for to pull the plug on their business idea. Undeterred, the three believed that they had a solid business case and bought out the company’s investment in their idea to pursue it on their own, creating ATI. It was a risky move. Tey left solid jobs to pursue entre-
preneurship. It was a modest start for a company that now manufactures two critical pieces of airport snow removal equipment for airports throughout Canada and the United States. In addition to the distribution of their Snow Maul- er and Snow Wolf, the company still re-lifes older equip- ment and even produces specialized plows for highway and airport operations. Shortly after their opening in August 2000, ATI in-
vited a few members of Winnipeg Airports Authority’s (WAA’s) airfield operations team out to look at two pro- totype machines they had completed; a re-life blower and re-life sweeper. By implementing WAA’s feedback with their own 50 years of combined experience, they were able to ensure that their equipment would be able to satisfy an airport’s unique snow removal needs.
72 • Winter 2014 Less than two years later, in January 2002, ATI won
the bid to re-life one of the airport sweepers. Later that year when WAA was looking for a new plow truck, ATI submitted a proposal for their newly designed vehicle, the Snow Mauler PV-350. Tis was their first venture into new machine manufacturing. Te time and expense invested in developing the new equipment paid off big time because they won the WAA bid. “WAA has a reputation of being innovators and they are
not afraid to try new things. I think they saw the quality of our product and decided to give us a chance and perhaps to some degree because we were a Manitoba company,” says Barry. From there they have grown their business to offer airport clients from coast to coast across North America their distinct product lines. WAA currently owns eight of ATI’s Snow Maulers and two of their Snow Wolfs. “We own the second Snow Wolf made by Airport Tech- nologies. It meets or exceeds our needs and keeps up to the plows. Te open mouth concept of the Snow Wolf just feeds on the snow and it really throws a lot,” explains Ron Fife, supervisor of mobile maintenance at WAA. “It’s a pleasure working with those guys (at ATI); they really listen.” Barry Smith, president of ATI, explained how grateful
he is for his company’s success. “We used to apologize for being a little company from the Prairies, but we no longer do that because we are every bit as good as any competitor in our market,” said Barry. “We owe much of our success to businesses such as Winnipeg Airports Authority for be- lieving in us and giving us the opportunity to build equip-
The Hub
Photo by Airport Technologies Inc.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96