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Weekly UpdatesIn 1989, Caron Hopfner and George Partyka started repairing transformers for SaskPower in a small garage in Regina. Both were electrical technologists who left good jobs in the transformer industry to run their own business, Partner Technologies Inc.(PTI).
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The risk paid off. Within a year, PTI moved to bigger premises to keep pace with its repair orders.
"SaskPower was in the middle of its rural underground distribution project and they were taking pole mounted transformers off farms that had nothing wrong with them, so we got the idea to take the guts out of them and put them into padmounts that would be required for underground service," says PTI President Hopfner.
Then, on the basis of a new contract secured with SaskPower--who were to continue the rural underground distribution program--PTI moved to a still bigger space in 1995.
"But the program never went ahead, and we were forced to expand our customer base and product line because of it."
Manitoba Hydro, BC Hydro, and power companies in Alberta liked the new products. Before long, PTI was building larger and larger transformers that could serve industrial mining sites, shopping centres, apartment blocks and other industrial applications. The growth in business was exciting. "We went from building and selling small padmount transformers worth a thousand or two to building high voltage units worth well over a million dollars," says Hopfner. "It also meant that in 1998 we had to move yet again to a 100,000 sq.-ft. facility with more head room where we could install cranes."
PTI now employs over 100 people and is focused on building the High Voltage (HV) Padmount it designed in collaboration with Manitoba Hydro because of the enormous advantages it offers. Key is its size: where traditional transformers require large fenced compounds, the HV Padmount performs the same function in a box the size of a tool shed. In densely-populated areas where real estate is at a premium, PTI's innovation saves utility and industrial companies millions. PTI units are now shipped across Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean, and as far away as South America, Europe and Africa.
Earlier this year, PTI was named one of Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies in a program sponsored by Deloitte, CIBC, the National Post, and Queen's School of Business. Hopfner and Partyka credit their hard-working employees, their commitment to customer service and innovation, and a quality assurance program it implemented several years ago for the success PTI now enjoys.
There are always challenges, however--the most recent being how to keep the business running and their employees working once Hopfner and Partyka decide to retire.
"We're now putting together a management team and strategically figuring out how to grow old," Hopfner chuckles, "but we're not out of gas yet, and it's still fun to work here!"
Visit PTI's website at http://partnertechnologies.net
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