Bigfoot Industrial grows, diversifies its business
Just over a year ago, I reported on the great job Jesse Messom had done custom welding and fabricating the roaster at Phil & Sebastian’s in the Simmons Building.
Since then, his Bigfoot Industrial Services company has grown at a remarkable pace, including growing his staff from 13 to 67, and Bigfoot continues to look for additional experienced millwrights and welders.
Messom is now on the lookout to purchase a larger industrial building to house the extra staff and more equipment.
He credits the continued growth to amplifying marketing efforts and creating more brand awareness, while adding to his management team.
Kerri McGrath, formerly director of client relations at Arlington Investments, joined the firm as chief operating officer, and Bigfoot also added a full-time controller, a project manager and estimators to its office staff.
After Messom launched his own millwright, welding and fabrication company from the back of his pickup truck in 2010, he quickly decided to diversify his client base instead of relying on the oil and gas business he had worked with at his former job.
That decision has paid off handsomely. Although he still has customers in the energy sector, he has been able to serve a wide range of businesses with a broad spectrum of needs.
A major type of work has been in the supply and installation of conveyors, beginning with one of its earlier clients, FedEx, handling all of the maintenance at its Aero Drive N.E. sorting depot. Now it is designing conveyor systems for other distribution companies, and provides installation and contract maintenance to many others, including power generation stations, flour mills, barley mills and secure shredding facilities.
Recently, Bigfoot was contracted to demolish the old conveyor systems and install a new one and platforms at the Old Dutch potato chip plant in Calgary and will be installing the new conveyor systems for the Amazon Fulfilment Centre in Balzac. It has already completed a job in Amazon’s facility in Boston and is answering calls from other U.S. firms to team up on larger projects.
To continue to diversify service offerings, as a value-added opportunity for existing clients and as a lead generation tool for new clients, Bigfoot has launched a not-for-profit network support trade association, I-CAS, which consists of like-minded trade service suppliers.
Bigfoot has teamed up with IUT, an oil and gas clean technology company focused on desulphurization of hydrocarbons. McGrath is vice-president development for the company that has partnered with Pedro Pereira and his team of engineers at PC-CUPS, a company born as a spinoff from the University of Calgary that is stewarding the chemical/catalyst engineering process as IUT moves toward finalizing its research and development to desulphurize heavier fuel oils.
New International Marine Organization regulations state that by 2020, ships will not be allowed to burn heavy oil fuels with sulphur content of more than 0.5 per cent. Today, that figure is around three to four per cent, so IUT is working hard to help solve their problems, which could mean installation of units at onshore terminals around the world, as opposed to installing scrubbers on vessels.
IUT already has eight U.S. patents for lighter fuels and recently registered its first for the work it is doing with heavy fuel oil.
The progress over the past year of Messom and his team at Bigfoot Industrial Services — that will manufacture and assemble IUT’s units — is remarkable, and a good example of what hard work and good service can achieve.
NOTES
Sierra Leone war widow N’Mamah Kamara will take her first plane ride and visit outside of her country when she visits Calgary next month. She is coming at the invitation of Sylvia Rempel, former owner of Sun Ice, thanks to her Sewing Seeds Foundation. One of Rempel’s star students, N’Mamah learned to sew at one of its schools, graduated at the top her class and now runs a thriving, local industry employing others in her community, and has opened her own training school. N’Mamah will meet with Sewing Seeds supporters here and be the guest of honour at a fundraising tea on June 3 at Mount Royal University’s Roderick Mah Centre for Continuous Learning.