City business a major power in electrical-line development
Valard Construction to begin work on $1.5-billion project with parent firm
One of Canada’s biggest utility contractors runs a low-profile $1-billion international operation out of a nondescript office building on the edge of a south Edmonton industrial park.
“We fly under the radar because we’re a national business,” Valard Construction president Adam Budzinski said Friday.
“We have spent a lot of time on the road working with clients, but we have built a stable business here. We probably have in Alberta 700 employees working on a consistent basis.”
The firm his father Vic, a former telecom lineman, founded in 1978 when he bought out his partners in Grande Prairie is now involved in some of the biggest projects on the continent.
Valard is on schedule to complete North America’s largest contracted power transmission development in November, an 1,100-kilometre high-voltage line from Labrador’s Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant to a location near St. Johns, N.L.
This spring it will start building the $1.5-billion, 500-kilovolt west line from Wabamun to Fort McMurray as part of the partnership between Valard’s Houston, Texasbased owner Quanta Services and ATCO.
“We have grown from, when I first joined (around 2002), 250 employees to now just over 4,000,” said Budzinski, also president of Quanta Services Electric & Power Canada.
“My dad Vic had really good ideas to grow conservatively and not step outside his expertise and the performance we could reasonably deliver — always maintain quality product and always seek out the best people.”
Although Quanta bought the company in 2010, the headquarters remained in Edmonton, Vic stayed on as chief executive and Adam became president.
They had looked at options to selling, such as bringing in other investors or issuing shares on the stock market, but feel they fit well with Quanta’s management and are happy to be part of the giant firm.
“They gave us access to a lot of capital that allowed the business to grow at a time when the pace of growth was probably going to outpace our own finances,” Budzinski said.
“At some point ownership isn’t everything … We’re still doing what we love, we’re able to create employment for people we love, and the sale of the company attracted considerable capital into Alberta from the United States.”
Vic, 65, is retiring in April. Although he’ll still be a consultant for the parent company, his 37-yearold son will be in charge.
Budzinski has no intention of moving Valard out of Edmonton, where it has been based for the last nine years, but has his eye on a future in which a major boom in Alberta and B.C. power transmission construction is ending.
The company has won its first big European contract, a 110-kilometre electric link in Norway, plans to move more into erecting fibre optic telecommunication lines and is looking at building wind farms.
His goal is to double annual revenues to $2 billion, possibly within five or six years, because he said even renewable and cogeneration power projects must be connected to the grid.
“The electrical business has a bright future … The world’s (looking at) electric cars. I think electricity is here for the long run.”