NOMODIC: A MODULAR BUILDER THRIVING ON QUALITY AND SPEED
Kevin Read launched Nomodic Modular Structures in 2013 with one other employee. Today, he has a staff of 20 in his Calgary office and another 40 in Edmonton, Vernon, B.C., Toronto and Seattle.
Read went from EP Scarlett High School to Mount Royal University to earn his bachelor of applied business and entrepreneurship, but then left Calgary for Australia with a one-year visa to play ice hockey there. While Down Under, he worked on his first construction job helping to build a roller-hockey rink. The grand opening was sponsored by the Cadbury’s Caramello Koala chocolate bars and, being the only one who could in-line skate, Read had the job of skating around in a Koala mascot suit.
Back home, he found work in oilfield process and control. He wasn’t sold on working hard for someone else and, thanks to a friend whose family built single-family modular structures in Saskatchewan, he decided to start a similar company here.
Read spent time touring Calgary fabricators and figured he could build faster and of a higher quality. He set about building a team of experienced project managers with a focus on good in-house design.
He decided to concentrate on permanent modular construction and hasn’t looked back, branching out from industrial buildings to supplying everything from remote single-family cabins to urban multi-family developments and boutique resort properties.
Read says there are many advantages to modular construction, including faster completion time over conventional construction methods; better quality control by building indoors in a controlled environment, resulting in a higher-quality product; less community disruption; and less construction site waste.
A good example is the underconstruction expansion for Duffin Cove Oceanfront Lodging, a resort hotel in Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Nomodic is tripling the resort’s capacity by adding 18 guest suites that were designed in the Calgary office and project managed by its staff — including securing necessary permits — but the units were built by a Nomodic-approved contractor on Vancouver Island, and will be delivered and placed on site under Nomodic supervision.
Nomodic’s crew will arrange for delivery, pad, crane rental and building envelope before turning it all over to the owner.
British Columbia has provided a number of opportunities for Nomodic. The Calgary firm has been qualified as a supplier of industrial buildings and is currently providing modular housing to the B.C. Rapid Response to Homelessness program.
In Terrace and Smithers, it is supplying a total of 70 units under the program.
Using subcontractors to do the actual building cuts down transportation costs and Read’s overhead, such as the need for larger plant space, while fuelling his design and project management team.
Also close to Terrace, Nomodic has a First Nations project to build two duplexes that are under construction for the Gitwangal Nation.
The company also has a relocatable division that takes down, moves and rebuilds camps for companies such as ATCO, Black Diamond Group, Horizon North and Civeo.
Read’s staff in Calgary is busy and he is looking for more architectural designers to support an increase of work in Western Canada and his drive for new business in Ontario.
Success has also meant being recognized as one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 by the Financial Post.
Notes: Congratulations to Cilantro, the Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts restaurant on 17th Avenue S.E., celebrating 30 years in business. The first of CRMR’s restaurants, it was one of the first to break the Calgary steak house mould when it brought the first Italian wood-burning pizza oven to the city.