Welcome Guest!
In order to take advantage of all the great features that Waterloo Region Connected has to offer, including participating in the lively discussions below, you're going to have to register. The good news is that it'll take less than a minute and you can get started enjoying Waterloo Region's best online community right away.
or Create an Account




Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
General Business Updates and News
#1
General Business Updates and News
Reply


#2
One year after near death, Barbarian is hiring again
August 30, 2014 | Rose Simone | Waterloo Region Record | Link
Quote:KITCHENER — The clattering of sewing machines on the large shop floor in the plant on Trillium Drive is a good sign of life.

Last year at this time, Barbarian Sports Wear, a manufacturer of high quality rugby jerseys, spirit wear and sports team clothing for schools around the world, was in receivership and looked to be dead, another casualty of an ailing North American clothing and textile industry.

But then, Steve Wagner, the 50-year-old founder of Salus Marine Wear, a Waterloo-based manufacturer of life jackets, bought the assets of the Kitchener-based business. Within a few months of the deal last October, 40 of the 75 workers who lost their jobs were called back.

Little by little, they brought the plant back to life. It wasn't an easy thing to do, Wagner says. "We lost a lot of momentum because customers thought the company was shut down."

A company needs licenses to make the school clothing, and many of those licenses had to be reapplied for. That took months to accomplish, especially in the United States, Wagner explains. Meanwhile, customers had already started booking orders elsewhere, so Barbarian had to work hard to get them back.

But gradually, they did come back.

Barbarian now employs about 60 people and is facing a challenge that is the opposite of what it faced a year ago: the need for more workers. Wagner says the plant needs to hire at least 10 more people, which would nearly bring it back to the staff complement it had before last year's shutdown.

The plant is now making about 400 shirts a day and Wagner says he would like to boost production.

The job doesn't pay a huge amount — the average is about $13 an hour — but Barbarian offers benefits after three months and the shifts that are entirely days, 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with no weekends. Wagner says it's a great job for people with children at home who have dexterity and an interest in sewing.

The ideal employee would have sewing experience, but the floor supervisor, Maria Aguiar, is willing to train, Wagner says. "She has a few new people who have never done it before but have caught on well. So if she senses an eagerness and ability, she will give them a try."

It's tough to find sewers because there aren't a lot of young people going into the trade, Wagner says.

But the challenge of finding workers is a nice problem for Barbarian to have, given that a year ago people thought there would be no jobs. As Wagner walks around and looks at the huge circular knitting machines and sewing machines on the plant floor, he shakes his head. "Can you believe that all of this was almost dismantled?" he says.

Despite the rebound in business, it is still a challenging business, Wagner says. "You have to make sure the amount of money coming in the front door is more than what is going out the back." But the plant is definitely on more solid ground now, he says.

Thread is imported from cotton-growing regions in the United States, dyed at the dye houses and then shipped to Kitchener, where it gets loaded onto giant circular knitting machines that produce fabric, which is then cut and sewn for a 100 per cent North American product.

The quality of Barbarian shirts is a big reason customers came back, Wagner says. They "are virtually indestructible," he says.

The company exports shirts to countries like South Korea and Japan. That may come as a surprise to people who think Canada only imports textiles, but those countries have affluent markets with people who appreciate the high quality fabrics and English labels, Wagner says.

Barbarian is able to have quick turnaround times and has the flexibility to do custom orders in smaller quantities. Overseas competitors require much higher minimum orders to ship a container, Wagner says.

Wagner is trying to expand the company's product line. It sells casual wear to retailers such as Adventure Guide and is looking at other opportunities in the retail market.

Less than a year after Barbarian nearly vanished, Wagner is looking forward to a bright future. More trailer loads of cotton have been ordered for next year. A year ago, people were worried about their jobs. Now, "we need to produce more," he says.
Reply
#3
Waterloo pitches open data incubator
September 9, 2014 | Paige Desmond | Waterloo Region Record | Link
Quote:WATERLOO — Waterloo city councillors want to go into the data business — but they would have to spend about $3.8 million to do it.

Monday, city staff unveiled a proposal to convert the Carnegie library at 40 Albert St. into a data centre, at an estimated cost of $3.8 million. That's equal to an approximate 6.3 per cent tax increase.

The idea is to create an incubator that could attract entrepreneurs in the field of open data. Open data is a movement to make government information more easily accessible.

But the plan, which has been worked behind the scenes up until Monday, raised concerns for at least one councillor who questioned the strength of the business plan.

"I like the idea of an incubator, but we need to have a better understanding as to what the financial implications are," Coun. Karen Scian said. "I hope we don't lose sight of those really important red flags that are flying around."

Scian said there's no indication as to whether the project would generate revenue, be charitable and fall somewhere in between.

Councillors voted unanimously to spend about $234,000 on architectural and design work with the remaining project costs to be considered during the 2015 budget process.

The goal is to create a city-run incubator that focuses on open data. It would be branded The Data Mine. It would help entrepreneurs develop and then help them relocate, staff said.

"You're looking forward and looking far forward taking a heritage piece of our community and turning it into a jewel of the future," Coun. Mark Whaley said. "Hopefully, it's something that we can deliver on but this is a good first step."

If the city was unable to cover operating costs by renting space to tenants, it would cost taxpayers about $540,000 between 2015 and 2024 to operate the centre, a staff report said.

Staff project about six short-term tenants and up to two long-term tenants within the building.

Coun. Jeff Henry said regardless of what the library is ultimately repurposed into, the city must maintain the designated heritage building so spending the $234,000 is good start.

"We have a responsibility to the past and future to make sure it is maintained," Henry said.

Ahead of pitching the project to council, staff sought letters of support from community members and received them from several, including Kitchener-Waterloo MP Peter Braid, Waterloo Public Library, three University of Waterloo departments and Wilfrid Laurier University.

According to a staff report, the data centre would serve as a home to startups developing open data projects.
Reply
#4
Kitchener’s PrinterOn acquired by Samsung

Waterloo Region Record
By Terry Pender


KITCHENER — There will be few changes at PrinterOn— a local company that pioneered mobile cloud-based printing — following its purchase by technology giant Samsung Electronics.

Angus Cunningham, the Kitchener company's chief executive officer, said most of the 40 employees working in the firm's McIntyre Drive office will notice no difference. ...

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/484 ... y-samsung/
Reply
#5
Square has opened its office at 305 King St W.

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/484 ... kitchener/
Reply
#6
Owner of Square's new Kitchener HQ hopes to revive 'dead zone'
Tapas and wine bar, juice bar soon to open at 305 King St. W.

May 14, 2014 | CBC News | Link
Quote:The massive office building at the corner of King and Water streets that will house mobile payment company Square's Canadian headquarters will soon be home to a pair of ground-floor eateries, part of what the building's owner calls an attempt to bring some life to a "dead zone" in downtown Kitchener.

Square, the brainchild of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, announced Tuesday it signed a lease for the location at 305 King St. W.

Mobile payment startup Square to open permanent Canadian office
"We've already started to see a nice mix of different types of tech companies. So they're just going to add to that mix," said Craig Beattie, founding partner of Perimeter Development Corp., which owns the building.

In an interview with Craig Norris on The Morning Edition on Wednesday Beattie said two new eateries, Gilt, a wine and tapas bar, and Pure, a juice bar and cafe, will be opening up on the ground floor of the building.

"One of our priorities when we acquired that building was to really re-inject some life to the ground floor at the corner of King and Water Street. It's been a bit of a dead zone for many, many years. The previous operation didn't bring any life to that corner at all," he said.


The previous tenant, a bar/restaurant called Honest Lawyer, occupied the ground floor, which was a large space.

Instead of trying to find one large restaurant operator to take over the ground floor, Perimeter elected to split up the space and lease it to the two eateries, Beattie said.

"We've wanted to create a bit of variety there," he said.

Perimeter is still "plowing ahead" with cleaning up the building as it seeks more tenants, according to Beattie.

By and large, tech companies have expressed interest in the vacant space, but some existing tenants in the building are expanding, he said.

The building has 120,000 square feet of space. When Perimeter acquired it, at least 60,000 square feet were unoccupied, said Beattie. So far, Perimeter has filled 20,000 square feet.

"We're thrilled with where we're at. We're ahead of our schedule," Beattie said.
Reply
#7
eSentire lands $14 million to boost cyber security efforts

Waterloo Region Record
By Terry Pender


CAMBRIDGE — Cyber-security firm eSentire Inc. has raised $14 million in a new round of funding and will immediately begin hiring 40 employees for its research facility in Cambridge.

Chief executive officer J. Paul Haynes said the investment will help the Cambridge-based company expand into new sectors, such as critical infrastructure, technology and bio-pharma.

"That is a tall order, we never had to hire so many technologists all at once," Haynes said. "So it is going to be a challenge for us. The skills we require are security specific."

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/486 ... y-efforts/
Reply


#8
Another article on eSentire, this time in the Globe and Mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on...d/follows/
Reply
#9
CBC is reporting that Montreal venture capital firm iNovia's new office will be located at 119 King St W, not in Waterloo as reported by the Record.
Reply
#10
Trade-Mark Industrial on the move to much larger home
Oct 22, 2014 | Brent Davis | The Record | LINK


Quote:CAMBRIDGE — When the Straus family was looking to further expand Trade-Mark Industrial Inc.about a year ago, they were faced with a key decision.

Should they purchase another property in Kitchener to complement the six buildings they had amassed over the years in the Union Street area?

Or should they look elsewhere for a single property with the goal of bringing everybody together under one roof?

They chose the latter, and now the big move for the multi-trade contractor is underway.

By mid-November, the company should be settling into its new home, the former Automated Tooling Systems plant on Royal Oak Road in Cambridge.

The sprawling plant offers more than 365,000 square feet of space, significantly more than the collective 150,000 square feet at its Kitchener properties.

"Efficiency is the key," said Thomas Straus, vice-president of millwrighting and rigging and one of the five Straus siblings — with Dan, David, Ken and Connie — who work alongside parents Russ and Linda in the tightly knit family business.

Add to that the fact that virtually every area of the firm needs more space and the decision to move to the larger building makes a lot of sense.

"It allows us to add more services as well," said president Russ Straus, who founded Trade-Mark in 1998.

The company purchased the Cambridge plant and owns the existing real estate in Kitchener. It is in the process of finding tenants for those buildings.

The Cambridge site will allow the firm to store all of its equipment inside, and the company also will be able to provide short-term equipment storage for customers — something it wasn't really able to do in Kitchener.

The expansion will likely allow Trade-Mark to ultimately add 100 or so new employees to a roster that currently totals about 480.

That includes offshoot TM3 Inc., which specializes in street lights and traffic signals, and United Electric, a small Guelph-based electrical firm it owns that will move to the Cambridge site.

Trade-Mark also has an American branch based in Kentucky. With the manufacturing sector in the recovery mode in the United States, there could be an opportunity for the company to expand its operations there as well, said Dan Straus, vice-president of finance.

Trade-Mark specializes in millwrighting and rigging, electrical, piping, fabrication, structural, sheet metal and HVAC installations and repairs for the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors.

"We get involved after the shell (of a building) is in place," explained Thomas.

The company's work can involve installing new equipment, systems and machines, or moving, replacing, repairing or modifying what's already there.

The majority of its jobs involve more than one area of a company, explained David Straus, vice-president of automotive.

"We're a one-stop shop," added Thomas.

Trade-Mark's clients include the Toyota plants in Cambridge and Woodstock, the Sifto salt mine in Goderich, Dofasco in Hamilton and universities in Waterloo, Guelph and Hamilton.

Sales are expected to reach about $120 million this year, representing more than a 30 per cent increase over last year.

"That internal growth also prompted us to bring everybody under one roof and have enough room for future growth for a while," Russ said.

To support its work, Trade-Mark has a number of specialized in-house facilities, including sheet metal, pipe and miscellaneous metals fabrication shops, an equipment assembly shop, a custom machine shop, an electric motor rewind shop and vehicle repair.

It also owns and rents a wide variety of equipment, such as cranes and forklifts, and operates a fleet of tractor-trailers, to haul whatever's required for the job at hand.

"We do anywhere from $500 jobs to our biggest job to date, $23 million. That gives you an idea of our capabilities," Russ said.

"I didn't visualize at all that the company would ever grow to where it is," he admitted.

Family members attribute much of the firm's success to its all-in-the-family approach, where each Straus sibling or parent is a senior manager or owner.

"There certainly is a lot of trust," Russ said. "It's all we know," added Dan.

Prior to founding Trade-Mark, Russ ran a similar, but smaller, business in St. Agatha.

"We never want to lose sight of our roots," he said. "We never want to lose that base where we started from."
Reply
#11
Almost 500 employees and I must confess that I had not heard of them before the Record article. It will be interesting to see what moves in to the buildings they will be leaving.
Reply
#12
Ottawa's Shopify is opening a small "sales lab" in the Tannery building.

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/4939...kitchener/
Reply
#13
That's great news. I can't help but feel like as these companies open up small shops, they'll eventually just grow and grow
Reply


#14
Clearly they're setting up a listening outpost to spy on Square!
Reply
#15
The Globe and Mail is reporting that a Chinese company will be investing in a new steel nail factory in Kitchener that will employ up to 80 people.
Reply
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »



Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)

About Waterloo Region Connected

Launched in August 2014, Waterloo Region Connected is an online community that brings together all the things that make Waterloo Region great. Waterloo Region Connected provides user-driven content fueled by a lively discussion forum covering topics like urban development, transportation projects, heritage issues, businesses and other issues of interest to those in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and the four Townships - North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich.

              User Links