Content area
Full Text
Love of building led childhood friends to form Kenaidan Contracting Ltd.
MISSISSAUGA, ONT.
Childhood friends Aidan Flatley and Ken Smith established Kenaidan Contracting Ltd. in 1974 while still at university.
"We wanted to work for ourselves," recalled Flatley, now president of the employee-owned general contracting company which operates both in Canada and the United States.
"We had held part-time jobs in construction. We really liked building."
Kenaidan has come a long way since then.
The company now provides general contracting, design-build, construction and project management services in a wide variety of sectors.
It self-performs the concrete divisions of its contracts. It also offers speciality slipforming and concrete tilt-up services.
On top of that, Kenaidan has been successful in operating on an open shop basis.
"We don't discriminate," Flatley said.
"It (awarding of subcontracts) is based on qualifications and price. We don't have a master plan to go one way or the other."
The co-founders met when Smith sold Flatley his paper route. After setting up Kenaidan, the partners plowed snow during the winter and worked on small commercial projects in the summer months.
Initially, the two young entrepreneurs worked out of the basement of the Flatley family home. They stored materials in the Smith family's backyard.
In their last year at York University, the two did about $500,000 of business.
"We were really motivated," Flatley said looking back. "We needed the money to get us through university."
The two graduated in 1978--Flatley with an economics degree and Smith with a bachelor of science degree. While they had their share of job offers, they opted to turn their part-time contracting business into a full-blown enterprise.
[Graph Not Transcribed]
"We decided we were happy with what we were doing and wanted to see how it worked doing it full-time."
As it turned out, Kenaidan was successful on its very first bid--for the interior demolition of Rochdale College in Toronto.
While that project went well--Flatley and his partner got the lead through Daily Commercial News--it took Kenaidan a good year to land its second job.
"We thought we had it down pat--bid a job, get a job," Flatley recalled with a laugh.
"We then learned that you only get about 10 or 20 per cent of the...