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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Mario Toniguchi, managing editor of Canada's podcast network.
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: Joining me today is Benjamin Henningger, founder of Groon Construction on Calgary's podcast.
[00:18] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me today, Benjamin.
[00:21] SPEAKER_00: No problem, thanks for having me, Mario.
[00:23] SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk about Groon Construction. Tell me what you guys do.
[00:28] SPEAKER_01: We're a boutique construction company.
[00:31] SPEAKER_01: So I do foundation assessments and repairs and general contracting.
[00:36] SPEAKER_01: Okay, and how long have you started this?
[00:39] SPEAKER_01: Groon Construction was created in 2019.
[00:44] SPEAKER_01: It was sort of renamed.
[00:46] SPEAKER_01: I've been doing foundation repair for almost 25 years.
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: So we had a rebranding and refacing of the company.
[01:00] SPEAKER_01: So it's been around for a while, but Groon Construction, forage consulting my professional division of it has been around since 2019.
[01:08] SPEAKER_00: Okay, and tell me just a little bit about the name.
[01:13] SPEAKER_00: Where does Groon come from?
[01:16] SPEAKER_01: Well, I have a tendency to do things a little differently.
[01:19] SPEAKER_01: I like what I like.
[01:23] SPEAKER_01: Mario, let me put it that way.
[01:25] SPEAKER_01: I wanted to have a name for my new for this company that was like nothing else, but reflected my personal brand.
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: So I have Icelandic roots.
[01:37] SPEAKER_01: So I started looking into different words, different names.
[01:41] SPEAKER_01: And Groon is an Icelandic word for base.
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: And I focus and specialize on foundations.
[01:49] SPEAKER_01: And that's the base of your of any structure as your foundation.
[01:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you don't have foundation, you're pretty much toast, aren't you?
[01:58] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're going to have issues if you got a bad one too.
[02:01] SPEAKER_00: So when you're talking foundations, you're talking primarily residential or?
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: Um, we do everything.
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: So we will do commercial, but mostly residential.
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: So how did you get involved in this?
[02:17] SPEAKER_01: My dad has owned his own concrete restoration company since 83.
[02:26] SPEAKER_01: So growing up in the house of an entrepreneur, we didn't get allowance.
[02:30] SPEAKER_01: We got to go down to the shop and sweep up and clean out vehicles.
[02:34] SPEAKER_01: And when we were old enough, we go out on sites.
[02:38] SPEAKER_01: And part of the scope of what my dad used to do in the winter, we would fix foundations.
[02:47] SPEAKER_01: So we do all sorts of concrete repair.
[02:51] SPEAKER_01: We would do coatings and things like that.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: And in the winter, injections and concrete repair, like how I fix these cracks in the foundations,
[03:01] SPEAKER_01: they would start to be a mainstay.
[03:04] SPEAKER_01: And he would get rid of a lot of his seasonal employees and keep family on.
[03:10] SPEAKER_01: I'm the youngest of four.
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: So my brother and I would work with him.
[03:14] SPEAKER_01: And I learned how to do these at about the age 18.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: And just kind of figured out how to do it.
[03:22] SPEAKER_01: And got good at it.
[03:24] SPEAKER_01: It's always helpful when you have a good understanding of epoxies and mixing chemical and chemical.
[03:31] SPEAKER_01: And it's always helpful as the chemical reactions and surface prep and stuff.
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: So I kind of came by that honestly.
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: No education in terms of specific education is just trial by fire on the ground.
[03:42] SPEAKER_00: Oh, really? Okay, then.
[03:45] SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about the company and your plans.
[03:49] SPEAKER_00: Growth plans for the company.
[03:54] SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of quite a few companies in the past that I've grown.
[03:57] SPEAKER_01: And there's certain aspects of it that I really liked in terms of developing cultures and things like that.
[04:05] SPEAKER_01: But what I truly like the most is being a lone wolf.
[04:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[04:12] SPEAKER_01: Being, you know, the chef cook and bottle washer, everything.
[04:16] SPEAKER_01: Right?
[04:16] SPEAKER_01: So I do everything from my own marketing, which I'm getting some help with now.
[04:22] SPEAKER_01: I do the field work.
[04:26] SPEAKER_01: I do the engineering work that's associated with it.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: And quite honestly, I don't think I'm going to get any bigger.
[04:31] SPEAKER_01: I want to keep it just me.
[04:33] SPEAKER_01: I want to keep it small and boutique.
[04:35] SPEAKER_01: That way I can control quality coming out.
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: I can.
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: I like that.
[04:41] SPEAKER_01: I like that aspect of it.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: So plans to get bigger.
[04:45] SPEAKER_00: So what are the, you know, what other companies did you have in the past?
[04:52] SPEAKER_01: Right out of university, I started an environmental engineering company.
[04:56] SPEAKER_01: I'm a civil engineer.
[04:58] SPEAKER_01: I took quite a few environmental courses.
[05:00] SPEAKER_01: I linked up with a partner who is a friend of mine.
[05:03] SPEAKER_01: And we started up a environmental company.
[05:06] SPEAKER_01: We worked on some right-of-ways up in environmental aspects of right-of-ways for power lines up in Northern Alberta.
[05:14] SPEAKER_01: I've.
[05:15] SPEAKER_01: I'm branched out on my own as a consultant.
[05:18] SPEAKER_01: I'm a project management consultant.
[05:19] SPEAKER_01: That's where most of my background is.
[05:21] SPEAKER_01: Is commercial and industrial project management.
[05:26] SPEAKER_01: And then I started an electrical engineering company and field services.
[05:30] SPEAKER_01: We used to build substations with the utilities in Alberta.
[05:34] SPEAKER_01: As well as a lot of the big industry, big oil up north.
[05:39] SPEAKER_01: Those are the real notable ones.
[05:42] SPEAKER_01: And then the interesting part is.
[05:45] SPEAKER_01: I've been doing injections and foundation repair and analysis throughout all of those.
[05:53] SPEAKER_01: They've all kind of just been going from the background.
[05:56] SPEAKER_01: And kind of carried all the way through.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: I've really never let it go.
[06:01] SPEAKER_00: Well, interesting.
[06:02] SPEAKER_00: What would you say, you know, imagine there's a bunch of companies, similar companies out there that do what you do.
[06:10] SPEAKER_00: What would you say differentiates you from other companies?
[06:16] SPEAKER_01: To my knowledge in the region, I'm the only one who's an engineer who has an engineer on stuff.
[06:22] SPEAKER_01: So I bring the ethics and responsibilities of a professional engineer into every job site that I go on.
[06:33] SPEAKER_01: So I'd say that is probably my biggest differentiator.
[06:36] SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, then what would I, what I'm just curious when you when you flip back the clock and time.
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: And into your university like what, what was it that I guess motivated you to go into engineering?
[06:54] SPEAKER_00: What did you like about engineering?
[06:57] SPEAKER_01: Well, I, that's an interesting money.
[07:00] SPEAKER_01: I guess honestly, the money wasn't even factored.
[07:03] SPEAKER_01: It was more being able to have a seat at the table as a voice that would be heard.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from a professional standpoint.
[07:15] SPEAKER_01: I started, I didn't start university till a little bit later.
[07:18] SPEAKER_01: I was one of those guys that was working with my dad since I was about.
[07:23] SPEAKER_01: I was a professional teen and at a high school thought everybody was crazy to go to university.
[07:28] SPEAKER_01: Well, I was off making good money by a new trucks putting stereos, you know, living the life of an 18 year old.
[07:34] SPEAKER_01: And then you realize, inadvertently, as you look around on job sites, you're 18 and you're looking around and you see the guys that you're working with at 45 and 50 doing the same job.
[07:47] SPEAKER_01: And it's all sudden, you know, you have this realization of, well, this could be me in 30 years.
[07:55] SPEAKER_01: Maybe I want to be able to branch out.
[07:57] SPEAKER_01: You realize I didn't know it at the time, the concept of hitting your glass ceiling where it's like, you're only going to make so much.
[08:03] SPEAKER_01: You're only going to be able to do so much and have so much influence.
[08:06] SPEAKER_01: So I was actually greatly encouraged by my father-in-law as I was courting his daughter of furthering my education.
[08:17] SPEAKER_01: And he helped introduce me into the engineering field and identified that I had what it took to, with the experience on sites to get into construction and project management.
[08:30] SPEAKER_01: And that with the natural parlay in and, yeah, the rest was history.
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: In 2000, I started my engineering degree at Mount Royal and finished up at UFC.
[08:42] SPEAKER_01: And honestly, I can honestly say I don't really do much engineering in terms of design work and calculations on drawings.
[08:52] SPEAKER_01: I'm more of a critical thinker problem solver and at very analytical, being able to apply science to real life problems when it comes to your foundations.
[09:04] SPEAKER_00: Well, let's say real life problems like and being in Calgary, you know, we all know those of us who have lived here a long time, the shifts and weather, winter, and how temperatures can one day be.
[09:25] SPEAKER_00: So, what is that to do to foundations around the city?
[09:32] SPEAKER_01: Honestly, our Chinook cycles, you hit it on the head. I mean, minus minus 30 last this week we're alone.
[09:38] SPEAKER_01: We hit minus 41 a couple days ago with the wind and now we're, you know, we're hovering around plus five.
[09:45] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 46 degree temperature differential.
[09:48] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[09:48] SPEAKER_01: It's hard on everything, absolutely everything from vehicles to structures to, you know, the foundation that those structures sit on.
[09:56] SPEAKER_01: We have some engineering mechanisms in place with the way that we put our concrete in and the batch mixed designs that we have to take into some of that.
[10:07] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, they are taxed just like everything else are when I say they the concrete foundations or even wood foundations.
[10:15] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:17] SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important to note it's not necessarily the cold alone. It's the moisture that comes with it.
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: Like here in Calgary this past week we had 18 inches of snow and then we hit minus 40 and then we're going to hit plus five.
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: So a lot of that snow starts to melt.
[10:33] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: And we now have a huge accumulation of moisture that has drifted and blown against foundations sitting right where we don't want it.
[10:42] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, where we, where we get the thought that's when if there's imperfections in the foundations we start to get leaks.
[10:52] SPEAKER_01: Even if it's not a major leak it'll go it in and then at night it gets cold drops down to minus 10 minus 15 it freezes again.
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[11:01] SPEAKER_01: Do you know what?
[11:02] SPEAKER_01: You only have this one big shift from minus 40 to plus five every night you have another freezing cycle.
[11:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
[11:11] SPEAKER_01: Melt's free, melt's free.
[11:13] SPEAKER_01: This thermal expansion, you know, it'll deteriorate your foundations without a doubt.
[11:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: Which is because this year is not only now but it's starting to create issues in the future.
[11:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
[11:26] SPEAKER_00: So Benjamin what do you like about being an entrepreneur?
[11:32] SPEAKER_01: Not being an employee.
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[11:37] SPEAKER_01: I only had, I had some internship jobs when I first started the universe when I was in university through the summer I worked for construction companies.
[11:46] SPEAKER_01: And then I immediately branched off into my own.
[11:50] SPEAKER_01: And I had a little hiatus there where I went back and worked for utility for about a year.
[11:55] SPEAKER_01: And I kind of knew going back in that I wasn't really a corporate guy.
[12:01] SPEAKER_01: I believe in working hard and doing what it takes to get the job done no matter what time it is.
[12:07] SPEAKER_01: I've never been one to punch out at 430 and say, you know, the phone off, turn your brain off and say, I'm out of here, see tomorrow, everything can wait.
[12:17] SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the biggest part of owning my own business that I like is I'm very hands on.
[12:23] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like the cool.
[12:25] SPEAKER_01: I love the idea of taking my own personal values and reflecting that through my company.
[12:33] SPEAKER_01: And I think that's important.
[12:35] SPEAKER_01: I think that's what creates passion and quite honestly it gets you through those tough times as an entrepreneur when the market slow or your competition comes in and scoop some of your work away.
[12:48] SPEAKER_01: Or just to keep you asleep in a night to be able to know that what you're doing during the day is exactly what you want to do.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: And it makes you happy.
[12:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[12:59] SPEAKER_01: I'm at a stage of my life.
[13:01] SPEAKER_01: I make and very concerted effort to do things that make me happy.
[13:07] SPEAKER_00: So what would you say if somebody came to you and say a young, a younger person and wanted to be an entrepreneur, what would you tell them?
[13:19] SPEAKER_00: What advice would you give up?
[13:21] SPEAKER_00: What advice?
[13:26] SPEAKER_01: I asked them some serious questions.
[13:30] SPEAKER_01: Again, idea of their thoughts on risk.
[13:36] SPEAKER_01: How much they believe in themselves.
[13:40] SPEAKER_01: What their passions are.
[13:43] SPEAKER_01: Because I believe that there's a stigma attached with being an entrepreneur that people do it so that you know they can exploit an idea that they've got or taken opportunity of a niche market and be able to go and it's all about money.
[13:58] SPEAKER_01: And it's all about, okay, we can do this and it's financial freedom.
[14:03] SPEAKER_01: That's the part that I would question in the up and coming entrepreneurs.
[14:10] SPEAKER_01: Why are you doing it?
[14:12] SPEAKER_01: There's a whole bunch of gut checks you got to do.
[14:17] SPEAKER_01: And I'm not sure that you can be taught how to do this stuff.
[14:22] SPEAKER_01: I believe it's inherent.
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: I think anybody could be an entrepreneur if they wanted to.
[14:27] SPEAKER_01: It's just it's the mindset they need to be in.
[14:31] SPEAKER_01: Believing in themselves and quite honestly, like having the gumption and the drive to do it.
[14:38] SPEAKER_01: If you don't have some of these things, are you, you know, you're a warrior.
[14:42] SPEAKER_01: I'll share a little story with you.
[14:44] SPEAKER_01: I have a friend lately who got laid off from his full-time job and got approached on a business idea, but they didn't want to bring him on as an employee.
[14:55] SPEAKER_01: And I mean, he was an employee of his whole life.
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: And saw it.
[15:01] SPEAKER_01: He knew he knows this stuff inside.
[15:02] SPEAKER_01: No, he's a technical sales guy.
[15:05] SPEAKER_01: And he was just kind of looking at it like, well, I don't know.
[15:08] SPEAKER_01: I've got bills and I've got all these things and I need to keep it going.
[15:11] SPEAKER_01: It's like, slow down.
[15:14] SPEAKER_01: What do you want to do?
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: What do you have?
[15:16] SPEAKER_01: You've got an opportunity here where somebody's almost guaranteeing some work as a start off point.
[15:22] SPEAKER_01: You know what you're doing.
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: You're confident in it.
[15:25] SPEAKER_01: I help get it head around how to do some risk management on it.
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: But from an entrepreneurial standpoint, when you're your own boss, you get to take everything that you charge.
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: Do you start to bring in an opportunity where you start to make more per hour, which means that you don't necessarily have to work as many hours?
[15:44] SPEAKER_01: You can hustle as much as you want.
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: You can put as much, you know, you can increase your profit margins if you need to because you're slow.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: Or if you don't necessarily have the time to do a job, you've got this flexibility and all comes to you.
[15:59] SPEAKER_01: And it's just a different way of thinking to be able to do it.
[16:02] SPEAKER_01: And honestly, he ended up turning the idea away, but it's like because it didn't fit his risk profile.
[16:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[16:09] SPEAKER_01: And it was like, he's like, you know, I'm sure you're upset.
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm not upset.
[16:13] SPEAKER_01: I'm not upset at all because if you're not prepared to do this, if you're not in a headspace, it's not going to work.
[16:20] SPEAKER_01: And I think that goes back to, if you're not doing something that you're going to be happy and you enjoy doing, don't do it.
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
[16:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[16:29] SPEAKER_00: So obviously, you know, being an entrepreneur is 24, 7, and job in many ways.
[16:34] SPEAKER_00: You're often either thinking it or thinking about it, right?
[16:38] SPEAKER_00: But what do you do outside of work to relax with some of your hobbies, passions, interests?
[16:46] SPEAKER_00: I love to mountain bike.
[16:48] SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool.
[16:49] SPEAKER_01: I grew up my whole life with a boat in my life, whether it was extended family to have it.
[16:55] SPEAKER_01: So I love water sports from slow and water skiing to wake surfing.
[17:01] SPEAKER_01: Anything on the water, boat life is fantastic.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: It's the one place I still have my phone.
[17:07] SPEAKER_01: I'll still take a call.
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: Usually if I take a call on the boat, I let people know where I am.
[17:12] SPEAKER_01: Just to let them know that I'm still enjoying life.
[17:14] SPEAKER_01: And I've taken time out to take their call.
[17:18] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, spending time.
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: I've got three kids.
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: So we enjoy, we have access to a place down in Montana.
[17:26] SPEAKER_01: We enjoy getting away to the mountains.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: No boarding, water skiing, mountain biking, doing everything we can to really be outside.
[17:35] SPEAKER_01: Was that a lot of the stuff you did as a kid?
[17:39] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[17:40] SPEAKER_01: I played a lot of hockey as a kid.
[17:42] SPEAKER_01: We did, I did enjoy some skiing, but mountain biking and BMXing and crash and escape boarding.
[17:48] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
[17:48] SPEAKER_01: It was all over that.
[17:50] SPEAKER_01: And we grew up, my dad had a family place on Chester, Mayor Lake.
[17:55] SPEAKER_01: And there's as much as we possibly could.
[17:58] SPEAKER_01: So, life on a boat is, that's the dream.
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: That's my, if I were to retire, it would definitely have a boat in it.
[18:06] SPEAKER_00: So tell me why.
[18:07] SPEAKER_00: Like, why is life on a boat so appealing?
[18:13] SPEAKER_00: I just love it.
[18:14] SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's my Icelandic Viking heritage.
[18:16] SPEAKER_01: I feel at home on a boat.
[18:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[18:20] SPEAKER_01: I love it being behind it, driving it.
[18:24] SPEAKER_01: It's funny, I tell this story sometimes.
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: And we have a big wake surf boat.
[18:29] SPEAKER_01: And we, I love teaching people how to wake surf.
[18:32] SPEAKER_01: I love the smile, the happiness that comes with it when they're done.
[18:37] SPEAKER_01: And I go to get behind it and, you know, you kind of get these sideways faces and be like,
[18:41] SPEAKER_01: you know, I kind of thought you'd be better.
[18:45] SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, when you own a boat, it doesn't mean that you're necessarily good behind the boat.
[18:49] SPEAKER_01: It means you're a hell of a good boat driver.
[18:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[18:52] SPEAKER_01: And it's this, it's this ability to be that catalyst so that people can have fun.
[19:00] SPEAKER_01: And honestly, that feeling on the boat, feeling on the water, no matter what kind of boat it is,
[19:05] SPEAKER_01: it can be a $250,000 boat or a $5,000 or $2,000 fishing boat.
[19:10] SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter because when you get out on the water and you just, you have that freedom and I love it.
[19:17] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's my happy place, Mario.
[19:19] SPEAKER_00: We all need a happy place.
[19:22] SPEAKER_00: Now, I just have to, before we sign off, I have to ask you this question.
[19:26] SPEAKER_00: Now, your last name is well known in Calgary.
[19:28] SPEAKER_00: Are you related to the, the, the car dealerships, Henninger?
[19:33] SPEAKER_00: Brian Henninger, yes, I am.
[19:35] SPEAKER_01: I believe it's my second cousin.
[19:38] SPEAKER_01: Maybe a little further, but I have a very good and close relationship with him.
[19:43] SPEAKER_01: He's one of the guys that taught me how to water ski.
[19:46] SPEAKER_01: I have a ton of admiration for Brian and his family.
[19:49] SPEAKER_01: Cool.
[19:50] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, to this day, I still, I, I, I visit them and talk to them as much as I possibly can.
[19:56] SPEAKER_01: And we spend lots of time out there in the summer because he's, he's got a boat and a place right on the water at Chessmere.
[20:02] SPEAKER_01: And we definitely enjoy and they're phenomenal people.
[20:06] SPEAKER_00: So another very strong and successful Calgary business for you.
[20:12] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[20:13] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[20:14] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[20:15] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was that, that was a, you know, a fantastic.
[20:19] SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting in my Toyota right now.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: And there you go.
[20:22] SPEAKER_00: Really, that's it.
[20:23] SPEAKER_00: I'll support it.
[20:24] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you get sick of doing foundation work, you can become a salesman, per salesman.
[20:30] SPEAKER_01: Maybe if I could do it in a contract, I'm not sure that I'd be the greatest employee, as I said.
[20:34] SPEAKER_00: So, yes.
[20:36] SPEAKER_00: All right.
[20:37] SPEAKER_00: Well, Benjamin, thanks very much for joining us today.
[20:41] SPEAKER_00: No problem.
[20:41] SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it, Mario.
[20:42] SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
[20:43] SPEAKER_00: All right.
[20:44] SPEAKER_00: That was Benjamin Henninger, who is a founder of Groen Construction in Calgary.
[20:49] SPEAKER_00: I'm Mario Tonoguzzi, managing editor of Canada's podcast.
[20:54] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.
