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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Mario Tonogusi and this is Calgary's podcast on Canada's podcast network.
[00:11] SPEAKER_01: Joining me today is Trevor Haines, president and CEO of the Lodge Link.
[00:16] SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Trevor, for joining us.
[00:19] SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Mario, please to be here.
[00:21] SPEAKER_01: Well, let me just start off by asking you what the heck is Lodge Link and what do you guys do?
[00:27] SPEAKER_00: Well, Lodge Link, it's an exciting business that we started from scratch a few years ago and what we're focused on is providing enhanced services or full cycle travel related to crew travel.
[00:45] SPEAKER_00: So where companies are needing to move their workforce to where their work is, there's all kinds of complexities and inefficiency.
[00:53] SPEAKER_00: So as simple as finding and booking where they're going to stay or or or seats on airplanes, etc.
[01:03] SPEAKER_00: But then much more into the software that builds into our platform to help them with duty of care to track all the costs to improve the efficiency of all the payments that happen in behind reconciling everything and then most of our customers or service companies.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00: They're being able to efficiently invoice their customer. So it's a big endeavor, a big addressable market and we've made great great strides putting a fantastic team together and we're having a lot of fun.
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: So tell me like a little bit more of like the types of clients that would use you.
[01:44] SPEAKER_00: Well, it cuts across many different industry sectors or segments in terms of companies that in the services they provide their workforce needs to move to where the work is.
[01:57] SPEAKER_00: So if you think of construction, especially construction into smaller town areas or even remote from a Canadian perspective, certainly the reserve sector, many of the service companies need to move their crews to and from where the work, work flow is from a Calry perspective.
[02:16] SPEAKER_00: Obviously are energy sector, but it's many sectors, including energy. So if you think of any business where they're their workforce has to travel. So we're looking after companies that do rail maintenance for railroads, high line power maintenance companies, all types of construction companies, certainly oil field services and mining services customers.
[02:44] SPEAKER_00: So anywhere where they're moving larger groups and they have to deal with all the logistics related with that type of travel.
[02:51] SPEAKER_01: So you're basically helping them find, find places where their workers can stay and facilitating that process of getting them there and taking care of all that, right?
[03:07] SPEAKER_00: If you think of it as a marketplace, so on the supply side, we have hotels.
[03:15] SPEAKER_00: We've got over closing it on 7,000 properties in terms of accommodation.
[03:21] SPEAKER_00: So those would be hotels, lodges, remote camps.
[03:27] SPEAKER_00: On the other side of the marketplace are those companies that need to move their team members, as I mentioned before.
[03:35] SPEAKER_00: And so yes, being able to find the most appropriate property for their needs, close to where the work is, be able to sort by price and amenity.
[03:44] SPEAKER_00: And then to be able to make that commitment.
[03:47] SPEAKER_00: And so a bit more difficult versus the B2C if you think of the big online booking tools like an Expedia or a bookings where you're moving smaller groups of people.
[04:00] SPEAKER_00: When you move larger groups of people, you need a different type of booking engine to be able to make that booking.
[04:07] SPEAKER_00: But then we go way beyond that.
[04:10] SPEAKER_00: So how do you manage who's on the cruise and the editing is if you can imagine you make a booking, but the crew gets delayed on the last job they're on or the company changes which crew is going to go and do the work or even who's on that crew by the time they get to that site.
[04:27] SPEAKER_00: And then the rotation of which crew members are on and which are off as they rotate on and off their shift cycles.
[04:33] SPEAKER_00: And so you just keep adding those layers of complexity.
[04:37] SPEAKER_00: And that's where there's a value proposition for us to create a platform and build the tools software to be able to deal with all of those complexities of workforce travel for for business.
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: Pigs away a lot of their headaches, I guess.
[04:54] SPEAKER_00: Exactly. Very inefficient global business travel association tracks this as a sub sector of business travel and it's called energy resource marine.
[05:06] SPEAKER_00: Those are the type of industry segments that have large amounts of crew and pre pandemic.
[05:11] SPEAKER_00: They track the US spend the businesses for crew travel at 63 billion Canadian at about seven billion per year.
[05:19] SPEAKER_00: So it's a big addressable market.
[05:21] SPEAKER_00: And the estimate is there's upwards of 10% of that spend is wastage in terms of missed bookings bookings that never got used.
[05:31] SPEAKER_00: And within that you think of all those people and they're being paid by the company.
[05:36] SPEAKER_00: If they get delayed somewhere and you don't make the adjustment downstream for all of the bookings become after.
[05:42] SPEAKER_00: Then that's where you get into an efficiency.
[05:45] SPEAKER_00: So our ability to solve for that is the value proposition.
[05:50] SPEAKER_00: It's a big opportunity. We're finding it's a lot more complicated than we thought when we first set out though.
[05:56] SPEAKER_01: So I'm wondering did you first set out what year it is?
[05:58] SPEAKER_01: Is it established this?
[06:01] SPEAKER_00: We started building logistic in earnest in 2017, 2018.
[06:06] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[06:07] SPEAKER_00: Growing very quickly recently.
[06:09] SPEAKER_00: Really substantial interruption from the travel lockdowns because of COVID as you can imagine.
[06:16] SPEAKER_00: So there's a bit of an interruption in our build up.
[06:20] SPEAKER_00: And the log length is I started with some co founders company called Black Diamond Group.
[06:25] SPEAKER_00: And I started that in 2003.
[06:29] SPEAKER_00: Logs link is a subsidiary.
[06:32] SPEAKER_00: So this is our latest entrepreneurial start and build within the Black Diamond portfolio.
[06:39] SPEAKER_00: So it's a continuation of the work and building we've been doing for years.
[06:46] SPEAKER_01: Okay. I'm curious now.
[06:47] SPEAKER_01: So what does Black Diamond do is that it's kind of the umbrella.
[06:51] SPEAKER_01: What other kind of ventures does that have?
[06:56] SPEAKER_00: Well, the main expertise of the Black Diamond team is understanding the requirement for workforce accommodation, but using physical assets.
[07:07] SPEAKER_00: And so we're quite well known as being one of the big cap providers in around the resort sector.
[07:13] SPEAKER_00: And using modular building so we could move them into remote areas, fit them together to create these big living environments and then figuring out how to generate power handle waste and water, et cetera.
[07:28] SPEAKER_00: And so that's where sort of the knowledge of the requirement for crew travel and all of the various challenges that come with that.
[07:39] SPEAKER_00: And so that was sort of the genesis from which we said, well, maybe we could offer a different type of service and use technology in a different way, different way in terms of the industry that we're associated with.
[07:54] SPEAKER_00: And so that's where logs link is a new idea came through fruition.
[07:59] SPEAKER_01: So in terms of setting up a new venture, so to speak, what was some of the biggest challenges you think you face as entrepreneurs?
[08:10] SPEAKER_00: Well, when we first started Black Diamond, the parent company of logs link, a lot of challenges.
[08:18] SPEAKER_00: And so this is the right thing to do at this point in my career, would we be successful? How would we fund it?
[08:26] SPEAKER_00: How do young family at the time, you know, all the uncertainty of whether we should take this big risk and make it happen as you work.
[08:40] SPEAKER_00: You know, in subsequent startup of businesses, and I've been involved in building many of them.
[08:48] SPEAKER_00: The concern of with this idea of work, will this work? Should we invest here? And there's a lot of debate. And in some ways, any more complicated starting businesses within businesses.
[09:02] SPEAKER_00: So we couldn't get the idea out of our minds. And at one point in time, there's a lot of debate won't work.
[09:11] SPEAKER_00: We're going to go, we're going to try this. And so as quickly as possible, trying to get to proof of concept.
[09:19] SPEAKER_00: And then equally as challenging as, okay, the concept works. Now we have an enormous lift to get this scaled up and bring all the talent we need and funding it.
[09:33] SPEAKER_00: The question is whether we will create value for our customers as I wrote, but value for our shareholders.
[09:44] SPEAKER_00: So it's always very exciting. There's always an element of risk and uncertainty. But it's very creative. It's probably why I like building businesses. I like the creative part of it.
[09:57] SPEAKER_00: Creating new things and trying to bring great people together to make them happen.
[10:02] SPEAKER_01: What do you think that came from? That that that I guess passion, I guess for creating stuff.
[10:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess from a very early age and very early on, my father was part of the early group that was involved in building a company called Akko.
[10:28] SPEAKER_00: I know you're from Calgary, you know, Akko and at one point, you know, parents are Alberta families, but we removed to Montreal.
[10:40] SPEAKER_00: And they were building the international side of Akko and Montreal and so are they.
[10:44] SPEAKER_00: The international business city in the 60s and 70s. And the Akko guys would come and they would stay at the house.
[10:52] SPEAKER_00: I was a young kid. They would sit around the table and they were very intense and it seemed very exciting.
[11:00] SPEAKER_00: We were building and serious and I can just remember sort of standing at the edge of the dining room table listening to these guys and thinking, I want to be part of this.
[11:10] SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that's where it started. And you know, through through school, I started little businesses and and would hire my friends from school to to to work with within them.
[11:27] SPEAKER_00: And we remarkably got some contracts to landscape some of the restaurants that were built along the cloud trail in those days.
[11:37] SPEAKER_00: Get all the all the various landscaping and hired to, I don't know what it was, 16, 17 years old.
[11:45] SPEAKER_00: I never really thought of it. I you know, I thought we was talking about wanting to go into law, etc.
[11:50] SPEAKER_00: Later on, we're reconnected with family friends from Montreal and sort of told the story and they're like, yeah, we knew that's what you were going to do.
[11:58] SPEAKER_01: Well, it's kind of interesting, right? Because for people that may not know and listeners that may be outside of Alberta, you know, Akko was a, you know, has been a giant.
[12:10] SPEAKER_01: He's got many different aspects of bad code, but but it all started from that, you know, remote work, accommodation concept, right?
[12:21] SPEAKER_01: Of a providing that here in Alberta.
[12:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just a fantastic entrepreneurial business, especially in those early years.
[12:29] SPEAKER_00: And quite remarkable. What was accomplished from, you know, a small small group of people from Alberta and built a global platform.
[12:39] SPEAKER_00: So, I'm sure I gleaned some of it from there.
[12:45] SPEAKER_00: Did you ever meet Ron Southern?
[12:47] SPEAKER_00: I did. I worked at Spruce Meadows as a kid and they invited me in.
[12:55] SPEAKER_00: My father had had left in Sarra's own business way back in the 80s, but they invited me in to work on some projects.
[13:06] SPEAKER_00: I was I'd written my L sets. I'd left.
[13:09] SPEAKER_00: It's enough in the financial world and left to take some time off before going to law school. I say, well, I only have a few weeks because I'm going back to school.
[13:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was really interesting and I left 10 years later and I learned a lot in business all over the world.
[13:28] SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of where I learned, you know, the industry that I ended up building Black Diamond into and that now, large link is sort of the next iteration of understanding.
[13:40] SPEAKER_00: Here's a problem that needs to be solved and could we be the creative people who are able to solve it and deliver a lot of value in the whole travel chain.
[13:52] SPEAKER_01: So the name Black Diamond come from the town.
[13:58] SPEAKER_01: It does.
[13:59] SPEAKER_00: Okay. A lot of people ask us, are you a skier?
[14:05] SPEAKER_00: I love sports. I love everything about sports and but I'm uniquely untalented at everything.
[14:11] SPEAKER_00: So no, it isn't it isn't about skiing. It's the town of Black Diamond.
[14:16] SPEAKER_00: So we have some family properties nearby and earn a Black Diamond.
[14:22] SPEAKER_00: We thought of all these great names, but most of them were taken and then having a beer in the Black Diamond pub.
[14:29] SPEAKER_01: I will tell the hotel there.
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: The main corner or you know it. That's what it was.
[14:37] SPEAKER_01: I know. Well,
[14:39] SPEAKER_00: what about black diamond, nice connection to one of the first oil finds and you know,
[14:47] SPEAKER_00: looking to be in the camp business. And so that made sense.
[14:49] SPEAKER_00: And I love the idea that it was something so we could create an emblem.
[14:53] SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so yes.
[14:55] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we'll make that connection, but you've got it.
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: I love that corner because you turn right at that.
[15:02] SPEAKER_01: Well, depending on what's direction to come, but and you head south and with my favorite place in Alberta,
[15:09] SPEAKER_01: Longview and head down there for the jerky and and sit at the saloon there and enjoy.
[15:18] SPEAKER_00: So for me, I think it's just beautiful country.
[15:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that area, Longview Black Diamond turn of alley.
[15:26] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no doubt.
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: What do you think as a business owner operating in this province, right?
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: And at this time, what do you think the advantages are of operating in Alberta?
[15:44] SPEAKER_00: You know, it's interesting, Mario.
[15:46] SPEAKER_00: I had an amazing opportunity to work all over the world when I was with Atco.
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: And it gave me a fantastic context in terms of every time I would come back to Calgary.
[16:01] SPEAKER_00: And just how great a business city, how efficient, just the concept of risk sharing and the expertise that gathered in the city.
[16:13] SPEAKER_00: And even the way the city was laid out and how efficient I viewed it to be.
[16:18] SPEAKER_00: And I think that I think that's one of the key advantages that and sort of the spirit of Alberta.
[16:25] Speaker UNKNOWN: And that's one of the key advantages that I think is that the importance, you know, strongly independent, but very collaborative.
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: And so when you talk about risk taking and trying new things and and building, I think it, it all connects to the character of Alberta.
[16:43] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that plus good economic policy.
[16:45] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, but from a competitive perspective, but I think that's much more to do.
[16:52] SPEAKER_00: With sort of the history and culture, which makes it a great place, I think, for building a new industry.
[17:01] SPEAKER_00: We can use those skill sets of entrepreneurialism and risk sharing and all the great expertise, whether it's legal or accounting or engineering skill sets.
[17:13] SPEAKER_00: And take all of that advantage and apply it in a new and different way.
[17:18] SPEAKER_00: So I'm very optimistic and I think I still think one of the best, if not the best business cities on a planet for entrepreneurialism.
[17:28] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: And speaking, you know, just being an entrepreneur, what do you think are some of the qualities, I guess, that someone needs to have to be a successful entrepreneur.
[17:45] SPEAKER_00: Well, you absolutely have to be an optimist because there are many things that would tell you, you should just copy what other people have done and take a safe path.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[17:57] SPEAKER_00: So you need that view that I'm confident there's a different way, confident there's a better way.
[18:05] SPEAKER_00: I'm confident that I can convince those people who are much smarter than me and each of their skill sets to come and see the vision and say, yes, we can make this happen.
[18:20] SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's partly a generalist, partly somebody who just thinks outside of the box and just wants to create something different.
[18:34] SPEAKER_00: And do things differently.
[18:36] SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I call it the path of most resistance.
[18:40] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in the path of least resistance.
[18:43] SPEAKER_00: But it is for me, the most rewarding.
[18:48] SPEAKER_00: You know, when it works, yeah, built something and you see a lot of people being successful within it.
[18:56] SPEAKER_00: It's extremely rewarding.
[18:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not for the faint of heart, though, right?
[19:01] SPEAKER_01: Because you're going to go through a lot of challenges.
[19:05] SPEAKER_00: You know, when you work for other businesses and you think you know what working capital is, well, when you've set out and you've got your own construction company and you've got as we did, we had 300 laborers in construction trades.
[19:26] SPEAKER_00: And payrolls do on Friday and your husband doesn't pay you yet.
[19:31] SPEAKER_00: That's not for the faint of heart.
[19:35] SPEAKER_00: Laying awake at night and you're like, oh, this is what working capital is.
[19:41] SPEAKER_00: So no, I mean, there's an element of risk to it.
[19:47] SPEAKER_00: But you know, perhaps that's why it's such a reward when it works because there's a lot of risk when it doesn't.
[19:56] SPEAKER_00: Anyways, it's by absolutely love it.
[20:03] SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks very much, Trevor, for joining us today.
[20:08] SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
[20:09] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for taking the time to listen about large flanking and to talk about our great business city and Calgary.
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: All right, super.
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: That was Trevor Haynes, president and CEO of the large link.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: I'm Mario Toniguzzi.
[20:22] SPEAKER_01: This has been Calgary's podcast on Canada's podcast network.
[20:27] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today.
