It’s good for the goose!

Our quarterly update is ripe for the picking.

Here you can see… Work at a Glance, The Team, From Garett, In the Community.

Work at a Glance

July through September have been steady with…

• Triplex and heater repairs

• Manufacturing more coils

• Retrofits, replacing tanks on existing units

• Building more GP series pressure trucks (single, tandem, and tridem axle) with stainless and mild steel tanks

• Manufacturing complete GK series fuel trucks with aluminum tanks on single axle trucks, as well as mild steel (16m3 and 20m3) tanks for water trucks (tandem and tridem axle)

• Trenching to power up our storage barn and customer chassis line-up

the team

We have some new hires this quarter. We’ve welcomed an apprentice welder, a journeyman welder, and an HR intern from RDP!

Earlier this year, the whole staff at GenTex Industries participated in a conflict and communication style training. Our staff commented that it helped bridge the communication gap between senior staff and new hires and see on a large scale how varied the styles on our staff are. We had everyone stand in one of the \ five conflict “modes”, showing how diverse our perspectives are when it comes to communication.

It was a good way to bring our departments together and see the GenTex Industries team all together. If you’re interested in learning about your “conflict mode”, we used the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Model. If you’re curious about yourself or your staff, here’s the link to their site.

From Garett

A chemical cleaning unit (GC-35) we manufactured back in 2009 is back in our shop for some retrofits and upgrades. 15 years ago it left one shop down the road, our old manufacturing building, and today it's back in our GenTex Industries building, the original shop on Burnt Lake Trail.

“A few years ago when the economy and the price of oil was down, everything was stagnant in our industry. While that was happening, I found myself in the community talking and hearing, “Oh I thought you guys just built oilfield equipment” No, we’re a manufacturer, we can build anything. So with those comments we started thinking –and we had talked about diversifying in the past– if the belief in the community is that all we do is build oil and gas related equipment, we needed a change out there and internally. This resulted in our name change from oilfield to industries, what was in our name was pigeonholing us.

So in changing our name from GenTex Oilfield Manufacturing to GenTex Industries, that opened doors for people in the community to see what we can do. Internally, this worked for us too because we got staff thinking outside of that box as well, we needed all staff to be thinking about what else is out there that we could be doing in terms of manufacturing, fabrication, and repairs.

What other kind of services or equipment could we provide? It helped change the mindset internally and externally.

When you change your mindset, I think that allows for other things to come in. What I mean by that is no sooner did we change our name, and other opportunities opened up. We built more trailer barbeques, a hockey puck for the Rebels and the Memorial Cup, a firepit for the Canada Winter Games, a pergola for Setters & Sons… Taking on new projects is challenging, fun, and rewarding for our staff and for our company. 

As a famous, once Canadian store said, We’re more than just tires.”

In the Community

Last week, students from Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School, where we also have some of our RAP students through, came to tour our facility. The tour was spearheaded by their fabrication teacher, former GenTex employee, Danielle Cook.

Starting them at design, our Mechanical Engineer Technologist showed a visual model of a Pressure Truck on our SolidWorks program and drawings of units on the floor. They were then walked through how designs get signed off on before moving on to Parts and Fabrication. The students asked questions about each department’s job requirements and got to see our staff at work as they toured. They seemed particularly taken with our Millwrights who explained that the job was a “jack of all trades” getting to weld one day, test units the next, and work on electrical.

At the end of the tour, they gathered in the lunchroom for donut holes and questions. We agreed that a good work ethic and attitude can outweigh work experience in the right employee. Some students were keen to stand out among their peers, clearly picking up on the GenTex ethos (Honesty, Excellence, Accountability, and Teamwork), and we look forward to seeing their resumes for our next RAP students. Bring the HEAT!

And it looks like we have another big quarter ahead of us! As always, give us a call at (403) 341-4155 or email us at sales@gentex.ca for your next build, repair, or redesign. We’ll be here, happy to help.