How Bird Flies

Bird Construction Co. knows what it’s like to face tough times. Founded by H.J. Bird in Moose Jaw, Sask. in 1920, the company not only survived, but prospered during the Great Depression. Since then, Bird has expanded across the country, with offices in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Halifax, and Saint John, N.B.

How Bird Flies

Construction contractor emphasizes hard work, hands on management and sticking to schedules

Bird Construction Co. knows what it’s like to face tough times. Founded by H.J. Bird in Moose Jaw, Sask. in 1920, the company not only survived, but prospered during the Great Depression. Since then, Bird has expanded across the country, with offices in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Halifax, and Saint John, N.B.

The current recession? An obstacle, but not a roadblock. As it grows and diversifies, the company continues to serve the commercial, institutional and industrial markets by providing clients with a range of contract services.

Recently completed high-profile projects spanning the country include: Olympic venue; the Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, for which the company was awarded the Canadian Design-Build Institute’s 8th annual award of excellence; the Kinnear Centre for Creativity and Innovation at The Banff Centre in Banff, Alta.; the Greyhound Bus Terminal for the Winnipeg Airport Authority in Winnipeg; the Engineering Technology Building at McMaster University, in Hamilton; the 60 Richmond Street East Housing Co-operative for Toronto Community Housing, in Toronto; and the Maritime Helicopter Support Facilities, 12 Wing Shearwater in Dartmouth, N.S. for the Department of National Defence.

“Our success is the result of hard work and a long-term, staff-focused approach to business,” says Tim Talbott, Bird’s president and chief executive officer. “The company is made up of dedicated, hard-working individuals who work long hours on behalf of their clients.”

The company is also committed to its employees’ well-being, calling safety “a moral obligation.” Bird continues to aim for a flawless safety record, a goal that it first attained in 2007-08 when it was awarded the Ontario General Contractors Association’s Distinguished Achievement in Health and Safety award for achieving zero injury frequency in the Ontario marketplace.

Talbott credits the company’s rather flat management structure for some of its success. Managers are encouraged to work across disciplines and aim for top jobs. That’s a path taken by Talbott himself, who joined the company in 1982 as a project co-ordinator and rose through the ranks to his current position, which he accepted this year.

“I’m an operations guy and I’ve worked in just about every operational role in the company,” he notes. “The culture is very lean and mean and that encourages career progression. You get an ability to experience stuff that’s above your head and quickly grow into it, as opposed to a large top-heavy company where you might be stuck in a minimal role for years. We also put on our boots, roll up our sleeves and get out into the field.”

Literally? “Absolutely,” says Talbott. “We wouldn’t ask anyone to do something that management wouldn’t do. There’s very little that you can read in a progress report or project update that isn’t better achieved by actually observing the project, meeting with the client and talking to the supervisors, crew and stakeholders.”

He also notes that a strict adherence to schedule is paramount – there’s no task so large that some of it can’t be chewed off and tackled immediately. The semi-official motto of the company is “Do it now!”

“The company is very task-focused,” says Talbott. “Even though that motto is unofficial, we see it all around the company. One of our crews wrote that out on a 30-by-40-foot banner and mounted it on top one of the structures at Syncrude in Fort McMurray.”

Talbott notes that the quality of the company’s contracts is as important as quantity. Bird is careful about which contracts it bids on, choosing projects that play to the strengths of the company. “The market is down from 2007 and the early part of 2008, but there’s always decent work available, even during a recession,” he says.

“Some companies take the shotgun approach to bidding and go after every project that moves. We go after projects with precision and secure those nuggets that will result in a solid return for the shareholder. “There’s a lot of competition out there, and we see increasing competition in P3s from the European side, but we have a solid backlog of work and we will continue to stick to our guns and be selective about what we take on.”

Talbott notes that while Bird did undertake some contracts funded by the current federal stimulus program, it was not a significant contributor to the company’s fortunes, because much of the funding was allocated to smaller municipal projects. “Likewise, our expertise in P3 projects couldn’t be leveraged on stimulus projects, because the majority of P3 contracts were not funded by the stimulus program,” he says.

While Talbott sees the commercial market as relatively flat, he says that the industrial market – while down significantly from its high point – is showing signs of renewed vigour, indicating that the private sector is once again preparing to build in the industrial space. “At this point, it’s more talk about building without materializing into actual contracts,” notes Talbott. “But if we didn’t believe the industrial sector was preparing to bounce back, we’d be doing something else.”

Bird is also counting on the Canadian energy sector in particular to initiate new construction.“There have been a few concerns regarding the environmental aspects of oilsands development, but the industry is dealing with this, and taking strides to lower its environmental impact,” he says. “The world will continue to buy oil – see what happens if you shut off the gas pumps all across the globe for a few days. You can put some electric cars on the road, but I haven’t seen any electric airplanes flying overhead recently.”

The biggest challenge facing the company is finding new personnel to expand the company’s operations. “We would like to recruit more qualified construction staff,” Talbott says. “There are certainly more than ample opportunities out there for project contracts. We can get the work in a heartbeat, but if we can’t find the right people for the job, we’d soon be racking up some heavy losses.”

Bringing in hires fresh out of school allows new employees to acclimatize to the company culture, but the process is time consuming. “Still, we prefer to grow the culture from within, because hiring from the street is a bit more risky,” says Talbott. “Hire someone 20 years into their career who doesn’t understand the corporate culture and it’s a lot more challenging than bringing in people from the ground floor.”

Despite staffing challenges, Talbott predicts that Bird will continue to grow. Known currently as the Bird Construction Income Fund, the company has received court approval to convert from an income trust to a regular public corporation, effective January 1, 2011. The common shares of Bird Construction Inc., as the new corporation will be known, should begin trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange effective on that date.

“We weren’t mandated by government to make that change,” notes Talbott. “It’s simply that the tax advantages of remaining an income fund were going to disappear. In reality, most of our clients have no idea that we’re currently operating as an income trust, or that we’ll be converting to a public corporation. On some P3 projects, the change has a small bearing on the security packages required for a specific bid,” he adds. “Other than that, the conversion is just a matter of filing some legal documents and paper work.“For us, it will be business as usual.”