Beyond Spray Foam celebrates 15 Years of being in business Birthday!

Okay, all right, here we are.

Yeah, Huntington Hills, where it all began.

Yeah, exactly. This, this back alley, we drove up this thing too many times, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.

Yeah, we had to drive up because our doors were on the right. Yeah, and the garage was there and we had to like load up on the right-hand side and stuff, but This was not fun in the wintertime.

No. A skiff of snow and then a little bit of warm weather, then it froze and this whole thing was a skating rink.

Yeah.

Unbelievable. Yeah.

Well, you remember when I asked you to start Beyond with me?

I do.

What were your thoughts? What were you thinking then?

You know what, I was intrigued.

Yeah?

Yeah, I was almost done RCMP, but I'm not really looking forward to leaving Calgary. So all my family was here and stuff, and so I was, uh, yeah, I didn't really know you that well then and stuff. I don't know if I liked you a lot. I think I did, actually. I think I maybe liked you more then than I do now. Uh, not really, but, um, yeah, no, I was just intrigued, right? And so you asked me and I said, you know, like, tell me more. Yeah.

And, uh, yeah, I remember going to your house, you and Nicole, and sitting down with you with that 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper. And yeah, and I wrote down, you know, this is how much a set of chemicals costs.

Yeah.

This is how many board feet we can get out of it, and this is what we can charge for it, and, and it looks like we can make some money doing this. And that was, that was the business plan. Like, that was the whole thing written down there in probably less than 100 numbers or words or whatever it was.

Yep.

It's crazy.

I wonder if we still have that sheet of paper.

That'd be funny. Yeah, because I know we did it again when we started thinking about getting into half-pound foam, right? That exact same process. Because it worked. The formula for great business sense was there.

We made money a little bit.

Yeah.

Eventually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're still, we're still tight.

Yeah.

After all these years.

I remember how excited I was just to hire our first staff.

Oh yeah.

Like, yeah, Kenny Mack, man, he was, he was gold.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then, uh, I think we had Troy and him for a bit. That was, uh, pretty awesome. Troy Erickson. And then, uh, yeah, we released Kenny. He was pursuing his pastoral career and stuff, and it was good and stuff. But yeah, just being able to hire our first staff, I recall that there was just a lot of responsibility that I felt.

Yep.

You know, that we're supporting his family and his—

Yeah.

You know, he got, uh, got married shortly after, you know, we hired him and stuff. And, and, uh, yeah, we had a lot of mouths to feed and stuff. So it was, it was interesting stuff, and I still feel that. Responsibility when we hire somebody. We for sure feel that commitment kind of to them and stuff, and to make a good decision on who we bring in and make sure that they're a good fit.

You know, like when we hired Chad, like that was, that was an aha moment that there's people that are just super driven and passionate and want to grow and want to be the best. And we kind of realized there's more people like this out there. We just have to find those people.

Yeah.

And once we started finding those people, it made it easier to Right.

Yeah, and I think Lee was also a really good hire too in that he was so passionate about spray foam, maybe even more so than you and I were.

Yes.

That, you know, he's an older guy that was scared of heights and didn't really interview that well, but I was attracted to him just because he was very focused on spray foam and you could just tell he'd done his homework and stuff. And he thought he bombed the interview and he did and stuff.

But we were desperate.

We were desperate. And so, yeah, he became really integral to our culture and helped us kind of build what we have.

For sure.

And as a plus, you know, we got Tammy from him too, so that was huge as well.

The bonus employee there. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, like, so this, this is the garage that, uh, that it all started right here. Like Kevin was saying, we would pull up here, we would have a ramp going from the garage to our trailer, we'll push up the material in there one drum at a time. When we got deliveries, sketchiest thing in the whole world. The 5-ton truck would drive up this hill, stop, and then he'd grab it with the pallet jack and let it slide out of the truck and hit the brakes, and the whole pallet would slide right onto the tailgate. And then we would drop it down, and then we'd break the straps, and one by one we would haul them into the garage. And yeah, Gary was his name.

Gary was our delivery driver. Yep, from HyFab.

Yeah, and he said if he ever wins the lottery, he would buy us a forklift. And if Gary's watching this, Gary, we have like 3 or 4 forklifts now, so, so we're good. You can win the lottery and keep the money yourself. But yeah, but yeah, every time he was here, he's like, when are you guys gonna get a forklift?

Yeah.

And I'm like, we don't need a forklift, Gary, we got you.

Yeah, yeah, no, we had a lot of sketchy moments here on ice and stuff and just, uh, you know, sliding down sometimes. I remember our trailer a few times slid pretty far down and we'd hit either a telephone pole or that blue retaining wall down there and stuff. We've had to have, you know, multiple tow trucks, like 2 separate tow trucks to kind of winch us up the hill and stuff. So not really an ideal location as far as getting up and down.

But then we moved from here because we outgrew this to that parking lot behind the church in the industrial park. So it was just like a strip mall, that strip mall that didn't— and that was good, but it also had challenges because we would show up there and a breaker would go off in the middle of winter and a frozen, frozen chemical, frozen hoses, frozen everything. But we still had to drive up this hill to get warm material out of this garage and do all that. How long were we at that place?

I think it's only for maybe a year and a half. Yeah, yeah, about that. That's, uh, Chad was, was hired when we first started there.

That's right.

Um, and stuff. And then, yeah, we would have been out at the other, our new property. In 2010, I believe, even after that.

So yeah, I remember, I remember us in 2009 walking that, that field. It was a stubble field. Yeah, Cedric was there, your old dog, and Nicole and Michelle and myself, and, and Lincoln was with us. And I feel like maybe one of our parents were with us too.

Your parents were there. Yeah, there's a picture of that. Yeah, Lincoln was just like yay high.

Exactly. And we were walking this thing and saying, you know what, maybe we could build this and maybe we can build that there, maybe this could be your property, this could be mine, and just kind of dreaming about that back then. Yeah, and that feels like, that feels like a lifetime ago.

A long time ago. Yeah.

Um, that building that 5,100 square foot shop, and when we moved in there and I said, when we fill this shop, that is as big as it'll ever need to be, right? Like, I'm like, 4 rigs, could you imagine? Yeah, having 4 spray foam rigs. Yeah. And now what Last week we had 12 crews going out doing different things, not just spray foam, but 12 different crews.

So just wondering, Curt, like, what was your thought when you first started this? Like, what was your— where did you think that Beyond would get to? Like, what was your goals in mind for the company? Why did you want to start this?

You know, like, I just saw an opportunity, and I don't know if I ever grasped, you know, where it could be or what it could do for us. Like for my family, for your family, and then for other families that we were eventually going to hire on there.

Yeah.

I was just thinking that this is just a good opportunity, and, and who knows?

Yeah.

Like, who knows what's going to happen?

Yeah.

But I, I knew that the future wasn't in fiberglass, right? You know, like the future had to be into higher R-values and better insulation and all that kind of stuff. I just knew that that had to be the road.

Yeah.

And so why not get on the path and try and figure it out? then never jump on that path. Like, that's really all I was thinking about at the time.

And that's why we named our company Beyond Foam Insulation, is because we really saw that as a foam company, right? Spray foam was kind of the niche market that we, you know, we could fill for other clients and, you know, hopefully do good at service, hopefully, you know, price jobs well. Yeah, all that stuff, right? Have a good warranty. You know, we didn't really understand all of that stuff back then, but just that there was a need and we could fill that.

Yeah.

Right. And now I think what's neat is that we've grown beyond the foam part of our business, right? And that's the whole rebranding, Beyond Group, all that stuff. And yeah, I think because we've hired the right people, they force us to think a bit bigger, and that's been a good thing, right?

For sure. You know, like Michelle was the one that named Beyond, and how prophetic, you know, that was when she named it that for us. And now, yeah, like you're saying, we've gone— we're going beyond in so many different ways, and it's way past just sets, and it's way past just fire stopping or concrete lifting. It's, it's going beyond and just helping people grow themselves, and then us having to raise our lid so that we're able to help lead other people into where their beyond means, right?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, again, the whole idea was that, you know, it's a relationship, it's, it's something more than just construction, um, that there's something bigger, there's something more there with the contracting business. It's how we treated people, all that stuff. And that's— that kind of moved into Beyond Foam.

Awesome. Yeah, what's the funnest event you think we've done?

Oh man, we've done some fun events at Beyond. Um, I must— I'll probably always say the Train of Terror is up there for me. Really like that one because I hate— like, I, I was so not into that, and then I went and I'm like, I'm so in love with this.

Some of those pictures are great.

Oh yeah, some of the pictures are great. Um, we had some good times, good laughs. And people talk about it for years. Probably the whitewater rafting.

That's mine.

It's still like a highlight. That's maybe something we gotta put on the bucket list again for ourselves. Yeah, like our future growth is— it's gonna be organic, it's gonna be natural, and it's gonna be non-ending if we want it to be. You know, if we can just keep on adding the right people to the pie, having people that fit our DNA, that want Beyond to grow. in the way that we want it to grow, like, the sky's the limit for us. We're going to outgrow not this shop, not the next shop, but the shop after that. And we're just going to have to keep on planning for that.

Yeah, yeah. I think I've been challenged just to think bigger, right, over the years. That, you know, when we started this, that we thought that this garage would be as big as we'll ever need. And then we built our shop out on our property, and, and we thought this is the biggest that we're ever going to need. And just been challenged just to keep on thinking bigger because I think if you have the right people, the right systems in place, that growth is going to happen.

Yep.

And, uh, you know, we're now more prepared for it and we have a bit more of a vision as to what that might look like.

100%.

Yeah.

All right, high five.

Hello, Beyond Foam. Congratulations, 15 years. I guess that's kind of a milestone. I haven't really reached 15 years in anything yet. Marriage, my birthday. Made it 15 years on my birthday. That's impressive. But in all honesty, I am impressed. Not surprised, but I am impressed with how far you've taken the company from when I started with you guys when you were— what was it, 6 months into the company? You guys were pretend foamers then. Now you're the real deal, we'll give you that. Um, I want to say thank you for, yeah, the chance you took on me when I was just a young puck looking for a job. You guys gave me a chance. I enjoyed my time with you. Yeah, I lasted— what was it, 5 years or so until I moved on? But that's a testimony to how good you guys were to work for. You know, sometimes I felt like I was just going to Sometimes I felt like I actually had to work. Sometimes you threw me in the attics, which was a little bit of a jerk move, you know. I didn't see Curt or sometimes Kevin, not really Curt crawling up into those attics ever, but you know, someone's gotta do the dirty work. Someone's gotta do the sales pitches. You know, we all have our roles. Yeah, just say congratulations. Best of luck in the next— well, hopefully you're retired in 15 years if you did your job right, that is. But yeah, congratulations guys.

Thank you.

I don't miss foam. I miss you guys though. All right, enjoy and congratulations.

Happy anniversary, Beyond Foam. Can't believe it's been 15 years. That's wild. I think I was one of your first employees and had no clue what spray foam was, but I loved Kevin and Curt and wanted to work with them and had such a blast. Met some great friends, and what I particularly loved is Curt was just really fun. He made work fun for maybe the first time in my life. And although Curt was fun, I knew Kevin was the boss. He was the boss. But thanks guys, uh, for letting me be part of your team, and here's to another 15.

Happy birthday, Beyond Foam! 15 years is amazing. Can't believe I've been here for 11. Again, very happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Beyond!

15 years, that's amazing. Extremely grateful to I've been here for half of it. Here's to many more.

Happy birthday, Beyond! Can't believe it's been 15 years. I've been here for a good majority of that time.

It's been awesome.

Hey everyone, this is Chris and Corey from the Beyond Thermal Estimating Team. We're here to wish Beyond a happy 15th birthday.

It's only just begun. Boys, 15 years! Uh-oh, starting to show. I've been here 3 years and look forward to 15 more with you Happy 15 years, Beyond.

You're just like family, dysfunctional like the rest of us. Happy anniversary, Beyond Foam.

Happy anniversary. I've worked here for 10 years now. Kyle, how about you?

Uh, about 6 months. About 6 months? Yeah, 6 months in total.

6 months.

Like work work?

Yeah, like how long have you actually been working?

Like maybe 3 months.

3 months?

Yeah.

I never thought I'd be able to keep my competition at some of my best friends, but Beyond managed to pull it off. So happy birthday, Beyond.

Congrats to 15 years and many more.

Hey, happy birthday to Beyond Group of Companies. I remember when they were Beyond Foam Installation back when I started about 4 and a half years ago. Happy anniversary, Beyond!

Happy birthday, Beyond! It's been a very fun 8 and a half years.