TBT Engineering Acquires Profor Engineering To Expand Services
by Scott A. Sumner
The Thunder Bay based engineering firm, TBT Engineering has acquired Profor Engineering to allow the firm to broaden their services to Northwestern Ontario.
“ We will be able to collaborate better by having the Profor team with 2 new divisions. This will bring us up to 13 divisions. TBT Engineering will cover a wide spectrum of engineering and technical services and drilling- a multidiscipline operation for our clients. Our staff will have more opportunities to build on each others previous client base.” said Rob Frenette, President of TBT Engineering Limited.
Profor Engineering offers a combination of electrical and mechanical engineering services. TBT Engineering has been up to this time, primarily civil based in the civil field with surveying, technical, transportation on so on. The combined firm brings them beyond the civil base with electrical and mechanical services to help on building projects, new builds and restoration projects.
“ There has been a lot of activity in the engineering field over the last decade. One reason has been an increase in infrastructure work across the NW Ontario and Canada. Some of this infrastucture has reached the end of it’s useful life and needs to be rebuilt. Also construction of new buildings, office complexes, new facilities, schools and hospitals is taking place. All these projects need the blend of services we can now offer with the Profor Division.” said Rob
Frenette.
The merge of these engineering firms happened quite quickly. “ It was almost like a shot gun wedding, but it is not. We recognized the strengths the Profor team would provide us and we are now better prepared to move forward in a busy time. Together we now have 135 staff and hire up to 50 summer seasonal staff as well.” said Rob Frenette.
TBT Engineering has played an active roll in the highway four laning between Thunder Bay and Nipigon. Their staff are involved in the Nipigon Bridge and the new interchange. On the mining front they are actively involved in the New Gold mining project near Barwick. At this
point up to 15% of the TBT Engineering staff are involved in that project. On the Profor side some of their projects were the Waterfront Pavilion and Baggage building at Prince Arthur's Landing, as well as much renovation work in buildings in the region. The Profor team are excited about working with TBT Engineering and their client base and being able to bid on more projects. They see it as a good fit.
“ We are I think the largest independent engineering firm in the area now. In the short term we will have two separate offices. Down the road we hope to consolidate other offices to the Kam River campus in 2 to 3 years on our 15 acre site.” states Rob Frenette.