C O n S T r u C T I O n
bcbusiness.ca october 2016 BCBusiness 51
William (Bill)
Downing
President, Structurlam
Products Inc.
W
hen Ken Mayhew immigrated to canada
in 1991, he knew he wanted to run his own
company–and he quickly saw an opportunity
in Penfolds roofing, a one-crew business
founded in Vancouver in 1937. "the business had a
good track record and it had been around a long time,"
says Mayhew. but at the time, he says, "roofing
companies had zero credibility": salespeople were
often unemployed roofers and the industry had a
particularly poor reputation. Mayhew—who grew up
in Johannesburg, and prior to emigrating owned a hotel
in the coastal city of Durban—knew that building a
brand customers could trust, with good service, would
be key. so he recruited professional salespeople from
outside the sector and created a custom software
system to standardize the time and quality of their
installations. business has since grown from 100
annual installations to 1,500 today, with revenues now
topping $20 million a year. Penfolds has also added
solar panel installation to its service mix. –J.P.
r u nn e r - u p
r u nn e r - u p
Ken Mayhew
Owner and President,
Penfolds roofing and Solar Inc.
B
ill Downing, on a tour
of Switzerland, saw
a four-storey build-
ing made entirely of
cross-laminated timber and
immediately knew he'd seen
the future. The Nelson-born
operator and minority
owner of Structurlam, a
manufacturer of heavy tim-
ber products (columns and
beams used in multi-storey
construction as opposed to
two-by-fours), had experi-
ence manufacturing glulam—
a similar substance with less
construction potential. So
Structurlam set about study-
ing the market, and by 2011
opened a plant to manufac-
ture
CLT in Penticton. Today
Structurlam has revenues
approaching $100 million,
while its products have been
used to build structures at
the Art Gallery of Ontario,
the Olympic Speed Skating
Oval in Richmond and the
18-storey
UBC Brock Com-
mons Student Residence—
which, upon completion,
will be the tallest wood
building in the world. "In
a previous era it would be
unthinkable to construct
this out of wood," says
Downing. —J.P.
WINNER
