T
roy Hibbs arrives at
his oce looking none
the worse for wear
despite being up during the
night with his two-year-old
daughter, Lillya, who has
stomach u. But then, family
•gures prominently in his
business,
TDH (Troy David
Hibbs) Experiential
Fabricators, a specialty sign
manufacturer located in a
Langley business park.
His father, David, a veteran
neon sign maker, acts as
technical adviser. "He doesn't
do neon very much anymore,"
Troy says. "He helps on mul-
iple layers, but we basically
utilize his experience and
the way that he thinks and
looks at jobs."
Neon work is subcon-
tracted to his younger brother
Andrew, who founded his own
company, Endeavour Neon, in
2010. "He used to be full-time
with us, but we wanted him
to be able to control his own
direction and make more
money," Troy explains. "He
shares our shop space, and
he's family, so we get priority
to him, but he's got his hands
full with so many projects."
Troy's youngest brother,
Colin, also used to work at
TDH
but launched his own installa-
tion company, Outdoor Vision
Signs, about nine years ago.
It's o"-site and he too is busy,
so
TDH often relies on in-house
installers or subcontractors.
The three grew up watching
their father make signs. He
got his training at Jim Pattison
Group's Neon Products, which
he joined in 1978, contributing
to projects from the rotating
W on the Woodwards building
to hundreds of neon McPizza
displays for McDonald'sœand
bar signs for Boston Pizza.
In 1990, when his sons were
six, four and two, he started
David Neon in a workshop
on the property of their
home in Surrey's Fleetwood
neighbourhood. Troy began
learning how to bend neon
mONIKA HIBBS
SOURCE:TOURISm
WHISTLER
19,000
Approximate
number of neon
signs in Vancouver
in the 1950s
30
Neon signs
now on
display at Museum
of Vancouver
(plus 26 in storage)
SOURCES: TDH
ExPERIENTIAL fABRICATORS;
mUSEUm Of VANCOUVER
Bright Ideas
Two generations of the Hibbs family make signs for the times,
from neon to
LED and back again by Felicity Stone
M A N U FAC T U R I NG
(
the informer
)
O N
T H E
R aDa R
OLD MEETS NEW
A market Liquors
washroom sign in a
Winnipeg Browns
Socialhouse looks
like vintage neon
but was constructed
by
TDH Experiential
fabricators with
LED lighting and
new materials. To
age the exterior,
the company used
a rusting technique,
added a dent and
hand-painted it to
look weathered
GLOW BROS
Troy, David, Colin and
andrew Hibbs in the
shop with a project for
Jaguar Land Rover
jULY/AUGUST 2018 BCBusiness 19
