and
Corman Marine gets the job done.
www. c o r m a n m a r i n e . c om
formerly known as SIAST, currently known as the aforementioned
Saskatchewan Polytechnic.
“The course that I took was offered in (the southern city
of) Moose Jaw; it’s the only one in Saskatchewan that does civil
engineering technology,” he said.
Fast forward a few years, and the Cotes have their hands full
with work on projects as diverse as supermarkets, SaskPower
substations, grocery chains in Manitoba and assignments at
Winnipeg’s new CentrePort inland port. And IPS even had a
hand in working on the new Saskatchewan Roughriders’ CFL
football stadium in Regina (New Mosaic Stadium), the equivalent
of a Texas company working on the Cowboys’ AT&T
Stadium.
Much of their work keeps them close to their hometown;
Cote estimates that IPS enjoys 75 percent of the local Saskatoon
market.
“We also do a lot in Manitoba and other areas,” he said.
Despite being the largest piling firm in the province, Cote
doesn’t consider IPS the flashiest company.
“That’s kind of our business philosophy. We don’t have the
newest equipment, we don’t have the cleanest equipment, it’s not
the most expensive equipment, but it works. And we really value
the practicality over polish philosophy, where our drill rigs are
from the ‘80s and ‘90s… It all comes down to your employees
and I would rather invest my time and money into my employees
than into brand new equipment.”
Cote considers his company’s versatility as one of their biggest
assets.
“We service every portion of the deep foundation industry
and we’re one of the few companies in Canada that does service
high capacity drill cap replace piles, and high capacity driven
steel, timber and concrete. We also service high capacity helical
screw steel piles and, in Saskatchewan, I don’t know of anybody
else that does all three of those out of the same office. Like, on
any given day in the summer, we can have two or three crews
doing drilled cast-in-place, two crews doing screw piles and two
crews driving pipe into the ground.
“I’ve never liked the idea of (separating) the driven division,
screw pile division or the drilling division. It creates a little
bit of a skill gap between the employees, so we train all of our
employees on all pile types. We have one or two operators who
stick to certain pile types, but they have the capability of doing
any type of deep foundations. And that really allows us to adapt
to any situation that comes up… We don’t have to wait for our
drilling division; we can just adapt to the situation and handle
it accordingly. And I think that’s something that not a lot of
companies do. You always see the driven division or the drilling
MEMBER PROFILE – CONTRACTOR
“It all comes down to your employees and I
would rather invest my time and money into my
employees than into brand new equipment.”
– Banain Cote, Innovative Piling Solutions
Photo courtesy of Innovative Piling Solutions
PILEDRIVER | 71
/www.cormanmarine.com
