Northern Industrial Services Group (NISG) wants to be the first — and only — call for Timmins businesses, whether it’s to collect their garbage or sweep their parking lot.
Or, as chief operating officer Michael Perello puts it, NISG wants to be the Wal-Mart of site services.
“The vision is to be able to, whether it’s a mine or a grocery store, go to (a business) and say, ‘You concentrate on what you make money at, whether it’s mining or selling groceries, and we’ll take care of all the other stuff,’” Perello said.
“We’ll take your garbage away, we’ll take your recycling, we’ll sweep your sand, clear your snow, and we’ll do your industrial cleaning for you.”
Now in its fourth year of operation, NISG is the amalgamation of five smaller businesses, which consolidated under one roof last summer, in a 42,000-square-foot building on a 30-acre property in the city’s west end.
The building is a little big for the company’s current purposes, but it gives them plenty of room to grow, Perello said.
Included under the NISG umbrella are Timmins Disposal (garbage and recycling disposal, demolition, landfill management); IMS (hydro excavation, high pressure wash, emergency spill response); Heritage Paving (snow removal, road maintenance, landscaping and design, interlocking stone, fencing); Techno Metal Post (commercial and residential application of helical piles); and Fun Swim Pools (in ground and aboveground pools and design). NISG Earthworks (sewer and water, tailings rehabilitation, dam and road construction) was formed later.
The seemingly disparate array of services actually works in the company’s favour.
Because they’re so diversified, NISG’s success isn’t contingent on landing industrial contracts, making the company better prepared to weather fluctuations in workflow — like Timmins’ current mining downturn, Perello said. Businesses will always need their garbage picked up and their facilities cleaned, he reasoned.
“We’ve got a really nice base to work from, so even if nothing’s happening in Timmins, as far as expansion goes, at least we’ve got a core of business that keeps us going,” Perello said.
Any challenges posed by retaining such a large number of people are offset by the diversity in skill sets they offer.
“It provides you a lot of opportunities to cross-train your people and provide them to be trained in multiple areas, which provides a much more stable workforce, not just for the company, but even for the area,” Perello said.
At its peak, NISG employs 150 during the summer and shrinks to 100 in the off season, making NISG one of the largest private employers in Timmins.
It’s a huge step forward from the family’s garbage collection upstart, established in the 1950s.
Formerly pig farmers, the family moved into garbage collection, and eventually Perello took over, acquiring smaller firms to add to the company’s ranks.
“When we first started this, I thought this was a 10- or 15-year endeavour to grow the company,” he said.
“The opportunities were there and it just pushed us forward that much faster.”
