Ryan Connolly still doesn’t know what magic formula landed his company, Fibrestick Manufacturing, on the 2018 Growth 500 list.
Yet there it is, one of only two Northern Ontario businesses to be included among tech startups, financial services ventures, and marketing firms from across Canada that are five to 10 times its size.
But if perseverance, tenacity and a nose-to-the-grind work ethic are part of the equation, then Connolly and Fibrestick qualify in spades.
“The company’s doing very well. We’ve had slow but steady growth, not big jumps,” said Connolly, the company’s president and CEO. “Every year we grow a little bit, add a little bit more.”
Located in Sault Ste. Marie’s north end industrial park, the company manufactures products for the residential and commercial construction industry out of medium-density fibreboard (MDF) sourced from the nearby Arauco Flakeboard plant.
Connolly purchased the company in 2006, with just four employees and two customers on board. Today, he has a client list of about 15, and employs 18 people, who run the plant Monday to Thursday from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The shop is completely shut down for two weeks every year – at Christmas and during the first week of August – so that everyone can take vacation time.
It’s been a slow build-up to this point.
Using the raw material sourced from Flakeboard (now Arauco), the company began by supplying dunnage – small lengths of wood used to secure cargo or products during transportation – to just two customers: Flakeboard’s Sault plant and Weyerhaeuser’s oriented strand board facility in Wawa.
Over several months after his acquisition, Connolly sourced some new, smaller clients. But within a year of purchasing the business, the housing crisis hit, and Weyerhaeuser closed the Wawa plant, leaving Fibrestick with Flakeboard as its only major client.
“It was a little tense,” Connolly chuckled. “That wasn’t one of my better days.”
The closure spurred him to look a little closer at what else the company could do, and through his contacts at Flakeboard, came across a small manufacturer in Collingwood producing doorjambs for Masonite, a U.S.-headquartered doormaker.
As luck would have it, the owner was looking to retire, and so, for the second time in as many years, Connolly found himself acquiring a business. He disassembled all the plant’s equipment, transported it up to the Sault, and reinstalled it in his shop. But the rug was pulled out from under him when Masonite cancelled his contract to partner with a Chinese supplier offering cheaper prices.
“I never did sell one doorjamb to Masonite,” he recalled.
Undeterred, Connolly doubled down on his research, and eventually found a market for his products. Now he supplies to residential and commercial developers primarily in the GTA, where housing construction is once again booming.
Recognizing the need to diversify, he’s added to Fibrestick’s line of products over the years. Today, alongside the doorjambs, Fibrestick manufactures primed moulding, window buildouts, and shelving supports, bringing in roughly $2 million to $5 million in sales.
“We have taken on new customers this year, but it’s more adding other products now to the customers that we’re already servicing,” he said. So we started with doorjambs, and then we started selling the mouldings…now we’re going to start making the shelf – that’s what we’re working on right now.”
Connolly expects the shelves will be ready for sale by Christmas.
His story is compelling because he came to the manufacturing industry after more than 30 years in agriculture. Starting in their early 20s, Connolly and his wife farmed 300 acres for the dairy, sheep and beef industries at a property outside the Sault.
In their 50s, the couple decided to make a lifestyle change. They sold their acreage to local Mennonite farmers and divested their assets – all but two tractors, which Connolly still uses today. The couple purchased a home in the Town of Bruce Mines, and then purchased Fibrestick.
Though the two industries are very different, the no-nonsense, get-the-job-done attitude required to survive a competitive market isn’t. Connolly is self-taught on most of his shop’s equipment, and if it breaks down, he simply figures out a way to get it up and running again.
Just like in farming, “you fix it and get on with what you’re doing,” Connolly shrugged.
Similar products of comparable quality are shipped in from China, Chile, Brazil and Québec, but the fact that Fibrestick is a Canadian company doesn’t always work in its favour. Construction companies are zeroed in on the bottom line and South American products are available at a cheaper price.
“I don’t know if (buying local) enters into their thinking,” Connolly said. “Big companies’ purchasing agents are people that look at cost.”
Fibrestick differentiates itself by focusing on customer service, he noted. If a client needs a special order, or has an urgent problem, the company will halt production to address the issue head on.
“We’ll stop what we’re working on, switch over and make you what you need, so that you get it next week and your business can carry on; you've got the product there to finish the job,” Connolly said. "That happens regularly, but it's part of the service that you're not going to get from the guy in Chile."
Despite nearing a period where many his age would start looking toward retirement, Connolly balks at the idea of hanging up his safety glasses any time soon.
He’d like to continue expanding his product line, and maybe sourcing a few more customers, which would require more staff.
A life of leisure, lounging on a beach in Florida during his golden years, is the farthest thing from his idea of a good time.
“I guarantee you that is never going to happen,” he chuckled. “My wife would have no interest at all.”
