By IAN ROSS
Northern Ontario Business
For a Timmins mine development company that entered the so-called big leagues of Canada's fastest growing companies a few years back, Dan Dumas, CEO of Dumas Contracting Ltd. can take some good-natured ribbing about being slow off the mark in developing a company Web site.
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Dan Dumas and brother Marc started Dumas Contracting in 1994, with eight employees. Today the company has 350 employees and is poised for further growth. |
"We're very picky," concedes Dumas. "Everything we do takes time. But when we do it, it's done right."
Their clients can attest to that. The 350-employee mining contracting and engineering firm has about 10 big-ticket projects on the go in Northern Ontario, Quebec and South America.
This past January, Dumas was awarded a $10-million contract to oversee the building, engineering and management of the St. Andrew Goldfields's advanced Clavos exploration project, involving the development of an entirely new mine site. Dumas is also working with St. Andrews on recommissioning and dewatering their once-closed Stock Mine, a $3-million development and exploration project. In Quebec, they picked up a $6-million project to extend a ramp underground with Richmont Mines. In Brazil, Dumas is assisting in a shaft-deepening project as a consultant with Eldorado Gold.
"We treat every job as if it's our only job. Every time we tender, we put a lot of time, effort and thought into it and most of the time we get work because we were innovative."
A 1999 Profit magazine survey of the 100 fastest-growing companies in Canada pegged Dumas's growth at 1,101 per cent over a five-year period, posting revenues of more than $9.7 million in 1998. Dumas says the company will likely double those figures this coming year and probably "experience another 100-per-cent (growth) in the next 12 months."
The company was established 10 years ago by co-founders Dan and brother Marc Dumas. They began in 1994 with a labour contract at the Dome
Mine in Timmins and slowly one project branched off into many others by their reputation for solid work.
The fact that the company grew and thrived in the post Bre-Ex days of the late 1990s, when commodity prices were bottoming out, is a testament to the Timmins company's strong relationship with their clients.
