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Joining forces Rankin businessman partners with national distributor
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, August 21, 2013
KANGIQLINIQ/RANKIN INLE
Longtime Rankin Inlet businessman Harry Towtongie has joined forces with the largest waterworks distributor in Canada.
Harry Towtongie is flanked by Clarence Brown, left, and Kirk Stokes in announcing a joint venture between the Emco Corp. Waterworks and Towtongie's Nuqsana Waterworks in Rankin Inlet earlier this month. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo
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Towtongie announced the joint venture of his Nuqsana Waterworks with the Emco Corp. Waterworks earlier this month, saying the time was right for him to expand his business dealings.
He said businessmen have no backup when they go it alone with a small company in the North.
"It's a real advantage to have that backup because you can rely on a large company for bigger projects, and that allows you to bid on bigger jobs and get involved with mining work," said Towtongie.
The owner of Nuqsana said his company is like an investment company, in that it partners with various southern companies to take on projects and get involved in different fields of business.
"I've been running my own business for, probably, 25 years now, and I've always tried to hire locally to utilize the labour and skills we have here,” Towtongie said. "I feel I always fell short because I was such a small company with no partnership backup, so now I'm trying to take a step to another level of business so I can get involved with major projects."
Towtongie said it's going be more of a self-promoting business atmosphere for him now, in which he'll have to promote himself to other companies and put everything on the table his company can provide them with.
He said he views the path ahead as selling the benefits and abilities of Nuqsana Waterworks to bigger companies he hopes to deal with.
Towtongie said that if this joint venture is successful that it would benefit the whole community.
"A lot of the money being made now, through a lot of different companies, is being sent somewhere else,” he said. "It's not being spent here or being used for local hires and training, and every little bit helps when it comes to hiring more local people and supporting our local economy."
Towtongie said he's always been a strong believer in training local people for the jobs available in the Kivalliq and across Nunavut.
He said it's very important to the future well-being of Nunavut that more Inuit receive the training they need to take on skilled-labour positions.
"This new joint venture between (Nuqsana Waterworks) and Emco Corp. Waterworks isn't going to fix everything, but it's going to help,” Towtongie said, adding the partnership will not only open doors for him, but also provide local employment and learning opportunities in the process.
"We're not just focused on Rankin, but, rather, we see this as the staging point for us to deliver our product to, hopefully, the rest of Nunavut and maybe even beyond, wherever piping, waterworks equipment, fair pricing and top-quality service are required."
Towtongie isn't about to tell anyone he's an expert at selling piping, waterworks and insulating equipment.
He said he doesn't have the engineering knowledge for that, so he's counting on Emco to give him the professional support he needs to be able to bid on the bigger projects.
"After running just a small business for so long, I'm looking forward to the challenge ahead and the opportunities I hope this venture will provide."
Clarence Brown of St. John's, Nfld., is the district manager for Emco Corp. Waterworks and said the pipe-supply company does business across North America and has been active in the North for the past 35 years.
Brown said the company deals in high-density polyethylene piping, mining piping, tailing lines, and water and sewer through hamlets, including sewage-and-water-treatment systems.
He said Emco is very active with the construction industry throughout the North, as well as some of the larger centres in the nation.
"We bring a lot of experience to the table and the partnership with Harry (Towtongie) is the one we choose to strike," said Brown. "The joint venture, in itself, is the benefit to us and, through Nuqsana Waterworks across the Kivalliq region, we hope to use Rankin as the jump-off point to service both existing mines and those coming in the future.
"It's a partnership we view as being good for us, of course, but we also see it being good for Rankin Inlet and the Kivalliq region, as well."
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