His pride is obvious as he shows off the tent that can steam-cure cement overnight, giving it the strength of products that have undergone 14 days of air-curing. On the other side of the plant, an innocuous-looking system has the ability to produce 400 pipes a day with enviable precision.
Built in 2006 according to a Danish design, the plant makes efficient use of space and streamlines production processes, allowing Langley Concrete to produce concrete pipes and culverts that are competitive with much cheaper plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping. It produces 100,000 tonnes of product annually, worth approximately $25 million, for projects ranging from residential subdivisions to major infrastructure projects such as the South Fraser Perimeter Road.
Omelaniec doesn’t focus on the size of the company so much as getting things right. He talks about the precision of the plant’s equipment, the exceptionally low rate of rejects during the final inspection of pipes prior to shipping and the initiative staff take to satisfy customers.
His inspiration comes from his grandfather Jacob, who came to Langley from Belarus in 1936 and set up shop making well tiles for local farmers. The determination to make a living, coupled with his father’s goal of having a company where his sons could work, drives Omelaniec’s vision of a company where staff feel at home and take ownership of their work.
Langley Concrete remains a family business – Omelaniec’s brothers Mike, Kevin and Jason have significant roles in the company – but Omelaniec considers the 150 staff who work at the company’s three locations full partners in what his grandfather started.
“We’re all reliant on each other,” he says. “The vision that I have for the company is just to grow a company where we have employees that enjoy working with us and are doing the best job they can to keep our customers happy.”
Omelaniec’s vision has made the company something more than his grandfather ever envisioned, however. The company was handcrafting tiles as late as 1962, but the addition of modern casting equipment through the 1960s allowed it to start supplying a range of public and private clients.
Growth ratcheted up in the 1980s, when Lafarge left the precast pipe business and Langley Concrete stepped in to fill the void. Other acquisitions followed, but by the end of the 1990s streamlining was in order to facilitate further growth.
Langley had also grown, and when councillors rezoned the site of its downtown plant in the early 2000s from heavy industrial to service industrial, a new location became essential. Chilliwack offered an ideal site, and plans for a new “superplant” were drafted.
It was, in some ways, full circle for Omelaniec, who joined the company full time in 1982 and oversaw the construction of the company’s previous plant on Logan Avenue. The recession of the 1980s was in full swing, but the experience reinforced a principle that continues to guide Omelaniec’s decision-making.
“Do things when you think they’re right,” he said. “When an opportunity presents itself, you’ve got to strike right away.”
