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ATI began as a growth initiative at ATCO Frontec, the airport operations and maintenance company the three men previously worked for. When a change in senior management brought an end to the project, the group decided it was something worth pursuing on their own. They quit their jobs and stepped into the risky, but ultimately rewarding, world of entrepreneurship.
The first phase of the business plan was to refurbish, or as Smith calls it, re-life high speed sweepers and self-propelled high speed snowblowers. "They're very specialized machines, and they're very expensive, but they haven't changed too drastically in the last several years.
We strip them to the bare frame and then we modernize them; in effect we build them to like-new with the same advantages as new at a lesser cost."
A sweeper should generally have a 15-year service life and a snowblower should have a 20-year service life, says Smith, but the heavy steel on the machines will last much longer. By salvaging the superstructure, ATI cuts the cost of a new one considerably, yet offers a warranty that's the same, or better, than the one you'd get on a new machine.
At the same time, the team had long ago recognized the need for a wholly new product – a high speed snow plow built specifically for the airport marketplace. "Typically airports take a vehicle that's built for the highway, and they modify it," says Smith.
Usually, that vehicle's a dump truck. "So they take a chassis that's designed for something else, and turn it into an airport plow." The Snow Mauler is something else entirely. "We in fact build an airport plow – something that's designed specifically for that job.
But while the Mauler had a place in the company's business plan, it was far down the road. The company was small, and they were going to grow slowly and carefully.
Then the Winnipeg Airport Authority (WAA) expressed an interest in the project and became eager to be involved with its development. "That accelerated our wading into product development much sooner," says Smith, who says they were lucky to have WAA participation. "While it seems like common sense, it's the exception to the rule to actually be able to get the people who are going to own and use these vehicles involved in the development. They were very much involved in the design of the prototype."
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