PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST – FOR QUITE SOME TIME

WORDS & PHOTOS BY CHRIS TIESSEN

‘Don’t you think it would be fun just to hang out with Danny?,’ Art excitedly asks me as he and I hop into his Volkswagen SUV and begin the short drive back to his office on the north side of Waterloo. ‘I could hang out with someone like him all day,’ he adds energetically. I let out a spontaneous laugh. Art’s enthusiasm is palpable, and I find it refreshing to realize that, in his case at least, the oft-repeated adage that it’s the clients who make a person’s job worthwhile rings so very, very true. ‘Danny definitely seems like a great guy,’ I answer with a smile, ‘I’d for sure hang out with him.’ Especially if Art –gregarious, energetic, teeming with infectious energy – might come along too.

It's a Tuesday morning in late May and Art Janzen – co-owner of Waterloo-based Menno S Martin Contractor Limited – has just taken me on a site visit to a sprawling home in Waterloo’s stunning Colonial Acres neighbourhood where a Menno S Martin crew has been busy converting a mansardroofed house – Danny’s house – into a more traditionally-gabled structure. ‘We’ve actually done a few mansard roof conversions around here,’ Art tells me as we cruise through quiet neighbourhood streets. He points to a large building set back from the street and announces: ‘Actually that’s one right there.’ As we drive on past sprawling Colonial Acres homes on mature treed lots, Art points out at least a half dozen more properties Menno S Martin has had their hands in over the years. More roof conversions. A couple of large main-floor additions. Interior renovations – of bathrooms, kitchens, entire main floors and more – not visible from the street. So many client homes.

‘We usually have around eight projects on the go at any given time,’ Art tells me as we make a last turn out of Colonial Acres and beeline it to the office. ‘It keeps our team of fourteen [an electrician, nine carpenters, four office staff] busy year-round.’ I don’t doubt it; that the company keeps busy, that is. It’s seemingly always been this way – at least from my perspective. Growing up in Kitchener, I remember seeing Menno S Martin trucks and signs on clients’ lawns in all parts of the city. In fact my own childhood bedroom is a Menno S Martin job; the company (then run by Laverne Brubacher, who had bought the business from Menno Martin in 1976) opened up the top floor of my parents’ Old Westmount storeyand-a-half home with two large cathedralvaulted gables back in the late eighties. The renovation was a godsend for me, who had been living like a hermit in what I interpreted to be an upstairs ‘closet’ (while my brother lived like a king in a huge bedroom next to mine) until the generous vaulted addition equaled the score. When I recall this childhood anecdote to Art, he looks pleased – and proud. ‘I’m happy to hear we made your childhood tolerable,’ he tells me with a laugh.

Before long, we arrive at the Menno S Martin office and I’m seated with Art and his business partner, co-owner Trent Bauman, in the place’s sparse kitchen nook – a meeting room of sorts located between the bright front offices and expansive back shop. It doesn’t take me long to discern that while Art’s the company’s resident extrovert, Trent is his perfect counterbalance. Calm, measured, and blessed with a dry sense of humour, Trent has worked at Menno S Martin since 1987 – ever since he graduated in Architectural Technology from Mohawk College.

‘I think the reason Art and I work so well together,’ Trent tells me when I ask about how they manage their roles as co-owners of such a successful regional company, ‘is because we were mountain biking buddies well before we became partners at Menno S Martin.’ Art chimes in: ‘Our wives worked together before we’d even met. We got to know each other at their work parties. It wasn’t long before we began riding together – and became one another’s confidante.’

Indeed, Art recalls leaning on Trent for career advice more than once while he searched for something that would hold meaning for him in the years before he began work at Menno S Martin. ‘I worked in the glass business back then,’ Art tells me, ‘and also at a print shop as a graphic designer. While I learned a lot in both industries, I couldn’t picture what either place would hold for me five or ten years down the line, and that gave me pause.’ And so, after a time, Art applied to become a police officer. The day he found out his application had been rejected, he received a call from Trent, who wanted to share that then-Menno S. Martin owner Laverne Brubacher was looking for an operations manager to oversee marketing, health & safety, and overall operations at the business. Someone to work alongside Trent

– who at the time was a project manager at the company. Art leapt at the opportunity. ‘If a door opens,’ he tells me with a huge grin, ‘you go through it.’

When Laverne retired in 2010, Art and Trent knew they wanted to continue the Menno S Martin legacy and so they bought the business together – which brings us to today. ‘The company has gone through quite an evolution since Menno [and his brother] started it out of Menno's home in St Jacobs in 1942,’ Trent tells me. ‘For the first few decades the business focused on new builds and barn work. Back then, Menno – a pioneering Waterloo Region entrepreneur – drove to jobs in a Ford Model A with a ladder strapped to it. When Laverne took over the business from Menno in the seventies,’ Trent continues, ‘he dropped the new builds and barn-building side of the business in favour of home renovations.’

Like my childhood bedroom renovation, for example.

‘Since Art and I have taken over the company,’ Trent tells me, ‘we’ve focused much of our business on design-build renovations –bathrooms, kitchens, whole interior house renos, additions.’ Like Danny’s house, I remark. ‘Yes,’ Art tells me, ‘in the last decade especially, our sweet spot has become renovating wellbuilt 1980s two-storey houses whose owners want to modernize their living space.’ I ask how these ambitious projects affect clients’ day-to-day lives. ‘Quite often,’ Art remarks, ‘the homeowners remain living in the house and we've learned how to work around them.’ I’m amazed. Art continues: ‘For instance, Danny and his family are still living in their home while we build onto it.’ I think back to this morning’s site visit and imagine Danny working from home, and his family living at home, with all the renovations going on around them. Tight quarters. But if anyone can make it work, I imagine that Art and Trent and their team would be able to get it done.

‘During the most ambitious jobs,’ Art tells me, ‘we actually become like part of the family because our crews are at clients’ houses all day, every day, for weeks on end.’ He smiles: ‘Our clients have been known to feed us, their kids make us drawings, we get to know the family dog. This might sound absurd, but it’s actually quite often a sad day for us – and even for our clients – when we finally finish the job and move on.’ I’m heartened by Art’s candidness. After all, why wouldn't a business which literally makes (newly-renovated) homes for families also sometimes grow to feel like family in these homes?

'These relationships arise out of mutual respect,' Trent observes. 'What we’re striving to do in this most recent chapter of the business is to continue living – and working – by values that have always been at the core of Menno S Martin. Essentially the Golden Rule. ‘Since Trent and I took over the business we’ve been preaching the motto ‘Putting People First’,’ Art remarks, 'because, in our minds, if you treat folks right – clients, subtrades, and each other – things will fall into place. Our team has adopted this motto and it's the whole team that deserves the credit for how we and our clients interact.'

People first. Another adage that rings true. It's clear that there's mutual pleasure and satisfaction in that.

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