Vanguard Magazine

40 AprIL/MAY 2017 www.vanguardcanada.com G GAMe CHANGEr See the full interview online Q How did you start out in this industry, and how has it brought you to where you are today? I've always been entrepreneurial, even when working with other companies. In 2008, I made the leap and quit my position at Nortel and started a business with an RBC credit card, working out of my home. The business grew over time, from a two- man operation to where it is today – with over 80 employees and growing, and two operational plants in Ottawa and Dallas. In 2016, I acquired Terra Nova Eng, with the goal of increasing business traction into the military and aerospace sector. Q What was your worst moment? My worst memory was in 2010. We had just expanded operations when our lead customer placed all business on hold. I can remember sitting at the table in my office with my finance leader at the time, having the discussion with questions like, "Am I going to lose my house?", "Am I going to lose my car?", "What will the bank take?" Three days later, we received our first very large order from a new sig- nificant customer, which pulled us back into business. Q What was your "aha" moment or epiphany that you think will resonate most with our reader? The recognition that most of our custom- ers are stuck driving further ROI on the infrastructure they own. Our repair and overhaul services, although they are per- formed on legacy equipment, can be en- gineered to be innovative and automated; driving a robust assured-quality product into the future. Q Step back and analyze your journey; what is the takeaway you want to give to our audience? Often our customers are stuck with a lega- cy system, and when they approach some- one to help them they are usually told "sorry it`s too old". Even on older prod- uct solutions, there is usually a way for- ward to modernize it, and with the right level of focus, it can be accomplished. If engines and fuselage are the heart and body of the deployed equipment, elec- tronics are the brain. Then, we are brain surgeons. Q What is the one thing that has you most fired up today? Starting a business, you become the CEO because you had the idea, not because you had any qualifying skillset. I like to com- pare running a business to solving a Ru- bix cube – finance is one side, operations is another side, customers on another, quality on another side and so forth. But there is an exception, they are all jumbled together. Throughout the journey as a leader of the business along with my lead- ership team, we have solved the majority of the cube and have seen up to four times growth this year. We are now expanding into a North American solution, with a factory in the U.S. that will open this year. Q What is a habit that contributes to your success? Looking back over the years, one thing that's always helped is building customer relationships based on mutual business success and understanding my customer`s customer. Q What are some of the biggest impediments to innovation in your organization or industry sector? Resistance to change; in many cases cus- tomers have become convinced that the only way forward is to completely change everything that could be otherwise func- tional because they have been repeat- edly told that there is no solution for the equipment that they currently own. Q What are the biggest impediments to innovation in today's enterprise? Not building what the customer needs be- cause they don't realize that they need it. Q How has innovation become engrained in your organization's culture and how is it being optimized? Within our industry, innovation is our cul- ture. We are an intersection between new technology solutions and old technology equipment. We continue to win customer favour and growth because we focus on enabling assured-quality test methods and standards on legacy equipment. Q What technologies, business models, and trends will drive the biggest changes in your industry over the next two years? Repair and test automation. Q What is your parting piece of advice? Things are always designed and built the way they are for a reason. Take an extra five minutes and understand why they op- erate the way they do. Len Anderson CEO Renaissance RepaiR and supply and TeRRa nova eng

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