Ep. 33 - Be the First: Rick Hunter on the Importance of Innovation

In this episode, Fahd sits down with Rick Hunter, a former Canadian National Ski Team racer who made the leap from the slopes to the waterslide industry. Rick shares the lessons he learned from competing at the highest level of sport and how those same principles of passion, innovation, and relentless self-improvement fueled his success as an entrepreneur.

From chasing excellence on the mountain to creating unforgettable experiences in business, Rick discusses why it's never enough to settle for your current best—and how continuously raising the bar can lead to extraordinary results.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is working towards excellence all the time. This is bettering your best work. We work our ass off big time, and uh you never leave. You never leave. When you do have a problem, you spend all the money it takes to solve it, and you have another customer for life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Alright. So today's guest didn't start in manufacturing. He didn't come from engineering or even come from water. He came from snow. Rick Hunter was a national ski racer for Team Canada. That's honestly impressive on its own. Without even us getting into what it is. My wife just uh liked ski racing when she was younger, and that was something we always always watch uh together. So you were tracing adrenaline, speed, and the perfect turn. That's it. That's it. And somehow ski racing led you to water slides. And that's the story that I think we're gonna unpack today. Let's do it. Is the insight from how you applied ski racing curvature to the innovation of water slides. And that's gonna be this this this this brilliance that I want to unpack. It was amazing. And so in 1986, you launched this tiny little startup out of Ottawa, Little Sleepy Ottawa, and uh it's called Pro Slide in a market that had plenty of Davids competing, and perhaps a few Goliaths uh and giants in the industry. No real connections, no real capital, but you had a vision. What was what was the vision that you had starting off?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Well, you know, it was it I ended up getting into the industry of the water parks uh through a chance visit in the Chicago airport. So I was in fact working, I was uh ski racing, finishing my MBA at Ottawa, and uh I bumped into a person in the Chicago airport. I was coming back from Colorado in a B-level, a Cours Colorado Pro Tour race. And um, I was racing for Solomon Bindings and Kaber boots and spaulding skis. And they were sponsors as part of the sponsors, yeah, yeah. Although I was going to school, I still dabbled in ski racing. Yeah, and um this person that was sitting next to me in the restaurant, he was with another individual, and uh one of the this older gentleman left, and this person turned to me and said, Oh, you're a skier, because he recognized Solomon. And I said, Yeah. And uh he said, I'm related to ski areas too. I sell a slide called the Alpine Slide, and we also sell water slides to ski areas. So he he worked in the industry where he worked with ski resorts to to make them sort of useful in the summer summer activity, summer activity, summer activity, and one of them, the alpine slide, was a dry slide with a cart. Uh, they also had some of the really startups for water slides. And uh he said, I'm the sales manager for the Alpine Slide Company out of Vermont. This the guy that just left was my boss who owned it for North America, and we were talking together, needing to have a person to sell slides in Canada. You've just told me that you're from Canada, you're a ski racer with the national team, and you're the guy. You want a job. Yeah, this happened in about 20 minutes to 30 minutes. That's amazing. And I did honestly say thanks, but no thanks. I'm going into the ski business because that's what I was gonna do. That's what I know, that's what I'm good at. Yeah, that's what I and I had my sponsors, I was gonna move to Westfield Mass, uh, and I was going to be in the ski business selling slides and marketing, sorry, marketing skis. And uh he said, Well, please send us a resume. So I did, you know, and anyway, it it so happened. And being in it, I was working on the MBA, I had my own letterhead paper with a a picture of me on the front of the letterhead, and he said, We have to hire it with the with the full, I've seen it. Yeah, it looked good, so it was really just incredibly a chance meeting.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. And and I, you know, as we get into the story, I mean there's gonna be a lot of these chance meetings, but you know, I think you uh like a lot of the Davids, the in in these David versus Goliath stories that we capture and that we tell, is that you take a lot of chances. You're sort of a yes man. You you you go, you know what, let's try it. Like there, you chance meetings and luck happen, but you've cre you've increased the surface area of of luck uh by the opportunities that you've taken. And even when I look at some of the stuff that we have here in terms of like your bio, and like like I just I think about again the story, and I know we're gonna get into it, but like, why would some of the biggest water parks in the world bet on a guy from Ottawa, Canada without much track record yet? Like, you know, and you put yourself out there, you don't try to outspend the competition by building the the craziest, you know, kind of things, but you outdesign them. Like, I think this is this is what's interesting. You you find a way to build a different kind of team that's small, that's technical, that's relentless, and and you build ProSlide. It's the company that's today, which is the world's most iconic water rides. You've got I've got from the turn tornado funnel to the hydromagnetic coaster. You work with Disney Universal Six Flags and more than a thousand water parks in 60 different countries. That chance meeting leads to one of the world's most impactful water slide companies that exist. Now, that doesn't happen overnight, and obviously, the way I like to tell the story, I'm jumping from it just like that. Uh, but it but in this episode together, we're gonna unpack the moment you as a ski racer sort of to see that connection of how to reinvent water slides and water parks, how ProSlide lands its first big break in wet and wild, uh, why you bought your own space, water park, Mokas had to test your own ideas, right? Um, the innovation that that allows you to have, and you've now led the same company for 40 years, and uh and the company's gone through several transitions of of growth, and you've got a strong executive team leading now. And so we really want to unpack the innovation, the team, and the leadership. And so I'm excited, Rick, to dive into this with you more. So, Rick, you get this chance meeting and you take this job. Yep. So you're a salesman trying to figure out how to sell water slides to ski resorts. That's right. What is what what are you learning in those early days? What's what's the what's going on in your head?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

You know, my my thought process was I was gonna go into the ski business uh with my sponsors, and that is a business-to-consumer business. Uh, when this opportunity came up, you know, I did a little investigation on the Alpine Slide Company, and in fact, this was serious summer recreation for ski areas. Uh, they were very good at what they did. These these Alpine Slides with the carts, they were the uh strongest company uh for winter ski areas in the summer. So they had about 30, oh, probably about 36 installations across North America, uh, all across the U.S. and Canada, and they were a leader. Uh, they were also getting into the water slide business, which none of us really knew much about at the time and and the potential for that. But having said that, it was like, okay, you know what? I was gonna move to the States. Uh, I actually opened up uh a small office uh just outside of Ottawa. I was a log builder by sort of background. My hobby was building with logs. I had built a log sleeping cabin up in the Gatineau, and it became Alpine Slide Canada Limited. So, so I, you know, you just build the log cabin.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

I think I think this is one of the things that we see, one of the themes that we see with a lot of the Davids is that you're builders. Yes, you sort of this tinkerer, inventor, like you you're always no matter whether it's water slides or it's log cabins or it's wherever, you sort of are always building. There's something you you're you're playing with.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

One thing that you you know is hard to really understand is I grew up in sports. So I was just like every other Canadian, I was a hockey player from three or four years old. Yeah, you know, I was left wing, you know. We had a uh fam, not a fam, uh direct family member, but you know, my my uh mother, you know, she always said Ted Lindsay is my cousin, and Ted Lindsay was with Chicago Blackhawks and then Detroit Red Wings. But anyway, you know, from three years old to 12 years old, it was like playing on any team all the time, like three or three teams at a time. And then it was uh, but I was lucky enough to get into gymnastics, and I was a gymnast really from grade five all the way through high school, and and we were very good at Nipean High School. So now I'm a gymnast. But I went in my first race, I got somebody I bumped into a person that was skiing, and he was the ski coach, and he said, uh, you know, you should come out and try skiing because you're a great athlete in these other sports. And I said, Okay, and I tried it, and I went in my first race when I was 14. But this is also the lucky club, too. Uh, you know, and I made the national team by the time I was 18. So it was this sort of cross if there's cross-training, yeah, it was hockey, gymnastics, and then ski racing, and then ski racing became my life.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

And uh it was Team Canada, like that's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

No, racing World Cup and racing all over the US and over Europe and going to South America for summers.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

What are some of the the the like lessons that you learned from work ethic, from this training, from cross-training, from applying skills from one sport to the other? That's huge. Like what are some of them that you carry to this day as entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Well, you know, um, stay in shape. You know what? I mean, you know, uh life is what you make it, and uh being in shape and uh training, because you know, we used to uh train very hard for all those sports, but uh when I was with the Canadian ski team, I mean the reason that you really got in great shape was so when you were practicing in a course, you could practice all day long, you know, and take instead of taking you know 40 or 20 practice runs, you you know, you'd have you'd have 50 runs, and so you're always working on your technique. And the thing is that in in those sports, like this is all about if you want to be the best, you've gotta you gotta put the hard work in and you have to be in great shape. So it's the discipline of that, yeah. And for sure those those habits and those lessons really, really, really help out in running a business and building a business.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

So I gotta give it to sports. You carry that through your entire big time and the insights and and I mean I'm I'm at uh 74 now, I feel 42. That's amazing. Yeah, so that's nice.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

You know, I still wouldn't want to take you on a ski beat me or any racing or wrestling. I feel like wrestling, I have a thing on you a little bit, right? But you never know. I mean you're a gymnast. There might be got some special moves from me there. So, so chance meeting, your ski racing background leads us into this moment where you're now working to sell ski resorts, water slides. But you don't know a thing about water slides at the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

I knew, I honestly knew very little about water slides. Uh, the Alpine slide was, you know, sort of long radius turns on a cart, usually a dueling, like in other words, there's usually two tracks. So this was easy to comprehend. Like, so this is almost like giant slalom racing, you know, down a track. And of course, it's a serpentine type of thing. You're on grade, like you literally, the designs were on grade. When you say on grade, on for us, okay, for us, uh what that means for the alpine slide literally was like building a road down the slope, and and and and it was at the grade, uh, you know, kind of pitch that that was the right pitch for the alpine slide design, so that you had good speed on the alpine slide with the cart, and the turns were not too tight, they were the right radius curves. Uh and correspondingly with the uh water slides, which are not as fast as the alpine slide, you know, they are serpentine as well. Yeah, and uh there's a sequence of parts that create a smoother turn and in fact a more comfortable turn for the for the user. And uh there was I I gotta say that because of a training for so long, you know, with skiing, um, that you really understand in ski racing, it's all about the line. Okay, so the gates are serpentine across, traverse across the slope, you know, dropping down and literally on terrain, obviously. And uh there was this line, you're you're never going into a turn in a ski race and jamming the brakes on. You are making a carved perfect turn, and so you're carrying speed and you're carrying momentum, so you can win the race because you're going faster than others, it's smoother. And the same thing's incredible for water slides now. In the fact that when we design rides, it's all about that line, it's all about the sequence of parts long radius, short radius, long radius out, transfer the edge, and then reverse the curve. And it's just even it would be impossible to imagine how magical that was as I started to understand. I understood the designs very, very quickly, working with Alpine.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

And and so that gave you a big advantage in just selling at the time. Absolutely, right? Like you understood the slides, you understood the the grade, you understood how they work. So so you went out there, you started selling, started building your network, finding finding the grooves.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

And I was working in the US. Uh, you know, the the owner asked me to move down to the United States, to Vermont, and I did that. And uh it was starting to boom in the early 80s. It was mom and pop, it was family-run water parks. So the the tide of water parks they started they started to move.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

And this is where you either decide that you're gonna, right? Tide is growing. Do you stay on this ship that you're with, or do you build yourself a little lifeboat and try and do this on your own, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Yeah, well, what what happened was that um the owner of the of this particular uh company, he was a real entrepreneur type guy. I mean, he it was hard to slow him down. Uh, and it was uh not even just in the recreation field, you know, he although he was quite uh, you know, he worked a lot in the in the attractions field for ski areas, but he also was into real estate and he was into building manufactured homes. He started to really sort of focus on that. And you know, he sort of looked at the people who were working in his the slide component or the division of this company, and he said, You you should buy the company. But it's only been five years, yeah. So no money, don't have any money. My dad, unfortunately, had passed away early. Um, it probably could have helped me, but it did, but that's and so I went to a very good friend of the family who was a business person uh out of Montreal, and they said, Hey, you know, uh Mr. Thule, you know, do you think there's any chance that you could uh help finance the purchase of this company? Yeah, and uh he's and he said, and a really sharp guy, he said, Rick, he said, you know, and he had a CFO too, like he was a CEO of a large company, and he said, uh the company, you know, this individual like it's has drained the equity box. There's not and not actually worth much. It's it yeah, and he, you know, and also, you know, there may be some financial trouble up ahead, okay? Because that's money moving out into another division. And so he said, I highly recommend that you do not buy this company. Uh, I'm not gonna invest. Could you start your own? So it really came from, you know. What a moment. Yeah, that's insane.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

What a moment. Sometimes we just need you need a nudge. Yeah, right. Yeah, and we think this is the path, I'm gonna buy it, it's safer, all that. Yeah, and then you get this brilliant, you know. It says, you know what? Like, I'm gonna invest your own. You start your own.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah, it was really unique because uh this was 1980, late, uh, it was 1986, about the middle of 1986. Started the company Pro Slide in 19 in December of 1986, and really it was one of those other lucky things. There weren't that many different types of water slides because it was very early. I mean, the same type that water slides were pretty commoditized, yeah. So literally, it was just serpentine body slides, speed slides.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

What Rick, what gives you the conviction at that time that you can compete? Like, because you're saying, okay, everyone had this okay. So, did you have this insight that okay, well, we can make a better slide?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

There was something that happened. I mean, you know, because I was very passionate about the slide business, and honestly, because of skiing, there's and I just understood the slides, and they started like the a lot of people in the market started calling me the slide guy because I ended up knowing uh like I could I could probably communicate why a slide really will be a good slide, and other slides that didn't have compound corners, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

It's the way I think one of your advantages is that I mean, and and I'm just reflecting this back to me, but I'm kind of thinking about it, is that you weren't such an engineering touch that your brain went like this is how I would explain the slide from an engineer to engineer. You gave this analogy of ski racing, and the average person can't came to understand it. So, I love when Rick explains slides because I can get it absolutely become the slide guy.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

But the way I explain slides and the smooth, you know, uh ride path of a slide, I um I I coached a lot too. You coach yourself when you're on World Cup. I mean, you're yes, you're looking, you're looking really closely at if anybody's and there were there were there were the podium guys, okay. I was technical skier, solemn GS. And I mean, you admired people that really were good at it. And that, by the way, the more focused you were on what are they doing, you became that. You could, I mean, it's like tennis, watching tennis, you know, now hold it, follow through, you know, yeah, uh rack it back quick, you know, get it back early. From watching oh, a hundred percent. So there's no doubt that my advantage, which you know, started show to show up was really understanding the rides, the gradients, uh, speeds, and uh making slides that were more exciting. Yeah, um, period. You know, and and so I you know, yeah, you never I hate hate the word uh overconfidence. You don't want to ever be overconfident. Uh it's all gratitude, but man, did I understand slides and early.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

And and and so so you so you get this nudge to call one of you start sounded, yeah, and you see that the market's filled with like similar slides. Yeah, you've got this like I understand slides, and and there were 12 to 14 companies.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

There were a lot of gala uh sorry, there were a lot of little side is raised rising. Oh yeah, price, you know, people competing on price, and you know, because there was there was uh so much supply, but they um I hate to say anybody wasn't there were there was just differentiation of different different levels, different levels, different yeah now.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

So so then talk to me about that. Yeah, what's the team that you've got to assemble early on to be able to compete on this? Because okay, there's Rick and his understanding and his brilliance, but okay, you're building a water side company, you you need a team. What's the what's the early days of the team?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

The the early days was the the key was that I brought in um you know uh a supplier, like a fiberglass manufacturer, um, and and it was happened to be Tansor, Tanser Yachts. And uh brought them in as a partner, a key partner? Yes, yes, yeah, brought them in as a uh you know, a minority share on okay, minute okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

That's but that's that's key. Yeah, that was that's a key insight. Because there's there's partners and suppliers that are like you work with that, but you said no, I need you to take a bet on us. You you oh yeah, and that and like skin in the game.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

This was another uh probably lucky thing for this for ProSlide was the uh there was a big problem in the yacht business, in the boat business in the mid-80s. Uh, the banks were pulling the plug on a lot of them because the market basically, you know, in the early 80s, I mean the interest rates were 22%. I mean, it was insane. And boats got hit big. And so uh Hans Tanzer, uh, who made great uh fiberglass boats. It was really he had an international class Tanser 22s, and he was a sh just really good. Okay. So fiberglass I know I know slides. This guy knows everything about fiberglass, and you know, oh yeah, it was a match mate.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

And uh so whenever okay, so we had to, you know, right out of the chute, we had to catch up to the marketplace. Uh so there, but as I said, there weren't that many different types of rides. There were some serpentine body slides, you know, narrower 42 inch, and then there were some. tubing rides that were 84 inch okay so about double to for the double tubes and um essentially there were some tunnel rides for tubes and that was pretty much it so there really weren't that many different types of rides which today i mean which is crazy considering considering just how many different slides slides are on this boardroom table right like that was the whole beauty of the whole thing like it was getting in early while the industry was young relatively young and then um having this this knowledge of ride paths what you know what makes a great serpentine ride path what makes a good speed slide you don't want to get air you know you want speed but you don't want to get air and these are just things that you would say in in honestly racing downhill you don't want to you do not want to get a whole bunch of air you want to stay close to the snow yeah where it's faster and and you're in the comfort zone so yeah I I can only tell you that once the this momentum it was playing catch up and then some great things happened uh you know the communication with the marketplace people calling me saying Rick you should build you know a great big wide ride for six people somebody so so this is I mean I I I love this Rick because because I know you can you just your mind loves the slides so much oh yeah that that and what what's clear to me as I as I interview you is like truly the secret sauce to have it built pro slide to its success is we simply built better slides than anyone else.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Absolutely like like I'm here asking like uh extra additional secrets what'd you do here and what'd you do there? Like it truly you went out and you're like we're just gonna build the biggest baddest slides that anyone can you know I know it sounds funny like biggest baddest the point is like uh it's it's more the perfection of high speed ski racing okay so then the biggest baddest probably so it's like no speed yeah how do we speed with curvature yeah so that the slide is thrilling and and super thrilling yeah and and yet you are going super fast and yet you're in the comfort zone.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

And and you never reach a point of any chance of of danger that's correct yeah that's correct that's the whole thing and and that that was really like something that was so inherently the right thing to do because you know uh there you know again there really isn't um a lot of people around that really understand the slides so uh everybody that ever comes into our booth you know and if you know if they're really questioning saying you must be an engineer right well the truth is is that hey like and we have a lot of engineers in this company of course but the truth is is that engineering uh is very important for structure for supports uh the ride path is a full-on creation it's a creation it's a it's a vision uh it's depending on the type of uh vehicle that you have you know you decide on a cross-sectional profile do we want this to be an oscillating type of ride or do we want predictable path you know an unpredictable path would be a narrower uh with a linear boat yeah you know and and this is just full-on analysis I think I I I love that I because you know this this theme that we're unpacking for you is innovation yeah and and what you've done here fundamentally what we see with the like the most effective David versus Goliath when it comes to innovation is you've taken something that is well known here in this industry and realized I can take the brilliance here and apply it.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

And that's what you did. You took the the ski racing principles and applied it. But in addition to that it's funny like again I think maybe there would have been a time where you know someone said oh are you an engineer you're not an engineer how are you building this but I think that that's actually your secret sauce because you didn't get trapped in the expertise like like experts are the demise to innovation often because we get trapped in best practices of this is how it's done this is how it should be versus the creativity the creative of of going beyond.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

And so I think as you put it you've got this like product engineering you've got this product creative application that goes what if we bented this way what if we curved like this right it allows you to push beyond the kind of basics of and it's so amazing because in ski racing you know um starting as well in a startup situation for where you start you know from a hockey player or whatever you know and you're going around the gates uh you don't have the technique when you start no uh to create speed but once you start creating speed and you start carving and you take a shorter line and you're going faster that's when you have to get creative and and that's when you have to you you position yourself slightly differently uh you think differently you look ahead you're you're it's a different style it's a different management skill and it's the same in water rides like somehow this idea of you know the difference between slalom like slalom turns or giant slalom turns or downhill downhill you know you're going 80 six 70 80 miles an hour and you look so far ahead and it's you're taking this line like this but meanwhile you know you've got slalom and you're you're going back and forth and you are clipping the gates it's different yes and these these lessons were are are just insanely great to apply to water slides it and you know you'd you'd have to uh see it to believe it yeah yeah yeah yeah well we're gonna go on we're gonna go on some ride that's right next this summer we're gonna grab a camera you and I are going down to the ride there you go um so so early days you got this partnership with Hans Tanzar job builder you're building out your brand your team you've got a little bit of funding to kind of just get some things moving um what are some of the like scrappy hacks early early days what are you what are you like figuring out not shortcuts because we're gonna take shortcuts but like how did you do things in a way to be able to compete in those early days well the the gaps like there were gaps that you didn't you couldn't see the gaps like people who you know build body slides or speed slides everybody was building similar style rides because there weren't that many profiles and the and the tubing so uh you had to like when when for example when we went from the I got the phone call and somebody was building a gunite a concrete ride that was 12 feet wide and said Rick you need to go out to Colorado they're building a gunite ride out there gunite is gunite is concrete sprayed concrete okay they're actually building it as opposed to building it in fiberglass the the slide itself is sprayed concrete yeah that feels like it's gonna hurt yeah yeah but I'm in the tube but you're riding in a six passenger raft yeah okay so the point is so I went out right away right away like and not even you know no and you're literally the slide guy they're calling you so come check this out it was it was a guy who ran uh uh it was uh whitewater marietta uh was Hersch and family one of the biggest suppliers or one of the biggest water park uh developers uh in the United States and he was chairman of the World Water Park Association so that there's where he said you're the slide guy and so I went out there and as soon as I saw this gunite ride it wasn't really a well designed ride but but it they they took that step out and they had the six passenger raft was not a raft it was a kid's inner like an inflatable pool well that you would put yeah that you would put on the on your back deck because there were no rafts this is 1989 right so at anyway jump in you know and uh they because these weren't real slide builders uh by trade or by sailing sail uh selling uh it was vertical walls and flat bottom so it was like pinball yeah exactly yeah but there was one money shot that you dropped and they built a nine uh eight to nine foot wall and it was actually a nice and smooth wall was the right wall and then it was back to pinball so but I went back home immediately and I started designing the 14 foot wide mammoth river.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Right because you're like I can I can take that I can I I can put it in and I can make it not pinball y absolutely and smooth but yeah still have that wall yeah because I'd already designed some cross sectional profiles for two person tubing already and got great results.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

So I knew with the six passenger more weight you know it wanted to be a wider dish. Yes so that's what we did and the thing went absolutely I call it viral I mean you know it started to move I saw the first one I did a prototype up in uh at Montblanc in the snow making pond near Trabla.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah okay so that's the moment that man that was like that changed the world so you you go and and and you gotta check you check out this this this concrete slide and you ride it and you realize there's something here.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Oh big you're just using the wrong material the wrong curvature I can do this yeah and we can make and I wasn't even competing with them they actually did it for their own part yeah they were just very entrepreneurial people and how do what how'd you get the funding to like to build this first one because you gotta build the prototype you've got to actually build it right you know I've got I've got uh now 39 years of income statements you know that I remember 750 000 the first year yeah like I think I went to 1.25 million in sales you know year three so and the magic um about being early and and having you know a a fiberglass specialist was the cost of tooling you make a lot of parts out of one mold so like if if you said oh Rick you went and built this 14 wood 14 foot wide ride okay um that's really expensive stuff but the truth is the tooling you know you know if we I on this ride was absolutely it was an oscillating ride so we had a seven meter turn we didn't need seven six five four uh this did not need to be a compounded corner like predictable path so so it was seven meter oh we needed a straight piece okay that's seven and a half feet long uh we needed a convex uh really convex concave for a little dip okay and then we needed a start and so we didn't need that many molds to build you were able to save some cost because absolutely like the way you looked at we built our own that's brilliant yeah no right that's another innovation right there it's not just the curvature it was like we could save on materials absolutely if we limited the number of molds right right because of the way this uh product behaved you know on the on the rafts so like every time that we built any molds the return on those molds was absolutely fantastic so I never really borrowed a whole bunch of money so you didn't actually do a lot of that you would you would sell these slides in a oh yeah well and you and you sell it's gonna be fahad color yeah oh you want do you want gray gray or gray you know what I mean whatever you know it could be beige but uh in those days that you didn't need a million colors either you know it was a little more conservative but the truth is is that you know we were able to get a return and going from something called and so you really cash funded the business absolutely just taking the the profits of each absolutely yeah yeah and now you by the way pouring it back in pouring it back in you erected this first mammoth in Mont Blanc yeah and um and and and got our five best customers yes that had bought other stuff to come up you said come up they all bought it they all bought it and then it was just they never stop after that that's the that's the big well that's the secret because that but that was year two year three is the business that was year three when we did the prototype so we sold it in year in year four we sold our first one to Kings Island a Paramount Park which was a leading chain of parks now year one two and three are you selling just smaller smaller smaller ones that you already body slides speed slides with clients that you were already in touch with because you were part of the industry you sort of had some contacts you had some network yeah and and again you were all selling similar things that you were just making them a bit better. Yeah all already though Fahad like uh you know so we're in the tubing business and you know I ended up being able to understand uh any products that were out there and what they're what and this is competitive just watch it yeah you know and uh really understanding that and because of that understanding then you know I would really build if we wanted to build some more molds we could do that with different parts and you continue to enhance the ride uh entertainment values of these various things as well people knew our slides actually behaved better they actually knew it in fact uh there was quite a thing that happened uh early uh in the mid 80s to late 80s which is when the this star I started it um there was a big big problem with the insurance industry so if you go back historically and look across the US uh and it wasn't just our insurance water parks water parks yes there were actually uh more accidents or incident rates back because there were remember the it was a bunch of Davids yeah that remember it wasn't perfect building the best practices weren't fully vague it wasn't perfect standards yeah and and so there the insurance companies actually started uh sorry stopped offering insurance and so it and this was really uh such a great thing for pro slide in that the uh a bunch of the stronger water parks in the US and they were becoming stronger and they were doing some some numbers uh in the Midwest and you know and um they created a captive for insurance a captive insurance company okay they created their own created insurance and the guy that operated the insurance company said if you don't buy pro slide it's gonna be tough to insure you huh it's gonna be the because of the just the it was the standard it was the safety of safety that you it was the safety yeah yeah wow that and that that did make a difference and it wasn't I I know there were probably other captives too but for sure for that what you would call what you basically got yeah I got like I got the leaders you got the leaders said buy from ProSlide yeah now that's post the mammoth uh yeah yes that was just before and going through the mammoth and the mammoth all of a sudden you know the mammoth just secured ProSlide to like people adopted so I love that because because we're you know we're talking about the steam of innovation of how you you know really look at making the slides better and faster and more exciting but there's this underlying element of you made the slides safer.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Oh absolutely right we keep talking about better and cooler but you find it made them safer and by making them safer you became first choice.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

100% yeah 100% yeah I think you you like again there's this duality like we keep talking about better and faster more thrilling but you had this backstop that's what the market says sometimes but the truth is I know the underlying yeah yeah the underlying safer yeah safer 100% everyone trusted you yeah that's exactly correct yeah yeah and then and then because you have that trust for safety when you come out with uh we're gonna make a bigger curve they trust that that's safe here yeah that looks that looks crazy but we know Rick also has a high standard for safety 100 so if he's pushing the envelope on the slide we know it's been tested you know uh sort of how you do anything is how you do everything right and uh when you're emerging from mistakes here oh oh that that's uh you know that is people who believe who get into manufacturing slides who believe that it's bigger faster you know all this stuff and they don't understand slides that's a big problem yeah it is and you know because you can really screw it up yeah you know and so that's the you know this thing about um I feel you know so blessed to have my sports background and skiing and all that stuff because we know how to go fast in skiing uh you also know if you're out of control and you never want to really be out of control it's just sorry not that's not where you want to end up because you will end up not on the hill anymore. Yeah you know you'll be in the woods or you'll be you know but but this is the same thing like the responsibility that you end up again you know to this is this is working towards excellence all the time this is bettering your best work this is uh taking water rides which by the way and you know that was not a big industry in the early 80s i mean it was a lot it was very exciting because it's there was momentum uh but uh the thing has honestly has gone and expanded and exploded around the world because it's all about tourism it's all about families having great fun this is an insane uh journey it's a it's a fantastic opportunity now okay lots of success early on you you do some really you do some things really well but there's a tough stretch for sure there is in every entrepreneurial life so what about those first three four years what was some of the most difficult moments some early mistakes some challenges some some what what happens I don't tell me about you know and maybe maybe there isn't too many i don't we don't have to make them up but like what what were the tough stretches you know I mean uh there were there was once we did the mammoth okay like and you know I've got all the graphics out in the hall but uh was the mammoth 14 so the next year it came out with the first world's first U-shaped speed slide instead of flat bottomed so that was a win total win okay the next uh year uh the mammoth 14 that was such a success I bought Mo Cascad in 1990 yeah so so you you decide to go on and buy Moncascade as your testing ground yes which is like yeah you know we don't here in Ottawa we know Moncascade is a nice little water park with a little nice ski hill and it was just this like nice little place but you go here's an opportunity because there's a whole bunch of land here's an opportunity to test yes a test and test uh cost effectively because we can do our prototype rides close to grade you know you've got topo so you have elevation and now you can do your supports on your prototypes close to grade low expense then it's just a fiberglass game right and so I came back and did the mammoth 10 10 feet wide instead of 14. That's only two years later okay and I did it at Cascade but why because the mammoth 14 that we did at Moblin was so successful the thing went viral that I came back right away and I said I need to do a prototype place. I can't just keep borrowing somebody else's and and Mo Cascade at the time was you know just one of those you know fledgling ski areas yeah you know and uh I got the right price. Yes you know it was uh 35 years ago so then I and so the Method 10 is smaller than the M14. Yeah here's why but why yeah what here's why here's why okay so when you have a six passenger raft and you don't know this because this is the world's first okay you don't know that you don't always put six people in the raft okay right what's the average the average ended up to be three and a half people okay so you might get six the odd time you'd have two you'd have three yeah you know people didn't necessarily want to ride with each other.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Yes that's just the way it goes I just want I want to do my group right and that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Yeah so the average was three and a half okay so I'm thinking about competition and I'm thinking somebody I don't want somebody else to get smart okay because it's average three and a half so the the raft size in the mammoth 14 was a 96 inch raft eight feet in diameter man six people okay I built the Mammoth 10 which was 70 of the fiberglass 10 feet wide instead of 14 10 over 14 you know 70 70 of the water okay uh 70 at like all and so the fiberglass was less cost for my clients you know the mechanical was less cost so all of a sudden because you know the mammoth 14 not every water park could afford it no and uh is there any chance that we want ProSlide to offer products that everybody has has access to because the mammoth river is crazy so 78 inch raft for like two adults two kids okay magic number thing went viral over time that's totally okay I mean so what I mean so you you you it's it's brilliant you tell me all this this is strategic plan this is strategic because one of the one of the key things that we see is the Goliaths are often unwilling to cannibalize their own business.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah but you go if I don't build a smaller more efficient cost effective correct someone's gonna steal this so I Will beat out my own competition. I'll be my own competition.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah. A hundred percent. It's been like that forever.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Yeah. So the next year, okay, because no, okay, and on fire. Okay, busy, busy growing a business.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

And how is how is the how is the team and the culture of that time? Because again, you're a product guy, you're building these, you're thinking next. How is the team keeping up with the demand of the virality?

SPEAKER_00 44:23

You know, I mean we were at a you know staff at it one at a time, one at a time, and uh Hans Hans's son, one of the sons, they because they both worked at at the Tanzer Yacht business before before uh ProSlipe. And so uh Hansy, the older son, you know, he was kind of a production guy, so he worked with his dad. So now we're building, we built a factory, a Rego, okay. Uh, and we started off actually, it was uh not quite yet, but uh they both knew fiberglass, and Hansie was the shipping guy. Okay, hands senior, you know, he's the guy, and then we we had some people that could build fiberglass, and then they would build to his spec and our spec. So it was the right stuff, but so then you just advance, okay. Now we're doing the mammoths, yeah. And uh so the next product was um because of the mammoth 14, because of the U-shaped speed slide, because we were the best at turning. We had already uh done a uh contract with Disney Typhoon Lagoon, their first really big water park in 1989, third year, and that was when we only had body slides. But Disney confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt, ProSlide Hunter. Uh they turn the best, and they have the best body slides. And they went all over the country. That's what Disney Imagineers do. Yeah, okay. So they knew we turned the best. So now we did typhoon. Now, nobody ever thought of it, they never believed it that Disney would do another water park, and within four years, three years, they started planning Blizzard Beach, which became the number one water park in the world. Oh wow, okay. So now they had to have their trust, yeah. They had to have the mammoths 14. Of course, they already knew we turned the best. Yes, we had the best tubing rides, and uh the mammoth was beyond belief. And uh, so then I was out in California, okay, at Disney Imagineering, Glendale, and uh they're telling me, you know, it's all confidential. You can walk in the door, like you know, your sworn secrecy, DNA the whole bit, and uh uh, you know, and they're talking about this is going to be a ski theme mountain, ski theme, blizzard beach, okay. And we want to build some rides that are like Bobsled, and we want to build some, you know, some uh, you know, sleigh rides, head first. Perfect. This is what I know. Yeah, yeah. And I said I honestly and I was trying to, you know, hide my enthusiasm. Yeah, but I did say, you know, hey, you know, I ski I race World Cup, and you know, I know what you're looking for. And they said one of the things they said, we have to have your mammoth. They so they knew that's it, and we needed the tubing rides, we needed the speed slide, or the speed slides, you got the U-shaped speed slide. That was the latest innovation and uh the flat bottom that used to be in the industry, it could really only go from about 60 feet, and they wanted to go from 120, and we did it with the U-shaped speed slide, and they they even tried to do some aeration, which they thought, oh, when you come into the run out, you know, it could be an issue. Uh, we didn't even need the aeration, so so we had the U-shape. The other thing that they said to me then, okay, and this is just part of it, they said, Can you put your speed slides together side by side? Because we've seen a product in the industry, it's not fiberglass, it's soft material. And it was a guy named Dick Kroll, and he had multiple lanes of soft material, okay, that he engineered on the on grade, okay, and he laid down the soft material, and this was the head first mat racing. Okay, so now you're on you're on a mat going head first. So Disney said to me, Could you put your speed slides side by side? Okay, and I said, Of course we can, we and we will. And I said, but the speed slides have 28-inch shoulders. So you can't see who you're beating. Okay, this is a competitive thing. I said, I'm gonna build a custom ride, uh pro slide ride, and we're gonna call it, you know, the pro racer. And instead of 28-inch sidewalls, I'm gonna make nine-inch sidewalls, and this is a flat bottomed ride, so you're gonna go straight. And so now you're racing. And you can see yeah, and they just went ape on this one.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

You know, that's it's it's in my research on this, like you never really go mass market, you literally build to the needs of each other. Absolutely, and you customize to that level. Oh, yeah, right. Like that, that's a strategy. That's a really interesting strategy.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Well, that's just uh, you know, that's the confidence and knowing knowing what is our competitive advantage. What and you you you know, it doesn't take very long to realize the others, uh though they're trying to imitate, they don't they're not thinking ahead about what's next and what could be next. And uh is that an attribute I I should have? Yeah, uh hello.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yes, you know, so and so this is this is key because part of your strategy here, as I notice it, is like you're constantly thinking ahead. Oh every time you build you build the mammoth, you build the you you go, what's next? Oh, yeah, how do we and that that's part of your competitive nature? Yes, I guess you know that's the athlete in you. Oh, that's the ski racer that goes. Okay, I hit this time.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Well, how do I be in the time next time the last year when I raced the World Cup? Um, you know, we're all training all the time. Like we're on snow probably 300 days a year, okay. And uh that last year, I mean I'm a solemn GS guy, technical guy, 25 pair of skis, 25. You're training, you're practicing, you're you know, working different skis, different models, and uh so you're constantly looking for what's faster, what's better. And you don't you tested 25 different pairs of skis? Oh, 100%. Yeah, and still have all kinds of skis at home, right? Yeah, yeah, and but that's just part of it, right? It's almost like Formula One. Yeah, okay. No, sorry, we're always looking for we're looking for seconds, yeah, inches, right? You know, it it's the same thing, and and you know, I mean, we don't have to be quite that uh to that level, but sorry, your attitude has to be at that level 100.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

And and when you're hiring, you're bringing on team members, new executives, is that what you're looking for when you're so looking looking for really competitive people.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

Yeah, and by the way, that uh that uh you know it's almost like uh the saying uh you want to do business with people who believe what you believe. Yeah, okay. You're looking for people who also believe in what you believe. Yes, you know, yeah, uh somebody that really wants to do something special.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

What are some of those traits? The willingness to not sell, like that no matter what you build, you know there could be something better. This constant want and desire to iterate and make better. That's the key trait. What are the other key traits that you look for in leaders? You know what? Um or that make these Davids successful. Like if I were to personify the David as you, the founder, what are what makes founders successful?

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Um I th like you know what? If you think back and you can only through your own life experience, you know, what were like how did you grow up? What did you do? You know, I I remember probably when I was about four or three or four years old, you know, it it was like stick Ricky, you know, in the sandbox and he's gonna be building with Tonka toys, and he's got you know, he's got roads going on already, you know. So there's you know, it's it's things like that. Um you gotta be curious. Um the the competitive nature came out quick, you know, it's one of those things. So, and and really look for people who are excited, like people who want to do things, they want to achieve things, yeah, you know, um, and they they apply themselves accordingly, you know. Uh it's I mean it's it's it you you want you don't it can't be a crapshoot, you know. It's just I mean, we've made all the you know all those mistakes and picked up people that you know had a great education or this and that, but you're really looking for character. Yeah, you're looking for people who you know communicate well. Yes, you're looking for people who are inspired, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

You know, I mean that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Now inspired, this is a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

There's an internal, yeah, there's an internal there are people as I say, like um the the analogy we've used is uh you take a steel beam and on its own a steel beam on its own is is there and you magnetize it and that steel beam now pulls in and so is the person magnetized, absolutely inspired, yeah, it's the same material so we've magnetized it, and and I think there's a there's that this is that person magnetized, do they pull in ideas? Do they pull in people? Are they inspired to to create to build?

SPEAKER_00 53:16

No, that's a hundred percent. It's you know, um, again, you know, I say we're in the inspiration business. Of course we build water slides, but we're in the inspiration business. So you want if you really want to get going, you know, I mean, hopefully you are an inspired person. Yeah, you know, uh share the love. Yeah, you know. Uh this is not this is you know what our business and the way I look at our business is like for sure we're fired up on products. Like, by the way, that is you know, that is our currency.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

Yeah, new product, news people get excited about the new builds.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Yeah, and you better bel you better be excited about that. Like, you know, otherwise you're you know you're in the widget business, you know, like uh you're selling something. Do you take the teams out, see the slides? Well, that big thing. We try to get them out there, you know. Yeah, I mean, for me to take all these guys out, yeah. I mean, the best thing I can do for them is get over to the trade show, yeah, you know, and meet all the clients. And by the way, when we're in Orlando, go to Universal, go to you know, go to Blizzard Beach, go to Tekw. And and so we do get people out a lot, you know, uh, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Or if we've been going through your journey, you sell the mammoth, you get this big deal with Disney. It never stops, you know, and it just compounds. Yeah, you just and because you are you're you're you're hanging home run after home run, you're building high. This is things this is how this is home runs. Yes, oh yeah, and now the momentum is building, and you go, I mean, going to the US is already international, but you truly go international, yeah. Like you yourself in Maryland.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

You know what was really great though? I'll just uh yeah, before we really although we started going offshore, like when Disney bought, for example, the Pro Racer, yeah, okay. Uh they also bought another product that was a custom product, and it was a serpentine head first mat racing ride. We call it a pro slalom. So um uh uh was um Shanghai Dino Beach. Okay, there was a water park in Shanghai. Yeah, they wanted they wanted those rights, so you know we started perfect. We already build them. We want Disney, you you're Disney, we want Disney. So, you know, we started doing some offshore things. But what really happened also, though, because the mammoths and you kept the rights to all of those slides when you sell the slides, you the patents, all that stuff is yours. Yeah, you don't necessarily have patents on everything, but other people who don't know what we know, they can't even do that ride. No, I mean they they don't have the the components to do that. It it seems like uh you know, people would say, Oh, well, no, I can copy that ride. And people imit they try to imitate, and all you have to do is try and ride them, they're not the same. No, they're not the same. No, but while the the all of the strong, strong rides came out, and I never stopped, right? There was one thing I called a mammoth 14 mamma 10. Okay, so within another two years after the mammoth 10, it was the ProTube 108. What's a pro tube 108? A mammoth 10 is 10 feet, a pro tube 108 is 108 inches, it's a full circular tunnel ride that's nine feet in diameter, world's first ever. Where did we put it? Mo Cascade. Okay, and now the thing went viral. Like I could show you multiple pages, okay, of all these rides we did because now we're doing mammoth 10 with the 78-inch raft, and now we're doing enclosed with the 78-inch raft, then we're open, now we're back enclosed, so we're doing open and closed worlds first, yeah. World's first, okay. Uh, then it was okay, uh, that was hotter than a pistol. Uh, we got the mammoth 14, and this combination of open and closed was so big. Now we went even further. We went back to the mammoth 14 because there was a company called Six Flags. Yes, okay, the largest company in the world with water parks, and they had to have the Mammoth 14. And now, so we built a Pro Tube 144.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

That's right. Now, I I I want to hold you there because I know you're gonna show me all of these different things. Yeah, yeah. So I want to get the visual with them. Yeah, but so you you start innovating on all these slides, and it's just one after the other.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Now we're doing the world's like the world's biggest water parks with six flags. No, we've got the biggest contract.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Have you ever did you ever receive a contract where you're like, I got no business getting this, but like I'll do it! Like with you know, like like you ever feel the little fish out of the way?

SPEAKER_00 57:35

No, no, you were building. Oh no, no, no, no. That's the vision. Yeah, like we gotta get that. We gotta get that. Yeah, we've got to like there's just certain you would call A-listers, but you know, that are also their thought leaders, okay? And they think exactly the way I think and the way we think. They think exactly the same way. They want to be the best in the world. Nobody wants to be the best in the world more than I do and this company.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

Yeah, and that's just and my that's that that's the world, that's the the the Olympic champion sort of you know, mentality. Yeah, yeah. Are we gonna we are gonna be the best?

SPEAKER_00 58:09

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, that's just the way it's you know, that's not enough to just win. It's in the deep not enough to just win and you know, I don't even sometimes I don't uh like the word win, like you. This is a build. We're building, and uh yes, but it would be considered a win, no doubt. However, winning sometimes, you know, is uh very short-lived. This is this is titanium, uh growth. This is uh, and by the way, not rigid. Yeah, this this is fluid, fluid, uh best, yes, you know, continually making better like we invent, okay, like lots of like every one of these things is an invention. Yeah, it's an organic first of its type, yeah, of its category. Yeah, then there's innovation, and innovation is improving all of your inventions, yes, so that the next invention is an invention, and then you better your best. You're you're constantly innovating. If you ever thought that uh you can rest on that, you're in the wrong business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Now a lot of the way I you had a lot of innovations that are uh uh Clay Christensen calls them, right? The innovators on me calls them there's sustaining innovation, which is to make something existing better and let's n plus one. It's like iteratives, okay? Make sure better. Yeah, and then there's disruptive innovation where where the high jump goes from us jumping like this to jumping head first, right? Like, which is a disruptive new way of looking at 100%. So your mammoth is a disruptive innovation, 100%, right? Your you is a disruptive. What are what are there like if you think of the kind of the time span of 40 years now? What are some of those key disruptive innovations that you had throughout the career here at Pro Silicon?

SPEAKER_00 59:53

Well, you know, again, as you said, the mammoth was disruptive, okay. And then you what you're doing is cementing the disruption. Yeah, you're going multiple, you're doing mammoth 14, mammoth 10, pro tube 108, pro tube 144. Yeah, so that continues the disruption. Like it's like what happened?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Uh, and then you decide, okay, you know what? Tornado.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

Okay. Or or even before that was the bowls.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

Okay. So we have a 28-foot.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

I remember doing the bowl. You have a bowl in Moncascette? Yeah. I feel like I've wrote I've definitely done the bowl.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

Yeah, yeah, you did the bowl. The Pro Bowl. Yeah. So when I when we built the Pro Bowl as a body bowl, okay, we don't claim the organic invention of that. That came from the UK. Okay. Okay. But we built a a good one, a better one is what we believe. So we built that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

So you had a sustaining innovation on that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Yeah. But as soon as we did that, okay, and and I said to myself, and I remember being on the plane wherever I was flying to, whatever you can slide on, you can ride on. So world's first two-person tubing bowl, cannonbowl 40. Okay. The other one was a 28-foot body bowl, world's first two-person tubing ride. Nobody had ever done it. No. Okay. And the thing went viral. Totally. And so also, uh, in between the cannonball, uh, I did the tornado with a four-person clover leaf raft. Okay. So I'll we'll go back to the tornado in a second. But uh right away, I did instead of the cannonball 40 for two people, I then went ahead right away, spent all the money, and did a behemoth bowl 60, 60 foot in diameter.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

Nobody so every time you make money off one of these crazy inventions, you go, I'm taking it, yeah, putting it into the next thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

That was disruptive. This is disruptive and kept moving, you know. Yeah, okay. And then so then the tornado, which is that 60 foot are you know, I did three NPIs, new product introductions in 2003. The thing went right off the rails, like it was unbelievable. Yeah, three, okay. Uh, you feel like a little person riding in a 60-foot diameter reducing radius funnel. Yes, no, and so that changed the whole world too. Yeah, and by the way, that's 60-foot one. That's the one with the dinosaur next to it? Yes, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and the point is to catch this one. So we wrote a four-person um called a cloverleaf raft on that, okay. And what did we write in all the entries to these incredible features? Protube 108. Nobody's got a pro tube 108, like Pro Slide has a ProTube 1. People try to imitate, they don't know how to turn. And so now we're backing up these huge features with the world's best journey rides to connect the features. And it's just like you don't stop, you don't stop there. So then the tornado went totally viral. Three the first year, the second year, six flags bought one that first year, too. The second year, five, the third year, thirteen, and then we averaged about 10 for up to this day. Yeah, like and that thing became the number one selling water right in the world, the tornado. But remember, uh, we did the tornado 60, then we came back with the tornado 45, 70, the 70 rule, you know, and then we came back with the tornado 24. We could use the big rafts, yeah. You know, and and we were doing tornado alley.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

That's cool. We're gonna get I got I need pictures of this stuff because we're gonna we're gonna put all these pictures up so that people can visualize it because that's the high speed, but balanced and like incredible focus strategy strategic product of our. Like 40 years of innovation. Yeah, how do you define success now? What is what is winning? What is what is it well for right for today?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Well, where is it? You know what? Uh you know, I started off sort of, you know, uh as you did. I went to Carlton too. Yeah, you know, and I finished a BA there after ski racing. And then I went to uh Ottawa U. But the the whole the whole thing is you know kind of the globe. Okay, like I really was interested in you know international trade, international business. I love to be a ski racer, South America, Europe, and and by the way, love building bridges around the world. Love that. So the job's not done. Oh, you're building water parks across the world?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

Uh all over the world. What's uh what's f do you get a favorite? Yeah, no, that people ask that. No, you know what? Uh the baby, the first uh all of them, all of them, they're your baby, all of them, and you've been all over the world, like where you've you've built water parks in every continent, almost every continent, except for entire tags.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Exactly. I think we know yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the the other uh most incredible thing is relationships, building bridges with people around the world, because there's so many people that are incredible people to be with at different cultures, yeah, you know, and uh by the way, uh people go, oh Jesus, uh it must be tough to do business in China. No, they think the same way. I know, I know that they have a different structure, blah, blah, blah. But you know, they want safe slides and our funds, they are and and by the way, they want Jack Nicholas golf courses when in the day, and they want pro-slide water rides. Yeah, we're human.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

Yeah, I think that's that's the beauty of the water.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

But we do think alike, you know, we're not all like the political crises that goes on the video. If you take the politics out of it, the majority of us are friends, it's a fabulous opportunity, right? So my goal for the company is you know that uh it it's I'm not selling, it's not we're not selling the company.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

It's gonna go on for how many that tell us again, like maybe for the to listeners all the where how many how many staff? What's the revenue now? What's what whatever you're comfortable sharing? Like where are we?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Well, you know, you start off the first year, uh thirty nine. If we're gonna be thirty-nine years old in December, we will be forty uh next year.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

So seven hundred and fifty thousand the first year, w maybe one point two five. I think we might have, you know, you know, kind of you know, got over two mil. But uh by year four, I think we were up to four million. Yeah. Year four or year five, you know, especially with the Disneys coming on and other people.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:25

And then uh through the nineties, uh Six Flags started to roll out multiple water parks. Sea World got involved big time. And so I think by the end of the nineties we were in the twenty-five to thirty million range. Yeah. And then uh with the tornadoes just blowing up, right? I mean, in the 2000s and tornado and we were getting into um we were getting into water coasters as well. Oh yeah. So then we got into the 60 million range, yeah, you know, yeah, and uh you know, and then I think we uh right around, I don't know, I'd say the mid, you know, maybe 2015, you know, we got into a hundred million. Yeah. And uh, you know, we're much more than that now.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

You know, and it's uh and again it's not I mean this is key. It was never about the money first, and it's still not about the money first. We build amazing products for yeah, and it's it's about it's about our people and it's about who we are, you know, and and uh we feel very, very blessed, very lucky. Uh, but we work our ass off big time, yeah, you know, and uh you never leave. You never leave. When you do have a problem, the odd time, thank God, very, very seldom, you never leave, and you spend all the money it takes and to solve it, and you have uh another customer for life. It's uh it's uh really I mean it's not it's not a complicated, you know, yeah strategy. No. No. You you take care of them beyond belief. And and you know your craft so well and and you you know, and by the way, you don't ever get rusty on your craft. You get better, better and better, you know. I mean our product roadmap is about five years out. Like, I mean, yeah, and this is key that you want to do. Oh, all this, yeah, all this.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

Now that's that's it was you know, that's that's honestly you answered the next question I had for you, but like you've gone from a David to truly the you know, one of the Goliaths of the industry. You are now. You've you've you've you were dominant, you are you are at the top of your game, you've built a phenomenal where you are trusted, yeah, you do right of the customer. How do you stay and survive the Goliath and not let your talk to our country?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:43

You know, I I say this all the time, you know, because it's and I say it to my staff too. I said, you know what, like in ski racing, and and you know, I'm gonna say a word. Uh take the video when you're skiing great. No, take it when you're skiing like shit, but also take it when you're skiing great. So you really know, you know, and and the you know, you're continually reviewing what's going great. Is there a what and you're by the way, you're gonna always improve, always. So we're working on that constantly.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:16

You know, uh as as one of the strategies, like to not be disrupt, do not be disrupted by another David. Uh continual involvement.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

Yeah, no, yeah, we compete with ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Yes, you know, and there's that's interesting, competing with ourselves because 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:28

Well, you are the Goliath, it could be easier to go, ah, you know. Yeah, yeah. And Goliath is, you know, Goliath uh sort of like it it describes you. We're not really a Goliath, but nobody knows slides better than we do. I've I feel like it's more like a sport. Okay. You know, I really do. Like, you know, it's a Roger Federer or you know, or you know, you it's a Connor McDavid, or you know, uh, but it's but I'm okay with Goliath too.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:52

But I don't want to be like, you are the no, you don't want to be Goliath. But that's that's key. Instead of like say, while we might be the top of our game or top of the industry, yeah, like we we are the go-to, we still can't think of ourselves as that because that's what like we allowed. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, allows ourselves to creep in and slow down. And so, what are some of the principles that still guide you? And the principles that you instill in your leadership team. We've talked about this innovation, this constant learning, this competitiveness. What are some of the other principles that you go to my executive team? Like, we need to hold on to these values, these principles. This is what makes us well.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:25

You know what? What's really great? What's really great is when you communicate a lot, you know, we do whip meetings, you know, work in process, work in progress, whatever, you know, every Thursday. And that that's going over. We usually do are in the midst of doing about 40 to 50 projects at any one time, you know, that started you, whether you're starting one, you're finishing one. Yeah, so you're always in constant motion. So, you know, we're in the deadline business, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

And you you end up and um I might I tend to be a color commentator. We c like at this table, we might have 30 people, you know, at various levels, you know, engineering, you know, where are the bombs, the bill of materials, you know, if we got the colors from the client, and the whole thing goes on. I tend to come in at the sales uh a part of this thing where, you know, updating the pipeline. And uh I always uh really give uh color commentation about why things are like why that client's important. You know, that client, we want that job. You know, and by the way, uh oh, we're having an issue uh, you know, down at uh Shockamil in uh Guatemala. I said that is one of the most important clients we could ever have. They are leaders in Latin America, leaders. They've been around about 25 years, and we have a little bit of a fiberglass issue there. Okay, like let's get on the plane. Oh yeah, no lies, let's make no 100%, you know, and be all over it, you know. Um so these uh things that you know it's never I you know I never liked uh like you know, I had coaches in ski racing. I never uh guys that couldn't relate were bad coaches. Yes. Do you know what I mean? Like they were sort of like, oh, you know, you should do this and you should do that, you should shut up. Uh no, okay. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you can't relate to me, I don't feel like you understand what I'm going through. Yeah, yeah. Or or the type of thing, like nobody's gonna push you harder than yourself, right? But it so it tends to like it's more about the inspiration and the excitement, and uh, you know, and and uh we I I bring up a lot of things about uh why we're succeeding, you know, uh what differentiates us, you know, and uh and the team, the world, you know, in this whole building, uh we have the all-stop meetings and we talk about that stuff. And they know inherently somehow they know that we got we're we got the right gig going, you know, and we know what we're doing, you know, and how we got here. Yeah, and uh it, you know, you definitely want to be identifying that, but uh and the point is we're good at that. So and and we want to be better at that. So anybody that comes on, you know, and I always say learn the business. You this is the greatest opportunity that you have. Like this is like a Harvard business case study. It really is. I mean, yeah, you know, we got every piece of marketing, the marketing plan, I'm a marketing guy. The marketing plan is the business plan, the business plan is the marketing plan. All we really have to do, never never to belittle it, but is to share how we do business, to share, you know, why pro slide. You know, the pro slide why, that's the classic, right? So it's what is the pro slide y? Well, the pro slide y is you know, uh from our upbringing, focusing on product, product, price, promotion, place, people, packaging, proof, seven piece. Yeah, you know, and when you start to define those, like literally they work, they actually work, you know. So it is, and it's always these relationships, you know, and making sure that your your your offering is balanced. Um, but by the way, the why is nobody, I said, you know, people walk into the booth, they say why pro slide? And then I I put up just for fun, and I think I did that with you, you know, and it's me ski in the ski racing and going about 45-50 miles an hour in a slide turn. I said that's the difference. And but it's it's you know, it's we care more. Now care just doesn't mean emotion, it means everything that you do to build the world's best water rides, you care about.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:39

It it's the quality of the products, it's the quality of the materials. But inherently it's the entered, it's the performance. You talk about high performance teams, and that's really key, and high performance products, you know, and you can define those high what are the criteria for high performance water rights.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:58

Well and and how so then how do you keep how do you keep nurturing that next generation of creative thinkers, creative engineers who are gonna build pro slides? You're keeping it in the family, you're passing it on. This is you know, we're gonna talk about your how your relationship, but how do you nurture this next generation of creative uh creative builders in the build in the building here? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:16

Yeah. Well, you know what? It's contagious. Okay, it's contagious, it's the way we carry ourselves. Uh, you know, everybody will be going out to uh slides, uh sorry, parks, and uh every time anybody goes out and rides our rides, if they're new, they go, I had no idea. Had no idea. You ride a tornado of 60 and you thought you saw God. You know. I gotta do it. I gotta I gotta tell me where we gotta do that too. No, no, like the these rides are beyond belief. And they uh you know, in my own uh way, I the way I describe it is you could never have more fun um than having the opportunity to be a ski racer, you know, and a world and lucky enough to be a world-class ski racer. There's nothing more fun, and so you're giving that experience. I put that and I and I dream and I work very hard at creating experiences people would never expect.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:18

How is your role evolved from like the inventor or the innovator to to then maybe the team leader to the executive, to now the mentor who's got executives, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:32

Mentoring's coaching, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

And uh so I think you know, again, it's uh it's lucky the life experiences that you have. Um the uh the joy of of being uh of being lucky enough to do the things I've done, having great coaches, great communication. Uh how have you evolved?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:53

What's your evolution? Like you went from the inventor who had to who got on. You still invent. Do you still find yourself designing for this morning? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:02

Oh yeah, no, no. I'm you're close to the top end of the of the product development. You're doing sales, yeah. Well, I'm still Justin, you know, who is leading up our product development area. I mean, you know, he's with me, and we're talking about the new product and never lose touch of that product.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:19

Never no no so let's let's switch over and guys we'll grab the cameras, but let's switch over. I want you to this this is this is your I want you to walk me through some of your slides to walk you through some of the pictures. We're gonna do a little tour around the building. Yeah, I think this will be awesome. Okay, okay, so these are your babies. Yes, and and one of the secret sauce that I'm getting from you is that to this day you are still involved with product development with these slides. Big job. And I think that's like, again, I when I when I interview a lot of these Davids versus Goliath, one of the key things is that I see that founder-led businesses have a a love for product that can't be replaced. That's right. Right when you bring in an executive, MBA, all that stuff, they're running the numbers, they're running the operation, they're gonna run the business, but there is no there's not that love and obsession over the curvature of a slide.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:12

Right? And I think that that that sense is what what makes some of this successful. So so walk us through what do we got, what do we got here?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:19

Okay, so uh, you know, this would be uh uh a serious pillar ride in the world water park industry, and this this uh particular ride is the largest, tallest water coaster in the world. Okay, and it's kind of This is the the tallest. The tallest, 123 feet from the tower down to the pool.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:45

Okay, and and it's actually on the side of a hill, and it's at Everland Caribbean Bay in Korea. Yeah, right? Yeah, in Seoul. And uh the company that purchased this is Samsung. So yeah, they uh they own a massive theme park and water park.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:02

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:03

Oh yeah, oh yeah, well no, it's terrific. So, but let me uh I'll just preface this ride. This ride became because the Samsung people wanted to go and they went to Abu Dhabi, okay, in the UAE, and they rode Dawama, okay? This is Megastorm. They rode Dawama that we this is from 2015, and in 2012, we opened Dawama in Abu Dhabi for you know Yaz Waterworld, okay?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

That's cool. So you're people are riding your slides and going, I want it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:40

Yeah, they had to have DeWama. Okay. So we designed, and by the way, every ride is custom designed.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:47

What what does just to give us scope? Because I don't think I understand, I don't think the readers or listeners are going to understand. What is it? What does a a ride like this cost?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:56

Uh this one would be probably in the neighborhood all in because all in. Because you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:01

We would provide the fiberglass and the steel, okay, and then they would do the foundations because we give them the specifications for the So they do the foundations, and then your project engineers kind of help put it together?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

They would we would have technical advisors to help them install it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:16

Okay. They would be able to build their own tower if they wanted to.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:20

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:21

In that case, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:22

So all in their investing.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:24

Probably about in this one, probably about 14 million.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:29

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, uh, remember um our previous conversation where we talked about the profiles, okay, the parts. What does it take to build this ride? Well, this thing happens to be the if you remember the ProTube 144, 144 inches, uh inches. So we built that uh you know for the six-passenger raft.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:50

So this is a six-passenger raft. Yeah. There's actually a moving station conveyor. You walk up the to the tower, and you walk in, and the rafts come up the conveyor, and now you walk onto the conveyor, sit in the raft, and now you're going. Okay? Yeah, your first turn? Yeah. And now what happens here? This is like a mammoth 14. Okay, remember the mammoth 14? Now this happens to be a hybrid of the 14 because it's flat bottomed, it's a coaster. So you drop off. Now you're in the tunnel, come out of the tunnel, it's dark, obviously. You drop in, now you're starting to go probably from uh 12, 14 feet per second, now you're going 30 feet per second. Okay, so you're sped up. Now, this is one of our technology uh rides that's that it makes this the most sophisticated ride in the world. On the way up, okay, this is not water propulsion, this is linear induction motors. So, what that is is magnets, okay? It's like a high-speed roller coaster. Now, the way we do it is that we have uh limbs that are sequenced up that incline, and we have a reaction plate, a metal reaction plate in the bottom of the raft. So that it's that thing. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:09

So you're zooming up.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:11

Like you go up, you as fast as you go down and you get moving very fast, you go up just as fast as you go down. That's what they call. No, this is serious.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:21

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

This is really high tech, you know. And we just opened one in Chimlong in Guangzhou uh in May this year as well. Another giant ride like this, okay? So we're this is not your little uh water slide company. No. You're now into high tech. This is the this is the biggest. This is this is huge. So, you know, only the big dogs would be able to afford this. Okay, back into the pro tube 144, drop again, you know, so big incline speed. 180, drop again, big incline, okay, back into the pro tube uh, you know, 144, 12 feet. And then you drop, okay, now your gravity down there, you drop into the tornado 60, yeah, you are literally dropping from about 45 feet, and this is a tornado 60 feet in diameter. So as soon as you go above the equator line, which is at the 30-foot mark, you think you're going over.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:18

But you don't, because that's the magic of tornado.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:21

You actually you actually uh go into the reducing radius area because we reduce the radius, you actually stay on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:29

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:30

Yep. It's now this uh this ride. They could not believe it. So this is in the water park. They opened the park that first year, probably about you know six years ago, eight years ago, whatever it was, and um they had three-hour lineups, big, big capacity, and and they said this is the number one water ride in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:49

Yeah. So that's Seoul Korea.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

That's Seoul Korea. What do we got here?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:53

Okay, and this happens to be a little bit uh smaller ride, but the point is that this is a complex at the very, very popular Volcano Bay in Orlando, Florida for Universal. Yeah. So this was, for example, uh this is a just a great mammoth river with five passenger rafts along the lines. This is a mammoth tent and a ProTube 108 that we talked about, okay? That's the ProTube 108 inches. So, but this just happens to be the best footprint of its time in 2017. You know, and this is all custom designed. And uh, you know, uh obviously we have great designers, and uh the original tooling uh, you know, is all from you know who at the beginning. Um this this is the uh this is the tornado wave.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:43

So this is tornado wave.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:45

This is tornado wave tornado. Tornado. This is tornado wave.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

Where did this come from? Where did tornado wave come from?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:51

Uh your pieces broke one time and you said we're still gonna make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:56

What was so amazing is that this tornado, because of its behavior, and when you sweep up and you stay on the wall, because it reduces the radius, I came up with the idea, okay, you know what? We're gonna carve out that. We know the ride path on this tornado.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:15

You know the ride path. So you could just, yeah, you could just follow the rifle.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:18

Now you can see it. Okay? We drop down 40 feet, we're up the other side, and of course, it would be like we cut that out. This is like a reducing radius funnel, like the tornado. And you sweep up on the wall because we have to put you from the left side on the way down over to the right side so that I've got you right where I want you. This is like skiing.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:43

Yes. Skiing the way because they want them on the outside of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:46

They want you on the outside so that you can come into the inside, yeah. To the inside, and then we did the opposite. This is the first double tornado wave in the world. The thing went viral.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:57

Double tornado wave.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:58

Double tornado wave, and you can't believe that ride.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:02

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:03

Because when you're up here, you know, this is about a 70-foot tower. You drop 40 feet. When you're up on the tornado wave up on the wall here, that this is a mammoth 14. Remember the mammoths 14 back from 1989?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:16

That's the original, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:17

That's the original. Okay. That looks like a dinky toy. You're not sure when you're way up here, because you're up 35 feet, you're not sure you're gonna make it through there.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:26

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:27

But you do, of course you do, and then reverse, and then you are very happy that you made it, and then you go through the bottom. But this thing just is so popular down at Orlando at Universal.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:40

It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:40

That it's honestly it's off the charts.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:43

All right, we got some more.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:44

Okay, so well, so you need in case something stopped in the ride. I when you come out of here, you know, and that that ever happened, we have to have that in.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:54

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:55

But that's a flying saucer.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:56

This is the flying saucer.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:57

Yeah, and this is the one that is like off the charts also. This is a more predictable path. This is ProTube 54. Okay. Are we going?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:07

Okay. Sorry, yeah. Yeah, okay. So this is a two-person, actually, this one is a four-person inline. Okay. Right? Happens to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:14

When you say inline, like a single line for it?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:16

Very single, you s yeah, one, you know, single file, boom, you sit uh behind each other. So uh entry, double entry, and now Pro Tube 54, which you know was a it's one of our connecting special plumes that we did back in the 80s, and then this was the new invention that I came up with for the giant slalom turn. So this is like when you this is like the fall line. These things are all slope that way, correct? Okay, and the point is that you're coming across the slope, you're traversing across the slope, and then when you come out, you accelerate. You can see you're on the edge, this is the steepest part, yeah. Yeah, and you are glued to the wall, you go whipping around. And then we put you back up. This is water propulsion.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:04

Okay? Then you're back in the tunnel. Another flying saucer.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:07

And so in each of the flying saucers is the zoom as well. Absolutely. The curve. Because that's where you're catching the speed is on that on that curve. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:16

It really, really changes your ride. And then this is a triple, triple back. Triple.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:23

So that that really feels, and you know, the this is by the way, uh, down in uh water country, USA. It's a SeaWorld-owned water park in Williamsburg, Virginia. So we do almost all of their work. Wow. We do all the Six Flags work, we do the Universals work, we do, you know, this is SeaWorlds. And uh so they talk about this like it's unbelievable. And so where what something was just a tubing ride back in the 80s or 90s, now you have high tech, high speed, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:56

This isn't just a tubing ride. This is this is not this is not tubing. This is not tubing. This is not no okay. So this one, this one I feel like you've got a double tornado wave, and you've got the saucers on this side.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:10

And by the way, that saucer is for four-person inline with a narrower boat, and this is for a five-person round draft.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:19

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:20

So this is a flying saucer. So you've you six.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:22

So you've got yeah, so so your tube's got to be wide.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:25

Yeah, what we do is remember, like with any great feature, uh ProSlide absolutely develops that scale where we can offer flying saucers in with different vehicles. Yeah, and that's key. Yes. Like this is just one of those things that you say, you know, this is a disruptive feature. That's a disruptive feature. Yeah. Okay. And then you just you roll those suckers out next time. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:50

Yeah. And so this But you've also you've also standardized some of these mechanics, and that's how you're able to keep your costs down.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:56

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, your tooling, like, look at we're rolling out. I mean, these are all most of these family raptorites. This is Pro Tube 108. So we have now, you know, I w I I would say the word almost hundreds of to of tools or molds to build parts. So that's where we we uh work with five plants in Ontario and Quebec.

unknown 1:30:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:18

Yeah. So a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:19

Oh, so so is is a lot of our parts uh Canadian?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:21

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, the highest majority. We do some production in India, but it's really honestly, it's overflow stuff. Yes. Okay? No, we're a Canadian company. We're we ship thousands of containers a year out of Canada. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. Okay. So again, now this is a uh I was just at this park uh probably, I guess it was around June, uh, in Vietnam. Hanam. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:48

And uh so we build whenever I travel to a different part of the world now, I know where I'm going. I'm going to the water slides, you know.

unknown 1:30:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:55

So you know that's a these are customers.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:57

Well, what slides do you have in Mexico? I'm going to Mexico next. I'm gonna find some.

unknown 1:31:03

I'll get you.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:04

Yeah. But you know, again, in Hanam, we're building about four or five water parks right now there with the biggest uh real estate developers in Vietnam. And they love water parks. Yeah. So again, this is just one.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:17

How many how many water slides in a given year are we are we are we designing? Well, and how long? Like, okay, from from design from from contract, from purchase order to to installation, and I know installation is a bit dependent on them.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:33

We used to, you know, sort of do it with the seasons, right? Yes, but now uh people uh they must order in advance. These are big projects now, of course, of course. So, you know, project can be uh the small, like add an attraction, about sixty percent of our business is probably adding extra attractions. Okay. So that's a one-offs big rides going out to our clients that we've got. Existing clients, yes. Client retentions, everything, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:59

And then we have and those are how long how long do those take?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:03

Well, uh, you know, you again we can fit them in type of thing because we produce all year round.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:08

Uh I would say that uh if it's just one ride, you know, you need probably ten months. Yeah. Ten months, you know, maybe it would be good if you booked it a year advan in advance. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:19

But if you know But then the but then the giant the giant. Uh two years?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:24

Are we looking at uh yeah, maybe 18 months. Yeah, eighteen months. But again, you know, it's amazing because the uh all of our plants have of course they've got multiple gel coat sprayers, different colors, you know, and they just they roll every day. Like those multiple And these are Canadian plants. These are Canadian plants. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:44

What what uh what do you think being Canadian owned and run has impacted like uh the way you did business?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:50

Like is well, you know what? I mean uh again, you you could be you could be from anywhere, you know, if you were really good at what you do. Yeah. Uh to be Canadian is a is a is a blessing too, though. Like, you know, we're you know, we're well received all over the world, no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:08

Well respected, well received.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:09

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:10

And when they know you, uh they certainly feel comfortable with us. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:15

There's a lot of trust.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:16

And I think that's uh you know, it's something that well that's our job, right? It's our job. Yeah, these are trust. Like uh let me put your family on a tube and shoot them down with water. Yeah, yeah. Trust me, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, this comes, this comes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you never joke about anything that way. No, no, you you know, we're super friendly, uh, and we make we build relationships. Yes. That's what we do. Yeah, and we're bl and you know all of these parks that we work with really genuinely love us because you know uh we work so hard for them and and and you do it right.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:56

You know, never take anything for granted.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:59

No. So uh you've built this company, you know, we've talked about innovation, we've talked about building a team, about the scale that you've gotten to, and over the years, you've received a number of awards um and to to to recognize the work of ProSlide and to recognize the impact that it's had on just this entire industry. So you will tell me a little bit about them. Tell me a little bit about this impact award, um, and tell me about what it means to you as as the the inventor, you know, from from you know that built this.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:29

Well, you know what? It's a a dream come true. It you know, it really is. And I would just start by saying here are 22 years, uh probably somewhere around there, 22 years of uh awards, and out of 22 years, ProSlide has won first place best new water ride out of 22 years. Wow, you know four times. You've won four times out of or this is first place.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:56

Has won 17 in the past 21 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:01

And when so this this is IAPA International Association for Amusement Parks and Attractions, theme parks and water parks.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:10

And what I was mentioning here was here are four, this one, two, three, four. These are the impact awards. And the impact award is there's 17 categories of different types of rides, dry rides, redemption games, water, uh, a water park product. And so they have this impact award that says out of the 17 first place winners of the different categories, we're gonna choose one of those products that we believe will in fact supersede and be the most impactful over the next five years. So uh we actually ended up winning in 2003, we won the Impact Award for the tornado, and they were right because the tornado became number one ride in the whole world, uh, and it outsold dry rides that outsold all rides, okay, probably for ten years or more. Uh in and in 2004, the next year, we won for that behemoth bowl, 60.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:14

Tornado Behemoth. Yeah. Out of all uh dry rides back to back years. Back to back.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:20

And then 2012, when we did the hydromagnetic limb coaster, that thing went viral. And sure enough, we won a fourth one. Now, the sorry, the third one, and the the fourth one we actually won when we started to do dueling rocket blast side by side with the flying saucers.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:40

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:43

These are the flying saucer socks that we designed and developed back in you know 2017, that was, maybe 2019. Yeah. But you know what? It's all a joy. Would have never imagined that water parks, in some ways, were overtaking the theme parks. It's the fastest growing faction in the theme park industry are water parks. So that's why, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:08

And this is when people ask why why ProSlide? Why ProSlide? Right here, right here. This is it. Because we turn the best. We turn the best. Yeah. We turn the best. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:17

The line is everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:19

I mean, as you as Rick, as we end this, you and you reflect back, you know, just on the journey that you've been able to share with me, the journey of starting the company, the journey of growing the company, the constant innovation, just the sheer amount of people that you've impacted. You know, we're talking about impact from a water slide and innovation perspective, but thinking about the the impact you've had on this community here in Ottawa, the the amazing people that you've employed over the years, the families that you've helped grow, like because of because of the work that they've done here. Like when you reflect on all that, that you've you're you're still a young man and you've still got many years, many years to go. Um how does that what is how does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:00

Impressively proud moment. Yeah. Okay. You know, uh, because I can say it, I grew up within a mile of this office. Yes. You know, on on just off Woodruff Avenue, you know, and to be from Ottawa and uh to be able to, you know, navigate through this and uh, you know, bring uh employment to Ottawa and to Canada. I mean we are the leader in the world, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:25

And it just, you know, but it it would have never happened without the sports background, uh, you know, the the inspiration of people, you know, my family and people around. And but it you know what? If you can do it, go for it. Yeah, fill the space, you know. Um share the joy, share the love. Like, you know, so it's dream come true, Vahad. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:48

Thank you. Thank you, Rick, for taking our time and telling us the story. My pleasure. Allowing us to capture it and and and just showing us your space here. It's really amazing. Yeah, thank you. Give me a hug, give me a hug, come on hugger. Give me a hug. Thank you, thank you. It's awesome. Thank you, thank you, guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:04

Thank you.