There’s a new company operating in Owen Sound that’s putting together some heavy machinery.
Nuts & Volts has been in business for 21 years in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph areas, and recently set up shop in part of the former Tenneco building in Owen Sound.
Company president Mike Buller says Nuts & Volts is assembling 100 per cent electric service vehicles known as shunters. They are used in subway systems by rail maintenance workers. The vehicles being assembled in Owen Sound will be replacing an old diesel fleet.
“They operate 13 stories underground,” Buller says. “If you could imagine the amount of smoke it creates, this is basically going to be eliminating all of that.”
The shunters are being assembled for Geismar, a France-based company supplying them for use in Canada. The electric service vehicles are manufactured in South Carolina and then shipped to Owen Sound for assembly.
They’re big vehicles. The all-electric shunters are around 12.5-feet high, 25-feet long and weigh nearly 50,000-lbs. They run on six batteries and offer 2,800-lbs of torque.
“They can pull a train,” Buller explains. “These things are a beast. An absolute beast.”
Nuts & Volts will be putting together 17 of them — work Buller says will keep his company busy in Owen Sound for a few years. He’s already hired nine local employees, including a few who formerly worked in the Tenneco plant.
He expects to employ 20 people within a year, and says that could increase to as many as 100 workers within a five years if the business continues to grow.
And Buller thinks it will as more private companies and public infrastructure transition to “greener” machines.
He believes the future of his business could evolve into service, with companies like Nuts & Volts helping maintain the large industrial vehicles it helped assemble.
“What we have here is a very unique batch of skill sets: electricians, millwrights, motor winders, tool and dye makers, mechanics. And we bring all of those trades together to be able to build these,” Buller explains. “I believe this is going to grow like wildfire.”
How did the company end up in Owen Sound?
Buller says he had a connection to the area as he bought a cottage nearby several years ago. When his team was still operating in the Guelph/Cambridge area and starting work on this project out of Toronto, there was a need for more space. He says nothing suitable could be secured in the Greater Toronto Area.
Then he was introduced to Owen Sound Deputy Mayor Brian O’Leary, who put him in touch with Peter Van Dolder — one of the owners of Peninsula Pro Growth Group, which purchased the former Tenneco building in late 2020.
Buller says the space in Owen Sound has an overhead crane which was critical for his assembly operation.
And space isn’t the only thing he’s found in the area. Asked if he believes there is enough skilled labour to support his type of operation, Buller says “surprisingly, yes.”
“At a time when everybody is struggling to hire, I am not,” Buller says. “I have tons of people applying.”