NB’s Glenn Kaye Turns Up The Heat
PETITCODIAC – Glenn Kaye isn’t your typical company president.
You won’t see him driving around New Brunswick in a gas guzzling Cadillac or a Porsche.
Instead you’ll see him roll’n in his Tesla T or Nissan Leaf.
“We can’t keep producing carbon dioxide driving vehicles the way we are. We’re already wreaking havoc with the climate, we’ve probably gone beyond the point of repair here, even right now,” says Kaye.
Kaye put his environmental commitment to work as a founder of Maritime Geothermal Ltd., one of North America’s top developers of heat pumps, a greener solution to heating your home or office.
“We already have energy efficient products with the heat pumps, so you might as well do that with the rest of your life,” Kaye says.
Kaye and his mother Edna founded Maritime Geothermal in 1983.
“I was in the well drilling business, so we were buying geothermal heat pumps. People just started to use them and buying them from the States,” Kaye says. “The interest rate went up about 23 per cent and it got very high. It was very hard to make a living at the time drilling a well. I was keenly interested in heat pumps so I learned how to build them myself and decided to set up a little company.”
The business focused on designing, building and installing residential heat pumps. Glenn handled the designing production of the heat pumps while Edna, a retired business teacher, handled sales and accounting. Together they created the Nordic Brand.
Today that “little company” has become an industry leader.
Nordic makes various kinds of heat pumps including geothermal, which take heat from the ground and air source heat pumps, which takes heat from the air. They are also one of the few companies in the world to manufacture air-to-water heat pumps and the only company in North America to do so.
Nordic sells directly to contractors and installers with about 95 per cent of their products being sold in the Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia markets. You can also find Nordic heat pumps in the U.S. and Europe.
“We are one of the only heat pump manufactures in Canada, so if you’re a distributor or installer in Canada and you want to buy a Canadian-made heat pump, you pretty much have one option, and that would be us,” says Jordann Brown, marketing manager for Maritime Geothermal.
Expanding their market outside the Maritimes has been crucial to the company’s success. But being personable and building strong relationship in the industry has been just as important.
“Glenn has spent a long time building relationships with people across Canada and the U.S. by attending trade-shows and just being available on the phone,” Brown says. “It has taken a lot of time to build up that network, and especially with the Internet now it’s becoming easier to export than it ever has before. But you can’t really discount that face-time either that people get from us.”
All of Nordic products are designed and manufactured in New Brunswick. They company stays ahead of the curve by attending industry trade shows, studying market research and staying on top of competitors. However, some of their biggest ideas have come from simply talking to customer and finding out what they want.
“That’s actually how we developed our air-to-water heat pump. It was basically by popular demand,” Brown says. “That’s how we developed some of our more interesting product offerings.”
Kaye said research and development has been important to the company from the very beginning.
“As a small company, we have a higher standard…we’re always in an R & D cycle,” he says. “We couldn’t compete if we didn’t have equal product to the big players.”
Kaye is all too familiar with the challenges of starting and growing a business in New Brunswick. Over the years Maritime Geothermal has fought to carve out its place in the market with a product that in the 1980s was far ahead of its time. He says building a company like his can still be done, but it won’t be easy.
“There’s not too many get-rich-quick schemes, unless you’re in the software business and someone buys you out or something like that,” he says.
His advice? Expand your market out of the Maritimes and get ready to work – hard.
“You’re going to have to take a look at the market share in whatever business you’re trying to get into and make sure your able to make a comparable product to other companies that might be selling the same thing,” Kay says.
“You have to work pretty hard. It’s difficult in the Maritimes, you’re under barriers…you’re going to have to really work really hard at it and put your nose to the grind stone.”