Community Involvement part of culture at CCI Thermal

Giving back is part of the corporate culture at CCI Thermal Technolo­gies Inc. in Orillia. General manager Bob Hart said, "It's our corporate mandate to run a charity program every Christmas here. We have all kinds of events like lunches and auctions and we provide a lot of support to The Sharing Place and Lighthouse Ministries.

"Whatever our employees raise here, it's matched by CCI Thermal CEO Harry Roozen two to one."

Since the inception of the company's charitable program in 2005, about $150,000 has been donated to The Sharing Place.

That consistent support is critical to Orillia's largest and busiest food bank, that provides nutritious food to 15,000 people each year.

Hart said, "It's our corporate culture. We want to give back to the communities we are located in. It keeps our employees here involved and provides nice funding to local charities.
The Simcoe Muskoka Regional Cancer Centre, the Orillia Branch of the Ontario Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and  the Lighthouse Christian Ministries, have also benefitted from CCI Thermal Technologies' generosity.

A world leader in both the development and production of advanced heating and filtration solutions, the custom-designed ISO 9001 certified plant opened in Orillia in 2000.

"In this location, we build electrical heating elements and strip heaters," Hart said.

"We do commercial heaters, electric-unit heaters with industrial applications. It's been our core business since we started and we have added other products. We now build transit heaters for subways, streetcars and trains."

CCI has a large and diverse customer base, including Bombardier and Kawasaki.

''We sell a large amount to Canada and the U.S. and have a small amount of sales in Europe  and even the Far East  in China. While sales are out of our head office, we have to supply and maintain the relationship."

Headquartered in Edmonton, CCI Thermal is a privately-held company with plants in Oakville, Orillia, Denver and Houston.

''They all use some of the products we make here. About half of the products go to our sister plants and the rest to OEMs [Origi­nal Equipment Manufacturers] ."

With a corporate directive to diversify, CCI has successfully explored other products and niche markets. Hart said in their traditional heating element business, their ability to supply quickly in small volumes for specialized heating elements is key to the company's success.

"In the transit business, which is a corpo­rate focus to concentrate on, we are rapidly developing to be experts in the supplemen­tary heating of  transit vehicles."

Three years ago, CCI doubled the size of the Orillia plant, experiencing about a 20 per cent jump in staff now with almost 200 employees on three shifts.

The majority live in the area and like Hart want to see their community thrive.

"We have a charity committee with members of management and some of our hourly people, who made the original decision in 2005 of whom to support. But over the years, it' s really become a relationship."

In the past, staff have volunteered at Shar­ing Place.

"In the summer, we have a charity we run here and dollars raised went to buying backpacks for kids. In the past , it has gone to support the SPCA . It 's decided by commit­tee and employees have input on where it's going."