Centaur Products, Inc. is a leading sport contracting company that has been in business for over 35 years. With over 100 employees and five locations throughout Canada—in Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Halifax and Toronto—Centaur is an independent organization with a service area that covers the entire country.
Today, annual revenue has grown to about $20 million, and the tasks that the company is capable of completing have expanded, too. When founder and President David Wilson started the company in 1973, the main focus was on the supply of recreational products to gyms and other athletic facilities, with less emphasis on the contracting side of the business. Centaur today has all of the experience and supplies needed to plan, contract, construct, and deliver top-quality athletic products and services to a wide range of customers.
Using the Best
After years of experience, Centaur saw the opportunity to provide services beyond equipment, for things like sports flooring, for example. To that end, Centaur is a dealer for Robbins, an industry leader in sports surfacing. In fact, Centaur worked for many years with a Dutch flooring company called Descol, introducing them to Robbins who now distributes the Descol product - making Centaur the first company in North America to introduce their product back in the early 1980’s.
Robbins is a member of the Forestry Stewardship Council which means that Centaur by default is also able to be environmentally friendly. The company has partnerships with others in the industry that also have high environmental standards. Impressively, Centaur itself has already worked on approximately 10 LEED certified projects. Additionally being able to source from a select group of supplier they are able to offer environmentally friendly products in almost every aspect of sport facility construction.
Chris Waine is the Marketing Manager at Centaur, and he has been with the company for four years, coming to Centaur with a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of British Columbia and a varied business background. During his time at Centaur he has made use of his past experience, become familiar with Centaur’s niche market, and learned how to cater to its unique needs. Many of the projects Centaur takes on involve schools, from elementary schools to colleges and universities, and community and recreational centers. When asked to describe the company’s niche, Chris cited total sport contracting packages where Centaur provides materials and installations, for athletic facilities: from artificial turf or hardwood sports flooring, to components such as spectator seating, LED video displays and scoreboards.
The commitment to quality at Centaur is seen in the company’s choice of vendors. For artificial turf systems, Centaur uses Polytan, a German manufactured top-of-the-line product.
“It’s not always the least expensive, but based on product quality it provides the best value for our customers,” Chris notes. Centaur maintains an excellent relationship with this international vendor that has been manufacturing artificial turf and track systems for over 20 years.
“Polytan is very dedicated to providing quality and is the most vertically integrated company offering artificial turf running tracks out there,” he continues. “They handle the entire process internally, doing all their own R & D and then carrying on to production through to the final installation. This allows for them to control the entire process and subsequently meet the very strict German environmental criteria and quality control requirements.”
Centaur is a member of several trade organizations including the British Columbia Safety Council, the Floor Layers Union, and has held a Certificate of Recognition for occupational health and safety requirements in Alberta for the past 12 years. The company values these partnerships, but also has a largely ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude: they have a dedicated management team of 10 people, most of who have been with company more than 20 years.
Centaur holds 90 percent of its trades in house: “We’re more successful if we use our own people,” Chris notes, “since they are dedicated, efficient, and trustworthy. We have had to do very little hiring over past five years.”
Examples of Centaur’s Work
One of the most recent projects for Centaur was completed for the Richmond Speed Skating Oval, where the company installed specialized hardwood flooring and spectator seating. Centaur also worked for two private schools in Ontario, Country Day and Crescent Schools, where the company installed Polytan artificial turf.
When asked about some of the most noteworthy projects for the company, Chris cited the Varsity Stadium on Bloor Street for the University of Toronto. “They tore everything out and we were involved with putting in all of the sports finishing work: artificial turf, running track, athletic equipment, spectator seating, and a brand new LED video scoreboard.”
One project nearing completion is the Langley Event Center for Langley Township in British Columbia, where Centaur will install a high-end, high-performance triple gymnasium, and video scoring display systems. The triple gymnasium will feature 15,000 square feet of hardwood sports flooring, basketball equipment, an indoor walking and running track on the mezzanine level, video LED displays and score boards, and an operable wall system that allows the user to divide the gym into sections. Centaur also will install arena-style spectator seating and dance floors.
Moving Forward
Over the next few years, Chris sees Centaur increasing its focus on “sports contracting” where the company will provide the entire package: design, planning, procurement of products, installation, and after sale services.
This will allow Centaur the ability to manage all aspects of the project to ensure quality control at every stage. Though the economy has made funding tight in some markets, Centaur’s future looks bright. The company is working on many projects in British Columbia and Alberta where the funding has been in place for quite some time and the negative effects of the downturn are less obvious and immediate. Sports fans can rest easy; Centaur isn’t going anywhere.