Drawing on three decades of experience Written by Mary Savage
The Pinnacle Group team at the design studio in Calgary, with their fleet of company vehicles. Photo by Mary Savage.
P
aul Klassen grew up swinging a hammer; something he’d learned from his father. In fact, by the age of nine, he landed his first construction job under his father’s tutelage – reroofing his grandfather’s house. Klassen could have pursued another field, but he found his passion in construction and by the time he was 23, he had his journeyman’s ticket in one hand and a newly established custom home company in the other. He was full of ambition and drive, and he knew he could achieve whatever he desired. Fast-forward three decades later, Klassen is still in the business, running the highly successful Pinnacle Group of Companies. However, he has traded in his tools for a tablet and now focuses his time on marketing and business development. Pinnacle’s progress has been a combination of many influences: insight gained from the honest feedback gathered from every client upon project completion by a third-party survey firm; Klassen’s involvement founding the Calgary chapter of RenoMark™ – dedicated to providing Calgary consumers with honest and ethical renovation companies; establishing long-term trade partnerships that share in Pinnacle’s goal of providing an unparalleled cus-
tomer experience; and Klassen’s own personal growth that has most certainly influenced Pinnacle’s vision. It was Klassen’s quintessential ‘aha’ moment on New Year’s Eve 2000 that definitively redefined Pinnacle’s design process and validated Klassen’s own motivation for continuing the business. It was the realization that he could actually change the way a family lives and interacts within their home and ultimately support and encourage healthy family relationships. Enter Pinnacle’s DNA process. The Pinnacle Group has a very distinct approach when it comes to renovating or building a custom home; their philosophy is based on the principle of “creating homes for life.” This ideology is rooted in the concept that each space in a home should be an authentic representation of the client family, designed to complement each family member’s unique present and future lifestyle needs. This methodology begins with an in-depth dialogue to reveal how the client family wants to use their home, what’s important to them and evaluates their present and future needs. The result is the uncovering of the family’s DNA: their Design requirements and their Needs both in Alignment.
Pinnacle Group of Companies | 30th Anniversary | 1