SOMETHING VENTURED, MUCH ACHIEVED // COVER
from scratch with a $50,000 investment of his own money. “It was a struggle,” he concedes. “I knocked on a lot of doors trying to convince clients to give me one opportunity to prove myself.” He reminisces on the many hours travelled (“oftentimes on Greyhound buses,” he laughs) into rural Alberta to meet potential clients, barely knowing where he was or what he was doing. His (literal) blood, sweat and tears eventually paid off, and Hydrie soon landed his first deal with TransAlta. He realized then, the money to be made in his new venture. “The margins I made were too good to be true,” he smiles. “That was such motivation to grow the business.” “In Pakistan, we work from a very early age and the goal is to keep everything in the family, following in the generations,” Hydrie explains. “If the father is a businessman, the son will be too.” Hydrie moved to Canada with his parents to get a better education. “My goal was, when we moved here, to get an education, go back home and run the family business,” Hydrie says. “That was the whole intention.” After graduating from the chemical process engineering program at the Southern Alberta Institue of Technology (SAIT), and with several other certificates to complement his diploma, Hydrie went to work – and it’s then where his path took an unexpected turn. “I worked in the oil and gas industry for six years, and I noticed a gap in the drilling and completion sector – where demand was high and supply was at an all-time low – for customized equipment,” he says. Companies were outsourcing jobs to various third parties and paying huge dollars for equipment that took a long time to receive. “And I realized, I can do this myself.” His concept was to bring together a team of professionals under one roof to offer the full package. “I established Inclusive with the goal of being a one-stop shop for our clients,” he explains. “The word ‘Inclusive’ means we offer and include all services – from designing, drafting, custom fabrication, delivery, setup and even flexible financing options.” With limited experience and still-lingering newcomer status, and yet to impress the Habib Group, Hydrie started Inclusive
From there, Inclusive took off. As more contracts were won, Hydrie reached the point where he could no longer finance the venture himself and turned to the Habib Group for help. Nothing was a given though, and he had to convince the group he had a solid business. They were impressed and Inclusive was brought under the umbrella. Today, it is a subsidiary of the Habib Group and Hydrie is a member of the Habib Group board of directors as head of North American operations. Based in Toronto, Hasnain Habib is a director of the Habib Group and chair of Inclusive. “All the deals go through him,” Hydrie says. “He is my greatest mentor and has the greatest experience in the industry and international businesses, several of which he is managing himself.” Under the guidance of both Hydrie and Habib, Inclusive has grown steadily, the results of which are staggering. The initial $50,000 investment had become, by the end of 2014, $35 million in assets. “We have a minimum of $20 million in assets at all times sitting in our yards which allows us to deliver with quick turnaround times,” Hydrie says. The company has three equipment yards – Red Deer, Lloydminster and Edson – which supply businesses throughout the province. Storage tanks come in a range of sizes, from 100BBL to 3000BBL, for use in sweet or sour projects, heavy oil storage, fractional operations, oilsands facilities and refinery tank farms. The company also provides
ABOVE: BILAL HYDRIE, PRESIDENT AT INCLUSIVE ENERGY LTD. PHOTO SOURCE: EWAN PHOTO VIDEO
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SEPTEMBER 2016 // BUSINESS IN CALGARY // BUSINESSINCALGARY.COM