RIVERTON, Man. – Riverton is the last significant agricultural town on the western shore of Manitoba’s Lake Winnipeg before the trees and rocks of the North take over. It looks like one of the worst places in North American to serve the booming U.S. market.
Mark Myrowich of Erosion Control Blanket said that may make it the ideal place to run his wheat and coconut-straw based industrial business: there’s not a lot of competition for the town’s dedicated workers.
“They’re behind me 100 percent to make sure this thing succeeds,” Myrowich told a recent Manitoba Farm Writers and Broadcasters Association tour.
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“I (put) all of our eggs into the Riverton basket and it wasn’t because of the location, it wasn’t because of the straw, it wasn’t because of anything but the people.
“Believe me, when you sink your equity into people, they pay you back big time, over and over again.”
Myrowich’s company manufactures erosion control blankets, which are net-like sheets of fibre that construction companies can lay down on top of soil after building earthworks such as ditches.
Without a covering, exposed earth ditches can quickly succumb to water erosion. Erosion is minimal after grass has grown, but the surface is vulnerable until then.
Erosion control blankets give the soil surface time to develop vegetation. Most of the ones that Erosion Control Blanket manufactures in its Riverton plant use natural fibre, mainly spring wheat straw and coconut straw.
Myrowich isn’t the only manufacturer of these products, although he was the first in North America to offer a 16 foot wide version.
His main competitors are based in the United States and he discovered their products while working in exactly the place his parents never wanted him to end up: at the bottom of a country road ditch.
“They wanted me to go away to school so I wouldn’t have to stay in a rural town and so that I could have more opportunities,” Myrowich said.
He was installing imported American wheat straw erosion control blankets in a ditch near Killarney, Man., for the provincial highways department and smoke was getting in his eyes.
“In the field right beside me the farmer was burning his straw, right where I was putting California straw in the ditch,” he said. “I went, ‘something’s wrong with this picture.’ “
He later installed imported Sri Lankan coconut fibre erosion control blankets in another ditch and “right beside me was an industrial hemp field. I thought, ‘hemp, coconut fibre. Jeez, if I can take that hemp fibre that we can grow and make it into a blanket, and most of my competitors being American can’t grow hemp’ Ð now the wheels of the entrepreneur get going Ð ‘I would have a lock on a fibre that I can possibly get cheaper than coconut fibre, and compete.’ That’s when the light bulb went off and I said, ‘I’ve got to do a business plan and I’ve got to get into the blanket making business.’ “
In 1998-99 he found investors and set up his company in Riverton, where a colleague had offered him an empty industrial building in exchange for shares in his company.
The hemp fibre blankets never became a big seller to the U.S. because strict laws against hemp seed made it almost impossible to affordably produce hemp blankets for that market.
However, his wheat straw and coconut fibre blankets sold well, allowing him to run his plant 18 hours per day.
Recently, he bought his only significant
Canadian competitor, hoping it will help capture eastern U.S. markets.
Myrowich credits his workforce for the quality and consistency of his product. There aren’t many good local job opportunities, so he has been able to find willing and able employees who want permanent jobs.
“I’ve had the same people in the plant for five years.”
That might not have happened if he’d set up his company near a larger center.
As well, if he didn’t have a long-term, dedicated workforce, he thinks he wouldn’t have been able to guarantee quality. He doubts anyone could.
Myrowich also credits his early marketing success to a part of his personal anatomy that worked overtime in the early years. That organ is no longer in danger of overuse now that the business has expanded and he’s hoping to hire others to take over some of the duties.
“My liver can’t handle that many distributors now,” Myrowich said, arguing that most business is transacted over a drink as opposed to more formal settings.
“More business is done outside the trade show than inside the trade show,” said Myrowich, who added he prefers to rent a hospitality room and stock it with booze and food than set up a trade show stand.
Distributors of his products will bring customers to his hospitality room, where they will share a drink and food and talk business. He said that makes more sense than trying to do it at a booth on a convention floor.
“I’ve got 20 seconds there to form a relationship,” he said.
“It doesn’t make sense to me.”
With a product he can stand behind that is made by a reliable workforce he can trust, Myrowich is able to leave Riverton to chase business with his own special skills.
“My goal is to go down there and be liked,” he said.
“Business is all about relationships. It’s about doing business with people you like.”
