JUNE 2014
H
business elite canada
93
Canadian and U.S markets.
“Because the owners are
French-speaking people, it
helped a lot to stay in the
province of Quebec, but since
he had a lot of workers that
did go to the U.S previously in
the late 1990s, he saw some
really good opportunities in
the U.S to expand,” says Roy.
She recalls it was in 1996
that her father opened an of-
fice in the region of Orlando
Florida. Roy had a team move
from Quebec to prepare to
work in the new Florida office
where they were quite suc-
cessful with some major proj-
ects: the World Golf Hall of
Fame, Muvico mall and con-
dos in Naples. The company
remained in Florida for about
10 years.
Roy notes that they decid-
ed to move the U.S. office to
more familiar territory owing
to economical situations, la-
bour differences, and climate
conditions that many compa-
nies are not used to in Canada
and other northern countries.
Consequently, I.T.R. decid-
ed to move its U.S. office to a
more familiar territory in New
England pursuing their core
activities in the states of: Mas-
sachusetts, Vermont, Maine,
New Hampshire, New York
State. In 2008 they also start-
ed operating in Ontario with
a couple of projects in Kings-
ton, Ottawa, and Sudbury.
The Ontarian market is quit
different from Quebec and an
adaptation was required for
both the operations and ad-
ministration team.
“The management and
how unions work; it’s com-
pletely another market and a
mindset. When Montreal un-
derwent a massive boomwith
all the hospitals, about four
years ago, we stopped having
projects in Ontario because
we had to focus our team on
the exponential growth. We
more than doubled our labor
force work and our project
revenues in 2011,” Roy told
Business Elite Canada.
