“After two years, I said to myself, you don't
own those designs. We’re just a subcon-
tractor, so I thought that we were at risk.
We had our feet on the pedal of a bicycle,
but we weren't heading in the direction
that we wanted to be going,” Nancy said.
This foresight compelled Groupe Simo-
neau to purchase the engineering firm.
With that, the company’s creativity went
into high gear. Nancy and her team started
to design many different types of boilers
and have even patented a number of de-
signs.
When Nancy first joined the company, rev-
enues had not even reached $1 million.
By the time her father retired in 2001, the
company was doing very well with sales
reaching $15 million. With Mr. Simoneau
being the great salesman that he was, the
company took a $5-million hit upon his de-
parture, but his daughter ensured a quick
turnaround by developing a brand new
customer base.
“I wanted to get more repeat business
and develop a solid customer base that
would be requesting products more fre-
“We still have to burn gas for production so I said to myself if we have to do, it let’s
do it the better way.” Nancy Simoneau, president
FEBRUARY 2017
H
business elite canada 55
