Taking on the world’s toughest challenges: John Bianchini of Hatch

I hope that at least in my lifetime, Canada we can assert ourselves as the true global leaders that we can be and really be the best example of what we call at Hatch, positive change in the world.

Thank you, Goldie. It's great to be here, and thanks for the great introduction.

Yeah, you know, that's not surprising, Goldie. Some of my colleagues have often said, and some of my acquaintances that learn about us, they call us Canada's best-kept secret. And it's true that we're not a household word, and maybe a bit of that is because we're a private company, we're employee-owned, and we don't feel the need to advertise really, other than based on, in the good old Canadian way, based on what we do. We call ourselves a professional services firm. We are a group of professionals that try to tackle the world's toughest problems, as he quite rightly said. And our base is in science, technology, and engineering, but today we have professionals from all walks of life solving all kinds of issues, because the world's toughest challenges today, they need a multi-disciplinary response. We're best known, I guess, for working in three sectors. The best one that we're known for around the world is mining and metals. So think of the Sudbury Basin. You know, we were instrumental in developing the nickel technology that Canada enjoys. We work in infrastructure, and there you might think about those round tunnels underneath Queen's Park. Those were original Hatch designs, and pretty much every tunnel in the GTA was designed by Hatch. And the third sector we work in is energy. So there you might want to think about hydropower generation at Niagara Falls. We built one of the earliest and the most recent power stations there. So that's kind of what we do, and as you said, we're about 12,000 people around the world, started right here in Toronto.

Yeah, we call that, Goldie, the personification of our Manifesto. Simply, our Manifesto was a description of our culture. It's what we choose to be, and entrepreneurs with a technical soul really embodies how we view ourselves and how we hope others view us. And that's technical people that are committed to creating a better world, you know, creating positive change. And the way we do that is by bringing together good basic technical knowledge from multi-disciplines and combining that with business acumen to create a practical, economic, sustainable solution.

It would be arrogant of us to say that we've been able to perfectly solve everything that has been brought to us. But I will say that we do tend to really succeed at what we put our minds to. But some of them, let's say, we're still working on after many years and decades. We haven't given up yet. But I mean, the one that comes to mind, of course, and it's on everybody's mind today, is the existential challenge of climate change. I mean, there are many aspects about climate change that I think us and technically minded people are coming to grips with, but there are many that are very, very elusive. You know, for example, one of the things that ultimately we will have to do to combat climate change is to pull carbon out of the air in very dilute amounts that it exists. That is extremely difficult. A lot of people working on it. We're working on it. We have a lot of partners on it. But that's going to take years and decades, I'm afraid, to get to the bottom of.

Great question. I get asked that a lot, Goldie. It comes from humble beginnings. Our founder, Jerry Hatch, good Canadian boy, you know, born in Ontario, studied in Quebec, went to school in the United States. When he completed his studies, he came to Canada and took on one of the toughest challenges at the time, which was, it just happened to be, a new technology, a titanium technology that was being established in Quebec. And long story short, he got it to work, and he thought, well, maybe I can bring this acumen, this knowledge, to other parts of society. He was a very outwardly going engineer and a proud Canadian, and so he set up his company in Toronto and started to set out to solve some of the toughest challenges in the country. And one of the very first ones was the one I mentioned, creating a nickel business in the relatively newly discovered Sudbury Basin. And so he went off and did that. Well, over the years, we made a habit of just solving the good old-fashioned challenges that Canada brought to us in those early years. Things like aluminum smelting, hydropower generation, oil sands development. And eventually our own customers, the big Canadian giants of the past, went around the world and they took us with them. And we found, lo and behold, that a lot of the challenges we were seeing in Canada were also being experienced around the world. And we brought a lot of the good old-fashioned Canadian technology and we started to answer some of the challenges elsewhere. And that was the beginning. And over time, of course, we went through organic growth from finding people that shared our culture and wanted to share a journey. And from time to time we found companies that wanted to do the same thing, and we brought them into the family. And we are where we are today.

Well, when I joined Hatch, it was in the middle of a recession. You remember the 1981 recession, at the end of 15 to 20% interest rates or something like that, right? Exactly. I remember trying to buy my first house back then. As I graduated, I was married during university, so I had a mortgage to pay, I had a student loan to pay off. So I was looking for a job. God bless Hatch, because they're the only ones that hired me. And that was through a professor at the University of Toronto where I studied. I got the lead, and I knew I was joining a great company, but I really didn't realize I was joining a company of icons. And really, you know, people like Jerry Hatch, who I'm sure many have known about, many, many accolades, real giants in Canadian business. And I started on my journey learning from them, and I was always interested in technology. That's what drove me. That's why I became an engineer. I'm a bit of a techno geek.

Oh, there's so many things, but to just pick one, okay, maybe the lasting one is, you know, Jerry, he was a fundamentalist. One of his great sayings that we still use at Hatch is, do your homework. In other words, understand the fundamentals. And often we use that talking about technology. But one of the things he really meant was, really get to know people. Do your homework on people. Get to know them. Spend some time with them. Learn what drives them. You'll be a better leader, but you'll be a better human being, and you'll live a more fulfilling life. And lo and behold, he was right.

Yeah, you know, you and I had a great discussion about this, Goldie. You know, I come from Italy. Our family was one of the last immigration waves in the 60s, and I come from a region in Italy that's very popular now, Tuscany. And people often ask me, how could you ever leave Florence and Lucca, you know, where I was born? And I say, well, Italy after the war wasn't the Italy that you see today. We were a poor, humble family. We came over basically, like so many, like you and your parents and so many other Canadian immigrants, with our suitcases. And my dad worked as a factory laborer. My mom looked after my dad. Basically, he got an injury very early in his life that basically didn't allow him to work permanently. He suffered from that injury pretty much for the rest of his life. So what he wanted for us, like many other immigrants, was just to have a great education. My mom especially promoted education. My brothers and I, we were the first in our family to go to university. I've often said the best thing that my parents ever did for us was moving here, because Canada has been fantastic for us. I mean, it changed our lives literally. And I often think about this, and I have a lot, I think, of my obligation to give back to Canada, because our new home welcomed us so well.

Overall, Canada is an awesome, awesome package. I mean, we have a lot to offer, and we should be confident of what we have to offer. Some of my examples from the past show that we have in the past offered a lot to the world. We have been global leaders. I think in the last decade or two, we've taken a step back. Maybe longer. I mean, if you listen to some of our colleagues at the Business Council, they would say perhaps even longer. So I think we have some, while we're still a great package, we're one of the best countries in the world to live, perhaps the best, I would argue, we have a lot more to do. We've taken a step back in recent years, and I think we should and we can regain that leadership role.

From my perspective, you know, I think from a company point of view, from industry, we have our role to play. The private and public firms in Canada, you know, we have such great talent, we have wonderful teams, the best in the world or equal to anybody in the world. Some of our industry leadership should be taking more risks. I think our appetite for technical risk, for business risk, has waned a little bit. For example, who would build an oil sands today, or who would build a new oil sands business, especially in the area of technical risk? We've taken a step back. I think we've got to reexamine that. The other place that I like to speak a lot about is, you know, our government has a big role to play in all of this, of course. I think we've over-complicated policy and legislation in this country. I mean, I hear it all the time from companies that want to come to Canada, that know we're generally Canadian-based, and they're confused. Our legislation, some of our policies, are not transparent. It's not easy to understand how to get things done here. My best example is, you know, we can't build a meter of pipeline anymore in this country. It looks like we will never build another fossil fuel-based business in this country. It's unclear how we reconcile with First Nations. And some of these things only our federal government and, to some extent, our provincial governments can deal with. And I think, frankly, we need better leadership and more confident leadership.

I think you're right, Goldie. You know, it's good. I've been thinking a lot about Prime Minister Mulroney in the past couple of weeks. He was a great leader, and he showed us the way. And wasn't it the risk-taking? Wasn't it the risk? I mean, let's place some bets. Well, it was a lot of things. He was a very confident person. He imbued confidence in the business leaders of the day, in his fellow politicians. He was a calculated risk-taker. You know, he was the president of Iron Ore Company. He probably learned a lot of it there. But on top of risk-taking, the other thing that really struck me about Prime Minister Mulroney that we need more of today, Goldie, is he was able to change his mind. Free trade itself, he was opposed to it before he was for it.

Because he found a better idea, and he was a strong enough and positive enough leader to just openly admit it, and then pursue it with passion. So, do we need more of that in the world today? Yes. Do we see it enough in Canada and in other countries? Absolutely not. In fact, it's hard for populist leaders to actually show that level of leadership. I think we're in a difficult period, Goldie.

It all starts with leadership, Goldie, of course. And I imagine, although I've never been in government, I imagine it's the same in government as it is in business. You've got to start with a very, very strong vision, a belief in yourself, and a vision of what Canada could be in the world. And we've got good examples of that. You know, we were military leaders at one point. I'm thinking of the First and Second World War, of course. We were peacekeepers. One of our prime ministers, Pearson, invented peacekeeping. In the cultural stage, we were cultural leaders. In the technology stage, as I mentioned, we were technical giants. And all of that came from a very clear vision of what was important to us, what was important to the Canadian community. So it all starts there. Just like in business, you've got to have a good answer to why. Why you exist and what you want to be. It all starts from that. That's one of the great things that we're missing. After that, I think Canadians are smart, we're empathetic, we're passionate. We will develop the rest after that. I just really think that vision of what Canada could be and what its role should be in the world is just missing right now.

Well, it is important, based on my past, Goldie. As I mentioned, I have been blessed in life, sometimes through a little bit of design, but mostly through happenstance, to have met some of the real giants in business life in Canada, like Jerry Hatch, and the people that came after that. And I mentioned about my deep obligation to this wonderful country that's become home for me and my family, given us so much. And so that's embedded a bit of obligation in my mindset. And one of the things that I think the best way to fulfill that obligation, I find, is to spend time with young people and impart to them what I've learned from these giants. That kind of stewardship is important to me. And plus, Goldie, it's fun. You know, it keeps you young, and it keeps a young mindset.

Let's be clear what the policy is. You're right, we disallow hybrid work en masse. It doesn't mean that we don't have hybrid work, of course we do. But we tell our people that we prefer them to come to the office and to spend at least five days a week, at least part time in the office.

Yes, I do, actually. It's a differentiator. I mean, that's part of my answer to that, why we do it. But look, I admit it's not popular, Goldie. And the reason why we do it, it's very simple. You know, after the pandemic, we tried hybrid work, and we thought we were winning. During the pandemic, we did a lot of great things, like a lot of great companies around the world. We did what we had to do. We're all working from home. We thought, well, maybe this might work. But soon after we started, we started to see the cracks in the armor. We were starting to get uncharacteristic quality problems. Our efficiency was starting to suffer a little bit. After an incline, it actually started to decline, for all reasons that you can imagine. And so we started to ask ourselves questions: why is this? And the answer we came to was, look, what we do, this multi-discipline problem-solving, is a team sport. It's impossible for us to innovate, to be efficient, to mentor at a distance. We just don't know how to do it. Maybe other companies can do it. We can't. The language we use is: this is a team sport. We prefer to be together. And are there times when you can work apart? Well, of course there are. We always had flexible work policies at Hatch. But for the most part, we ask our people to spend time talking to each other, learning from one another.

Well, I get that question a lot, Goldie. Yes, I'll say, in the end, yes. I mean, were we concerned about losing people? Yes, we were. In the end, out of our 12,000 people, probably we lost less than 200. And I think a lot of that is because when you articulate the why, and we spent a lot of time on the why, people understand. We use our Manifesto as a weapon, and our Manifesto speaks to a lot of this culture. We look for people that are not just a technical fit to our business, but a cultural fit. And if you do that well, and we don't do it perfectly, but if you do it well, people understand and they trust you and they stay for the ride. So in the end, we haven't had a problem with retention.

Yeah, wow. You know, this is something I'm really passionate about, Goldie. And maybe we can have another podcast on this as well. Careful what you wish for. We would love that. Now look, you know, I often talk to my Hatch colleagues that we're in the climate change economy. Pretty much everything that drives the economy today is around our battle against removing carbon from the atmosphere, making sure we don't put too much more in there. And that's the truth. And it really is a big part of our business right now, as it is with many. You know, as I mentioned before, it's an existential threat. We're bringing the best of Hatch to this and leading the way in a number of areas. So some of the things that we're working on, for example, is in power generation. You know, we've long been known as hydropower experts around the world, and so we're doing a lot of hydropower expansions, not just here in Canada but all around the world. But one of the new places that we're putting our efforts into is in new nuclear, especially small modular reactors. We are working with pretty much every technology provider that has a small modular design. And interestingly, you know, the world is looking to Canada for small modular certification. But maybe the place that we're spending most of our time to battle climate change, there's two areas that really we have to tackle. One is mobility, for sure, and the transfer to EVs. And our contribution to the EV solution is getting those critical minerals in batteries, which are the new engine of future mobility, getting those critical minerals into workable, efficient, low-cost, sustainable batteries. And that's all from the chain, from mining to refining the metals into high-quality chemical-grade substances, into what's called cathode active material, and eventually into batteries. We're deeply involved with that. And Canada hopefully will become a superpower in that.

Well, the second one is heavy industry. And basically the materials that make cities, cement, aluminum, and steel. Arguably somewhere between 15 and 20%, 17-18%, something like that of greenhouse gas emissions come from the production of these things that we need to build cities. What we're spending a lot of time on at Hatch is all three of those things, but especially steel. We have a new technology that can revolutionize, actually, steelmaking and take anywhere from 60 to 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions out of steel by basically electrifying the whole process, basically getting rid of blast furnaces and going to a new style of steelmaking. We're extremely passionate about that. We think that'll make a sea change and go a long way for Canada and other countries to meet their net zero targets.

We are, but we could do more. Absolutely do more. And Canada should be a more prominent miner. We are blessed with the critical minerals that are needed for the economy of the future. We do well in our traditional metals. I think like aluminum and nickel, we do well. We have a good gold economy. We're building off of old things that were developed, you know, 30, 40, 70 years ago, even 100 years ago. Building anything new has become so difficult that it's become a real challenge to turn our nature-given or God-given, take your pick, resources into really important parts of the economy. When I joined Hatch, it took about five to seven years to permit a new mine in Canada. Today, I mean, take your pick, between 11 and 30 years. And when you talk about places like the Ring of Fire, there are so many other things beyond the permitting issue that have to be solved. You're into decades. And that's just not good enough.

I don't know if they're better, if that's the word I would use. They get things done, Goldie. And you know this, you know as well as I do. Proximity is better. You spend a lot of time in the United States too. But there's some things in the US that they just do well. The best example, and we all know it, I mean, they went from a net energy importer, oil importer number one, on gas and oil.

And they did that in less than a decade.

They went from LNG importing to LNG exporting in no time.

And when we were saying no, exactly. So they just know how to get things done. And that's irrespective of federal administration. I know a lot of people point to the White House. You know, we had our Business Council of Canada meeting where Governor Hogan and Senator Hoeven came to talk to us. And there's two people from either sides of the fence, both saying, forget about what happens in the White House. The action really happens in the federal agencies, in the governors, in the states. And no matter what happens, that's been our experience, state governors get things done. A lot of the big federal US agencies, they get things done. A lot of reason for that is they've got the money. I mean, just look at the IRA, the IIJA, the various critical minerals legislations that have come through. I mean, how can you not feel excited about the US and put effort into that?

Thank you for noticing. I think it comes out of what your parents teach you, what my mom and dad taught me, and also what I learned at Hatch. So there are two things that really drive me personally. One is education, as I mentioned. You know, my parents really urged us to forge an education because they didn't have that opportunity when we lived in Europe. And here at Hatch, we're big believers in education, greatly so, because we need to invest in the future of our business. And good, solid students are our future. So education is extremely important to me. And I spend a lot of time with organizations, mostly universities around the world, the top technical universities around the world, getting to know students, getting to know professors, getting to know what research they're doing. We also believe a lot in young education. We're big supporters of Mining Matters, for example, here in Ontario, something that your listeners might be familiar with. My other passion is culture. I love culture. Maybe it comes from something genetic in my Italian genes, I don't know. But I was strongly encouraged.

Well, they're not mutually exclusive, Goldie. But some of my favorite cultural institutions here are the ROM. I'm a member of the ROM Governors, the Royal Ontario Museum, yeah, the biggest museum in Canada, most visited. And I love art. Art is a big passion, especially paintings. My wife and I have been collecting since we were teenagers, in fact. And I love all of our art institutions, especially the McMichael Gallery here in Ontario, the AGO, the National Gallery. These are really world-class institutions that deserve more of our attention and more of our support.

Okay, I'm gonna say any kind of pasta. And I'm spoiled because my wife is the best pasta maker in the world.

That's easy. That's driving my car around a track.

Not as much as I would like to.

Yeah, just for fun. I mean, not professionally, not in the making or anything. No, I love sports cars and I love driving. Fun stuff.

Yeah, I'm gonna say having a cocktail by the dock at my cottage with family and friends.

You'd be very good at it. You're an animated guy. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Maybe so. But anyway, my family and I are nuts about Broadway. That's an easy one: Les Misérables.

Yeah, you can't ask someone like me to pick one artist because it's too disturbing. I get anxious when I hear that. Probably my favorite form of art is abstract expressionism. Most of our collection leans that way.

Well, it's kind of where we started the conversation, Goldie. Maybe the best way to put it is, I hope that at least in my lifetime, Canada, we can assert ourselves as the true global leaders that we can be, and really be the best example of what we call at Hatch, positive change in the world, in all elements, in industry, in business, in culture, in social endeavors. We have the capability to do that, and my aspiration is to be the best example of that in the world.

Thank you, Goldie. It's been a pleasure and look forward to our next conversation.