The familiar smell of freshly cut metal and the high-pitched buzz of angle grinders greet Gary Trigg as he steps onto the floor of PCL’s pipe fabrication facility in Nisku, Alberta — a place he led for nearly three decades. 

“It brings back lots of memories every time I come back here,” he says, as he takes in the busy shop space. “I always love coming back.”

Trigg wasn’t the kind of boss who spent all his time in an office. Even a decade after retiring, he’s comfortable on the floor —  and is greeted warmly by workers who have been here long enough to remember him.

“Hey! Good to see you,” says Geoff Paul.

“Family’s good?” Trigg asks former coworker Greg Cooper.

For Trigg, the facility will always feel like home, even as he marvels over the changes since he left.

“I mean, you look at how the place has grown over the years and it’s amazing,” he says. “The evolution is incredible.”

The 145,000-square-foot shop is currently run by Kim Heit and Pedro Mendes, who both started here in the 1990s under Trigg’s leadership.

“I did my first work term with PCL as a student in 1998 and was hooked,” says Heit. “From the start, people here were willing to take you under their wing, show you around, answer your questions. And that’s something that has never changed. It’s like a family.”

“We’ve always been a tight group,” says Mendes. “Everyone on this team is committed to our own work, and to supporting each other and our clients.”

PCL moved into industrial construction in 1949 and began fabricating its own piping in  1958. In 1978, with several large-scale projects on the horizon, company leaders looked for a better way.

“Historically, fabrication was done at the job site, in the field,” says Jamie Feuffel, area manager for PCL’s industrial operations in the Edmonton area. “Right out of the gate, the goal here was trying to do things better, more efficiently.”

That vision led PCL to a two-bay, 4,000-square-foot rented facility in south Edmonton, run by Jim Yakemchuk. 

“It was a small shop and a small investment, but it was also the vision of ‘let’s start here and see where we can go,’” says Mendes.

The plan was to fabricate project components in controlled, indoor environments, rather than on-site, where conditions like weather and lighting can be unpredictable. Yakemchuk believed the process could improve quality, safety and value.

In 1980, the small shop began working on pipe fabrication for a large tank farm project. Under Yakemchuk’s guidance, the components were built as three-level pipe rack modules, even though they were not designed that way. That ingenuity allowed the team to fabricate and install 240 lineal feet of pipe rack quicker than expected.

“Really, the leadership from the start was pretty extraordinary.” says Trigg. “People like Jim Yakemchuk left a legacy of innovation with us, for sure.”

As PCL took on more industrial work, the fabrication shop quickly outgrew its first home. In 1982, the team doubled its space, moving into an 8,000-square-foot freestanding building nearby, with two acres of yard space. The new shop was used to build small skids and modules, and for the first time, PCL started fabricating for third parties, rather than just work destined for PCL projects.

By the mid 1980s, the fab shop had outgrown its four walls once again, and the search began for something much bigger.

In 1987, the fabrication shop opened its current location in Nisku, just south of Edmonton. What first seemed oversized was quickly filled as demand grew.

Later that year, Trigg joined PCL Industrial as manager of engineering. In 1993, he took over leadership of the facility as manager of engineering and fabrication, just as the shop entered a period of rapid growth.

“Explosive growth is the only way to describe it,” says Trigg. “We initially had the south end of the two bays and then we added the large bore bay, and that allowed us to turn these big pieces of pipes like nobody else could — I mean 120-foot pipe spools with big valves on them — a length unheard of back then. And our head office was very supportive of that growth. If we had to invest money in the shop, we generally got a green light.”

As the mid 1990s gave way to the oil sands boom of the late 1990s in northern Alberta, demand for construction surged. PCL bought more land near the shop to use for pipe rack and equipment module assembly.

“That facility today was basically built on the back of the oil sands boom era,” says Feuffel. “We started building modules for the big players in the energy sector for new mines and expansions of existing mines.”

In the mid-2000s, the team performed the largest-ever module contract awarded in Alberta, assembling 316 pipe rack and equipment modules for Syncrude’s Mildred Lake Upgrader (UE-1) project. At the time, Syncrude estimated the modularization of those modules saved the project at least $150 million.

The fab shop became one of the leading fabrication shops of its kind in North America, performing pipe, vessel and skid fabrication as well as skid and module assembly. The team could build and ship large assemblies — up to 24 by 24 by 140 feet — reducing onsite work, lowering costs and improving schedule certainty for clients.

There was another significant revolution in the 1990s that nobody could ignore: mainstream adoption of the internet and the technological advancements that came with it.

 Even in an industry built on steel and pipe, digital tools quickly became essential.

Today’s shop floor is run by touch-screen systems that track work, materials and labour in real time through PCL’s digital industrial project management (IPM) system.

“It’s Intuitive IPM,” says  Trigg, standing beside a modern workstation. “When we implemented it, I think there was some angst from welders about Big Brother watching them. Once we rolled it out, that went away. They could see the benefits right away and they embraced it. They couldn’t work without it today.”

“When I started, computers and Wi-Fi on the shop floor weren’t even a thought,” laughs Heit. “Now, remote access to information is right there on a touchscreen. That technology really feeds information to our craft workers in real time and empowers them to make good decisions in their planning and execution.”

Other changes over the years included improved lighting and fume extraction systems, and major structural renovations that improved the flow of materials and work, including the addition of fixed cranes for moving pipe spools into the shop from outside quickly and easily — and mobile welding work stations that move along tracks.

On the shop floor, the newest plasma pipe cutters can handle spools up to six feet in diameter, and virtually all of the traditional stick welding has been replaced by new, more efficient processes like flux-core and submerged arc welding.

“It’s a high-deposition welding process with no sparks and hardly any fume,” says Trigg. “It used to be for big, thick material. The team here can now use submerged arc welding on a pipe as little as six inches in diameter.”

Another example of new technology is the shop’s spool-welding robot (SWR), operated by a welder using a joystick, control pad and monitor. It performs single-pass welds on stainless steel and carbon, using AI to ensure extreme precision and efficiency. While it works on one length of pipe, another can be loaded on a second positioner, and the robot can pivot to the second job when the first is complete.

“The robot was never intended to replace welders,” says Heit. “This is another tool to supplement what we already do on the floor. Some of the young people coming into the industry are big video gamers and prefer a joystick, rather than by hand. We’re constantly trying to make things more efficient for people so they can do their jobs and not feel like their work is overly labour-intensive or repetitive.

These changes have resulted in a smoother, safer operation. Welders can often work from a single position as the work piece rotates, reducing strain on their backs, arms and legs.

 “We’re constantly making improvements that benefit our clients and our team members, creating a better product in a more efficient and safe manner,” says Feuffel.

Fabrication shops of this scale are rare. High capital costs — often hundreds of thousands to millions per piece of equipment — and a goal of continuous operation make them difficult to sustain.

Put simply, there’s risk. Fluctuations in oil prices — and events like a pandemic — can quickly affect demand for industrial construction. The shop’s longevity and success come from effectively managing that risk.

According to Mendes, it’s about playing the long game, and not panicking when short-term challenges arise.

“We always invest when we’re slow, and make sure we’re ready when things pick up again,” he says. “We’re in it for the long haul. One thing PCL has never been scared of is investing wisely in our long-term success.”

It’s also important not to overshoot expansion, Heit says.

“We have constant overhead, and there’s always a risk of that next project not coming through the door. So, it’s a balance: ensuring we are in the right markets and bidding on the right projects at the right times. And historically, we have been good at that.”

Diversifying the client base has also been important.  While the shop once relied heavily on Alberta’s oil industry, it now services multiple sectors, including power, petrochemicals, renewables, mining and offshore. And that list is growing.

In the spring of 2026, PCL achieved certification to fabricate and construct components in a new sector: nuclear.  The facility now has an ASME N stamp (nuclear), an NA stamp (nuclear assembly), an NPT stamp (nuclear parts) and an NS stamp (nuclear supports), qualifying it to work across all four areas. The last three were awarded on PCL’s first application.

“Achieving these on a first attempt is very rare,” says Peter Tawfik, PCL’s director of nuclear operations. “What is even rarer is that we have certification for ASME III, under divisions 1 and 5. Division 5 is a recent addition to the code that addresses high-temperature gas reactors. We are one of only a handful of fabricators and constructors globally with both certifications.”

Nuclear certification requires an extremely high level of precision — a standard that was already being met at the Nisku fab shop, according to PCL leaders.

“We have to do things consistently, because we use a common workflow,” says Feuffel. “So it doesn’t matter if it’s oil and gas or if it’s nuclear. We’re bringing that same level of quality and process.”

As PCL’s reputation in this field grows, there’s optimism that nuclear fabrication will open brand new avenues of work, and new streams of revenue.

With a promising outlook across many sectors, the small Edmonton fabrication shop that became a North American leader has a clear plan for the future: keep innovating and stay true to the principles that brought it here.

“I think it’s our ethics,” reflects Mendes. “Our values, our ability to execute work at the highest level, our reputation of being honest with our clients and partners, and doing good work. Those are the factors that have defined the PCL brand in industrial fabrication.”