#9: Domenic Mattina of Ontario’s Mattina Mechanical
Domenic Mattina is the President of Mattina Mechanical Limited which is based in Hamilton, Ontario, and a proud member of Merit Ontario. The family-owned business got its start in 1979 when Domenic’s dad built it from the ground up. While Domenic didn’t take the reins until 2001, together with his siblings they have spent the last 20 years scaling the business with very impressive results. Domenic credits his dad for the company’s growth because his dad “instilled the work ethic that I have today” and always pushed for him to stay in school which has allowed him to effectively run the company.
The mechanical contracting company has clearly grown because today they work on much more than just local builds. In fact, Mattina Mechanical worked on both the Milton Velodrome and the Government of Canada, Federal Building headquarters in Hamilton.
Was it scary to scale so fast? Domenic admits it is, but at the same time it helped push them to stretch their limits and “reach for the sky.” He explains the larger projects “really tested our ability and tested our controls because it required a lot more resources and we had to scale quickly. At the same time, he credits these types of projects as the reason the company has been able to continue to grow. In fact, the company’s entire growth strategy has always hinged on tackling any challenge that has come their way.
Despite Mattina Mechanical being firmly planted in the industrial construction world of Hamilton, the company has never launched a marketing campaign. Instead, they have relied on their workmanship to speak for themselves. Domenic explains “we’ve never really chased our work” instead rely on organic growth by getting a job and then getting further requests from the same client to put bids in because they are happy with the results. He added that they work with a lot of general contractors throughout Hamilton who calls on them to handle the mechanical tasks.
Since they haven’t spent much on marketing throughout the past forty years, they have been able to invest their resources into the company so that they can scale as required. However, they are aware that the strategies may have to change to adapt to the times because he is afraid they will reach a plateau, and “to potentially rely on predictable ways you’ve been growing is risky.” Therefore, don’t be surprised to see strategy shift a bit.
However, Mattina Mechanical has proven they can be flexible as they had to adapt to the pandemic just last year. They attacked the issue by creating a COVID task force and were fortunate enough to be able to grow last year. In fact, by the end of this year, the company will be COR certified which will take them to “another level of health and safety.”