2010 Technical Excellence

Technical Excellence Award Winner Pete Van’t Hoff, C.E.T.
Adding Perspective and Insight Through 3D Design

Nordahl Flakstad

Thanks to movies such as Avatar, 3D has come to the fore again on the silver screen and in public consciousness. But for 2010 Technical Excellence Award winner Pete

Van’t Hoff, C.E.T., three-dimensional design has been a source of professional satisfaction and business success for well over a decade.

Van’t Hoff was the fourth of five brothers raised on dairy farms in the Calmar area, less than an hour’s drive southwest of Edmonton. He caught the 3D bug while taking engineering design and drafting at NAIT from 1995 to 1997. At the time, 3D was just gaining traction as a design tool and AutoCAD offered about half a dozen 3D-related commands.

“I tried to learn everything I could about 3D,” explains Van’t Hoff, who, after working on dairy farms for a year following high school, decided: “I’d make a much better CAD monkey than dairy farmer.”

Somehow 3-D meshed with Van’t Hoff’s way of seeing things, and, he explains: “I love how it lets me shift and turn things around, and lets me fiddle.”

He figures there are two types of people. There are the two-dimensional, flat-earthers disposed to see things just in planes and elevations. Then there are those inclined to turn concepts over in their mind and to picture them as three-dimensional objects. The 3D-modelling programs, such as those Van’t Hoff uses, allow translating and twisting such mental pictures into virtual images on a computer screen and sharing them with both the 3D and 2D folks.

Hired out of NAIT as a junior designer by SNC-Lavalin’s Edmonton office, Van’t Hoff got to use the latest 3D software – particularly in designing tank-farms and pump-stations. It was invaluable experience but after three years and a bit it was time to “expand the learning curve” and literally enhance his perspective. Opportunity came as an intermediate designer in Edmonton with Bantrel, an early adapter of 3D in refinery- piping design.

Again, he had added new 3D layers to his resume. Following an initially steep learning curve at Bantrel, it had flatted out after 18 months to a point where Van’t Hoff began pondering other options. One opening came via his brother Henry, who headed the purchasing department with Blue Falls Manufacturing Ltd. Located in Thorsby, about 70 km southwest of Edmonton and operated under the trade name Arctic Spas, the company is a somewhat unheralded Alberta manufacturing gem. Arctic ranks as a major international manufacturer of recreational hot tubs, especially ones geared to year-round use in colder climates, including in Canada, Russia and Scandinavia. A key to the Arctic tubs’ success lies in the insulated design, which protects them from winter weather while also providing easy access for repair and adjustments.

Arctic had grown frustrated by the quality of some supplier’s components, particularly jets and valves, and decided to explore in-house design and manufacture of more parts.

After talking to his brother Henry, Pete figured he might be able to help. So, one Monday morning in September 2003 he called Arctic Spas CEO Darcy Amendt. By Friday, he had been interviewed and offered the job of CAD Manager in Arctic’s R&D department.

Thorsby (pop. 1,000) is just down the road from where Van’t Hoff grew up. For Pete, then recently married, the job amounted to a dream come true. While he much preferred spinning out 3D designs to early-morning milking, he still was very much a country boy at heart. Here was a chance for a city-type job within a small-town Alberta ambience.

“Moving back to the country was truly the biggest draw.” But so was the possibility of channeling his growing 3D knowledge in new directions. Programs used for 3D piping design don’t necessarily translate directly in manufacturing so Van’t Hoff found himself where he likes to be – back on yet another learning curve.

Arctic found use for his 3D talents not only designing parts but also in shaping hob tub moulds. Before, it might have taken half a dozen workers a month to chip away at foam to shape a mould. In the same period, hunkered down at a computer, Van’t Hoff could show management various virtual versions of prototype moulds, plus onscreen examples of the resulting tubs. Modifications were just mouse clicks away and, as Van’t Hoff observes, “all the ‘mistakes’ happened in a virtual environment.”

Such 3D schematics also provided a virtual picture of how the various parts – including tubing, plumbing and other components – fitted into the hot tub shell. Besides averting lots of chipped foam on the floor, 3D design saved staff time.

Van’t Hoff’s efforts garnered Arctic a “Stevie” for Best Product Development. Known as the International Business Awards, the North American-based accolades have been described as the business Oscars.

Though all this provided Arctic with valuable input and recognition, Van’t Hoff also realized “I had taken things as far as they could go.” Certainly, by 2006, the company really didn’t need his services full-time. So, at age 29, he was about to take another plunge. With a growing family (Pete and his wife Cheryl now have five children ranging in age from almost seven to the youngest born earlier this year), he was also taking a risk when he questioned his boss Darcy Amendt about starting up his own business. The CEO’s response was: “I don’t like it but I understand. Go do it!”

The outcome was Keystone 3D Technical Services Ltd., the Thorsby-based company through which Van’t Hoff offers 3D design services as well as rapid prototyping, which uses fused deposit modelling and polyjet technology. The latter allows the shaping of plastic and acrylic “hold-in-hand” versions of 3D-designed parts.

Arctic Spas remains an important Keystone 3D client but after four years in business, the base has broadened. Other major Keystone 3D customers include the Venger Group, a Leduc-based provider of electrostatic painting services – particularly for the grocery sector.

Van’t Hoff also connected with the Duncan McNeill Centre for Innovation at his alma mater, NAIT, where for a while he maintained an office in the business incubator run through novaNAIT. novaNAIT Manager of Enterprise Development and Technology Transfer David Burry worked with Keystone 3D as a client, and with Van’t Hoff as a consultant in developing prototypes for other start-up firms. It prompted the ASET Technical Excellence Award nomination by Burry, who remains impressed by “the exceptional level of technical competence and the professionalism Pete brings to every project we have involved him in. The knowledge and creativity that he displays in design reviews with clients is outstanding and his ability to interpret customer requirements and alter designs on the fly is impressive.”

As for Van’t Hoff himself, the ASET honour represents: “verification that I am on the right path and it recognizes lots of hard work and the risks that I have taken not only involving myself but also my family. It is comforting to know that my peers find what I do is excellent.”