After graduation, Hajimiragha had just moved back to Toronto where his parents lived, when he got a call from Hoa recommending him for a job with a company looking for someone with pultrusion machine experience back in Montreal. Hajimiragha jumped at the opportunity. The company’s smaller size allowed him to gain hands-on experience, and after two years, he decided he was ready to start his own business.
“That’s where we started sourcing machines and beginning the research and development,” says Hajimiragha, who started his company in 2012. “We had about five years of research and development and product development, laboratory testing, working with different government organizations. My goal was to make the best product at the cheapest rate. And I think we achieved that.”
The results are products branded MST-BAR® and MFX-BAR® and offer what Hajimiragha calls a fully threaded rebar. “That's really what differentiates our product; it has the highest stiffness of any rebar on the market, as well as the highest bond to the concrete,” he says, noting that the latter is a particular game changer in his industry.
Today, B&B FRP Manufacturing Inc. serves developers, government and contractors, with clients including SNC Lavalin, Ellis Don, and Harris Rebar.
‘My lucky day’
Looking back, Hajimiragha says Concordia helped him to get where he is today. “The master’s degree provided a great opportunity for me to learn what I like and what I don't like. It really gave me the backbone of what I created,” says Hajimiragha. He adds that in a practical sense, he discovered that he wanted to create mass products, and that he also realized the strategic need to choose a field where there was room for innovation.
Concordia also gave him a mentor in Hoa. “It was definitely my lucky day, walking into his office, because he gave me a tour of the lab and it was an eye opener for me to see how composite material is so unique. The first time I went to his lab and I saw automated fibre placement — I mean, my jaw dropped,” recalls Hajimiragha.
Now a successful business owner, Hajimiragha says that his advice for current students is that they have to make an effort to translate their decision-making into success — advice he credits to Hoa.
“Make a decision and don't give up on that idea,” says Hajimiragha. “Regardless if that decision is right or wrong, if you work hard you can make it right.”