Joy of framing, love of big ideas

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This article was published 19/07/2024 (458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You may have heard about the joy of cooking, but when Ted Geddert speaks, he describes a different bliss.

“It was for the joy of framing,” he says. “We just loved framing.”

The Winnipeg business owner is thinking back to his early 20s, when he formed a construction company with a friend. Their crew worked hard, with the stereo cranked, seeing results every day.

Geddert carries that joy with him today as president of Holz Constructors, a company he started in 1997, after parting ways with his previous business partner. Located in a 20,000-square-foot building in northeast Winnipeg with a group of employees the size of “a football team or two,” Holz makes prefabricated homes.

When Geddert started the company, there was a stigma against prefabrication — to such an extent he decided against using the word “prefab” in his company’s name.

To some, it signified subpar work by people looking to cut corners. But Geddert saw the potential and the ways prefabrication could allow for precise, efficient work resulting in strong structures while saving resources.

With his shaggy hair, earrings, black T-shirt and blue jeans, Geddert could easily be mistaken for a member of one of the rock bands he admires.

A cacophony of nail guns and circular saws sounds off as he walks through the 12 production bays at his company’s Gunn Road headquarters, describing his vision.

“I love building things and I love building teams,” he says. “I love being part of a group of people trying to push forward the big idea. That’s I think what’s always been driving me, is the big idea.”

The big idea is this: delivering well-designed housing using the best process possible, consuming fewer of the earth’s resources along the way.

Geddert’s first prefabrication job happened by necessity. In 1990, his framing crew showed up to build 33 townhomes in Surrey, B.C., only to find the foundations had yet to be poured. The lumber was there, so Geddert’s crew got to work prefabricating the frames and putting them up once the concrete had set.

The crew did prefabrication every now and then in the years that followed. When Geddert struck out on his own, he decided to pursue it full-time.

Holz’s in-house team of engineers, detailers and carpenters designs and builds walls, floors and roofs into panels that incorporate all mechanical, electrical and building envelope elements. Even the bathrooms are built as cubes with the fixtures installed.

Everything is then delivered to the site and assembled by Holz’s carpenters.

Holz is the German word for wood, which Geddert believes is the best building material.

Wood may be his preference, but Holz works with all kinds of materials. The company built 62M, the Winnipeg condominium building near the Disraeli Freeway that resembles a flying saucer. The building is a 41-suite elevated disc set 10 metres above ground on a set of 20 concrete columns. Employees cast the columns at the Holz shop and co-ordinated with the steel contractor to install them.

Holz created the concrete elevator shaft, wood walls and floors, corridors and exterior metal cladding.

The company has also been involved with the redevelopment of the James Avenue Pumphouse, including Pumphouse West, the $12 million, six-storey, 65-unit apartment block.

Geddert’s team built the floors and walls, including installing the windows, at the Holz shop, where they also cast the building’s concrete walkways.

Housing in Churchill for the staff at a non-profit polar bear conservation organization and 22 daycares around southern Manitoba are some of the other projects Holz has been involved with in recent years.

When given a say on the design of the single-family dwellings he works on, Geddert emulates the house he grew up in — vaulted ceilings, cozy spaces and adaptable to gatherings of all sizes. They are designed to eliminate needless square footage and maximize the way people interact with each other and the environment that surrounds them, he says.

The goal is to build spaces that people are happy to live and grow in.

Geddert credits his parents — Mennonites born in Ukraine and who immigrated to Paraguay and then to Brazil before settling in Canada — with shaping his perspective.

They were hard workers who provided a good life for their children while taking a more-with-less approach to consumption. As important as hard work was, so, too, was spending time as a family and contributing to the community. Loving others was paramount.

To that end, Geddert is more than a businessman. He is a husband, a father, an outdoorsman involved in a variety of athletic pursuits, an avid music fan and storyteller.

He volunteers at his church and with Habitat for Humanity, and he shares what he’s learned with students at his alma mater, Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute.

The public got a glimpse into these aspects of Geddert’s life when he gave a talk at the 2014 TEDxManitoba event.

During his presentation, Geddert spoke about living bravely and finding a good soundtrack along the way.

He recounted February 2005, when his father Hans and his 13-year-old son Sammy died unexpectedly on the same day in separate incidents; and the comforting words Bono, the lead singer of his favourite band, U2, spoke to him when he met the band outside a Minneapolis arena later that year.

“I really believe we have to honour those that came before us or left before us,” Geddert says. “That’s really important to me. So I have to honour my parents’ memory (and) how hard they worked. I have to honour my son’s memory.”

Geddert is a “visionary man of integrity,” says Richard Derksen, administrator of commercial building permits for the City of Winnipeg.

Prior to pursuing his career in architecture, Derksen worked for Geddert for two summers in the 1980s. The two reconnected a few years ago, and rekindled their friendship.

“(He’s) always very humble about his own abilities, but he’s quite accomplished in the things he’s managed to achieve,” Derksen says, adding Geddert’s creativity, willingness to try new things and the genuine way he connects with people stand out to him. “He’s just the kind of person that gives you energy.”

Geddert credits his team — which includes his son Aaron, the company’s general manager — with getting Holz to where it is today.

He looks forward to chasing the big idea for years to come.

“We kind of built something here and (we’re) just trying to do the right thing. That’s literally it — trying to do the right thing,” he says. “We can use less material, have our crew work efficiently with the right equipment and deliver housing that inspires you.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca