Type Private company Headquarters Calgary, Canada Parent organization Melbye Skandinavia AS | Industry Industrial products Founded 1995 | |
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Website RS Poles
Melbye Skandinavia AS Subsidiaries New Version Sport Inc., Resin Systems International Ltd., NVS Hockey, RS Advanced Structures Inc. | ||
RS Technologies Inc. (RS), formerly known as Resin Systems Inc., is a Canadian company that designs, engineers and manufactures composite utility poles. The company ships its patented poles – made from fiberglass and polyurethane resin – to customers around the world from its manufacturing facility in Tilbury, Ontario, Canada. RS poles present a light-weight, long-life, low-maintenance, environmentally superior alternative to traditional wood, steel and concrete.
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History
The business was started in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1995, as a material science company that developed and sold proprietary resin formulations for various applications, including industrial corrosion protection coatings.
In March 1997, the shares of the company began to trade publicly on what was then the equivalent of Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange.
In 2003, RS began filament winding cylindrical sections (called “modules”) which, when combined, form utility poles capable of carrying loads presented by power lines in a range of transmission and distribution voltages. In the same year, the first RS poles were installed in Canada’s Northwest Territories.
Between 2005 and 2007, RS re-located its manufacturing equipment from Edmonton to Calgary, Alberta, and then to Tilbury, Ontario. Over the next few years, the company refined its manufacturing processes, greatly improving yield and quality while also improving sales. In 2011, a new CEO was appointed, and in 2013, the board of directors changed significantly and RS became a private company. RS is currently principally owned and controlled by two shareholder groups: the Werklund Family Office, located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and Melbye Skandinavia AS, a family-owned enterprise located in Oslo, Norway and operating throughout Scandinavia.
Modular poles
RS poles are modular in nature in that each RS pole is made up of one or more modules. Various sized modules are selected and combined according to the engineering requirements to create poles and structures up to 155 feet (47.2 metres) in height. The poles are designed to address a wide range of strength, height and load conditions and technical standards.
Because of their modular design and strength, RS’s composite poles can be used safely in demanding transmission and distribution power lines with voltages ranging up to 345kV. Because composite poles are engineered products, performance characteristics can be specifically and consistently tailored to a given application. RS poles are designed using industry accepted finite element methods and analyses and performance has been confirmed by way of full-scale testing.