Year in Review: 2025

James R. Stringer

“Those who endure the greatest hardships and perform the most difficult deeds
are the most worthy.”
Geoffroi de Charny, A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry

2025 has been a very eventful year for EPIC Building Services! Apart from the standard trials and tribulations we face each day, this year we have been given the opportunity to expand outside of Calgary and met with customers in different cities and in different provinces. EPIC’s expansion into Edmonton has been a great success and we are looking forward to supporting more and improving our services while we continue to grow.

We were given the opportunity to explore many different challenges and toured some wonderful places. From water treatment for huge public pools, offices inside old bank vaults, and crafting some wobbly pops for the masses – Facility Management, Operations, and Maintenance is a vast industry that makes everyday unique. You should see the size of the boilers at District Energy!

With more growth means more challenges and there is never a dull moment in Facility Management! Our Call Centre received just under 1000 calls over the course of the year, many of them luckily only trouble signals (new renovations seem to go out of their way to cause issues!). From broken pumps, motors, dampers; wrecked cars, vagrants, smashed windows; building commissioning, renovations, decommissioning – I am proud of the EPIC team and how we have been able to tackle each and every challenge while seizing opportunities as they are presented to us.

In particular, EPIC was given the privilege to support the schools in Calgary during the strike to make sure the boilers were operating safely and efficiently. What was particularly cool for myself was working with the old coal fired steam boilers that had the fuel source converted to natural gas. The new fancy high efficiency condensing boilers are definitely the way of the future but these types of boilers were made to last. You don’t have to contact support in Texas about getting a password so you can access a display so you can use your boiler!

Achievements this year were stellar. We had operators achieve their 5th, 4th, and 3rd Class Power Engineer Designations, our first home grown HVACR Journeyman, and another 10-year employment milestone. Going into 2026, we will be looking to further improve with two more 5th Class Operators, two more 4th Class Operators, another HVACR Journeyman, two more HVACR apprentices, and numerous other trainings, designations, and certifications.

2025 also saw the transfer of EPIC from Brian to myself. Brian is still fully engaged in his role as Founder (“best job in the world!”), helping, especially, as a technical advisor for all of our customers as well as mentoring the team, and enhancing EPIC’s HVAC Preventative Maintenance division. I will take on the President role, further growing the company and its initiatives including implementing MRI Angus for our Facility Management software, as well as exploring security, monitoring, and life safety to compliment all aspects of our customers’ needs. Looking forward to 2026!