whose family moved to Brighton. The company is unusually flexible; if a staff member sees potential in a different area (geographically or department-wise) and wants to shift their role, “we’re happy to let them run with that,” Agg said, as long as it’s profitable. When asked about his approach to managing such a large staff scattered across the province, Agg said it comes down to trust. “I have awesome people I work with. My management team — I have a story of how each one came to work with us,” he said. “We’ve got good people who have the same mentality as I do in a lot of ways, or have the opposite mentality of me in some ways, and keep me grounded.” PPM is team-driven, striving to promote crew leaders from within. Agg works hard to find the best professionals to partner with. He’s happy that, as owner, he doesn’t have to wear 50 different hats. He can focus on what he’s good at and his staff can do the same. He’s a big proponent of formal training and has seen great success hiring graduates of LO’s GROW program. “I’m really lucky I have great staff who can steer the ship when I’m not there,” he added. This is especially important for Agg, who spends a lot of his time volunteering with LO to level up the industry. He does a lot of work specifically on the insurance crisis — which is what initially motivated him to get involved with the association. Frustrated by the rates insurance companies charged PPM, Agg helped start the Self-Insured Retention (SIR) Group, which works to lower insurance rates. The SIR Group and LO’s Snow and Ice Sector Group — which Agg represents on the association’s provincial board — started the Academy of Snow & Ice Control (ASIC), an accredited training program for snow and ice professionals. “[We want] to get it to the point where it’s an accredited industry, where if you did everything right — you followed the standards, you had trained employees, you documented [a job] properly — how could you possibly get sued?” Agg said. Bad lawsuits frequently take small companies out of the industry, he explained, even when they’ve done nothing wrong. He's working with LO to get the provincial government involved, meeting with individual ministries to get the message out: “That if they don’t do something, snow people will slowly get out of the business, and our province will economically shut down when it snows, because there will not be enough people to keep businesses open,” he said. Snow and ice management should be considered an essential service, Agg argued, and receive more respect. That’s where accreditation, standardization and education come in — becoming more professional will result in higher wages. He wants people to want to enter the industry and to afford the equipment, training and insurance necessary to do so. He wants it to be more accessible. All this advocacy is tough work, but Agg said he gets “such satisfaction” out of it. “I love seeing the good that can come from it. I see that if you’re actually involved and put the time in, you can see a lot of return on that investment,” he said. His dreams for PPM are equally ambitious. He’s focused on steady, smart growth through opening new divisions. The company is beginning to invest in electric equipment, too. Six of its crews will be battery-operated this summer. And PPM will continue to do maintenance — something that still makes Agg happy after all these years.
Continued >
MAY - JUNE 2025 | 19
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