By Rajitha Sivakumaran
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N
igel Scotchmer completed his hon-
ours BA at the University of Toron-
to in the 1970s, majoring in Eng-
lish Literature. Did he have any idea that he
would one day become a resistance weld-
ing expert and innovator? In the 40 years
that followed, Scotchmer has published
extensively on the topic, represented Can-
ada for ISO (International Organization for
Standardization) for resistance welding for
15 years and has been recognized with
awards from the American Welding Soci-
ety.
After completing his studies at the In-
stitute of Chartered Accountants of On-
tario in 1983, Scotchmer found himself in
Germany, working as a Vice President of
Magna International, a Canadian global au-
tomotive supplier. Here he was first intro-
duced to Huys Industries, a welding, join-
ing and coating company, headquartered
in Weston, Ontario. After returning to
Canada, Scotchmer, finding out that Huys
was for sale, jumped on the opportunity in
1998. For nearly two decades now, he has
been owner and president of Huys.
“The unique aspect of why I bought the
company was that it had a technology that
I hadn't seen before and no one seemed
to know why it worked so well,” Scotch-
mer said.
Huys specializes in resistance welding.
Scotchmer simplifies the chemistry behind
this technology with the following explana-
tion:
“Cars are mostly made of steel since the
material is inexpensive. More than 80 per
cent of the 5,000 or 6,000 welds on a car
are done with the resistance welding. Ro-
bots with copper arms are used to weld
steel parts since electricity flows eas
MARCH 2017
H
business elite canada
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