25 years ago Tom Palangio stepped away from his position at Dupont to further develop his fragmentation analysis technology. He had developed the technology in partnership with Waterloo University specifically for measuring rock blasts but quickly found multiple applications in the aggregate industry. Seeing potential competition Dupont and Tom reached an agreement that he would not operate in North America for 3 years. As a result he went to Panama as a blast consultant during the construction of the Panama Canal, then continued to expand his distribution network in Peru, Chile, South Africa, and Australia before returning to Canada.

Although the global travel led to excellent exposure across the world for WipWare products and services; because of the agreement with Dupont they had little exposure in Canada. Tom had to build his local business presence after being gone for over 3 years and as an added challenge his rural 150 acre property with dial-up internet offered significant challenges in communicating with his distributors. True to his “solve the problem” form, Tom connected with Bell Canada and negotiated to have high speed internet brought in, even becoming their poster boy for entrepreneurial capabilities in rural Canada. Watch Episode Here: https://youtu.be/v3Hm1g_Vpao