WANT TO SAVE TIME & MONEY IN 2021? BLACK TIE CAN HELP
By bundling your services with Black Tie, we can manage your maintenance schedule and eliminate project delays meaning less hassle for you and more savings for your strata.
WHY PRE-BOOK YOUR DRYER VENT, WINDOW CLEANING & ANCHOR INSPECTION WITH BLACK TIE?
SAVE $$$ Impress your clients with Cash Savings when bundling 3 or more services with Black Tie.
SAVE TIME One phone call, and voila! Your maintenance plan is in place, and your service team awaits.
SAVE YOUR SPOT When you pre-book multiple services, you put your clients property in the lead by ensuring they get priority scheduling.
SAVE THE HEADACHE Stop dealing with multiple contractors when you can group your clients property services together with one trusted & reputable company.
Areas covered include the entire Lower mainland from Abbotsford to Mission.
Specializing in LIABILITY MITIGATION.
Pricing options include:
Per push
Flat Rate
On-Call
We partnered with an industry leader in creating strategies to protect our clients from slip and fall claims that cause inflated insurance costs. We proactively document and catalogue pictures, GPS coordinates, log notes and physical in-person site assessments to keep our clients out of liability.
Do you have any buildings that needs snow removal this winter? It’s supposed to be a cold one.
Please call 604-629-9055/ email info@blacktieservices.ca to request a quote.
In today’s blog feature, we interview Ryan Macdonald, a Wind Turbine Technician & IRATA 2 Rope Access Technician, currently working at Vestas. Ryan had previously worked with us as a window cleaner on the Black Tie Construction team and I had a chance to sit down with him and interview him about his experience with us.
Can you share with us some background about yourself? Where are you from and what are your passions?
Well, I’m 30 years old and I grew up in Revelstoke, BC. Big into mountaineering and outdoor adventures, as well as a fan of history and political activism. Bit of a renaissance man, haha.
Can you describe for us what your current job is?
I currently work as a resource technician with Vestas Americas, and I travel across North America building, servicing, repairing and sometimes decommissioning wind turbines. It’s a 100% on-the-road position, so my fixed address is a storage locker now.
That’s such an interesting job, what inspired to pursue that?
I spent seven years in the tech startup industry, and one day as I was very tired of that role I saw a really cool photo of someone who was repairing a turbine blade on ropes in Morocco. I thought that I wanted to do that and gave myself 5 years to do it. Haven’t quite made it to Morocco yet!
What is it that you love doing about this job?
This has been a dream job of mine, and one of my favorite things about it is that it brings me to travel to places that I wouldn’t have otherwise. So far this job has taken me to Oregon, Texas, Iowa, and across Canada three times by car. I spend anywhere from 4 days to several months in each location depending on the project.
One of my passions is rock climbing, and a big percentage of my days are spent hanging from ropes professionally now. Also, I am compensated well for the work that I do.
Can you describe for us your experience working with Black Tie?
Working at Black tie for over three years was a formative experience for me. I learned a lot of skills from David (Managing partner of Black Tie Construction services) such as accountability, attention to detail, and team management skills. In my years of work experience, working at Black Tie was the most valuable in terms of hard transferable skills learned – hands down. I’ve worked for other window cleaning companies before and sometimes worked with people who weren’t very inspiring or motivated which was rarely the case here.
I love how Black Tie creates the best possible work experience for window cleaning. I was never made to feel like I was just a number. David really makes you feel like you are part of the family and I loved the monthly barbecues. He makes the best Guacamole! Shout out to Ravi, too, he was there as I went over my first drop practically holding my hand while I was scared. One of the hardest workers and nicest guys I’ve ever met.
What kind of advice could you give for someone working at Black Tie who is aspiring to grow into working in other industries like yourself?
In terms of career development, I think working in construction is more valuable. Working in property services is a bit more relaxed and flexible, you don’t have to wear PVC every day. I found I learned valuable time management skills there. In the construction side though, you are constantly interacting with construction crews, liasoning directly with the site supervisors on timelines, you have to be really conscientious about where you drop your ropes, and you have a lot more tasks that you have to be managing. When I first started doing wind turbine installations, in 2018/2019, I feel like I wouldn’t have been nearly as successful doing that job if I hadn’t already had experience working with the construction team at Black Tie. I would say that working with David set me up for my future success.
Can you share a fun fact about you?
I’ve been a hobby photographer for about a decade now, my camera is my constant companion on the road!
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Window cleaning isn’t the most glamorous job, and sometimes it’s a struggle due to weather or the stress of the contract, but out of all the jobs I’ve had it definitely prepared me the most for a career with heavy responsibilities and high pressure. And the first time you notice some kid forcing his parents to stop walking so he can watch in amazement as you hang off a building, or try to hand you a cold pop out a window as you abseil past – that’s a feeling you’ll never forget. 😉
Thanks Ryan for taking the time to share your insight and knowledge with us. It was great talking to you and we at Black Tie wish you success in the world of wind turbines.
Today we are celebrating Curtis Harrison who has been with our company for 9 years. He is the head of our Ground crew operations team and has been inspiring us with his strong work ethic, loyalty and amazing personality.
Company Culture
At Black Tie, we are proud to be the kind of company that invests in safety, education and training because we want our team to be around for a while.
We enjoy creating a safe environment and culture that promotes a growth mindset and staff retention.
If working at a place like this is something that interests you, please visit this link for future opportunities.
Every month, we get so excited to see the amazing photos that our Black Tie team sends in to us at Black Tie Vancouver headquarters. This is for the Black Tie’s Instagram contest taken from the perspective of our window cleaners. It is so fascinating to see a day in the life of a window cleaner in beautiful Vancouver.
Love the insta handle! Hope this “bad wizard” can work some magic with that window cleaning. James is an industrial climber and irata rope technician who anticipates a great season ahead! Photo is pictured above.
2nd Place TIE – 204 Likes
@kirsten_walker (Kirsten Walker, Black Tie Construction Team)
From one of our very own women in trades – Here is Kirsten who jokingly says “surely we only do this job for photo ops.” The photos are great! But I do hope she loves this window cleaning for more than just the photos.
@drewlacarte (Drew Lacarte, Black Tie Construction Team)
Here’s an entry from Drew showing his “Tag team Tuesday” shot while doing a post-construction window clean at Lougheed Heights. We love seeing our crew hanging together.
Wow! What beautiful colours on this one. If you look on Pawel’s caption, he says “Friday office be like …” Amazing, I wish it was Friday right now, am I right?
Congrats to the winners and thank you for everyone who submitted their beautiful photos to our Black Tie’s Instagram Contest. We appreciate you and what you are doing. You are a big part of our community and we love to to share the great views and crazy things you guys do.
2020 will definitely go down in history as a strange and difficult year for everyone on the planet, but that has not prevented our Black Tie Victoria team to start the busy cleaning season on a high note, with record sales and great reviews from owners and property managers alike.
Did you know that, despite having started in Vancouver, Black Tie Property Services Victoria is locally owned and that our Island team, based in Victoria, is solely focused on serving the Greater Victoria Region? As active members of the community, we want to ensure we give back, and support the amazing organizations making a difference in our region.
One of the organizations we love to support is Herowork Victoria. They are a beautiful community of people who organize and complete Radical Renovations, helping charities better their spaces and infrastructure. We are proud to say that this is the third year that Black Tie Victoria has worked helped with Herowork with their renovation projects.
Last month, we had the privilege of working alongside Herowork. We scrubbed the Kiwanis Young Family Centre with waterfed pole and pressure washed it to make it look clean and beautiful before it could be painted.
Our team spent a day over the weekend, power washing and scrubbing the property, leaving it spotless and giving our crew a great sense of accomplishment and warm community vibes. We are grateful to the Herowork team for allowing us the opportunity to help out on this project, and look forward to more volunteer opportunities in the future.
If you know of any volunteer opportunities, or anyone in the Victoria area that could use our help, please let us know! Thanks to Paul and his team for creating this fun video of our day with them.
In 2019, led by it’s director of rope access operations, Phill Walter, Black Tie worked hard to implement COR safety protocols within the entire company. In the spring of 2020, management was excited about launching Lunch & Learn programs to share this accomplishment of COR certification with its property management clients.
But then, COVID-19 happened and Sebastien Nault, CEO of Black Tie spearheading the initiative, was left feeling “dejected and frustrated”.