Solving Problems, 
Building Success

Hello and welcome to the newly improved www.CanTorque.com, my name is Colin Livingston and I’m the founder of CanTorque.

Our tools are the focus of the site but I think that it’s also important for you to know a little bit about me. Equally important is that you know these are my own words, written by me.

I was born in Calgary, Alberta but my family moved to Stony Plain in 1975.  Stony Plain is located about 25 km west of Edmonton which is Alberta’s capital city. Stony’s population in 1975 was 1200, today it’s over 15,000.

I attended Meridian Heights elementary school from K-7, Stony Plain Jr. High for 8&9 and then Memorial Composite High School for 10-12.

As a kid we lived in 3 homes, all within a few blocks of each other. I lived in Stony until 1996 and moved back to Stony in 2005 and stayed in the area until 2021 when I relocated into Edmonton.

My career in the bolting industry started in 1994 when I was invited on a fishing trip by my Uncle Ed (technically he was an uncle-in-law but I digress). Uncle Ed was operating a company called Bolt Tensioning Canada Ltd. (BTC). BTC was a field service company that provided torquing and tensioning services for the local plants and mines.

At that time the company was underperforming but Ed knew that there was a ton of potential and knew that he had to ad some bodies to facilitate the growth that was coming. It was on our fishing trip that he made me an offer to join the company as a labourer with the potential to work my way into the position of being a field technician.

At that time I knew nothing about bolting, industry or virtually anything mechanical but for some reason-from the first time that the concept of bolting was explained to me it made complete sense.

My first day with the company was in the field working at Nova in Spruce Grove. We were tensioning 2 1/4” studs on blind flanges for a hydrotest. The senior technician was Dave who was working with Jerry and I was there to mostly observe. Within a few minutes Dave had me installing the tensioners which, at that size and in relatively cold temperatures was actually fairly difficult. I clearly remember Dave instructing me to make sure that the tensioner’s bridge was square on the flange to avoid causing any damage to the unit.

Shortly after the Nova project I was tasked to assist with some tensioning and Ultrasonics at Fording Coal’s Genesee plant. It was there that I met Mr. Don Clary (DC) for the first time. Anyone who has ever met DC can tell you a few things about him: he’s gruff, he’s abrupt and he’s extremely knowledgeable. DC was not only a mentor but I’m proud to say that he is a friend. During this project I was able to go behind-the-scenes for the first time in my life. Not only was I in the heart of the mine but I was in the belly of a Marion 8750 which, at that time, was the largest dragline in the world.

As a kid from Stony Plain, AB I had been past the local mines countless times. Once I saw that my job was going to get me inside I knew that I’d found my calling.

When we didn’t have field work I was brought into the shop as a labourer. My first task was to assemble BTC’s #1 and #2 tensioners that had just been manufactured. The assembly was relatively straightforward aside from properly inserting the main seal to the piston. Even though I was given instructions I quickly found more efficient assembly methods which helped to distinguish me from anyone else in the shop.

At one point in 1995 I’d been with BTC for about 6 months, I was on a job with 2 other technicians who were designated as senior to me but when we got to the job they got confused with the configuration of the pump we were working on and didn’t know how to calculate the grip lengths or setup the UT machine to measure. Although I am a former soldier and understand chain-of-command I knew that this was my time to step up. The superintendent was a guy named Peter Quasney, I gave him my opinion on how things should be setup, he was satisfied and, I think, a little impressed. In that moment I became Peter’s go to guy for the Nova compressor stations and assumed the title of Field Superintendent.

By the end of 1995 I was on a project in California working under the local area manager Gerry Bryant when Gerry got called away to another project which left me in charge until Gerry got back. Now I could add international project manager to my resume.

I was lucky enough to work in refineries, gas plants, power plants, pipelines, coal mines, paper mills and heavy equipment shops.  It gave me a great foundation of technical and practical knowledge of torquing, tensioning and UT that I continue to rely on to this day.

From BTC I moved into sales which added another dimension to my knowledge base. The company that I worked for specialized in equipment sale and calibration which also demanded that I learn the specifics of all of the tools we had to offer.

In my new sales capacity I quickly saw that there was a big demand for equipment rental, specifically in Alberta and got to work building a rental program. The program that I built in 1999 is the foundation on which CanTorque’s rental program runs today.

2011 saw CanTorque take our first steps into tool manufacturing. Candidly, we were an OEM vs. Manufacturer. But our tools now had our name and we were finally able to fully promote our brand. Those early tools were not being made to our standard and we had to take another major step to bonafide manufacturer.

I cannot stress enough how little that we knew about what would be required to get our program up and running. Superficially I had an idea about what material we should make each component but had no clue on the machining process.

1. Make it on a lathe?
2. Make it on a mill?
3. Did it need multi steps?
4. What kind of finish?
5. Will heat treating be required? If so, what’s the process?

Without going into too much detail, heat treating is an endlessly complicated formula of how hot to make something, how quickly should you get it to that temperature, how long to hold at that temperature, do you need to have a cooling phase (cool by air, quench or other) , do you need to reheat, for how long? That’s just the beginning.

Trying to figure out the formula on how to build a tools is truly mind boggling. But we found our formula and are very happy with how our tools perform.  One thing was apparent in our development was that we weren’t going to quit until we got things right.

Outside of CanTorque I’m quite active in the world of Motorsport and racing. I’m an active kart driver and will compete in 20-30 races per year in addition to another 15-20 professional races as a spotter.

Fair to say that I have an appreciation for speed which shows in how much quicker our hydraulic wrenches operate than any other brand.

If you get to know me at all, you’ll also quickly realize that I travel. A lot. I’ve averaged 110,000 miles per year since 2015 with the exception of the COVID years. This bio has been written in 2 countries, 1 province, 2 states and 5 different cities over the past 5 days. My travel also means that it’s very likely that I’ll be in your part of the world sometime in the next year and will be happy to meet with you to discuss all of what CanTorque has to offer.

You are always welcome to contact me directly: colin@cantorque.com or on my cell: +1-780-974-7474