In 1979, Trevor Harris was driving in his little blue Honda Civic when he heard the voice of the Scarborough Board of Education superintendent on the radio. The voice had said that they found materials containing asbestos in their schools. Trevor quickly called the superintendent and told him he could help with the problem. A week later, Trevor climbed out of that same car (later equipped with the license plate “BESTOS”) to unlock the doors of Canada’s first environmental consultancy dedicated to solving problems associated with asbestos-containing materials.
Fun Fact: THEM’s first client was the Scarborough Board of Education, which later turned into the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) (which we are proud to say is still one of our clients).
T. Harris’ first office occupied a 6’x6’ space at 431 Richmond Street East. There was one desk, a huge fax machine, and a computer with a dot matrix printer to be shared between the consultants to write their proposals and reports on.
As the industry of hazardous materials evolved, so did our services and the locations we serviced. In 1989, THEM moved to 370 Dundas Street East. Trevor had bought the space, which was both a commercial space and an apartment.
Fun Fact: An employee would live in the apartment space above, making their commute to the office less than 5 minutes!
In the early 90s, our clients would ask us if we could perform different services, and the answer would always be “yes”. This created new technical capabilities within our company and supported our growth in Ottawa, Montreal, and London.
In 2000, THEM moved to 242 Galaxy Boulevard, Toronto. This brought our office out of Downtown Toronto to ease the commute for our employees. It also provided the space for THEM to expand even further, and eventually we moved to our current location at 93 Skyway Ave. This location is closer to highways, which makes it even easier for employees and clients to get to.