MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2019

66 the trades, and inspectors—anyone with access. Users can flag issues, drop pins, create notes, share photos and stay up-to-date with exactly how their project is being built. After a few years working out the kinks, Multivista officially opened for business in 2003. Selling the idea as a professional service rather than a DIY software solution quickly became the smart call, but convincing the notoriously old-school construction industry to buy a new service they had never needed in the past posed challenges. “Neither of us knew much about selling,” Twigg says. “We thought, ‘if we build something great, they will come.’” They didn’t. So Wade Shaw, a friend with contacts in Vancouver and Sea to Sky construction, joined the team to convince an industry that the ability to see behind the walls and go back in time to watch a build come together was an essential time and money-saver; reducing rework and avoiding litigation. “Wade was a grinder,” Pascual says. “He’d stake out and prowl around jobsites waiting for the homeowner to come by and then he’d jump out and say, ‘Wanna see something cool?’ We gained a lot of early traction through his perseverance.” That work ethic led to a solid business in Vancouver, then franchises in the US. Now, Multivista has over 70 offices and 500+ employees around the world, from South America to Europe and the Middle East. In 2016, a global information technology powerhouse called Hexagon AB purchased Multivista and further cemented the company—still run from Vancouver with Twigg and his tech team based in Victoria— as a powerhouse in the (finally happening) construction technology revolution. Conceptually however, Multivista hasn’t changed much since those early days—it’s still shareable information designed to let everyone work more efficiently. Cloud-based from the get-go to make it more useful for people on the jobsite, the system’s the core photographic documentation has been beefed up with 3D laser scanning, UAV drones, video services, immersive walkthroughs, and measurable images—a feature Pascual and Twigg used to daydream about. “We always envisioned being able to take measurements from photos, we just didn’t know how that would happen,” Twigg says. “Now with laser scans it’s a reality. Two-dimensional photos are still our core business but looking ahead at the next 15 years I see us working towards digitizing the entire jobsite in a measurable way. The future is exciting.” Running an international business in a ski town comes with its own challenges however. “I thought we had a get rich quick scheme that was easier than working for the man,” says Pascual, who lives in Squamish and spends most of his free time biking and skiing with his family. “Then we sold it to the man and it required more work than ever. I sometimes think about those days living in the van, or wonder how stress-free serving burgers at the Roundhouse would be.” Pascual still drives a fully camperized van, just in case. Multivista has over 70 offices and 500+ employees around the world, from South America to Europe and the Middle East. LEFT With input from Graham Twigg and Multivista, the Leica BLK3D camera captures smart photos users can pull measurements from. RIGHT Handling business after a ski day. Graham Twigg (left) on an early generation mobile phone and Luis Pascual circa 2003. PHOTOS COURTESY LUIS PASCUAL Invented in 1892 by Oxford University scientist Sir James Dewar, the vacuum flask was not manufactured for commercial use until 1904, when two German glass blowers formed Thermos .