Trenchless Pioneers – Marc Anctil
Trenchless Pioneers is a special monthly series sharing with readers the trailblazers who grew and expanded the trenchless industry.
For his entire trenchless career Marc Anctil spent his time focused on rehabilitation-related technologies working for Logiball Inc. And many of the things he helped bring to the forefront while at Logiball make Anctil a trenchless pioneer.
Born and raised in Quebec, Anctil studied economics at Sherbrooke University and earned a degree in business administration with a minor in marketing. He had no experience in trenchless before starting his job at Logiball Inc. And to say he had to learn on the fly would be an understatement.
“I started to work for Roger Bissonnette on Wednesday, June 8, 1994, without any experience and very little understanding of the industry. After two days in the shop, Roger tells me I have to head out to Pennsylvania on Monday,” Anctil recalls.
At that point Anctil began questioning what exactly he got himself into at Logiball and confers with his new boss about the situation.
“I said, ‘Roger, I’ve never opened a manhole cover in my life.’ He then brings me out on the street, pops open the cover and tells me, ‘[Waste] is coming this way and going that way. That’s all you need to know for now.’ On Monday, I was headed over to McCandless Township Sanitary Authority in Pennsylvania to install our cured-in-place sectional liner (Combo-Liner),” Anctil says.
Something must have clicked on that trip because, after 30 years in the trenchless industry, Anctil retired from Logiball in July 2024. When looking back at the early years of his career, and from the perspective of a trenchless manufacturer, Anctil says it was a little sleep and a lot of prototypes.
“For a couple of years, I am not sure if we built two packers the same way. We had ideas and added features to make our equipment a little better than the last one,” he says. “Finally, in 2001, we started standardizing our production. Customers would come to us with new problems, and we would go back and design new solutions.”
Working for one company his entire career, Anctil often intertwines his contributions to the industry and the work being done by Logiball as a whole. And so much of it is focused on the customer. “I think our ability to listen and understand the issues brought us to innovate our manufacturing of pipe plugs and grouting packers, which has brought us into a leading position in the industry,” Anctil says. “We did not sell equipment, but a way to get the jobs done right the first time. You needed something special, out of the ordinary and we would come up with solutions and refined them through the years.”
Because of the technologies that Logiball designed and perfected serve multiple sectors of the trenchless rehabilitation space, Anctil has had a unique view of some of the game changing methodologies that have come along.
“The game changer was cured-in-place pipe (CIPP). In the mid- to late-90s, we saw a boom with contractors getting into the trenchless rehab market. They needed auxiliary and specialized equipment and [new] solutions to complete their work,” Anctil says. “This created a snowball effect of new CCTV equipment, cleaning equipment, sealing equipment, cutters, etc. As time went by, the acceptance of trenchless technologies continued to grow, and new solutions continued to pop up.”
He adds that the industry needs to continue to evolve, especially in light of recent workforce situations. “We must search for alternative delivery methods that will increase a contractor’s productivity and ease their installation, but still maintain the same quality controls,” he says.
Where does the industry go from here? While Anctil is looking forward to some well-deserved rest and relaxation from his time spent on the road at shows and training sessions, he doesn’t see the industry slowing down.
“The need is there, and we, as a society and taxpayers, cannot afford to dig and replace these aging and expanding assets. We need new blood and devoted individuals who are willing to grab the bull by the horns and make a difference while making a dollar at the end of the day,” Anctil says. “This industry has been ‘recession resilient’ and I encourage the upcoming generation of laborers, technicians, entrepreneurs and engineers to have a serious look at this great and growing industry.”
Mike Kezdi is the managing editor of Trenchless Technology.
