Tony Manning: The Roadmap to Success

“Every day I learn something and it’s exciting to know that you’re going to stumble across something you hadn’t thought of before”

Some people hearken back to the glory days of their careers; the big wins, the transition to leadership, the pride of watching your team succeed — the pivotal moments. For Tony Manning, President, Vice President, and Technical Business Manager of two groups at True North Solutions, the rearview mirror view of his career is great, but it has always been the road ahead that truly moves him. And he sees no end of the road in sight.

With nearly 40 years of working in electrical, instrumentation, and automation engineering, as well as completions and commissioning, Tony has enough success stories to fill an anthology. One of his proudest moments came to fruition just two years ago — but it was years in the making. The story starts when Tony was working for Ber-Mac Electrical and Instrumentation when they were officially acquired by ABB in 2008.

During his time with ABB, Tony was responsible for an instrumentation and electrical services (IES) group. He felt a real affinity for the team and the work they did. He felt so strongly, in fact, that when he exited the company in 2018, he offered to take the IES group off ABB’s hands. ABB declined because, at the time, no one knew what 2020 had in store. 

Tony joined True North Solutions in 2018 with a strong focus on reshaping and growing the company’s maintenance and operational readiness offering. Early in his tenure with True North, Tony worked with True North’s Leadership team to frame and establish what’s now known as True North’s Integrated Completions and Commissioning Services (ICCS) team. At the same time, he planted the seed for introducing an IES offering. 

While the pandemic was a source of hardship for many, 2020 had a silver lining for IES, explains Tony.  “In April of 2020, ABB reached out to me and said, ‘We’re going to close that business. Are you still interested in taking it?’” Tony and True North’s Leadership team didn’t hesitate.  After a ‘Grand Prix race’ that lasted about 60 days, True North and ABB closed the deal. On July 1, 2020, True North Instrument and Electrical Services launched.

It was a full-circle moment for Tony’s career and a very successful acquisition for True North Solutions. The employee retention says it all — following the acquisition, True North retained 59 of the 60 team members. It’s a testament to having all the right ingredients, Tony says. “Integrity, trust, reputation all came to the forefront… There’s the alignment of principles and values between what ABB was looking for in someone to transition a business to and what True North’s foundation is. I don’t think it could’ve happened if we weren’t aligned.”

Today Tony is responsible for IES and ICCS teams comprising more than 100 personnel. These teams, combined with True North’s other offerings, provide True North’s clients a single, trusted source for designing, engineering, constructing, commissioning, and maintaining critical IT/OT infrastructure. Both groups are in high demand. It keeps Tony on his toes, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. “Every day I learn something and it’s exciting to know that you’re going to stumble across something you hadn’t thought of before,” he says. “It will either help you get better with your team or it’s going to help you drive the business differently. That will ultimately result in incremental success.”

And Tony’s no stranger to success. Despite having a prolific career that has traversed almost four decades, Tony isn’t considering shifting into low gear. Not any time soon, or ever, he says. “I go to bed thinking about the business and I get up thinking about the business. There’s that adrenaline… It’s about conquering what the challenge is for that day and that adrenaline gets me moving in the morning. It’s what drives me.”