What made you start PVL?
I was an athlete working as a sales rep inside the supplement industry and back then, some supplements were of very low quality. I started PVL to provide products made to MY high standards. The stores that sold supplements also wanted a higher standard of service and integrity and we vowed to deliver on that too. Essentially, I started PVL to be better; better quality formulas, better business ethics and better information all to help people achieve ultimately, BETTER results!

What formal training do you have to be a President and CEO?
My "formal training" consisted of working over 30 different jobs in my twenties, learning from other bosses, owners and managers what to do and more importantly, what not to do. I always had an eye for what could be better and how to make the company I worked for run better, and I earned the right to be manager for many of the bosses I worked for. At 19 I ran an entire fitness equipment store in Vancouver for the owners - I was even their boss when they would come and work in their own store on weekends! I also owned my own juice bar inside a fitness centre back in the eighties. How I run PVL today is very simple - I treat people with respect and give them the facts. Armed with that, people usually bring out the best in themselves. We've been fortunate at PVL to have good people work here.

Tell us a little about your family?
I'm very happily married and we have a great son, Liam. We're an active lot with 3 cats and 3 dogs roaming around the house. Being in the supplement industry can be hectic, traveling to all those trade shows and bodybuilding shows and that means at times my focus is not always 100% family first. It's known in our family that I have a responsibility to not only my family, but also my staff, our retail clients and especially those of us who actually use PVL supplements. But watch out around my house when it's "play time" - I am the biggest kid around! We'll go bike riding, swimming, play soccer together, go hiking and in the winter we hit the indoor pool as well as lots of skating and sledding. On top of that I train 3-4 times a week at World Gym next door to our manufacturing plant.

What are your goals for PVL?
PVL knows performance nutrition - simple. One of our goals therefore is to be the best at delivering high performance nutrition that works. And like other athletes it's not enough for me to just have a goal - what good is a goal if you don't attain it? Goals are just yardsticks - achieve one goal and then there's another. And PVL wants to earn its respect from those that enjoy our formulas. I have seen so many companies come and go in the last 8 years - they all thought they could earn sales through advertising a lot and then discounting the price. People know when they swallow a supplement, whether it works for them or not - and THAT is our ultimate goal - to earn that trust, one supplement user at a time, for years and years to come.

How do you handle your fast growth in terms of Management? Staff? Facilities?
We grew too fast a few years back and it could have hurt us. But my parents (Don & Betty McMahon) instilled in me some very sound fundamental work ethics that help everyday. The main one is to recognize what's going on and to get off my butt and deal with it! With that little tidbit of knowledge, it became easy to find and hire the right people and develop the facilities to where they are now. We did not start out with a million dollar plant and to have gone from 200 square feet in 1996 to over 30,000 square feet now, and to have gone from a staff of one (myself) to a lean hard working staff of over 50 now makes me proud that we could adapt - we dealt with it quite well my parents would say.

How do you handle the changes in this ever evolving market place?
Change is always present. You can't complain about it and many people waste their time doing just that. We've been able to utilize change pretty well. For example, for years the only flavors you could get protein in were pretty much only vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. When we launched Whey Gourmet with 14 flavors to choose from, that changed the whole industry - it was no longer acceptable to only offer the same 3 boring flavors anymore. Other changes (new government regulations in Canada, new GMP production standards in the USA, new ingredients, new formulas, revamping older looking labels in our own lineup, etc) are simply dealt with. To ignore change is irresponsible to our clients. We always want to deliver the latest and greatest, but only if it actually works!

How have you positioned PVL for future growth?
First, PVL is a manufacturer, so we are able to grow our own line while we also grow by acquiring more manufacturing business. We make many other lines of products for other companies. As far as growing our own PVL business, we like to do it one customer at a time. I have immense faith that the vast majority of people who use supplements demand quality - as long as people still want that, PVL will be around for a very long time!

Describe PVL's company philosophy
Do the right job, the right way and we'll be given the right results. Do the wrong job or do it the wrong way, and then it's our job to learn from those mistakes. As long as we deliver (do it right) and learn (correct what was not right), the company will do fine.

What benefits do your products offer a consumer? A retailer?
People use our products for many various reasons. Some people use a selection of Whey Gourmet for dieting. Some use Whey Gourmet as a fast food replacement for that 3pm hunger that hits most of us. Athletes my choose Whey Gold 2 or IsoMaxx as their after workout protein, and they may mix that with Loader for recovery. Runners will use GLT-3 L-Glutamine to aid in their recovery and may use Carbo Complex to up their glycogen stores. The list can go on, but ultimately those people who discover PVL keep choosing our line because it works for them. As for retailers, the best way to build their business is by getting a repeat customer - and PVL is stellar at helping retailers in that quest.

Why do you choose to manufacture and distribute your own products?
Number one is quality - we control the product every step of the way. I can tell you that most other supplement companies do not make their own products and they have no idea if the guy who made their product used short-dated protein, expired flavor and even put in enough protein in the first place. We know what's IN OUR products - most other do not and as a consumer myself I would never buy any item that I'm going to ingest if I didn't who know who actually made it! The other reason we make and distribute the products ourselves is the savings - but not in the way most people think. Because we cut out the middleman, we're actually able to use those savings and spend them on higher quality ingredients (PVL protein all use only 100% instantized protein - it costs a little more but it's MORE than worth it!) and we can then also provide lab assays, proving that the quality is there!

What is your position on the Office of the NHPs?
NHP's (Natural Health Products) are a new branch in Health Canada. These regulations were intended to help provide consumers with safer supplements. The idea is right, but the ONHP (Office of Natural Health Products) has for now made the rules too burdensome and costly to manufacturers. For example, it will cost the average manufacturer about $15,000 per just one product to get the ONHP to pre approve it, and that cost will likely jack up the retail price the consumer pays by about $3-$5 per bottle. So if your fat burner normally cost you $30 before, it's now going to cost $35. That's not too bad in an effort to make everything safer. But the ONHP will take between 6-24 months to pre approve a supplement. That is where it hurts consumers and the business too. The ONHP is a great idea, but some of their regulations are just overkill. That's my opinion. I hope they come to their senses and make their great intent more realistic, so people can get their products now and without a $5 increase, or no increase at all. I had talked with the Director General of the ONHP, Dr. Phil Waddington before about their proposed regulations before they became law, and how cumbersome they were, and how it was just too much bureaucratic red tape. That's government for you.

What makes PVL stand out in a crowd?
We're one of the few companies that actually has real, bona fide lab assays on its products - now that's quality! It's our quality of formula, quality packaging, quality information that make our products stand out. Our company stands out a bit because of our collective zest for doing it better. I've often told my own staff, that working for PVL is the most rewarding job in the industry and also the toughest - we don't just make and sell products and then hope people buy them. Rather our intense desire to see people benefit and get results from using our formulas is what drives us, and I believe is what separates us from the crowd.