Cody Slater jokes during this edition of 20 Questions that he should have learned to play golf because of the demands associated with running a company.

But Slater appears to be right at home at BW Technologies, surrounded by his company’s gas-detection gadgets.

Somehow, you have trouble picturing this CEO in orange slacks enjoying the breeze at Augusta National. More likely, he’d be the one rigging up some fancy scientific contraption for measuring the wind.

1. What’s the best thing about being the CEO of BW Technologies?
“To me, without a single doubt, it’s the people in the company. That may sound like a trite, canned answer. But we have just a superb group of people here who share a vision that we can continue to grow and take this company to be a world leader in the industry. Working together with people who are like-minded in that manner is just excellent. It makes you want to get up every morning.”

2. How do you explain the stability of BW’s stock while other tech stocks are getting hammered?
“(Laughter) I think the best explanation is that we think it should be going up! A year or so back, a lot of people would look at this company and say: ‘They manufacture a product and they have real customers and everything else.’ And very frankly, that wasn’t all that popular with all the dot-coms around. It was all the dreams and we were talking reality. We were a real business. Certainly, there’s a return to some of those companies that have a history, some strong revenue growth and bottom-line growth.”

3. Your thoughts about the wild valuations of dot-com companies earlier this year?
“Certainly, there’s a point in evaluating a dream or a concept. But with so many of these companies, even if they go from nothing to half a billion dollars in sales, and they make a decent margin on their product, at the end of the day they’re still going to be trading at a 100-times multiple (earnings-per share). So at that point you do shake your head and wonder what people are thinking.”

4. During your boyhood in Edmonton, did you aspire to become an entrepreneur?
“Actually, I aspired to be an archaeologist, which was my minor at university. But I always loved business. My family had a business background and I always enjoyed electronics as a hobby.”

5. So you came by your entrepreneurial instincts naturally?
“I lived in a world that was very entrepreneurial and had a real respect of the people you dealt with.”

6. Your first job was . . . ?
“At 10, I was stacking furs at my grandfather’s company, Slutker Fur & Hide. My grandfather (the late Sheppy Slutker) was quite well known in the fur-buying business. He was the last independent fur buyer in Canada and built his business from scratch up.”

7. So your grandfather was an important mentor?
“With my grandfather, I learned a lesson of respect. He showed respect to everyone he dealt with. Whether it was a bum off the street coming in, or whether it was a trapper who hadn’t been to town for a couple of years and looked and smelled like it, everybody was treated with respect and dignity.”

8. So you know a thing or two about the fur industry?
“It’s not a politically correct industry anymore. I was never a trapper or hunter or anything. But one of the things you would learn about the true trappers, who had a line and ran it and that was their life, was that they were some of the strongest environmentalists I’ve ever met. If it was a hard winter and there were problems, they’d be out there punching holes in the ice to make sure the beaver could get out and breathe and things like that. They knew the land they lived on. Like we know our home.”

9. Could you relate the story of how BW emerged from its humble beginnings in your Edmonton apartment while you were an astrophysicist at the University of Alberta?
“I started selling the “rig-rat’ gas-detection device to fund my way through university. The rig rat was really born in my apartment in Edmonton, the top floor of a little old house, which got to be somewhat problematic as it filled up with H2S (hydrogen sulfide) all the time as you were doing your testing and trying to make things work.”

10. So your move to Calgary was a key turning point for your business?
“Yeah, I dropped out of school one semester short of my degree to get the business going. Then, just as the product was coming together, I moved to Calgary to take advantage of the fact that my family lived here and I didn’t have to pay rent. The first two units were sold to Gulf Oil.”

11. How did you fund the company in its infancy in 1988?
“The company has very much been bootstrapped in the manner of its initial funding. You used all the money you had and maxed out every credit card you had. Then, when we saw the potential, we had a $200,000 private investment.”

12. Your memories from your first day as a company?
“I definitively remember plugging the phone in the wall and hearing a dial tone. So, all of a sudden, it all seemed real. You had a desk, a computer, a dial tone.”

13. Your first business venture?
“While at university, I ran a typical small landscaping company, which I quite enjoyed until I developed allergies to pretty much everything we dealt with in that industry. I sold it. It was called College Lawn Services.”

14. Best advice you can offer a budding entrepreneur?
“I think you really have to look at what the commitment is and what it’s going to take. You hear people say: ‘Well, I want to be in my own business because I want to set my own hours.’ Well, if you want your hours to be 24 hours a day, seven days a week, then you’ve got the exact right idea. You have to really believe in what you’re doing and you have to be willing to share that with people. It’s a great thing to have a business plan but, if it’s going to be successful, it’s got to be a work in progress, constantly changing.”

15. How would you describe your management style?
“My style is quite open. It’s the old MWA management — management by wandering around. I like to think of the company as being a place where there’s a lot of co-operation and where the senior management is interested in what people have to say.”

16. Who are the people you’ve idolized?
“Stephen Hawking (the physicist) was certainly a fellow I looked up to. And I was always a big fan of Einstein. And, when I was a much younger kid, Wonder Woman (laughter).”

17. God taps you on the shoulder and says you can do one thing over in your life?
“This would be right after the heart attack, right? And I only get one? It’s not a list? I can’t say I have any really fundamental regrets. I should have probably learned to play golf somewhere along the line and done something that would take a lot less work than what we do here.”

18. What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome in building BW?
“Market penetration, I think. In the first couple of years, we built the first wireless gas-detection system and we built the first disposable gas detector with zero maintenance. We had all these industry firsts. Our competitors would actually say that BW is the technological leader in the market, but fortunately they’re not in the market. And one of our biggest challenges was actually getting a presence within the marketplace, particularly in the United States and Europe. That’s been the biggest focus of the company in the last four years since we went public.”

19. Has your success come at a price in terms of sacrifices?
“You live the company. It’s my life and it’s what I like. So, in the end, there’s things you’ve seen and people you’ve probably missed along the way that you wouldn’t have if you’d had a regular job.”

20. So you don’t have a lot of spare time?
“When you’re running something like this, the amount of time you have for hobbies is pretty much negligible. I love to travel and I do a ton of that with the work. I love backpacking, hiking, skiing, cross-country skiing and reading.”

THE COMPANY: BW Technologies
* Brass: Cody Slater, president/CEO; Bryan Bates, executive vice-president, COO; Tom Jones, senior vice-president, CFO.
* Focus: BW designs, manufactures and markets gas-detection equipment which alerts people working in a variety of industries to potentially life-threatening conditions caused by gases affecting the breathable air.
* Goal: To become the first true market leader in the billion-dollar global gas-detection industry.
* Stock price (BWT-TSE): $7 (year range, $4.60-$8.50).
* Fact: Taurus Capital recently raised its one-year target price on BW to $10.
* Web site/e-mail: www.gasmonitors.com
* Address: #242 3030 3rd Ave. N.E., T2A 6T7.
* Phone/Fax: 248-9226, 273-3708.

IN PROFILE: Cody Slater
* Born/raised/age: Edmonton, 38.
* Title: President/CEO, BW Technologies.
* Education: University of Alberta, astrophysics major.
* Family: Wife Bernadette.
* Role models: Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein.
* Claim to fame: Developed the ‘rig-rat’ gas-detection device for the oil and gas industry from his apartment while attending the University of Alberta. It was the product that launched BW Technologies in 1987.
* Kicks back by: Hiking, cross-country skiing, reading.