When Kevin Thiessen founded Prairie Shield Coatings in Saskatoon in 2019, he was betting that Saskatchewan’s massive agricultural infrastructure sector — grain bins, hog barns, irrigation channels, fertilizer containment — represented an untapped market for professional polyurea application. Seven years later, that bet has paid off spectacularly, with Prairie Shield now operating four spray rigs and employing twelve full-time technicians across the province.
From Industrial Painter to Polyurea Specialist
“I’d been doing industrial painting for fifteen years,” Kevin explains. “I understood coatings, but polyurea changed everything for me when I saw what it could do on a grain hopper that had been rusting through for twenty years. Sprayed the interior, and it was like a completely new vessel.”
Kevin completed his CPCA Applicator Certification in 2018 before launching Prairie Shield — a decision he credits with accelerating his technical development and connecting him with the broader industry. “The certification program gave me the technical foundation I needed, but honestly, it was the CPCA network that made my business. The relationships I built through chapter meetings, the ability to call up someone who’d solved a problem I was facing — that’s irreplaceable.”
Agricultural Applications: A Growing Market
Prairie Shield’s core business today is agricultural infrastructure. The applications are varied: secondary containment liners for fertilizer and chemical storage, grain bin interior coatings to prevent moisture infiltration and corrosion, concrete livestock facility floors for hygiene and durability, and irrigation infrastructure sealing.
The grain bin market alone has been transformational. “Saskatchewan has hundreds of thousands of grain bins,” Kevin notes. “A lot of them are aging steel structures that were coated with epoxy twenty years ago and are now delaminating from the inside. We go in, blast, and spray polyurea. The farmers get another forty years of service life.”
This kind of service life extension mirrors the documented findings in recent research confirming polyurea’s infrastructure longevity, and it’s a compelling value proposition in an agricultural sector where capital equipment costs are enormous.
Technical Lessons from the Field
Kevin’s team has developed deep expertise in the challenges specific to agricultural applications. Grain dust is an explosion hazard that requires strict hot work permitting and grounding protocols. Chemical residues in fertilizer tanks require thorough neutralization before coating. And Saskatchewan’s temperature extremes — from -40°C winters to +40°C summers — mean thermal cycling stresses that demand polyurea’s flexibility advantage.
“The freeze-thaw is brutal out here,” Kevin says. “We’ve seen epoxy-coated concrete blow apart from ice pressure in irrigation channels. Polyurea moves with the substrate. That’s why it survives where other coatings fail.”
For applicators working in similar climates, Prairie Shield’s approach to cold-weather polyurea application offers valuable lessons. Kevin’s team uses heated spray equipment, climate-controlled temporary enclosures, and aggressive substrate pre-heating to extend the application season into Saskatchewan winters.
Business Development Advice for New Applicators
For contractors just starting their polyurea journey, Kevin has clear advice: specialize, document everything, and invest in your CPCA membership. “I see new applicators trying to spray everything — truck beds, roofs, tanks, concrete, steel — without becoming truly excellent at any of it. Find your niche and own it.”
Prairie Shield’s documentation protocols have been a key business development tool. “When I’m bidding against competitors, I can show potential clients comprehensive QA documentation from past projects. Most of my competitors can’t do that. It wins projects.”
Kevin is a regular contributor at CPCA Saskatchewan Chapter events and will be presenting on agricultural polyurea applications at the upcoming Western Canada Technical Forum. Check the Events & Meetings Calendar for registration details.
Looking Ahead
With the Canadian polyurea market projected to continue its strong growth through 2030, Kevin sees further expansion opportunities, particularly in the water management infrastructure being built across the prairies for drought mitigation.
“Water storage is going to be a huge issue for Saskatchewan agriculture over the next twenty years. Lined dugouts, lined irrigation channels, cisterns — that’s where I see our next chapter of growth. The technology is perfect for it, and we’ve already done enough cistern liner work to have a strong track record.”
Prairie Shield Coatings is a CPCA Member in Good Standing and a Certified Applicator company. Visit the Member Directory for contact information.
Kevin’s work on grain bins is well-known in our region. His approach to documentation has genuinely raised the bar — we’ve had other bin coating contractors ask us about equipment upgrades specifically because they want to be able to compete with Prairie Shield’s quality assurance program. Great profile.
This is exactly the kind of success story that needs more visibility in the grain handling sector. We work with dozens of co-ops and grain companies across the prairies and the awareness of polyurea as a viable bin interior option is still surprisingly low. Would Prairie Shield consider presenting at the Western Grain Elevator Association annual conference? I could facilitate the introduction.