Hello, My name is Duane Michael Tilden, PEng. And I am about to offer you a golden opportunity to start with a new venture, or business which is guaranteed to EARN YOU A ROI (return on investment)!!!

As a professional engineer, I do not guarantee anything lightly, so I must warn you this guarantee does come with some conditions.

I am a professional engineer, located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I currently operate my own engineering consulting firm, Crown Mechanical Consulting, for which I offer a small client base a wide variety of Professional services.

I received my education as a metallurgical engineer at the University of British Columbia, completing my BASc. in 1984. I continued my education under the MASc program, which I left without thesis. Bill Gates was a drop-out too! ;-)

In 1990 I gained employment with a company, Yoneda & Associates, who were a group of mechanical consulting engineers who specialized in HVAC, and plumbing design of buildings. We worked with other engineers and architects to design plans and administer construction for new buildings and development.

After quickly rising through the ranks, I came to a dead-end in 1997, when combined with the prospect of being a first time dad, and being penniless, I took the plunge and went on my own.

In 1998 I received my Professional standing, and have been working on my own ever since.

I quickly found out, being on my own, how difficult life can be as a sole proprietor, in an information marketplace. The market for the skills which I had learned during my 7 years at Yoneda & Associates, were not in high demand, and I found that I could not charge an appropriate fee for my services. A lot of the work that I took in the beginning was generally low paying hourly work as a contract employee. Now I was able still to charge more per hour than I made as an employee, however, there was a lot of hidden work and expenses associated with my independence. Also, there was far less security.

In order for me to raise my rates I realized that I had to develop a specialty or niche market. Over the past four years I have developed two such niches for myself. Unfortunately, I spent so much of my own time developing these markets, and they are so specialized that it is very difficult for me to capitalize on them, especially in the current construction market downturn.

Another difficulty that I constantly face is the opposition and competition to my new methods. One market that I have developed is the application of an epoxy compound which is injected into water piping systems to stop leaks in copper and steel water piping systems. I have given this market huge credibility because of the expertise I have in corrosion (metallurgy) and mechanical engineering.

My first repiping project was a 20+ storey highrise apartment building which had been experiencing major copper piping leaks. However, only had funds to repair the first 7 floors of the building, so I had to design a new system that would replace the existing water system, allow functioning of both systems, and would allow for complete future conversion..

As a first project of this nature, I was very careful in my materials specification. You see, most other mechanical engineers would quickly specify a replacement piping system of copper, and simply replace all the piping. Instead, I chose a different system which involved a high tech materials system of cement lined cast iron for the 4 and 6" diameter pipes, connected to CPVC piping which comes with a 25 year no fault guarantee.

So, in 1999 one of my clients asks me to check out this new system of epoxy injection for repairing leaking copper water pipes. So, I called the contractor and asked to see their system in operation. At the time their were two contractors who were involved in this relatively new process. After seeing the operation and what they were doing I was very interested.

Also, I could understand why they were having great difficulties marketing this new procedure. At the time, these companies were having great difficulty generating new business. The problem was that they lacked credibility as a new company. Also, they were receiving significant opposition from the established pipe replacement market, not to mention the engineers and plumbing officials.

The engineers, such as myself, had a problem because if this system truly did work, they faced a significant loss in revenue in design and engineering services. They lacked the expertise involved with epoxy coatings, and were unfamiliar with the issues and technology.

The plumbing and building officials were just too wary to get involved, because of fear of lawsuits, and the appearance of lending credibility to the process. On one hand they recognized the potential, and yet had no way of verifying how it worked or if the system was properly installed. They decided to opt out of this form of repair, by taking the position that the system did not fall under the jurisdiction of the "codes" and thus it was "caveat emptor".

I saw huge potential in the market, however, as a professional I also had to perform considerable "due diligence" and research prior to getting involved in the process. After about eight months of research and development, I finally accepted my first project to oversee an "installation". This particular lining project involved an old 8 storey building with around 60 rental units. The owners of this building wanted to minimize cost, and disruption to their tenants so they chose this system. This owner has 9 other similar buildings which he is considering the same procedure, and I have already overseen a second building installation for him.

As I have been involved in these projects, and I carry significant liability (I have insurance), and I wanted to ensure that no one else could duplicate the system, I created a very tight and rigorous specification. I eliminated one of the previous epoxy compounds that they were using, because of poor physical material properties, and tightened up the complete installation process.

I also changed the installation procedure to include for many modifications which the contractor could make at very little cost, which would work to ensuring a better installations based on engineering and coatings fundamentals.

In the very short time that I was involved with the procedure, the market started to see significant improvement. Many people who were previously undecided, made buying decisions in the process based on my endorsement. Unfortunately, in most cases I do not see any compensation for my work because the installations did not require the services of an engineer (even though my endorsement specifically states that engineering services are required for any validation).

The contractor, contrary to previous verbal agreements, does not insist that an engineer be involved, or (I am sure) even mention this. They have marketed themselves so well, that I have very little control over the market. You see, it is easier and cheaper for the contractor to build without me being involved, and cheaper (first cost, not life cycle cost) for the client (my services range from a minimum of $4500 up, depending on project size) they were often convinced by the contractor that they did not need me. And as long as the local officials do not require an engineer, I am left out of the loop.

Last year (2001), I worked on two of these projects, which returned for me a grand total, of $11,500. This amounted to approximately 40% of my total income for the year. So, my gross business income amounted to $28,000 for the year!!

When I started this venture, I calculated that my time and efforts for all the work and promotions that I did for this process would be returned to me, and thus my "buy-in" was my ability, my company, and the massive "sweat equity" that I put in to this enterprise. While I did not expect to get rich off of my work, I did anticipate that I would get my share.

Two weeks ago I got a phone call from a gentleman, and a fellow engineer, who represented a condominium apartment complex which has over 200 units, and is suffering from this pipe leak phenomenon. He described the problem and asked me if this was something I would be interested in considering.

I asked him how he found out about me, and to my surprise he said that the I came highly recommended from the engineering department of the City of Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver. I was very pleased to hear that the City of Burnaby considers me "The Expert" and the one to go to when dealing with this phenomenon.

The bottom line is that I have come to the decision that I must start a new venture and business. The first motivation is because of financial necessity, as explained above.

In the past, I have had very little time to spend on the internet, restraining myself to the odd information search on somebody else's computer. Why would I stay away, you ask, because I saw that working with the internet as something speculative, unsure, and lacking direction. I have been on and off the internet in the past, and saw how it could become very time consuming.

Many of my friends were constantly touting the internet, and how all these people were making a "killing" in the stock market. Many of my friends were investing and constantly wanted me to get in on their latest scheme. Well, I always stood back, because I kept on wondering, How are they Making Money? And, how could you invest money in ventures that only held promise and no return.

Well, boy am I glad that I took my advice and not theirs, because many of my friends have lost a bundle in the last year in their dot com and technology investments.

As I have been doing all this work on the internet, and interacting with the internet community, I can see that there is a lot of confusion. Many people want to establish an internet presence, but do not know how to approach the problem. Often, I run into the misconception that it is simply a matter of putting up a website, however, We know that this is not so.

Even most established companies, webmasters, and even established internet marketers are only now beginning to develop and understand, what is required for growth and profitability on the internet.

To me the next step is to start to activate my plans to establish a bonafide, creditable internet marketing team on the internet. And, I want you to join me and 48 partners in establishing this goal. Yes, I will only be limiting first enrollment to 50, including myself. This is to ensure that you as a partner will have the time to learn and establish your business.

As a member of this team you will have and own your own business. You will be trained to establish a profitable internet marketing strategy, c/w all software tools, marketing strategies, web host, list building capabilities, email accounts with autoresponders, web site templates and instructions, order taking and e-commerce enabled, ongoing support and training and much, much more.