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Especially considering the Vancouver company you run is one of the North American enterprises not yet owned by the U.S. government.

In discussing clean energy last week, Obama cited new forms of concrete that are waterproofed from within [click here to view a video about how concrete waterproofing works – Kryton]

“That can means that bridges and roads and buildings can last 20 or 30 years longer than using conventional concrete,” he told a press conference.

Yuers, CEO of Kryton International, is still beaming about that remark, even though she could have told the president the technology isn’t quite new.

Kryton, after all, has long been a world leader in products that do what Obama praised — turning porous concrete into an impermeable barrier from the inside out.

Ron Yuers, who is Kari’s father and Kryton’s founder, developed a crystalline waterproofing additive for concrete in the early 1980s.

The core technology had been around for decades, but her dad refined it and developed the world’s first crystalline additive that waterproofs concrete.

Added to concrete and water, Kryton’s formula sprouts millions of needle-like crystals that permanently block water flow by filling in holes and pores naturally found in concrete.

Kryton’s eco-friendly products save the cost of installing conventional, petroleum-based waterproofing membranes, she said.”You save weeks on construction time.”

“You can pour your walls and the grader can come and push the dirt back and you don’t have to worry about scratching or damaging the membrane,” she added.

Kari Yuers, CEO of Vancouver-based Kryton International, was delighted that her company’s technology for making waterproof concrete was praised last week by U.S. President Barack Obama. Photograph by: Handout, for The Province

Kryton also makes waterproofing products that are applied to the outside of concrete to repair cracks that have developed.

Since it began in 1973, family-owned Kryton has grown to 80 employees, just over 50 of whom are in Vancouver. The rest are scattered around the world in offices and a manufacturing facility in New Delhi.

Projects that have used Kryton technology range from the Shaw Tower parkade in Vancouver to theWellcome supermarket on Shantung Street in Hong Kong.

Ninety per cent of its materials are exported. Kryton’s biggest single market is the Middle East, where a building boom has helped to offset a slowdown in much of the rest of the globe.