Every crew has a guy who is impossible to shop for. He bought the good tools years ago, so if you ask him what he wants for Christmas, you get a shrug.
Shayne Maglay has thought a lot about that guy. A firefighter and fire service instructor with a background in emergency services and the trades, he founded MANCAN.CO around a simple question: what do you give the man who can buy anything for himself? His answer was a gesture, and the vehicle for it happens to be a candle.
“Men’s candles already existed,” he told CRACKYL. “I just believed we could make a better one. I asked myself, ‘How can we make men’s candles cool?’ and not just a taboo afterthought.”
Built to the Standard of the Job
Shayne approached the product the way the fire service taught him to approach equipment. “If something won’t hold up when it matters, it doesn’t belong in this line of work,” he said. That standard ruled out glass early. MANCAN candles are poured into sealed aluminum cans with a wide wood wick, and the lid comes off in one piece, so opening one feels a lot like cracking a cold drink.
The aluminum does real work beyond the novelty. It won’t shatter in a pack, it seals tightly, and it weighs next to nothing, which makes a MANCAN as much at home at a campsite as on a coffee table. After dark, it serves as a reliable light source and a dependable flame for getting a fire going. “I wanted something practical enough to earn a place in your truck and good looking enough to earn a place on your shelf,” he said.
Candles are the starting point. Shayne says the company is expanding into a whole line of men’s products made “for guys like us.”
The Other Half of the Idea
For Shayne, the product was only ever half the idea. The other half came from years on the job, watching strong, capable people “quietly run out of road.” Usually, he said, they were the ones everyone else leaned on, the last people anybody would think to worry about.
He doesn’t spare the culture that lets it happen. Firehouse life runs on ribbing, and Shayne points out that when tearing each other down earns a laugh, caring about the guy beside you rarely feels particularly masculine. Men seldom say, “I’m worried about you” or “I’m proud of you” out loud. So he went looking for another way to say it.
“Our products are useful, fun gifts that say, without any awkwardness, ‘Hey man, I’m thinking about you,’” he said. Every candle sold puts $1 toward Movember. “They win, you win and men’s health wins.”
The name was built to deliver the same message. “A man CAN ask for help,” Shayne said. “A man can say, ‘That one was tough.’ A man can be the one who reaches out first.”
Why Movember?
Most people know Movember by the moustaches. Shayne sees the campaign as an exercise in honesty, aimed at a habit he admits to himself. “We tend to be exceptional at maintaining everything in our lives except ourselves,” he said. “We’ll put off a doctor’s appointment for two years and call it tough. I’m guilty. We’ll carry something heavy for a decade and call it handling it.”
In his view, the moustache gets the conversation started before the real work follows on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention. Movember is one of the few organizations that takes on both the physical and mental side of men’s health, which made the partnership an easy call. “I believe a brand only has integrity when what it sells and what it stands for are the same thing,” he said. “If you build a company for men, you owe something to men.”
That’s why the donation runs all year instead of stopping on Nov. 30. “I don’t believe a cause should have a season,” Shayne said. The company keeps a dedicated Movember page on mancan.co and uses its platform to keep the conversation going long after the month ends. “The moustache comes off on Dec. 1st, but the weight doesn’t.”
At the Top and Around the Table
Ask Shayne what it will take to make these conversations normal in the fire service, and he names two places. “Culture changes at the top, and around the kitchen table,” he said.
Leadership has to go first. “One of the most powerful things an officer can say to a crew is, ‘I’m struggling, too,’” he said, along with admitting they won’t always have every answer. It costs nothing, and it gives everyone in the room permission to be honest. He wants check-ins to become routine instead of reactive, so asking for one comes with no stigma, and he wants departments to remove the fear, real or perceived, that speaking up will cost someone their advancement or professional growth.
He also raised a harder point, one that tends to get left out of these discussions. As an instructor, Shayne has watched more people enter the profession for the wrong reasons, and some recruits no longer bother hiding it. Misuse of support systems costs more than money, he said. “The greater cost is credibility, and credibility is exactly what a struggling firefighter weighs when deciding whether it’s safe to come forward,” he said. “Every abuse of the system makes it harder for the person who genuinely needs help to put up their hand.”
The fix, as he sees it, starts before anyone is issued a helmet. “Culture is a hiring decision long before it’s a training decision,” Shayne said. He understands the pressure to fill seats at a time when firefighters are in demand like never before, but he believes the pendulum has swung too far. Departments need people who truly want to be firefighters, and once they find them, they should be prepared to do everything in their power to take care of them.
Ask Twice
Looking ahead, Shayne wants to work directly with fire departments, police services and associations, so the message reaches people where they actually spend their time. He pictures a MANCAN sitting on a shelf in a fire station or a garage as “a quiet, everyday reminder” to check in on yourself and the people beside you.
His message to firefighters who are struggling comes from what he has seen over his career. “The people who care most about this job usually carry the most,” he said. “They take on more pressure, more stress and more responsibility, precisely because they take the work seriously. If that’s you, know that it’s seen and that you’re not alone. Asking for help is not stepping away from the job. It’s part of the job.”
He points people to their crew, their peer support team or their employee assistance program, or to 9-8-8, Canada’s suicide crisis helpline, available by call or text any time, day or night. The MANCAN.CO Instagram, @mancan.co, is also open to anyone who wants to start a conversation.
For everyone working alongside them, his advice is short. “Ask twice,” he said. “‘I’m good’ is the most common answer in any firehouse, and it isn’t always the true one.”
Shayne built MANCAN.CO for firefighters, emergency responders and anyone passionate about what they do, and for the people who keep showing up and do what they say they will. His closing words are for all of them.
“Remember why you signed up. This job was never about you. It’s a responsibility you agreed to carry for other people. On the hard days, hold onto your why, and the how tends to take care of itself.”
