AWARDS
Stunning Ottawa Convention Centre wins top Ontario award
Consulting Engineers of Ontario celebrated the 2013 Ontario Consulting Engineering Awards on Saturday, April 20 at the Ontario Science Centre, Toronto. The top engineering “Willis Chipman Award” went to structural engineers Adjeleian Allen Rubeli for the Ottawa Convention Centre. The dramatic glass and steel ovoid structure sits in the heart of Ottawa, close to Parliament Hill.
CEO organizes its awards of excellence according to firm size. The winners were: R. E. Poisson Engineering for the Acton Wastewater Treatment Plant Inlet Works, Halton Hills (1-25 employees); The Municipal Infrastructure Group (TMIG) for Elm Drive West, Mississauga (26-50 employees); Associated Engineering (Ont.) for Avenue Road Watermain, Toronto (51-100 employees); R.V. Anderson Associates for West Don Lands Stormwater Conveyance System, Toronto (101-350 employees) (see CCE, June-July 2012, p.12); and Stantec for Retention Treatment Basin, Windsor (351+ employees).
CEO created a new award this year for an individual. William Goodings won the Chairman’s Award for Career Commitment for his 55 years as an engineering consultant working in solid waste management, including years working with poor communities in South America and Asia.
PROFESSION
OIQ seeks to tighten
control over engineering firms
As shocking testimony implicating engineering companies and engineers continued to flow at the Charbonneau Commission in Montreal this spring, the province’s professional engineer licensing association took action. On March 18, the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ) made a presentation to the Quebec government in support of proposed Bill 17, an Act to amend the province’s disciplinary code for professionals, including engineers.
Daniel Lebel, ing., president of OIQ, lauded the government’s proposed measures, saying they would result in faster, more efficient disciplinary justice. “They will help maintain, and even improve, the credibility of the professional system in the eyes of the public,” he said.
But OIQ has also made 16 further recommendations to the province. One was to suggest that the government should assign the OIQ “more effective supervision of professional services firms.” The association said it wants the government to consider extending the OIQ’s jurisdiction so that it can implement the same types of measures and controls over service companies that it applies to individual engineers. “For example, they [the control measures] could include an OIQ admission process, inspection and prevention programs and a disciplinary process for offenders of the applicable professional regulations,” said the OIQ in a statement.
The OIQ said this type of framework of control over service firms will bring it more in line with the OIQ’s counterpart associations in other provinces.
The OIQ also asked the province to make it a priority to bring the Engineers’ Act up to date. The Act remains substantially the same as in 1960. “The public wants the orders to take significant, unsparing actions against the professionals who violate appropriate standards of conduct,” said Lebel.
The Charbonneau Commission is looking into collusion and corruption in public contracts in the construction industry. One of the most recent witnesses was 73-year old Gilles Cloutier, a political organizer. He testified on April 30 that the system of illegally funneling funds to political parties in exchange for construction contracts had become so endemic that by 2000, only 5-10 per cent of political donations were being made legally at the municipal level. At the provincial level things weren’t much better. He said legal donations accounted for around 15-20 per cent.
AWARDS
Winnipeg airport HVAC
first in Manitoba
The Manitoba association of consulting engineering companies gave out its awards on April 17. The ACEC-MB’s top “Keystone Award” went to SMS Engineering for their work as mechanical-electrical engineers on the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International New Air Terminal Building and Central Utilities Building (CCE, Aug-Sept. 2012, p. 20). The engineers incorporated unique systems, including a complex cascading heating and cooling system using energy recovery.
ACEC-MB Awards of Excellence went to the Rankin Inlet Mens’ Correctional Healing Centre by Accutech; Winnipeg’s First Rapid Transit Corridor, Southwest Transitway by Dillon; Disraeli Bridges Project, Winnipeg by Tetra Tech; Red River Floodway Inlet Control Structure Trunnion Anchor Replacement by KGS Group and SNC-Lavalin; and the GE Aviation Engine Testing, Research and Development Centre, Winnipeg by KGS Group and MCW/AGE.
The ACEC-MB Rising Star Award went to Kimberly Yathon, P. Eng., a 2002 graduate in civil engineering who works for Tetra Tech. The citation said she “has a tenacious attention to detail [which] has landed her with more leadership-specific roles of contract administration, construction coordination, and detailed design coordination.”
The Engineering Action Award for a practising engineer went to Ron Typliski, P.Eng. of AECOM. The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Tim Stratton P.Eng. at Stantec (formerly a principal of DWL).
AWARDS
… and in British Columbia
It’s not a bridge … it’s not a building … it’s not an environmental remediation. Engineering that goes on largely in the background was given the top award from ACEC-BC at its gala dinner held at the Vancouver Convention Centre on April 6.
Ausenco won the 2013 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Engineering Excellence for a technical guide. The 300-page “Seismic Retrofit Guidelines for the Performance-based Seismic Risk Assessment and Seismic Retrofit Design of BC School Buildings” was commissioned after the Ministry of Education initiated a $1.5-billion seismic mitigation program for public school buildings in 2004. The guide was a collaboration of Ausenco; Bush, Bohlman; Genivar; Read Jones Christoffersen; David Nairne, John A. Wallace, APEGBC, the University of B.C. and the B.C. Ministry of Education.
There were also five 2013 Awards for Engineering Excellence: UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Vancouver by Glotman Simpson; Bridgeview Sewer System, Surrey by AECOM; South Fraser Perimeter Road Easterm section, Surrey by Stantec; and Wilson Farm Habitat Enhancement, Coquitlam by Kerr Wood Leidal.
The 2013 Meritorious Achievement Award went to John Watson, P. Eng., who was with Wright Engineers (now Fluor) and H.A. Simons. He is a past-president of ACEC-BC and APEGBC.
The Young Professional Award was given to Selena Wilson, P. Eng. of McElhanney Consulting Services.
COMPANIES
GENIVAR drops the name, restructures
Genivar of Montreal intends to rebrand itself as WSP Global. WSP is the large U.K. company which Genivar merged with last year. Together they have 15,000 people in 35 countries. Genivar will relist itself as WSP on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Genivar also intends to reorganize and eventually separate its regional operations into distinct subsidiaries under a holding company. It says the board of directors, capital structures and dividend policy will stay essentially the same. The changes were to be considered at the annual meeting on May 23.
BUSINESS
Business was good in 2011
Statistics Canada released its 2011 report on Engineering Services in April. It found that profit margins in 2011 were 12.5%. In 2010 profit margins were 11.8%. Revenues at $25.8 billion in 2011 had risen by 14.2% compared to 2010.
Alberta had the largest share of operating revenue at 32.6%. Ontario had 26.1%, Quebec 19.9% and B.C. 13%.
For the breakdown of project sales: industrial and manufacturing
accounted for 39.0%, transportation for 8.6%, power for 6.9%, and municipal utilities for 5.8%. Buildings were included in the remainder.
