JUNE 2005 ISSUE

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President’s Notebook
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National Initiatives Important to Our Professions

BY LARRY STAPLES, P.ENG.
APEGGA President

One of the neat things about being the president is that I get to learn more about our sister organizations and the national scene. In mid-May I attended the Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, held in Regina .

The CCPE is the national umbrella organization set up by the 12 associations (or “ordre,” as the one in Quebec is known). CCPE acts as a national vehicle to coordinate activities of common interest, and acts as a national voice for cross-Canada issues.

Some important CCPE activities and groups are

• Canadian Engineering Qualifications Board — this team of professionals establishes and updates the required knowledge content for engineering programs.

• Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board — this team of over 15 professionals visits universities across Canada to accredit as effective the universities’ delivery of knowledge content.

• Representing the professions to members of Parliament and federal departments, through information briefs plus an annual reception on Parliament Hill.

• Providing national leadership, by partnering, for example, with the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, the National Research Council and the Canadian Public Works Association to produce the Technology Road Map. This strategic plan to address Canada ’s infrastructure deficit has been widely accepted as a credible path forward.

• Facilitating discussions between associations on issues of common interest, such as seamless inter-provincial mobility.

LARRY'S TOP TEN Why am I proud to be an APEGGA member? The top 10 list starts now - and I'll keep adding to it over the next nine editions of my column's appearance in The PEGG. NUMBER 10 Participation: I have the power to participate in and shape the future of my profession. NUMBER 9 The Power of the Ring: When I am introduced as a professional engineer, people assume that I am smart, practical and have an interesting career. (Not a bad starting point, and geologists and geophysicists are in on this one, too.)

The Pride of APEGGA

APEGGA members have been very active during the past year in offering leadership at the national level. Darrel Danyluk, P.Eng., has just completed a dynamic term as president of CCPE. He and other APEGGA leaders are noted in a separate box on this page.

We should be proud of the enthusiasm, ideas and accomplishments of our colleagues on the national scene.

Dream to be an Engineer

The subhead is the tag line of the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation. CEMF was set up after the École Polytechnique attack and is designed to help attract women into the engineering profession.

One doctoral and five undergraduate scholarships were awarded at one of the CCPE luncheons in Regina . It was a pleasure to meet the Prairie winner, Annalisa Wilson, who has just completed her first year at the University of Alberta .

I am always tickled to talk with the bright, engaging and community-minded young people who are the future of our professions.

And how did Annalisa come to be interested in engineering? While serving as a leader of a Girl Guides group, she heard a presentation by Patti Wells, P.Eng., a civil and environmental engineer who works near her home on Vancouver Island . The girls were interested — but Annalisa was hooked!

Here is the moral of this happy little story: You (yes you!) can be a powerful positive influence on the future of our professions. Take any opportunity you can to tell your daughters, sons, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, neighbours — whomever — about your career and the wonderful opportunities our professions offer. You never know what lives you may be enriching.

You will be in good company. Over 600 APEGGA volunteers make presentations each year, from kindergarten to high school. Each year approximately 50,000 students and teachers hear about careers in engineering, geology and geophysics.

Strategic Planning

I mentioned in my May notebook that Council and senior staff were heading off to the annual Strategic Planning Retreat. The couple of days we spent together were very productive — your 2005/06 team has good chemistry and will work well together.

The core of the strategic plan is the long-term vision of what we want our professions to be in, say, 2015. This will of course be updated and tweaked each year but the vision is our unwavering direction for the next decade.

In order to make progress, tangible actions must be taken during the next year. Much of the discussion during the retreat revolved around getting consensus on the highest priority actions to build into the 2006 Business Plan and budget.

Through this type of discussion, prioritization and planning, your Council and staff are giving legs to the strategic planning process.

I invite you to share your ideas and questions with me via president@apegga.org., or to share them with all of your colleagues via a letter to The PEGG editor, for publication in Readers’ Forum.

APEGGA Leaders

APEGGA members are making their presence known in a number of high-profile associations and other groups, working for the betterment of our professions.

Here’s a partial list of some of the major appointments.

Canadian Council of Professional Engineers Past-President Darrel Danyluk, P.Eng.
Canadian Council of Professional Geoscientists President-Elect Brenda Wright, P.Geol.
Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada President Al Williams, P.Eng.
Canadian Engineering Qualifications Board Chair Jim Smith, P.Eng.
Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board Chair Dr. David Lynch, P.Eng.
Canadian Academy of Engineering President-Elect Kathy Sendall, P.Eng.
Staff Liaison Group of the CCPE Co-Chair Neil Windsor, P.Eng.

HEADS UP   • Without mentors, few of us would be where we are today. The APEGGA Mentoring Program, now a year old, has the tools available to make this system of knowledge transfer effective and fulfilling. Find out more by reading the front page feature on APEGGA Mentor of the Year Doug Straus, P.Eng., and then check out the more detailed coverage on page 6 in the Professional Development section. • If you enjoyed the first part of The PEGG article on project roles and responsibilities, last month, you’ll be looking forward to the second part. It looks at assembling the team, implementation and close out, and it appears on page 7. Dr. George Jergeas, P.Eng., of the University of Calgary is the author. • Children are our future, of course, and that’s one of the reasons APEGGA is proud to help them learn about science and math. A story on Page 15 takes a look at science fairs and Science Olympics in Alberta — and suggests we’re in good hands. These and many other stories and features fill the pages of your PEGG. Enjoy, respond, participate.