Engineers Nova Scotia is proud to present the recipients of the Lt. Governor Excellence in Engineering Award. This year, two projects were recognized with an Honourary Mention, CBCL for their Truro Flood Risk Study for the Joint Flood Advisory Committee and Halifax Water for Advanced Pressure Management Utilizing Automated Pressure Reducing Valve Control in a Dual Supply District Metered Area. 

Truro Flood Risk Study for the Joint Flood Advisory Committee

Truro is notorious for flooding more often than any developed area in Atlantic Canada, having been flooded up to 5 times in a given year, in 1979. In this study, 1D, 2D and 3D hydrodynamic and ice jam models were used to study the relative influence of extreme rainfall, the highest tides in the world, sedimentation in the estuary and ice jams. Alexander Wilson, M.Eng, P.Eng, will present on how the extensive stakeholder coordination set out the plan to rank more than 40 flood mitigation options to cost effectively protect the areas most vital to each stakeholder.

Alex is a senior water resources engineer with CBCL Limited and leads the Water Resources Group. He is a graduate of Imperial College in London (UK) and worked in Europe and West Africa before settling in Nova Scotia 14 years ago. He strives to bring innovation and state of the art technical talents to provide cost effective solutions to coastal and inland water quantity, quality and erosion issues across Canada and internationally. He loves Atlantic Canada and thoroughly enjoys its many beaches, always ready to swim as soon as the water is above 10 degrees Celsius!

Is there a way to ask for a higher salary without alienating the employer? Learn effective negotiating skills that will help you get the compensation or results you desire. Key areas covered in this seminar are:

u  Engaging in an effective discussion around compensation with a potential or current employer

u  What is the ‘right’ salary?

u  Salary and Compensation Research

u  Positioning for success

u  Is everything negotiable?

The session is being delivered by April Howe, a Partner with Knightsbridge Robertson Surrette. Her complete bio is available here: http://www.kbrs.ca/people/april-howe

"Cultural competence" has become a buzz word, but what does it really mean?

How can you and your organization become more culturally competent?

What services are available to assist you with this process?

The Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS) provides a range of employer-focused services, enabling employers to access and benefit from the talent-rich pool of immigrants. Programs such as the Internationally Educated Engineers (IEEs) Bridging Program and language courses for IEEs will be highlighted.

This session will raise awareness and help you move towards a point where you "know what you don't know" and are more able to take the most appropriate next steps, to attract and retain immigrant employees.

Services are available at no charge to Nova Scotia Employers.

Session Description:

In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, ensuring that you are operating at the “Advisor” level with your clients/customers is critical to success. The need to differentiate and establish equal business stature has never been more important.  In this workshop we will explore the potential pitfalls of not being seen as an Advisor and how we can establish and maintain this status.

Speaker: 

Eric Fry is Managing Partner of Sandler Training.  Prior to Sandler Training, Eric worked for a number of international organizations including 13 years at Xerox.  He progressed through a number of key assignments in sales, outsourcing consulting, sales operations, global services and management.

In November 2006, Eric served as Vice President and General Manager for Staples Advantage managing a $30 million business while also maintaining the role of Vice President of Sales. 

Most recently as Vice President of Sales for ABM Integrated Solutions, Eric lead the sales and pre-sales organizations in addition to contributing to the strategy and direction of the business.

A native of Sydney, NS, Eric holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Saint Mary's University and has completed a variety of executive development programs involving Six Sigma quality management, problem solving, change management, high performance work teams, and IT applications. 

Actively involved in the community with such organizations as United Way, Junior Achievement, and Fall River Basketball, Eric resides in Fall River with his wife Dawn and 3 children.

With demanding schedules and deadlines we can easily fall into work habits that resemble operating on "automatic pilot" with a speedy, singular focus on getting things done. This way of working can undermine effective communication, inhibiting the creation of cohesive teams, collaboration and engagement. In this session we will explore 3 components for effective and efficient communication in a busy work-place.

Speaker:

Mara Vizzutti, Business and Executive Leadership Coaching and Training Professional, has provided a number of well received presentations to Engineers Nova Scotia over the past year. 

DSM is a leading global supplier of vitamins and nutritional products with operations in Dartmouth and Mulgrave NS, and supplies ingredients to the feed, food, pharmaceutical and personal care industries with sales of approx €4 billion.  In March 2016, DSM completed the installation of a new $50MM production unit for omega-3 concentrates from fish oil, in Mulgrave NS.  The plant was constructed in 6 large modules built by Jacobs in Charleston SC, and delivered to site on barge via the eastern seaboard. Program will discuss the project execution, including risk mitigation and modular benefits.

Speaker: 

Phil MacLennan BSc (chem), P.Eng, is a  registered professional engineer with ENS.  A graduate of Dal and TUNS, he has worked in operations, R&D, design, and management, in the pharmaceutical, petrochemical, plastics, and oil & gas industries.  He is currently an engineering manager with DSM based in Dartmouth NS.  

The term "corporate strategy" is a commoly used business concept. However, the term is often applied incorrectly.  In this session, we will discuss the correct definition of corporate strategy and apply the concept to engineering firms. Engineers who participate in strategy discussions at their organizations or who have an interest in doing so in the future, will find the session insightful.

Speaker: 

Professor Rosalie Fine

After graduating with an undergraduate degree from the Ivey School of Business, Rosalie Fine moved to Wall Street in New York to seek her fortune. As part of Goldman Sachs’ Capital Markets Group, she worked in what was an emerging financial field at the time, dealing with derivatives, interest rate swaps, and new forms of debt financing.

From Goldman Sachs, Rosalie went on to study for an MBA at Harvard Business School, where she was one of the few women in her class to graduate with distinction. Her Policy professor at Harvard was Dr. Michael Porter, the expert in the field of strategy. Finding she had a strong interest in strategy work, Rosalie changed direction from Investment Banking to Business Strategy. Sadly, this meant she was not at Goldman Sachs when it conducted its Initial Public Offering (IPO) shortly thereafter and thus her friends from Goldman were the ones who reaped million dollar fortunes.

After graduation with her MBA, Rosalie joined Monitor Group, the international strategy consulting firm founded by Dr. Porter and other Harvard faculty. She worked on large and complex strategy projects for telecommunications, automotive, financial services, and computer hardware clients, in both the U.S. and Canada.

After relocating to London, England, Rosalie decided to launch her own consulting firm. Her initial clients were interested in Executive Coaching so she expanded into that field. While in London, Rosalie also completed a Diploma in Psychotherapy and Counseling Psychology. She found this counseling background greatly enhanced her coaching practice.

Rosalie moved back to the Maritimes ten years ago to spend more time with her aging parents. On the community front, Rosalie is the Treasurer of the YWCA Halifax, an organization with $6 million in assets, providing homes, childcare, and programs for women and children in the city. She also assists Harvard College with interviews of Nova Scotia candidates.

Rosalie joined the Sobey School of Business EMBA program in 2009 as the Policy I: Business Strategy Professor. In addition to working with the EMBA program, Rosalie can be found lecturing in the Sobey School’s MBA program where she has developed three new MBA courses: Contemporary Issues in Business, Not-for-Profit Organization and Board Analysis, and Doing Business in the U.S.A.

With more major construction projects being delivered using alternative methods (APD), such as PPP (P3) and design-build, the Owner and their Engineer’s approach to effective Construction Management (CM) begins with not only understanding contractual obligations, but with the proper selection of CM staff and tools. It continues through the construction phase with implementing an ongoing staff training and awards / recognition program, and followed up at project closeout with client reviews / satisfaction surveys. Success of these can be traced to specific core values shared by all entities involved. Several major recent international infrastructure projects are highlighted from both the United States and the Middle East.

Speaker Details:

Hilliard Bond is a Senior Construction Manager at PARSONS (Infrastructure) with 25 years of construction management and resident engineering experience involving major international infrastructure projects, including: long-span bridges, highways, tunnels, buildings and toll facilities. The project types include alternative project delivery (APD), such as Public-Private Partnerships (P3) and Design-Build; and also Construction Management / Construction Engineering Inspection (CM/CEI) for Owners / Agencies. Notable projects include: Confederation Bridge (Canada), I-35W St. Anthony Falls Bridge Reconstruction (USA), East End Crossing – Ohio River Bridges (USA), I-580 Freeway Extension / Galena Creek Bridge (USA) and the Dukhan East Highway (Qatar). He is the current Construction Service Area Leader for the PARSONS Infrastructure Technical Organization. He is an active member of American Segmental Bridge Institute (ASBI) and Construction Practices technical committees, and is a registered professional civil engineer in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

This session will address when the use of a stamp is required and the proper method to apply a stamp, the recent addition of

an electronic stamp will also be covered. David  Reid, a partner with Cox & Palmer’s Halifax Office  who practices in the area

of corporate and commercial law. He will provide insight into the legal benefits to different options for establishing a company.

Speakers:

David Reid

David is a partner in Cox & Palmer's Halifax office and practices in the area of corporate and commercial law. Called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1998, David has extensive experience in aspects of commercial transactions and regularly advises clients on purchases and divestitures of businesses by way of share and asset purchases, partnerships and joint ventures.  David has acted for both borrowers and lenders in domestic and international, secured and unsecured financings.  He regularly advises clients throughout North America on matters related to unlimited liability companies (ULCs).  David also has extensive experience in commercial real estate acquisitions and divestitures and commercial leasing.

Peter Lamey

Peter is an associate at Cox & Palmer’s Halifax office, where he practices primarily in the areas of taxation and corporate/commercial law. Originally from Chester, NS, Peter was called to the Nova Scotia bar in 2015 after completing his law degree at the University of New Brunswick and articling with the firm.

Creating a structure that responds to architectural desire to be bold, making a statement about maritime past, on a constrained downtown site required Structural Engineers to develop original solutions.  Design and construction of the Nova Centre has been a challenging endeavor.  Join us, to hear about Roy McBride’s P.Eng., BMR Structural Engineering, and Mark Reynold’s P.Eng., Harbourside Engineering, experiences in developing and implementing these firsts. 

Join Engineers Without Borders volunteers and students at Dalhousie University for a session on international development. Their recent Junior Fellow, who spent the summer in Africa, will also present on her experiences. 

This is a continuation of the session that begins at 1:25 PM. You are welcome to join the session at this point. 

The term "corporate strategy" is a commoly used business concept. However, the term is often applied incorrectly.  In this session, we will discuss the correct definition of corporate strategy and apply the concept by discussing the corporate strategies of well known companies such as Facebook, Netflix, Loblaws, and Starbucks. 

Speaker:

Professor Rosalie Fine

After graduating with an undergraduate degree from the Ivey School of Business, Rosalie Fine moved to Wall Street in New York to seek her fortune. As part of Goldman Sachs’ Capital Markets Group, she worked in what was an emerging financial field at the time, dealing with derivatives, interest rate swaps, and new forms of debt financing.

From Goldman Sachs, Rosalie went on to study for an MBA at Harvard Business School, where she was one of the few women in her class to graduate with distinction. Her Policy professor at Harvard was Dr. Michael Porter, the expert in the field of strategy. Finding she had a strong interest in strategy work, Rosalie changed direction from Investment Banking to Business Strategy. Sadly, this meant she was not at Goldman Sachs when it conducted its Initial Public Offering (IPO) shortly thereafter and thus her friends from Goldman were the ones who reaped million dollar fortunes.

After graduation with her MBA, Rosalie joined Monitor Group, the international strategy consulting firm founded by Dr. Porter and other Harvard faculty. She worked on large and complex strategy projects for telecommunications, automotive, financial services, and computer hardware clients, in both the U.S. and Canada.

After relocating to London, England, Rosalie decided to launch her own consulting firm. Her initial clients were interested in Executive Coaching so she expanded into that field. While in London, Rosalie also completed a Diploma in Psychotherapy and Counseling Psychology. She found this counseling background greatly enhanced her coaching practice.

Rosalie moved back to the Maritimes ten years ago to spend more time with her aging parents. On the community front, Rosalie is the Treasurer of the YWCA Halifax, an organization with $6 million in assets, providing homes, childcare, and programs for women and children in the city. She also assists Harvard College with interviews of Nova Scotia candidates.

Rosalie joined the Sobey School of Business EMBA program in 2009 as the Policy I: Business Strategy Professor. In addition to working with the EMBA program, Rosalie can be found lecturing in the Sobey School’s MBA program where she has developed three new MBA courses: Contemporary Issues in Business, Not-for-Profit Organization and Board Analysis, and Doing Business in the U.S.A.

Improving the Climate Resilience of Public Infrastructure: Applying the PIEVC Protocol and Professional Practice Principles

This presentation will describe the need for improving the climate resilience of public infrastructure to extreme weather events and future climate. The PIEVC Protocol is a process to define current and future climate risks and vulnerabilities and enables engineers working with other professionals to recommend structural and non-structural  measures to improve resilience. The presentation will conclude with a description of the nine principles of professional practice included in the 2014 Engineers Canada National Guideline: Principles of Climate Change Adaptation. These principles provide guidance to engineers needing to consider extreme weather and future climate in their work.  

Speaker:

David Lapp, FEC, P.Eng

David graduated with a degree in geological engineering from the University of Toronto in 1978. After nearly twenty years working as a consulting engineer working in Canada’s Arctic regions, he joined Engineers Canada in July 1997. He has been part of the Secretariat supporting the Engineers Canada Qualifications Board and currently serves as Practice Lead, Globalization and Sustainable Development. His national and international work focuses on infrastructure, environment, sustainability and climate change issues and their impact on the practice of engineering.

Since 2005 he has served as program manager for a long-term national project to assess the engineering vulnerability of public infrastructure to the impacts of a changing climate. This project developed an infrastructure climate risk assessment tool known as the PIEVC Engineering Protocol. David provides advice, training and ongoing technical and administrative support for applications across Canada and internationally.

In the past two years he has focused on the development of national and international professional practice guidelines for sustainable development, environmental stewardship and climate change adaptation.

Do My Projects Align with the PMI International Standard?

There are many advantages to having clearly defined project processes within an organization including less stress for project stakeholders, better probabilities of achieving project scope and organizational process improvement.

In this talk, Brenda Fay, an experienced project manager and facilitator, will give an overview of project management concepts and processes defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Participants will be able to

• explore their own project management skills
• identify how project management principles can be incorporated into their projects
• learn about management plans, stakeholder analysis and risk management techniques

Brenda Fay is President of BrenDaniel Productions Corp. They specialize in project management, business analysis and leadership training. You can reach Brenda at 902.222.9529 (Halifax) or  brenda@brendaniel.com. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter.

The increasing popularity of the sport of curling  has resulted in more intense competition at the game’s higher tiers, leading to investment in training products and regimes. The goal of this project was to develop an instrumented curling brush to be used for training purposes.  To that end, a brush was developed which measures the horizontal and vertical forces applied to the ice, the relative displacement of the brush head, and the angle of the handle relative to the ice.  The data is wirelessly transmitted to a coach’s computer.  This project discusses the project's development, results and impacts on both the participants education and on the sport.

Speakers:

Devon Hartlen and Katherine Adye are recent graduates from Dalhousie University's Mechanical Engineering Program.  Devon is currently pursuing a Masters of Applied Sciences at Dalhousie with emphasis on  material characterization and advanced computer modeling techniques.  He runs the intramural curling program at Dalhousie.  Katherine's interests include renewable energy, green buildings, and energy conservation.  In her spare time she volunteers with Girl Guides of Canada and Techsploration.  

Due to unforseen circumstances the RAV-4 EV Rebuild Project team will no longer be presenting. They sincerely apologise for any inconvenience. 

Join the Young Professionals Committee for Engineering Trivia at the T-Room. Hosted by our very own, Stan Selig, P.Eng. Bring a team or join one that night. 

Prizes will be awarded throughout the evening and, of course, to the winning team. Come show off your engineering trivia knowledge!

There is no cost to attend this event and registration is not required, bring your friends!

Pre-registration for the Annual Business Meeting is not required but will assist us in ordering breakfast for those who attend. 

There is no cost to attend the Annual Business Meeting. 

Join us before the AGM for breakfast and meet some of the students and organizations we support through our Student Affairs Committee.

The Annual General Meeting will include a presentation from Engineers Canada, the incoming President of Engineers Nova Scotia, financial statements, introduction of new Council members and an opportunity for members to ask questions regarding the business of the Association. 

There is no cost to attend this event and registration is not required, however breakfast is provided to those who attend so registration will inform the amount of food ordered. Members who attend will have two PD Participation hours added to their Professional Development Program record. 

Join the Young Professionals Committee panel discussion to hear from members about the benefits of different post-graduate degree programs for engineers. Specifically, the programs to be discussed are M.Eng., M.Sc. in Engineering, and MBA. 

This event is free to attend. It is being held at the World Trade and Convention Centre in the same room as the AGM (earlier) and conference on Thursday.