What was the path you took to get to where you are today? (school, volunteering, work experience/co-ops, networking, ect.)

I was born and raised in Grande Prairie. Graduated High School in Grande Prairie in 2003 and worked as a shop hand, labourer, water meter reader and technician, heavy equipment operator and also part time in my spare time for many years at the local ski hill as a ski instructor, ski rental and repair technician, and snow maker.

When I decided to go back to school, I began by taking academic upgrading courses part time, while continuing to operate heavy equipment full time.

After approximately two and a half years of upgrading, I entered the First Year Engineering Transfer program at the Grande Prairie Regional College. I then transferred into Civil Engineering at the University of Alberta and Graduated in 2015.

I worked as a summer student for the City of Grande Prairie, and two local consulting engineering firms prior to graduating. I began my career at  ISL Engineering and Land Services in Grande Prairie after graduating and have never looked back.

When I began first year engineering, I was married to my wife Alison and we had one child. We had our second child during fall mid-term season in fourth year. Fast forward to today and we now have three children (10, 6, and 4 years old) with the fourth addition coming in January 2022.

In 2018 and again in 2019, I volunteered as a mentor to the University of Alberta chapter of Engineers in Action as a Bridge Corps travelling member where I spent two weeks each year in remote Bolivia building pedestrian bridges.  

What’s your favourite thing about what you do?

I like the variety, both in my role at ISL, and in the projects we work on. This is a perk of being a small office and collaborating with the OneISL family on many awesome projects.

What does a typical day at ISL look like for you? (coffee, inspections, site visits, phone calls, team meetings, design, emails, ect.)

Anything and everything from team and client communications, project management, field observations and survey, design reviews, specifications, proposal writing, budgeting and quantity take-offs, contract administration, and of course it is all fueled by lots of coffee and a good lunch.

What are some of your favourite ISL experiences? (Cool projects, social events/charitable initiatives, daily office life, ect.)

ISL Staff Seminars, cool and varying projects, ISL social life and get-togethers, ISL Open Houses featuring my very own smoked briskets. ISL rocks and so do our projects!

Where do you hope to be in 10 years?

ISL Grande Prairie office managing cool projects and working with an awesome team of ISL’ers across western Canada. So pretty much the same as today but with more experience and responsibility under my belt.