Provincial Engineering & Geoscience Week

March 2013

A Salute to Professional Engineers & Geoscientists

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W I N N I P E G F R E E P R E S S A S a l u t e t o P r o f e ss i o n a l E n g i n e e r s & G e o s c i e n t i s t s ! | 3 Engineering association, universities tackle gender imbalance in the profession By David Schmeichel for the Free Press Over the decades, women have made important inroads in any number of scientific disciplines. Yet in the field of engineering, it remains very much a man���s world. T here���s still a significant and somewhat troubling gender gap that serves as a barrier to balanced representation: In Manitoba, women account for a mere 10 per cent of all licensed engineers, and for just one in every six students enrolled at the University of Manitoba���s Faculty of Engineering. (By comparison, the U of M���s total student population is closer to 55 per cent female.) As Dawn Nedohin-Macek, the new president of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Manitoba (APEGM), points out, that disparity is due in part to the fact that engineering now carries a stigma as a traditionally male-dominat- ed field. It also doesn���t help that engineering lacks the visibility of other sciences, making it harder to market the field to young women who statistically gravitate towards careers in which they can help improve people���s lives, she added. ���When students or parents are looking at engineering as a career, they often just see a lot of back-room scientists, so they don���t always understand the implications or the applications of engineering to society,��� said Nedohin-Macek, a computer enDawn Nedohin-Macek, gineer with Manitoba Hydro who the new president of the Association of Professional last year became only the third Engineers and Geoscientists of Manitoba (APEGM) female president in APEGM���s Submitted photo by Stephen Dueck 92-year history.>> FWS GROUP OF COMPANIES - BUSINESS PROFILE Diversity drives Winnipeg-based design-build firm T The FWS Group of Companies has grown into an extremely diversified firm over its 60-year history. he Winnipeg-based design-build contractor and real-estate development company lives up to its mission statement of ���Innovative Solutions for Building Value��� as it does everything from designing and building processing facilities for the agricultural, mining, food, and alternative energy markets to providing concrete structures for mines to developing and building offices, commercial spaces and multi-family residences. Brent Clegg, the company's president and Chief Executive Officer, joined the company in 1997. A University of Manitoba structural engineering graduate with over 20 years of experience in project planning, management and business development, Clegg stepped into the position of vice-president of business development at FWS in 2008 and became president and CEO last year. ���We're diverse and multi-disciplinary,��� Clegg said of FWS. ���The strengths of our design-build and industrial material handling is really our internal design capacity. It gives us a lot more control over the design process and our clients have the ability to sit in with our design team and work through the details.��� The FWS Group employs nearly 300 people in all its operations, including 24 engineers (mainly civil and mechanical), office staff and construction workers on its field crews. FWS is headquartered in Winnipeg, and has offices in Calgary and Burnaby, B.C. ���We're a design-build contractor in the truest sense of the word,��� Clegg said. ���But we're different than a lot of design-builders. We do the majority of our own structural design and a lot of material handling and design as well, from a mechanical perspective.��� FWS has built many of the high throughput grain terminals in Western Canada for most of the major grain companies includ- Brent Clegg (P.Eng.) president and Chief Executive Officer of FWS Group of Companies photographed at the company���s head office in Winnipeg, Man., on Thurs., Feb. 21, 2013. Behind him are photos of completed FWS Group projects. Photo by Jason Halstead ing Richardson International Ltd., Cargill and Viterra, and has designed and built slipform concrete headframe structures for PotashCorp of Saskatchewan and Goldcorp. Inc. mining. On the commercial side, FWS recently built the Qualico Family Centre��and Park Cafe at Assiniboine Park and is building Phase 2 of its Sky Waterfront condo development on Waterfront Drive in Winnipeg. FWS' Sunstone development division is building a hotel and restaurant at the long-vacant Alexander Docks and the adjacent Harbourmaster Building on Waterfront Drive. ���That is a very unique project for us,��� Clegg said. ���It's nice to have the diversity. From a revenue perspective, it provides opportunity to iron out the highs and lows of different markets.��� Thanks to the company's history of dealing with commodity and cereal grain handling, it has even patented a corn fractionation system for the ethanol industry. Clegg says FWS' diversity has much to offer engineers. ���Being engineer-of-record on a project, especially when your fellow employees are actually physically building it, is very satisfying because you're involved in the process and you can be right in there with the field guys who are doing the installation,�����Clegg said. ���It's a little bit different than if you're working at a consulting group. We take things from concept to completion, we work with owners in conceptualizing, doing detail design and then seeing the construction of it, to the commissioning, to the facility actually achieving what it's supposed to be doing.��� Clegg said this country's commodity-based economy is calling out for engineers. ���There's a huge demand for the technical resources of engineers right now and a lot of career opportunities for the long term,�����Clegg said. ���It's a great career choice. It teaches you a lot of disciplines that are applicable to many things outside the profession. They're applicable to business as well and to my role as CEO.��� FWS also plays big role in the community, last year donating $121,000 to numerous charitable organizations in Winnipeg and in other Canadian cities.

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