By: ERNIE BARBER, P.AG., P.ENG.
The 2017 APEGS Annual Meeting weekend was a resounding success, planned in exacting detail by an experienced planning committee and expertly supported by APEGS staff.
We were inspired by the IMAX Dream Big film and the chance to meet and talk with Ms. Menzer Pehlivan, a remarkable engineer featured in the film.
A day of professional development featured topics that celebrated 20 years of being together as professional engineers and geoscientists and looked ahead to the challenges and opportunities of our shared future.
We talked with APEGS past presidents about strategic priorities, about risks and risk mitigation strategies. A business session offered members information and an opportunity to provide input on APEGS operations and priorities.
New members and life members were recognized at a luncheon, and APEGS award winners were appropriately honoured at a closing banquet. We welcomed and learned from engineering and geoscience leaders from across Canada in both formal and informal settings.
Not surprisingly, there was lots of conversation throughout the Annual Meeting related to three themes that will receive some considerable focus over the coming year:
1. Bolstering the public’s confidence in us as self-regulated professions.
APEGS exists to protect and serve the public. It is a privilege to be among the self-regulating professions in Saskatchewan and, like any other privilege, self-regulation must be actively nurtured. APEGS has very strong policies and practices to ensure that only those who meet academic, experience and ethical standards become members, and to ensure that any who are qualified to practise and who do practise engineering or geoscience are registered with APEGS. We lag behind most other provinces in Canada in being able to document the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) undertaken by individual members and licence holders, and by engineering and geoscience firms. Attendees at this year’s Annual Meeting heard from many speakers about the benefits of some form of required reporting of CPD activities.
2. Sustaining our professions through attention to diversity and inclusiveness.
There is not a single person in our communities whose life has not already been influenced and improved by the work of engineers and geoscientists. Yet the diversity of our membership in APEGS is not reflective of the diverse demographics in those communities. Women are under-represented, especially in engineering. Indigenous people make up nearly 20 per cent of the Saskatchewan population, yet the proportion of engineers and geoscientists who identify as indigenous is much smaller. APEGS is taking strong leadership under the 30 by 30 banner spearheaded by Engineers Canada to increase the proportion of women entering engineering to at least 30 per cent by 2030. Saskatchewan could and should likewise be a leader to identify and remove barriers for indigenous people to pursue careers in engineering and geoscience. Any steps taken to increase the diversity within our professions to more closely mirror the diversity of our clients and communities will most assuredly challenge us individually and collectively to think and act differently, to embrace the “different ways of knowing” that these others bring to the creative work we do as engineers and geoscientists.
3. Enhancing public understanding of our professions as forces for better communities and for a better world.
A recent survey conducted for Engineers Canada highlighted the public’s lack of familiarity with professional engineers, and the same likely is true of geoscientists. The same study suggested that the more familiar the public are with us, the more they trust us and believe that we make the world a better place. We have a story to tell. APEGS will add a communications professional to its staff this year to focus and coordinate our internal and external communications programs, especially to help the public know what to expect of engineers and geoscientists. You can help make our professions less invisible by, for example, always identifying yourself as a professional engineer or geoscientist – in the workplace by consistently adding your professional designation after your name, and in the community by explicitly using the words “engineering” or “geoscience” when talking about your work.
I look forward with enthusiasm to serving this year as APEGS president and I sincerely thank you for giving me this opportunity. I want personally to acknowledge with gratitude all those who offered themselves as candidates in the recent election, to congratulate new and returning Councillors and to say thanks one more time to those individuals who have completed terms and given so much of their time and talents. Over 200 volunteers have committed or recommitted themselves to service on various task groups, committees, Council and executive. We have a talented staff at the APEGS head office. Ours is an extremely well- functioning organization. Please contact me, or any member of Council or the APEGS office, with any ideas that you want to share.