Page 13 - CEA-Alberta-Innovators-2024

MESSAGE FROM CEA’S CEO AND REGISTRAR
Collaboration Leads to Innovation
C ONGRATULATIONS TO THE winning firms and individuals in this year’s Awards program. Thank
you to everyone who submitted
projects and to our judges who made
the difficult decisions in selecting the winners. Additionally, welcome once again to this year’s Alberta Innovators magazine, highlighting projects from the Consulting Engineers of Alberta (CEA) Awards evening, along with stories about industry leaders and key issues related to the business of consulting engineering. The Awards evening and this magazine serve as our annual celebration and recognition of the important work done by CEA’s membership.
CEA is a member-driven organization that is the business voice for our industry. Through CEA, our members can work with owner groups and allied industry associations on common issues related to the planning, design and construction of this province’s infrastructure. Over the past few years, some of these common issues have revolved around the impacts of supply chain shortages, high inflation, labour force changes and the impacts of each of these on project delivery. It has
been an exciting time addressing these challenges which can directly impact the operational costs and risks to our member companies. Additionally, our members’ clients, the project owners, continue to look for innovation from consulting engineers to provide assurances of more cost and schedule certainty on their projects in this dynamic environment.
Consulting engineers have been able to adapt to these changes in market conditions and provide leadership, acting as trusted partners and advisors for their clients. In addition to the signature projects in our Awards program, our members work on a myriad of other
unsung projects. Successfully delivering professional services on these projects takes a lot of specialized training, sound technical experience and hard work throughout all phases of service delivery, from concept development to project completion. Strong collaborative relationships with owners, contractors and other
project stakeholders are essential for success, especially in developing new innovative ways to keep projects
on budget and schedule when unforeseen events at a global level may have local impacts. Innovation involves teamwork, to find better approaches though all stages of theses projects and to solve problems with new tools. This includes everything from using new technologies to implementing better procurement and more flexible project delivery methods.
Innovations can involve a certain degree of added risk, and the challenge is to determine who is responsible for and how to best manage those new “What if?”questions. Professional engineering is a regulated profession
and CEA member companies with their professional engineering staff share a responsibility with public sector owners in managing those new risks while continuing
to protect, the safety of the public and the environment. Whatever form innovation may take in our industry’s projects, there are inherent shared goals with owners
— such as ensuring that certain levels of safety and dependability in water and wastewater systems, electrical supply, buildings and facilities and transportation networks are maintained or improved upon.
For over 45 years, CEA has proudly served our members as a facilitator for communication, consultation and collaboration between owners, contractors and engineering consultants at an industry level. We thank our membership for their voluntary support and engagement, in fostering innovative thoughts and actions and creating positive changes on their projects, within our industry and for this province.
KEN KOZAKEWICH, MBA, P.ENG. CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND REGISTRAR
CONSULTING ENGINEERS OF ALBERTA 13