PROFILE
then I got bored of sitting at home.” He took a job at another company for a few months, wait- ing to see what would happen. Soon after, coalition forces ousted Iraq from Kuwait and he got a call from his former manager in the war-ravaged country. “I need you back and I need you tomorrow,” the caller said. “Your ticket is on the way and I’m not asking you to come as an employee; I’m asking you as a friend. I need you to rebuild this refinery.” Says Mr. Gupta: “I couldn’t refuse.” When he returned to Kuwait, 700 oil wells were still burning. Bullets littered roads. And the refinery he had helped build was heavily damaged. “You couldn’t see the sun, it was so cloudy with oil-well smoke,” he remembers. It took almost two years to rebuild the refinery and for his family to return to Kuwait.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
What is your favourite movie? The Sound of Music . It’s a classic — a light movie you can watch with family. Favourite lunch spot? Being vegetarian, I have limited choice when eating out. I like to go to Royal Cuisine — they serve buffet lunch with a quick turnaround and a reasonable variety. Favourite quote? Mark Twain: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Ideal vacation spot? Disneyland in California. I’ve been there a number of times. My favourite ride is Pirates of the Caribbean. What are the top three places on your bucket list? Australia, China, South America. What is the background photo on your smartphone? My grandsons, Atharv and Agam. What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? Relaxing with a book and watching the grandkids grow. What was the last book you read for fun? Chandrakanta . It’s a Hindi novel written byDevaki Nandan Khatri in 1888. It’s considered the first work of prose in the modern Hindi language. Who has been the biggest influence on your life? My first manager, B.R. Choudhry, taught me that it’s important to look after your staff and mentor young engineers. How has your life been different from what you’d imagined? I believe in taking life as it comes and respecting God. We only have control of what we can do and not of what others do — so accept it. If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why? My mother. She’s no longer with us. I always miss her. What’s the best museum you’ve visited around the world? Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, is probably the best. You need at least two weeks to visit. Among the many other museums I’ve enjoyed are Royal Museum of Fine Art in Belgium, for its Rembrandt paintings; Neues Museum in Berlin, which has a 3,300-year-old Nefertiti statue; and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan. Do you have other hobbies? I enjoy playing bridge and collecting coins. I had a huge collection of ancient and current coins from various countries around the globe, which I lost during Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. I’ve started building my collection again from scratch.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
By 1995, Mr. Gupta was looking for new opportunities. He thought about moving to the United States and Australia. Then he remembered a business trip he’d made to Calgary five years earlier. The city had made a good impression. “The people I talked to were humble and welcoming. And the city was also multicultural, clean, well-maintained,” he says. He submitted an immigration application form and applied for his P.Eng. licence. Both were approved, and less than a year later he started work in Calgary at a major EPC company. Since coming to Canada, he’s worked on numerous oil sands and upgrader mega-projects across Alberta. Today, he’s Advisor (Integration Commissioning Start-up) for the North West Redwater Partnership, which is building the world’s first bitumen refinery, about 45 kilometres northeast of Edmonton. Mr. Gupta began giving back to his profession as an APEGA volunteer in 2001. He first sat on an APEGA mentoring advisory group, then joined the Calgary Branch Executive a year later. He’s been on the Executive ever since, including time as Chair. In 2006 he was accepted for yet another volunteer role — an experience examiner on APEGA’s Board of Examiners (BOE).
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