APEGA
very experienced at drilling for oil and gas. Drilling for geothermal is probably a lot simpler than what we’ve been doing, so I think there’s tremendous opportunity there; and in finding water and getting it to the people who need it around the world. There are also many other areas professional members can branch into. Volunteers, you said, make this system work. How do you encourage members to donate time and expertise to APEGA? GE It’s quite simple, really. I ask them, “Are you really going to sit back and allow someone else to regulate our practices?” We, as professional engineers and professional geoscientists, are the best people to know what good conduct is and—with the support of staff—to implement it. It’s not a matter of saving APEGA members and the taxpayers of Alberta money. Yes, that’s great, but we take great pride in doing this and in knowing that our peers are the best people to be regulating us. There are a lot of things we need volunteers for and not just to do the self-regulatory part of our work. I encourage our members, at whatever stage they are at in their careers, to look at the volunteer opportunities APEGA posts and think about what might fit their schedules, skillsets, and personal and professional development needs. It doesn’t have to be something big and time consuming. We have several hundred volunteers with regulatory roles, and we have a couple thousand people doing other things for APEGA. And again, who better than our own members to connect with each other, with students, and with the people of Alberta? An important thing to remember is we have 10 branches. So, we have members volunteering all across the province. Our branches—Fort McMurray, the Peace Region, Lakeland, Yellowhead, Vermillion River, Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat—and the communities in these areas are represented by APEGA through our branch members. They reach out to the public and their peers. They get their peers involved in their
branch meetings, tours, and professional development opportunities. They often need speakers, too. Who knows where sharing your knowledge with your peers will lead you! There’s a lot our people can be doing, and it doesn’t have to be a huge commitment for each individual. Something small by everyone would be an enormous help in the ongoing improvement of APEGA. You mentioned the branches. Members of the branches helped spread the word and gather input during APEGA’s multi-year legislative review. What stage is APEGA at with that? GE We’ve made a joint submission with ASET (the Association of Science & Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta) to the Government of Alberta. We currently operate under one Act. We spent a lot of time looking at that Act, consulting members throughout the branches and other stakeholders. And we submitted our recommendations. We didn’t get agreement with ASET on everything. There are some additional things both we and ASET put forward separately that the organizations are not quite aligned on. But I am quite convinced that our government is not going to want to have two acts for what is essentially one function. The current government has stated unequivocally that it doesn’t want to create more regulatory agencies, so I don’t see Alberta separating the two. You’re not only APEGA’s 100th President. You’re also the 10th geoscientist president. What’s your take on the relationship between APEGA and the geoscience community, and the relationship between engineers and geoscientists? GE We used to be APEGGA—we had two Gs, representing geologists and geophysicists. The distinction was quite unnecessary. We don’t divide engineering like that, as far as regulation goes, into mechanical, electrical, structural, etc., so combining the two into a single geoscience designation, professional geoscientist, was the right thing to do.
14 | PEG SUMMER 2019
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