AMEC Q & A

...an edited interview with Rick Lewin, general manager of AMEC's Trail office

1. What does AMEC do?

AMEC does virtually anything in the engineering construction field.

2. Who do you report to?

We are a mining and metals branch of the energy and mining group headquartered in Calgary. They report to AMEC Americas Limited, headquartered in Oakville Ontario, which reports to the AMEC Head Office in the UK.

3. Are there similar offices in other locations?

AMEC has mining offices in Oakville Ontario, Saskatoon, Trail, Vancouver, Phoenix, Santiago and Lima. As the mining group we are working just about every corner of the world. One of our larger projects now is in Mongolia, we are constructing the Pogo in Alaska, and we are partnered with DeBeers and are the EPCM contractor for their Snap Lake and Victor projects. We also designed and built the Ekati diamond mine in the NWT.

4. Do your staff see themselves as entrepreneurs?

They all understand that good relations with clients generate business, which keeps everybody employed. We have an internal mandate to promote the company. Not everyone is outgoing, but we certainly have our fair share of entrepreneurial people.

5. How many projects do you have on the go?

We may have 40 or 50 different projects on the go at any one time. It is quite a juggling act ensuring the mix of projects, the volume and the variety is there.

6. Are there local projects besides Teck Cominco?

Yes, the coalmines in the Sparwood - Fernie area, five of them employing 2,500 people and producing 30 million tonnes of coal a year. When I started calling on them about five years ago, they said, "Why are you here? The demand for coal is down; we have no money, and the future doesn't look bright." But I persisted. Now the coal industry is booming and we are generating a healthy business with them on a regular basis.

7. Do you have a managerial, metals or engineering background?

I have a diverse back ground. I have a Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Ryerson and I worked up through a variety of engineering roles. I eventually got into project management, managing several projects before the opportunity came up to manage this office. I jumped at it as a good place to work, with all my lifestyle interests on the doorstep.

8. How many of your 85 employees are engineers?

Twenty eight are engineers. Also encouraging is that we finally have a crew of young EIT's (Engineers in Training). We invest a lot of money in training and mentoring people. I think the turn around in the office over the next five years is going to be tremendous, so we need to develop those young people, and acquire more.

9. Why do you consider this a world-class business?

We work in a global environment. We are not just serving the needs of this community. We have people working in Lima Peru, Salt Lake City, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and we are bidding on a lead smelter in Brazil. We are assisting other AMEC offices with projects in Nevada, Ontario, Saskatchewan, the Northwest territories, and we're now working with our Richland Washington office on the Geomelt Project utilizing AMEC proprietry technology at the Hanford nuclear site. We have in the recent past worked in Australia, Sardinia, China, Spain, and many locations in the US. So we are working in a global environment, not limited by any boundary.

10. Could you be located anywhere?

To do our global work we could be located anywhere. However, it is good to be working with Teck Cominco here. With our diversification we provide a stronger workforce and we have more resources available if Teck Cominco has a problem that requires an instant response. It's part of our job to be available. As long as Teck Cominco is solid in the community and we provide them good, reliable service I expect we will be here for the duration. But we don't take that for granted.

11. Are there any downsides to being located in Trail?

The only disadvantage is the travel reliability. Flying to Vancouver or Calgary can be problematic. It is more reliable to drive to Spokane or Kelowna.

12. How do you measure the performance of the operation here?

Ultimately, it's profitability, which we report in terms of absolute profit and percentage of earnings before interest and taxes. Volume is a factor, and the overall earnings as a percentage of operating costs. We set annual goals for these factors, and we have done very well. We exceeded our targets every year but one over the past nine years.

13. Are AMEC engineers paid comparative salaries to Teck Cominco?

We don't want to lose people to Teck Cominco or any other engineering entity and we must compete for people with the Alberta market. We try to make sure we're at par or better than the competition so there's less incentive for people to leave. It costs us a lot of money to hire and train people.

14. Does the community appreciate the value of your enterprise?

I think they're starting to; we are doing our best to educate them. There was a period when people here didn't know who AMEC was, but we're now getting some recognition. I doubt most know we're part of an organization of 45,000 people, not just an office in downtown Trail. We are getting some high profile projects locally and around the world and people should know about that.

15. What roadblocks, if any, has AMEC faced?

It is tough to get people to spend money when they don't have it, poor metals markets etc. Some organizations are set in their ways and have favoured service providers; that can be an impediment. The intensity of activity in the tar sands projects up north, and the demand for people there has in fact created an opportunity for our services locally, and we are exploiting that.

16. Are there issues you have to pay particular attention to in this business?

Be there consistently. Don't just show up when there are big projects on the table. Be available for the day-to-day issues that clients have to deal with. That's when they appreciate your help. I was able to develop a personal relationship of communication and trust with people when they didn't have money to spend. Yet I kept showing up, and now it's finally starting to pay off. Next year promises to be a very good year for us, particularly with the coalmines in the Fernie area.

17. Are there key factors to success in this business?

Be persistent and keep your clients happy. Quality is a big issue, the quality of the work and the execution. Deliver the project in the time frame that you said you would, within the costs constraints, and in accordance with the performance specs.

18. What key lessons have you learned?

Do what you said you were going to do. Deliver on time and on budget. Communicate with your client. Be predictable, and be responsive to clients. Listen to them. Sometimes your client doesn't know exactly what he wants and you have to guide him. But good communication is key so he buys into the process all the way along, with no surprises at the end.

19. What is your greatest challenge?

Office wide succession management. When I retire I want my successor to be up to speed so the business just continues on, and the same throughout the organization. We have excellent candidates for that but it creates a domino effect within the office that will be difficult to staff because of the resource shortage in Canada right now. Finding the right people is tough. We have been able to hire some fine EIT's but we still need to hire young designers and draughtspeople. We're working on that. We have some excellent young people and senior people, but we have a big gap in the middle. We need several strategic hires to fill that gap, and that isn't easy.

20. With AMEC's UK and USA reach are there not lots of qualified people to choose from?

The tar sands and gas projects are sucking up everyone they can get their hands on. Mining is booming and this will likely last a minimum of three, maybe ten years. China and soon India are driving this trend. All the support industries are booming too. Then things like Hurricane Katrina - all the other things going on in the world are making skilled engineering, construction and project management resources a scarce commodity.

21. Are there critical things our region can do to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship?

Local MLA's, MP's, city councils and regional districts have to be on side; they are not at this time. An example is the recent North-South Corridor symposium in Rossland. Marlene Jennings MP from Ottawa attended as did Senator Bob Morton from the US but neither our local MLA nor our MP, or their representatives were present. We didn't have a representative from the Ministry of Transportation in B.C., but their US counterparts were there. We need proactive people in government out there who understand what it's like to be entrepreneurial, support it, and who don't expect people do things for them.

I think it is ridiculous to have five mayors and so many councillors for such a small area. We need to get rid of all that bureaucracy. If this region wants to move forward and not remain a bunch of parochial little communities we need to amalgamate, so we have one voice to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, and attract new businesses. This does not mean each community has to lose its identity.