Feature LEADING GROWTH IN RAIL & TRANSIT A new era of commuter rail is dawning in the United States, with numerous opportunities to expand the countrys transit footprint. Meanwhile, Canada is experiencing a boom in its public transit systems and SNCLavalin is well positioned to be at the centre of this rail revolution. Viewpoint spoke to Kevin George about why its a great time to be heading SNC-Lavalins North American Rail & Transit Engineering business Words Andrew Bennett Main Photo Cordelia Noble A light rail revolution is under way in Canada, with investment plans of more than Can$30 billion in Ontario alone and, with the United States taking transit schemes seriously in many major cities, its an opportune time to be working in the Rail & Transit sector. While some of the industry challenges include finding and developing enough suitably talented engineers especially given the workload across Canada Kevin George knows the tremendous opportunities waiting to be seized in North America. Kevin joined SNC-Lavalin in May, as Vice-President, Rail & Transit Engineering for North America, reporting to Richard George, Group Managing Director, Rail & Transit Engineering. His previous role was at WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, where he spent five years establishing and developing a transportation business to serve the Canadian market. With a 37-year rail career, Kevin draws on his significant experience in delivering major projects in the USA and the UK to lead his growing North American team. Based in Toronto, Kevin oversees the regional businesses in Eastern Canada, Western Canada and the USA. His initial focus has been to bring the teams together as an integrated unit, to operate collaboratively and draw upon the specialist skills in each location to deliver the best service possible to clients across North America. His plans also include opening a new office in Kingston, Ontario, early in 2017. This will become a centre of excellence for systems engineering that can support SNCLavalins major transit projects in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Huge opportunity Since joining SNC-Lavalin, Kevin has acknowledged the quality of talent within the team, which has approximately 250 people. I am very impressed by the range of capabilities and the depth of experience that we have in our people, he says. Their enthusiasm and commitment is admirable, and the combination of all those elements provides the perfect foundation for growth in this buoyant market sector. In the Rail & Transit sector, SNC-Lavalin came of age on projects such as Canada Line in Vancouver. The company was able to deploy capabilities successfully across the whole range of financing, design, construction, operations and maintenance services, and could demonstrate a significant advantage in being able to influence every phase in the life-cycle of a major project. As a consequence, SNC-Lavalin is in a unique position as one of the few providers of those full life-cycle services and continues to capitalise on that success on the numerous major rail and transit projects in the pipeline in Canada. The provinces of Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta all have significant plans for investment in this market sector over the next 10-15 years. Having seen the success that SNC-Lavalin has already achieved in Canada, its not surprising that our people are excited by the opportunities for both business and personal growth, and are keen to embrace collaboration as a way to spread the workload across our wider organisation, says Kevin. Weve even been able to extend our design engineering services out to our UK colleagues, who can provide invaluable support to us in Toronto. Unique skill Theres more to it than that, though, explains Kevin, who began his career as a British Rail engineer specialising in track systems engineering. One of the advantages that SNC-Lavalin has over our competitors is that our engineering teams understand the concept of designing for construction; the ability to design to achieve compliance with a P3 project specification, without the niceties that engineers typically add to a design solution. Its a unique skill that can only develop over time by working closely with our colleagues in the Construction and Operations & Maintenance (O&M) teams. And, surprisingly, that skill is not common. Many of our competitors are very capable engineers but rarely have internal construction capability in the P3 rail and transit market. As we continue to develop our people and grow our capacity, this will become a valuable product that we will be able to export into the US market. Kevin has a simple strategy for his regional leaders. Because each region has evolved from a different background, each is a centre of excellence for its own set of skills and capabilities. Work collaboratively to grow those capabilities in each of your neighbouring regions! The opportunities for growth are huge and we are only constrained by the rate at which we can develop and expand our resource base. After our business strategy events in Toronto and Montreal earlier this year, Im pleased to see that were starting to embrace that philosophy and approach our pursuits and delivery obligations as one team. Im excited to be heading this part of Why has this era for transit systems emerged? Partly, it is a recognition of an increased need and public demand for the business because we have unique investment in transit, and the realisation that light rail transit experience we can bring systems can help solve issues of road congestion by making cities more accessible. That has certainly been the case Kevin George in Toronto, which first built a subway system in the 1950s. Vice-President, Rail & Transit Engineering, North America Canada has unveiled around 12 transit projects either to upgrade, extend or renew systems in many of its provinces in the past decade, with more to come. Millennials shaping the future The United States is generally less developed in transit terms; however, major cities such as Boston, Chicago and Portland want to move and work smarter using underground systems or other forms of public transit, either with new systems or by improving the existing infrastructure. People are becoming less reliant on cars and Kevin says the attitude of the emerging millennial generation which likes using transit systems will help shape the future. Los Angeles, for example, is using local tax measures to generate significant funding for transit. The countys US$100bn budget will be invested in road and rail, plus other public transport, over the next 30 years to e LA, as a city, work far better than it does at the moment. Ideally, we would like to be involved in these transit projects, says Kevin. We add the most value where we can deploy our experience in connecting design and construction activities for the longer-term benefit of transit systems with operations and maintenance. That builds on the success weve achieved in Canada and expands those capabilities into the US. Our challenges Reflecting on the future pipeline of work in Canada, Kevin says: The reality is that there is more work here than there are people to deliver it. Everybody is trying to grow to meet that demand. In many ways, thats a great challenge to have, rather than struggling to find work for the people in the business. One of our solutions is to find smarter ways to engage our global resources from remote locations. Technology is starting to make that easier, with our people able to connect visually during virtual meetings and use cloud-based design applications for real-time engineering collaboration. With one particular project, Toronto is planning to electrify its 500km commuter rail network. There is only one short piece of 25kV electrified railway in Canada at the moment; the Deux-Montagnes line in Montreal, says Kevin. The challenges on that project are different from any other: no local supply chain to provide the components; no local labour workforce with the skills to construct, operate or maintain the infrastructure; and no local specialist plant and equipment. Its like starting from zero and is exactly the sort of complex project in which we can excel. Similar heavy rail project opportunities exist in the US, such as the California highspeed rail line connecting San Francisco and Sacramento, in the north, with Los Angeles and San Diego in the south. The opportunities are boundless and what a great time to be in the rail and transit business. Im excited to be heading this part of our North American business; we have such unique experience to bring to this buoyant market sector, says Kevin. What better place to continue growing a sustainable business for generations to come? Our hope is that we successfully expand our engineering capabilities into the US, developing positive relationships with those many clients, and enabling our construction and O&M colleagues to follow bringing the full-service offering that SNC-Lavalin has available across all of North America. viewpoint@snclavalin.com snclavalin.com Kevin George have two three Igrandsons,children and in who all live Norwich me My daughter followedfor a into the rail industry and, time, was a track engineer in Norwich (my first job in 1979!) My son is a successful businessman in the media/ advertising/events sector n Iof my spare time, I love a spot DIY ve just completed a full Irefurbishment of my fathers Lambretta TV 175 scooter, which he bought new in 1963 fACT fiLe