Edmonton's Stantec set to refine power grids in B.C. and U.S.

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A pair of projects in B.C. and California could help to improve the lives of nearly nine million people thanks to work from Edmonton engineering firm Stantec.

In April and August, Stantec was contracted for water and power projects with BC Hydro and the Los Angeles Department for Water and Power (LADWP), to the tune of a combined $290 million with the goal of increasing the reliability of their power grids.

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With BC Hydro serving an estimated five million people, and the LADWP serving approximately four million people, the Edmonton-founded and based company could have a serious impact at a time when power grid reliability has become a bigger problem as increased electrification stresses old power grids across the continent, said Mario Finis, executive vice-president of Stantec’s energy and resources business.

“I think people are recognizing that it’s much more than just the power generation — that you really have to have every component of the system working in harmony to be able to realize our goals of a lower carbon future,” said Finis.

A key element of the energy equation in North America isn’t just simply a capacity issue, Finis said. Generating more power is important, and necessary with the ever-increasing demand for electricity, but addressing “some of the challenges that we’re seeing with climate change” plays a role, he said, with part of Stantec’s work on similar projects involving climate-proofing the power grid.

Hurricanes and wildfires

On the West Coast, that means burying power lines to ensure that they’re protected from wildfires and won’t cause wildfires. On the East Coast, Finis explained that the company is helping Puerto Rico rebuild its power grid to be more hurricane-resistant.

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Following Hurricane Katrina, Stantec played a key role in future flood prevention for New Orleans, building a pump system to drain any flooding that could happen in a future hurricane. The pumps are capable of filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool in just three seconds.

When Stantec acquired engineering firm MWH Global in 2016, where Finis was previously employed, the company also took on the Panama Canal expansion project to modernize the popular trade corridor. Now complete, the project allows 95 per cent of cargo ships to pass through the canal.

As the demand for electricity continues to rise due to electrification, and the climate continues to test an aging power grid, Ryan Li, a University of Alberta professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, said he expects more similar projects will be needed throughout North America, which puts Stantec in a powerful place to make a big impact moving forward.

“They’re not a small company, right? They’re International — already well known,” said Li.

Does Edmonton know how big Stantec is?

Deep in the heart of Downtown Edmonton sits the 69-storey Stantec Tower, the company’s main headquarters. When the tower was finished in 2018, Stantec signed on for a long-term lease, but only for a few of the lower floors. The rest of the units were snatched up by nearly every top law firm in the city and a slew of other businesses clamoring to be kings and queens in the castle of Edmonton’s skyline.

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While the tower is busy, knowledge of the company may be lacking, and Stantec CEO Gord Johnston has taken notice.

“I go to business meetings around Edmonton. The one thing that’s always interesting is that people always say, ‘Tell me about Stantec.’ So I tell them about Stantec, and they say, like, we had no idea that you were so big and that we actually started here.”

A company as big as Stantec, which has 32,000 employees operating in more than 400 offices around the world, seems to slip under the public’s radar — even with its enormous headquarters standing as the biggest skyscraper west of Toronto. From its humble one-person beginnings in the 1950s, the company has quite literally grown to towering heights and has rocked in and out of a top 10 spot for the world’s best design firms.

Johnston, who was raised in Sherwood Park and is an engineer, says that the company has undergone a significant growth spurt in the past five or six years, adding 50 per cent more employees buoyed by natural growth and acquisitions, hitting a market cap of more than $12 billion.

What’s more, Johnston expects the company to grow by 50 per cent more over the next three years.

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“We just needed to kind of believe in ourselves again,” said Johnston, adding that over the past few years, the business has endeavoured to metaphorically ‘look up’.

Runjuan Liu, a University of Alberta professor of business economics, specializes in international business education but even she was taken aback when she learned the size of Stantec.

“Previously, I didn’t even kind of take a deeper look at this company. Then, I did some research. I’m like, ‘Wow, it’s really, it’s at a global level,’” said Liu.

Liu echoed Johnston’s observation, joking that engineers tend not to trumpet their own successes.

“They’re just like, ‘What’s the point of letting other people know what I’m doing? I just want to finish the project,’” said Liu, noting Canada’s service industry has a reputation for flying under the radar, despite export services raking in $200 billion, half of which being for commercial export services like what Stantec provides.

Stantec gets its ‘mojo back’

With its “mojo back,” as Johnston put it, Stantec is beginning to tell people about what they’re doing more, but the move isn’t just for the public. Stantec wants to advertise what it does to its employees, too.

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“Whether it’s public transit systems or water treatment systems, the work that we do on the environmental side, solar, wind, all those sorts of things, like hospitals, care facilities. Look at the impact that you make in the world,” said Johnston.

Finis said that being vocal about the wins and their impact on the community has a profound effect on employees. It had a strong effect on him.

“I know it sounds a little corny, but it really does make a big difference in people’s lives and the quality of their lives,” Finis said. “I’m very proud to be a part of that.”

zdelaney@postmedia.com

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