Calgary, Alberta – June 12, 2012: Aecon Group Inc. (TSX: ARE) announced today at its Annual General Meeting in Calgary the winners of the 2011 Aecon Employee Recognition Awards.
These annual awards provide an opportunity to formally recognize Aecon employees who have made outstanding contributions to Aecon projects and the communities in which Aecon operates.
Aecon’s Extraordinary Achievement Award recognizes employees who exhibit extraordinary commitment to the achievement of Aecon’s business objectives and who are instrumental in exceeding the expectations of stakeholders. This year’s recipient of the Aecon Extraordinary Achievement Award is Randy Cline, Proposals and Estimating Manager from Aecon’s Industrial Group. Randy led the team who put together the proposal for the recently awarded joint venture for the Darlington Refurbishment project. He found innovative ways to manage this detailed project, fine-tuned every aspect of the proposal, minimized our contractual risk, and facilitated more team work and enhanced communication within the team. Throughout the development of this complicated proposal, Randy’s perseverance, leadership and dedication for this integral project never wavered.
An honourable mention in this category goes to Brian Keenan. As Senior Project Manager on Aecon’s Toronto-York Spadina Subway extension project, Brian exhibited extraordinary efforts to reach project milestones. His considerable knowledge and problem-solving skills have earned him the respect of project staff, partners, the client and tradespeople.
The J.D. Hole Humanitarian Award recognizes outstanding efforts of Aecon employees who strive to make their communities a better place, while showing a strong commitment to Aecon’s business. The winner of this year’s J.D. Hole Humanitarian Award is Keith McGrath from Aecon Mining who has been recognized as an advocate for making the community of Fort McMurray a better place to work and live. Keith’s passion is evident through his involvement in many community services and organizations such as the MacDonald Island Park Society, the Regional Roads Committee, the Fort McMurray Housing Authority, Coats for Kids and Santas Anonymous, just to name a few. Through his role in business development, Keith demonstrates a relentless drive encouraging his fellow Aecon employees to give back to local worthy causes, all the while strengthening Aecon’s brand.
Honourable mention in this category goes to Randy Rivais, General Foreman from Aecon’s Industrial Central group. For four years, Randy has organized the Adrien Rivais Memorial Hockey for Heart Tournament, in memory of his son and Aecon millwright apprentice, Adrien, who passed away after suffering a heart attack at age 26 while playing hockey.
The Excellence in Safety Award recognizes an employee’s or team’s commitment to construction safety. This year’s Excellence in Safety Award goes to Aecon’s Industrial Central Fabrication Team. The Central Fabrication team has operated for 15 years without a loss time injury – a significant, industry-leading achievement for such a heavy manufacturing environment.
QX Regional Manager for Alberta and BC, Cam Boyle, has earned an honourable mention in this category for his commitment to Aecon’s core value of Safety First. Always focused on safety, most recently Cam invented an online tool for employees and subcontractors to submit near misses, resulting in increased reporting of such incidents.
The Cross Divisional Business Development Award recognizes Aecon employees who have demonstrated extraordinary effort to create cross divisional business opportunities - exemplifying our ‘One Aecon’ approach. This year’s winner is Brian Keenan, Project Manager on Aecon’s Sheppard West Station and Southern Tunnels Project Team. Aecon’s business units worked together efficiently on this project, including ACML, Aecon Utilities and AME. The team worked tirelessly to combat challenges, and Aecon Utilities assisted the project on a number of occasions where their relationships with Toronto Hydro and Enbridge have helped tremendously.
The Outstanding Team Award is presented to teams who have demonstrated extraordinary achievement when completing a project. Aecon has the best teams in the business and therefore, there are three winners for the Outstanding Team Award.
The first recipient is Aecon’s Waneta Expansion Project Team, which is successfully completing the civil works for the Waneta Expansion Project in British Columbia. Excavation for the new powerhouse started in early 2011 and by year’s end was substantially complete with nearly 600,000 work hours without a loss time injury. The Waneta Expansion Team has exhibited Aecon’s commitment to exceed our customer’s expectations.
The second recipient is the Darlington Retube and Feeder Replacement Project Proposal Team from Aecon’s Industrial Central group. Throughout the past year, the team set unprecedented records including work on the Darlington Refurbishment Project, and the highest number of proposals produced and delivered.
And finally, we have Aecon’s Endako Mine Mill Expansion Team which overcame significant hurdles including engineering challenges to bring this project to completion. Located in a remote region of Northern British Columbia, members of the Lockerbie & Hole Eastern team relocated to work on the project, which includes the installation of the largest SAG Mill in North America.
“These awards showcase the best of what Aecon employees accomplish through their dedication, hard work, superior client service, and charitable involvement,” said Teri McKibbon, Chief Operating Officer, Aecon Group Inc. “It is always a thrill to review the nominations of so many deserving people and I couldn’t be more pleased with our list of winners. Congratulations to all of our outstanding recipients, honourable mentions and nominees.”
The recipients of these awards are not only leaders within Aecon, they are also leaders in the construction industry and have extraordinary work ethic, tremendous talent and unwavering commitment to quality work and safety.
Aecon Group Inc. is a Canadian leader in construction and infrastructure development providing integrated turnkey services to private and public sector clients. Aecon is pleased to be consistently recognized as one of the Best Employers in Canada.