A NEW DAY A NEW DAY - Toronto Construction Association

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profile View from THE TOP A willingness to face new challenges has brought Chris Gower a long way in a short time By Kelly Parker THERE IS A COMMON THREAD TO BE FOUND IN the successful and still growing career of Chris Gower, PCL Constructors’ regional vice president for Central and Eastern Canada: people. Gower was recently named to the “Top 40 Under 40,” an annual listing and awards event organized by executive search firm The Caldwell Partners International to honour Canadians under 40 for outstanding achievement. Over his 15-year PCL career, Gower has managed multimillion-dollar construction projects, including the $396-million Infield Development project at the Lester B. Pearson International Airport in <strong>Toronto</strong>, and has been responsible for more than $1.3 billion of work in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. All of this can be traced back to his London high school years when Gower was given a chance to work some construction with his older brother, one of several mentoring figures he credits for this recent accolade. Gower found intrigue in the idea that in constructing something, he was able to leave a little bit of himself behind. Soon he was enrolled in a Fanshawe College course in construction engineering, technology and management. “It’s funny,” he says, “because you start off framing houses and not really thinking in broader terms about what the industry has to offer. I just loved what I was doing; reading blueprints, building buildings and just being part of all of that. From there, college broadened my curiosity about other aspects of the business — the engineering, legal and people side of the business.” A stint with Altus Helyar as a quantity surveyor and cost consultant after college gave Gower a foundation for the business — a sense of how projects were financed and the economics behind the business. Eventually, he felt the pull of the building aspect of the business that first attracted him and he took a junior estimator position at PCL 36 | Builders' Digest Quarter 3 2010
profile “ There have been lots of people who have helped along the way, from old-time superintendents who helped you get through that first job, to that district manager who pushed you into a job that you didn’t think you could do ” — Chris Gower, regional vice president, PCL Constructors before getting into project management. Following a stint as PCL district manager in Saskatchewan, he was called back to <strong>Toronto</strong> to take on the series of positions that led him to his current office just over a year and a half ago. PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES It’s been a relatively swift trip, which Gower attributes to a willingness to step out of his comfort zone. “I think some people are debilitated by fear or an inability to take on the next role,” he explains, “where we really don’t know all of the answers, but you figure it out as you go. For me, I’ve been somewhat fearless in taking on new challenges, and I haven’t been afraid to fail. The other thing is; when you do fail — and everybody does to varying degrees — I always thought it was really important to learn from those things.” Gower is also quick to credit the people who were there to support him as he made his mistakes. “I’ve had tons of great mentors and I share this accolade in a large part with PCL. There have been lots of people who have helped along the way, from old-time superintendents who helped you get through that first job, to that district manager who pushed you into a job that you didn’t think you could do, or the president of an organization who enabled you to take on an opportunity out of province to try new things that way. Our company is really big on mentoring, and I didn’t get here by myself, that’s for sure.” Now that he is here, Gower has his eyes on two major industry issues: government funding and foreign rules of competition. He is supportive of industry efforts to persuade the government to continue injecting money into the system amid rumours that it is going to begin tightening those purse strings. “Certainly, they have to do that in a timely manner because they can’t continue to spend forever, but construction is such a huge factor in the GDP that if it’s sustained by itself, it’s going to help the overall economic picture. If the government turns off the tap, the whole industry is going to get real quiet because the private sector hasn’t yet kicked in following the economic crash to any great degree — it’s coming, but it’s not nearly at a volume that will replace the funding provided by the government.” Gower would also like to see more focus on the evaluation criteria relating to foreign competition. “There is nothing wrong with bringing international competition into the marketplace,” he emphasizes, “but there has to be some fairness around how they’re assessed and evaluated against local competition. We need a level playing field, because if it’s not, the government thinks that it’s buying smarter and better, and maybe it’s not and the money is just leaving the country.” THE HOME FRONT Despite a demanding work schedule that has recently expanded to include responsibility for a new PCL office in Australia, Gower is actively involved in the community, loaning his efforts to associations such as The Darling Home for Kids (formally the Rose Cherry Home). Very occasionally, he can be found on a golf course, or out for a rare dinner with his wife of 16 years. More likely, though, he’s at his 11-year-old son’s games, or at his 8-year-old daughter’s dance performances. Travel is also an integral part of their family life, as the Gowers try to instill a love of learning about other places and people in their kids. Having explored France last year, plans are underway for a trek to Italy this year. You get the sense that part of the reason Gower wants to take his kids outside of their suburban geographical box is to show them the wonders the world can hold for them if they only have the courage to get out there. That, and the fact that everywhere they go in life, to whatever place on the planet, there will be people to teach them life’s most valuable lessons. Fearlessness and an appreciation for what people can teach an open mind, after all, have taken Gower himself this far along his own journey. |BD Builders' Digest Quarter 3 2010 | 37
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A NEW DAY A NEW DAY - Toronto Construction Association

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