I’ve always wanted to build things. When I was young, I always had a project I was working on, either taking something apart, or putting something back together. I didn’t really care what I was building, but I liked the process of designing and building things, and then seeing them work in the end. My projects kept getting a bit more complex and a bit bigger as I continued to learn how things worked.

This led me to a career in electrical engineering. And after graduating, I was fortunate to continue building things in the aerospace industry, building satellites and rockets for the Canadian Space Agency. Building satellites is quite complex, and I loved the challenge of designing and building spacecraft electrical hardware for the harsh space environment. I spent years in clean rooms testing spacecraft hardware and I learned a lot.

Building and testing rockets is quite amazing as well – some of the most amazing tests that I’ve ever done in my career. There were lots of spectacular tests involving huge fireballs to qualify rockets, really lots of fun on those test days!

The things I built continued to get bigger as I transitioned to the power industry. Building hydro-electric generating stations and seeing them work was a great experience. Lots of technical and logistical challenges to be solved in a remote location, and it was a great project to complete.

The next bigger project was a multi-billion dollar HVDC transmission line and converter stations. This mega-project was so big it actually included 5 huge projects within one giant project. I was responsible to make all this stuff work and interface the new systems with the existing bulk electric system. This was so much fun, I had a commissioning team of A+ superstars that were an absolute pleasure to work with. When everything was clicking so well on big test days, this is what commissioning is really all about – smart teams of experts making miracles happen.

The next project shifted gears from an electrical project to a mechanical project – expansion and upgrade of a wastewater treatment plant. While an interesting process to learn, I found it somewhat more simple than some of the electrical systems I’ve worked on in the past. But I like to build things, so it’s been another great learning experience.

After 40 years of starting and finishing projects, it became clear to me what works and what doesn’t. Any project, no matter the size, is easier to start than it is to finish. This is not surprising, since the last 5-10% of any task is always the hardest. How many projects around your house have you started but have not been able to complete?

I’ve always been diligent in completing what I start, and after 40 years of projects, I’ve seen what it takes. It’s human nature to defer tasks and only focus on the immediate actions. But this jeopardizes actually finishing the task. With bigger and bigger projects and with more money involved in each, it is way too risky to push things to later in the project – projects never get done when this happens or they take a lot longer to complete, which always results in lots more money being required to finish the last 5-10%.

After learning what it takes to complete projects, I could see that other projects were struggling to get completed on-time and on-budget. And this is unfortunate and unnecessary because I had seen what was required to complete projects and knew that I could help. I could see where other projects were faltering in their planning and execution of the end of the project. It’s really painful to watch a poorly executed project fail knowing that the disasters could have been avoided with a few better decisions earlier in the project.

That’s when I knew I needed to help projects get completed since I had seen it done many times and knew it did not have to be as difficult as some projects were making it. I knew how to complete projects and I knew there was a process to follow to make it much easier to save time and money.

So I created the Commissioning Academy – to help people and project teams understand how to plan and execute projects so they can be completed successfully – to give the step-by-step process to follow in order to effectively and reliably complete complex projects on-time and on-budget.

It’s no longer necessary to struggle with completing projects when you know the steps to follow. Completing projects starts at the very beginning – you must start with the end in mind. In fact, capital projects should not be started unless there is a crystal clear plan to also complete the project. If a project is started with no defined end, then this is not a project, this is research and development…

So this is why I created the Commissioning Academy, and I can help you complete your projects on-time and on-budget. And here’s what’s next:

• If you’re new to finishing capital projects, don’t underestimate the level of effort required to complete the last 5-10% of your project. I can help, get started with my free 3-Day Mini-Course.
• If you’ve been involved in projects in the past, but need a documented and proven process to complete your projects, then you’re in the right place, get started with my free 3-Day Mini-Course.

I’ve got lots of great expertise to share with you to show you how to you complete your projects on-time and on-budget. Let’s get started and I’ll get you up to speed right away!