The Last Word | Mentoring is Key to Building Our Industry

By: Rob Burlie

Mentoring is key to building our industry

Who would have thought that, 45 years after Mr. Bentley’s Civil Technology and Surveying course at Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, I would be reflecting on my engineering career. Time now for more motorcycling, concerts, fishing and racing.

When I started with MetroTransportation in 1985 after six years at what is now known as Toronto Metropolitan University (former Ryerson) and the University of Ottawa, I knew little about pavement design, materials, construction and maintenance. It was only after spending many nights and summer weekends on the Don Valley Parkway that I gained an appreciation for the quality of work and exacting standards that were demanded by mentors Tom Johnston, Carl Woodman, and the late Romualdo D’Ippolito along with field staff that included John Doherty, Frank Jerina and Myron Tibbits.

I’ve also benefited from the quality leadership of our ORBA/TARBA/OHMPA colleagues that included Leo McArthur, John Carrick Sr., Dr. Norman McLeod and Keith Davidson (polymers); Les Cruickshank, Bruce Evans and Bruce Flowers (winter snow and ice control and removal); Allan West, Fernando Magisano and Walter Schenk (first contractor HMA QC laboratory); Vern Gazzola (recycling and fractionating RAP); Cosmo, Mike and Frank Crupi (echelon paving to eliminate longitudinal joints); Bent Hudson of Stacey Electric (the importance of hard work and keeping the traffic signals and streetlights operating 24/7); and Rob Bradford (maintaining an open dialogue between municipalities and contractors and authoring Keeping Ontario Moving: The History of Roads and Road Building in Ontario).

When challenged with resurfacing Lakeshore Boulevard before the first Molson Indy in 1986, Dr. John Emery and his JEGEL team assisted with the first municipal SMA which was 55% FA/45% CA with polymer modified PGAC 70-28 which is still the best SMA from my perspective. Warren under the leadership of Larry Tanenbaum, George (Joe) Logozzo and Keith Duncan laid down the smoothest SMA that remains in place

some 36 years later. I was fortunate to co-author and present at CTAA with Dr. Emery and win the prestigious OAPC/ OHMPA’s Earl Kee Award in 1992 for promoting the use of SMA and HMA research in the urban context.

In 2015, I led the Toronto Transportation review of pavement rehabilitation and maintenance practices with adoption of Superpave Plus and WMA specifications. Municipal leaders must support adequate budgets for this important infrastructure and challenge their teams to include life-cycle costing, climate change and asset management in all aspects of tendering road and bridge construction, re-construction and resurfacing. As past president of OGRA in 2016, I know that Good Roads can assist all municipalities with their asset management plans along with rehabilitation and preservation programs. Strategies such as perpetual pavement design, timely crack sealing, hot-in-place recycling, micro surfacing and micro-milling provide longer pavement lives.

Municipalities must understand the global demands on good aggregates and asphalt cement to ensure that through vigorous annual reviews of standards, specifications and enforcement of quality assurance, verification and contractor quality control programs, they are getting the finished product that they tendered. I was fortunate to sit on the OPS Pavement Committee for 22 years reviewing standards to ensure they were current and highly encourage all municipalities to use them whenever possible. Let’s also continue our support of the CCIL to ensure that all QA/QC labs are conforming to standard test procedures.

I would challenge all municipal and industry leaders to mentor one of their employees as it is a rewarding experience for both and can rebuild our institutional memory. Lastly, let’s assist our high schools, Skilled Trades Ontario, community colleges and universities attract younger, diverse and inclusive people to an exciting road building or municipal career.