Latest / The Splitting Atoms Podcast / Ep 10 | From Learning to Leading with Justin Gray

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Ep 10 | From Learning to Leading with Justin Gray · The Splitting Atoms Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have to go through that journey because you're gonna grow at the same time.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: We often look at successful people and focus on where they end up.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: The title they hold, the responsibilities they carry, the accomplishments they've achieved.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We may even analyze the logistical steps they took to get there.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: What schooling did they have?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: What did their progression up the proverbial ladder look like?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what practical career titles did they hold along the way?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: What we don't always appreciate are the different building blocks of learning that got them there.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: The ecosystem they grew up in that shaped who they became, the technical learning that helped them develop confidence, the experiences that expanded their perspectives and understanding of people, business, and different cultures, and the transition from focusing on their own success to helping others achieve theirs.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: In my conversation with Justin Gray of Framatome, we explored the different stages of growth that can shape a career.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: From learning who we are, to becoming experts in our craft, to developing the skills required to lead teams, organizations, and people.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Justin's story is a reminder that growth isn't one continuous lesson.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a series of building blocks, each preparing us for what comes next.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Join me as I split Adams with Justin Gray.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the studio, Justin.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being here today.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And fun thing about you and I, we have for a long time been in the same spaces, probably same conferences, same rooms, talking to probably many of the same people, but we did not actually meet until our discovery call for this.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's uh we've definitely crossed paths many times, but haven't had the opportunity to formally connect.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for reaching out and looking forward to the conversation.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Thank you for saying yes to someone who you hadn't really uh you putting a lot of trust in someone you've never really engaged with before that discovery call.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love it too because you think our industry is so small.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're such an intimate little nuclear industry, but it's exciting to me that there's still people who you are kind of crossing paths with all these time, but all this time, but there's still so many people to meet, even though we are like a little high school or something.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it feels like it's true.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's, you know, uh it is a small industry, but a lot of people will jump around or, you know, uh has have been in the industry for a long time.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh but there are still going to be pockets of people that you haven't met yet.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, going to the same conferences year in year in and year out, it's it's very easy to quickly uh you know build relationships with people that that last a long time.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for this again.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, again, looking forward to it.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I loved our discovery call.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: That was a a lot of fun, and we have some similar interests and things like that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to get to the conversation.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: But before we do, could you give our listeners a high-level 60-second rundown of Framatome and your role within that organization?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Of course.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Framatome is uh one of the largest uh nuclear services companies in the world.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we operate uh in in several, several countries all around the world, 22,000 employees right now.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: All we do is nuclear.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we are the OEM for the EPR reactor, but we also service all reactor technologies, including CANDU technology.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um in Canada, we are one of the uh key suppliers for OPG and Bruce Power when it comes to our engineering technology development and field services.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we are actively supporting on a number of key areas for the refurbishment programs as well as some of the sustaining capital works at at all the stations across Ontario.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um of the key value propositions that we have is we have seen many issues all around the world.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, of the 400 or so reactors that are operating today, Framatome has been involved in projects or are ongoing services for around 390 of those.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when there is an issue that comes up at OPG or Bruce, chances are we've seen it before.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we can very quickly mobilize a team and reach out to our pool of experts all around the world to build a solution that's already been largely developed and just uh kind of modify it to suit the CANDU reactor, apply Canadian codes and standards, and uh we are able to do that in a cost-effective manner that uh can quickly solve problems that come up for OPG and Bruce.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you are the chief operating officer for Canada, correct?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct, yes.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So my role is for uh managing the day-to-day operations across our entire business within the installed base group in Canada.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so uh providing services for OPG and Bruce, and again, that involves engineering, procurement, construction, as well as technology development.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also responsible for the strategy development and the overall project management and profit and loss for the corporation.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have around 500 people that report into me, both engineers, project managers, and professionals, as well as trades.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we are a fully integrated EPC organization, uh, one of the few, if not the only, truly EPC integrated organization in Canada for nuclear.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, having hundreds of engineers and hundreds of uh of trades, uh we are able to provide that uh one-stop turnkey solution for for our customers, uh, which is very helpful because it allows us to uh do the construction planning early uh in the design phase.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when we are ultimately in construction, we have our designers that can help with with any field changes in in in uh in real time and uh you know engage the procurement teams throughout the entire lifecycle as well to deliver the value to the customers.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a very uh effective business model for us, and that will continue to be uh helpful as as we grow into more complex EPC projects with new builds coming up.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell It's so funny.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think even in our opening here, we we already have so many abbreviations.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've joked about it before, but I'm really I'm gonna have to start for our listeners who maybe are learning about uh nuclear or new into it.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to start something on social media where it's like guess the abbreviation, you know, poll and you guess what the uh the correct long form is.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: But that's fantastic.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so with your role, there is a lot of discipline, processes, procedures, making sure operationally things are getting done at the time they need to get done and um in the way that they need to get done.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you grew up in an ecosystem or an environment where that same kind of logic or foundation was very important.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: You grew up on a farm in Alberta, correct?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: When I was really young, yes.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So my my uh both my parents grew up, grew up in Edmonton, Alberta.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, their their parents were, you know, working on farms for for a lot a lot of their lives.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we had a property that uh that that was ultimately used for farming.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we, you know, I I moved when I was about seven years old to Ontario.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I do remember that um, you know, that part of my life and you know some of the traits that my family have, of course, of working very hard, you know, all the time, you know, getting things done, uh, that was instilled with me at a very young age.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I've I've brought a lot of those values and and behaviors with me uh everywhere I've gone so far in my life, from you know from uh you know personal life to school to now my career, you know.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'm uh very proud of that background for sure.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell What kind of farm was it?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um what type of farming?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, I I mean my grandparents had uh a number of different types of crops when it comes to you know wheat and uh that that type of stuff.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: My my parents' farm was more so just a property and you know, we had some cows and stuff like that.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but there was a lot of uh a lot of support that my my mom had to give my dad, my my my mom had to give my my granddad.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, our our kids, uh us kids were all involved in supporting wherever we needed to just to get you know the massive property maintained and whatnot.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's such a different lifestyle.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in the city, but I grew up showing horses really competitively.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent quite a bit of time on on farms growing up, and and of course horse farms mostly, but sometimes there's others.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And my days when I woke up on a farm versus when I woke up at home in the city, even though I had chores and things that I had to kind of do when I when I woke up at home, the farm life is a completely different kind of rain or shine, like it or not, tired or not, you have to get up and take care of the things that need to get taken care of.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the discipline that that puts in you.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of it has faded for me now, especially I think sometimes I'm not as productive as as I might have been if I if I had grown up fully on the farm.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um it's interesting how some of those traits, as you'd mentioned, even though they seemed insignificant at the time, they start showing up throughout your life and how those foundational moments are kind of there shaping us still today or influencing us today.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, I agree.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my mom has some of the best work ethic that I've ever seen.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm very uh um, you know, inspired by by how much how hard she's worked her whole life.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, so building up on some of that and you know, day in and day out, working as hard as I possibly can to produce results or to help people is is ultimately what drives me now.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell And it's incredible.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I find a lot of people in that environment, the ability to just get things done.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It might not be perfect and it might not be the absolute best way you could have done it, but it gets done usually.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: They find a way, so which is a another incredible characteristic that uh, you know, I think a lot of leaders do have and should have, and that we're all kind of always working towards.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: But and and so you moved over and you had some other pretty interesting um interests and passions as you grew up.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: You were an avid book reader, uh, you got involved with music early on.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Am I remembering that correctly?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when we were moved over here when I was, I guess would have been in grade two at the time.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So old enough to, you know, uh still have uh some memories around, you know, coming from Alberta and whatnot.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: But um when we moved here, you know, I I was uh, you know, pretty new, obviously, to the to the community and and I started to uh develop some friendships and whatnot.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, reading Harry Potter was one some of the stuff that a lot of us were doing back then as millennials, right?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that was uh, you know, a pretty major part of my childhood for sure.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I remember um, you know, getting into the first book and and really starting to read that over and over again until the next book came out and keep doing that over and over again.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I I probably read that book series, I don't know, forty, fifty times.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: At least the first few books, and you know, just by waiting for the next one to come out.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And going through that process, it really started to get me into uh school, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because the key theme of that book was was school, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to really appreciate um learning a lot more as I went through that.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, just the the notion of reading uh started to kind of change something in in my own approach to uh to learning and to just you know intelligence in general.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that was something that um I think was a big shaping of my childhood for sure.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And on the music side, you know, I started playing guitar um when I was about 11 years old.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so a little bit older than when we moved out here, but uh I I played a lot of music, um, started to get into um, you know, both acoustic and electric guitar.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um my brother played a little bit as well, and I think that was a big um influence for me uh growing up, was to wanted to play because my big brother played.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell And you correct me if I'm wrong, you are the youngest of four.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that is and just a little tangent here.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was listening to a podcast the other day or a master class or something, and it was on relationship management and understanding how we as individuals approach relationships, either personally, professional uh professionally, or whatever it may be.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And something that really triggered this thought process in my mind.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I have an older sister, but the um the expert, she was saying how the differences of how many siblings we have can really influence how we show up in the workplace.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh youngest sibling of a large family, uh you have to fight for more attention sometimes.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're used to maybe having to uh share and interact, not only physical things, but also attention and resources and things like that.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas an only child may struggle in different ways when they get into the workforce, and they're not the only ones that are are, you know, vying for attention of boss or leadership roles or things like that.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it was, and and I don't know, I bring that up for really no reason other than it was so interesting because I'd never thought before of that aspect of how we grow up.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Even how many siblings do we have, and how does that start kind of integrating into how we react or how we um respond to workforce and and people that we're working with?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it was incredible.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you had four uh all boys mix with the Yeah, so uh three siblings, and uh oldest is uh is a sister and then a brother and then another sister and then myself.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the four of us, and and I fully agree.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean having having a a bigger family helps with uh you know conflict resolution, negotiation, leadership, collaboration, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and I've got three kids now, so I'm I'm quite thankful that they're gonna have the experiences of, you know, trying to figure things out as they go and you know, uh I you know, ultimately working with others and and negotiating and you know, trying to give them more unstructured play as well.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in in our when we were kids, we would go outside all the time and play with our friends out in out in the uh in the street or in the field or wherever it might be.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, these days a lot of people aren't doing that for whatever reason, a lot of parents.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like uh by giving our kids more unstructured play, it it also allows them to get that conflict resolution, negotiation, um, type of soft skills that are so important in uh in leadership today.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, I would say that having having a bigger family was helpful for sure.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell That's so true what you say about structured versus unstructured.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't have children myself, but uh I've I've noticed a lot of my friends who do everything their kids do after school is very like organized sports and they're in every sport or um like lessons and things like that, whereas we really were just let loose to go roam free.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, again, showing horses, I think of some of the things that we got into, like just taking horses and ripping out back into the fields and some of the trouble we could have gotten into, maybe.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that, that sense of play and and as you said, conflict rev resolution, all those, but even dealing with uh rainy days, getting through boredom, right?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what are we gonna do and how are we gonna problem solve the fact that we don't have anything to do?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll make up a game, that creative thinking, that kind of curiosity.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then with the siblings, I think it also taught me no matter how much my sister and I have an older sister Carrie, we would butt heads, we'd be the first to kind of go toe-to-toe and get in fights.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: But when things went south, she's also the first person I turned to.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so understanding from a young age the importance of a true teammate and someone that has your back, and you may not always agree, but you will always come together to get through the hard times.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was a lesson that I feel very lucky to have had with with Carrie, with my sister.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure you had that too.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there's some times where you guys maybe had to band together to get through some moments, uh, whether with parents or teachers or whatever it is.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: But that teammate value comes in too when we have when we have to share the uh growing up space.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so now going back, you got into the music, it really transformed you as a student or in your academic life.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you didn't always start off then as someone who maybe was a scholar in school or put a lot of focus or emphasis on the learning part of of your youth.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And my the early part of my, you know, grade two, three, four, five, that, you know, the early part of elementary school, I didn't really um have too much of a focus on what success really was for school.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was more so focused on on play, right, and having fun, I think, which is fairly natural.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, as I started to get a lot more into reading and into music, something certainly shifted in in how I approached it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I mentioned that, you know, with with the Harry Potter series and a lot of books uh focused on on school and then just with music, I mean, music and math are are quite uh kind of correlated in in a certain way.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think something clicked in in how I approached, you know, uh logic and thinking and uh just passion in general around some of these topics.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, I st I turned my uh my focus for sure from uh uh, you know, let's say around grade eight, grade nine is when I really started to change how I approached uh school and um just kind of learning in general.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I started to get a lot more interested in math and science.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, again, Harry Potter, very interesting, you know, with magic and all these kind of things.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a little bit of uh science fiction and and and science in general um, you know, uh relationship there, and the music and the math.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So those two things really started to shape how I were was was interested in certain topics.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I really became passionate about science, uh, you know, around around high school, of course.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um physics, chemistry in particular were my two favorite subjects in addition to into math.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I took that all the way through grade 12 and ultimately into university where I ultimately uh decided to go into engineering.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Now, before we move on to that phase, the engineering and and growth there, what house would you have been in?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: What uh are you a Gryffindor?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like is that I feel like that's the You know, I I I always kind of said either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, you know.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I'd I'd be happy with any of them.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell I feel like I'd be a Hufflepuff because the only reason why I think that is because I associate it the most with like animals and I don't know why.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I I'm not as versed um uh in Harry Potter, but I feel like I'd I'd want to say I'm a Gryffindor because that seems to be where the heroes live.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, I might be a Hufflepuff.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have to learn more.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I have to do one of those quizzes online, you know, that that sorts you.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And have you ever been to uh the Harry Potter universe or down at Universal Studios?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we went last year, actually, for March break, brought the brought the family down uh to uh Orlando and we did the whole Disney and Magic Studios or Universal Studios.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Universal Studios.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: You saved yourself because I'm a Disney uh pretty big Disney fan.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've been 58 times now to Disney World.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: When I go, I also do runs and marathons and marathons this year.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was impressive.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't go just to um enjoy the parks, which I do love.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: But so you it was good that you did both.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're allowed to stay in the studio now that you acknowledged you went to Universal and Disney.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's right.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: We actually went to more Disney than than Universal.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Say more.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's perfect.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we will get back now into your journey into university.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: You decided to go the engineering route, but the route that you originally wanted wasn't the route that came to be.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Explain that a little bit because you went for one and you ended up in another.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Yeah.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to McMaster for for engineering.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that McMaster's engineering program is structured is the first year is general in nature, and then you specialize after your first year in into uh whatever field that you've you've you've been selected into uh for the for the remaining part of the program.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in my first year, you know, my whole thought process was I wanted to go into the mechanical and management program.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um I seemed to resonate with that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I enjoyed physics, uh, you know, I enjoyed the idea of a management uh uh kind of journey in in my career.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and at the same time, in in the first year, I was very much focused on the networking aspects and you know meeting people and enjoying the the first year experience.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so as a result of that, you know, my my first year was was not as strong as it probably could have been if I was a bit more focused on the actual studies of of of uh you know the first year program.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: You were developing your networking skills.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell That's right.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and it was fine.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, ultimately the way that it was selected, mechanical management was the number one uh ranked program.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wanted to go into that one.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And my second choice was engineering physics, uh, because I really enjoyed uh you know physics in general and and some of the more cutting-edge elements of science.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I ended up getting selected into that second choice, which to me was uh an excellent, looking backwards, uh, a very you know good result at the end of the day.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think I would have been bored in in the mechanical program, not not because it's boring, but because it doesn't uh resonate with my passions as much as the more science-backed uh engineering physics program did.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I was fortunate to go through that uh that program and get some good co-op opportunities at Atomic Energy of Canada, where I really started to enjoy um and start and really feel like I had some strengths in the industrial aspect of the program, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not so much so the uh actual engineering and in the school part, which by the way, I recovered pretty strongly at at the end of the day.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um but when it comes to working in the co-ops and working with people and on projects and seeing real-world challenges, I really, really like that.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I had the opportunity to get that co-op program and uh returned after graduation to AECL uh to get a full-time position at uh Chalk River, again at AECL.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell And was that your first introduction to nuclear?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like nuclear wasn't on your radar when you went into school, but was your intro to it just that the um placement at Atomic?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the the engineering physics program was was structured similarly to how the the first year uh for engineering in general at McMaster was structured.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So in your first year of engineering physics, so the second year of the program, that was also general for engineering physics.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then in your third year, you specialize further.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So in my second year of university, my first of engineering physics, um, I uh tried out the nanotechnology aspects of engineering physics, the photonics, the nuclear aspects of it.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I seemed to enjoy the nuclear part of it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I appreciated the science.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um I understood in that program that Ontario was heavily reliant on nuclear power.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um doing some research on it, I believed that there was a future in uh in nuclear because of the climate change angle.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I decided to specialize in in that direction.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in the uh the process of selecting where I wanted to work as a summer student in the co-op program, um, AECL was my first choice, and I was uh fortunate to get that opportunity.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: You made a good bet.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's working out okay, the the love of nuclear.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so, with that, when your time at Chalk River.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: That really was a time in your career and the projects that you worked on and some of the things you were being introduced to where you were honing your skills.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Really, that's where you got a lot of that technical expertise as your your career progressed with Chalk River and some of the work you were doing.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's where you you stepped in and really formed that confidence and everything before the rest of the career took over.
• 22:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, in in school, I was uh, as I mentioned, the first year I was, you know, fairly average.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: My my uh second, third, and fourth year, I started to become better than uh I certainly was, but I was never a top-of-the-class student.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I don't think that uh that really mattered necessarily, but you know, going into industry, I felt like it didn't matter, right?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you could go in there and what what was really important was, you know, your your soft skills.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, having the background and speaking the language and knowing the science and and the uh the you know the building blocks, the first principles was was important.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to doing work in the fields and and running projects um and running maintenance and operations programs, which is what I was doing at at uh Chalk River for the Medical Isotopes program, um, you know, I felt like I could be, you know, very strong in that area.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I I started to develop a confidence around my uh my capabilities, you know, outside of the academic world and more so in the real applied world of industry.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: So my role in the medical isotopes division was to support with the molybdenum-99 production, um, which at the time was producing around two-thirds of the world's supply of Moly99 around the world.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I was in the field every day with trades, radiation protection, uh, with the engineers and the project team to make sure that the operations and maintenance of the facility went smoothly.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that was it was a short position for me.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was only there for about, you know, eight, nine months or so.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that short time was was extremely foundational uh at the same time.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was able to get some confidence, to uh appreciate seeing things in the field for the first time in a nuclear setting, you know, not behind a desk every day, but seeing the actual work be done in a facility, in a licensed facility, was really powerful.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I didn't want to live in Chalk River uh for uh you know my young adulthood.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to, you know, move back and you know be closer to friends and family.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I did seek a position back in Sheridan Park uh at ACL.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that was right around the time that SNC Lavelin had purchased the commercial division of ACL.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved back at the exact same time that Candu Energy was was formed.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I joined that uh the uh engineering division to support with instrumentation and control design for the enhanced CANDU 6 reactor.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I spent uh a number of years in that role, uh, you know, supporting the SDS-1 uh control logic design, the reactor regulating system control logic, um, heat transport system design, some moderator temperature and pump control systems, um, in addition to looking at uh certain attributes of the advanced fuel candy reactor, supporting some some new build programs for the Argentina uh the Argentina program in a two-three as well, um, and really appreciated all of that.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: But again, just going back to my my comment earlier, I was never the top of the class in engineering, right?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I and I wanted to be, you know, the best.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be very strong in in what I was doing.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I could have been a very average engineer and, you know, maybe above average um over time, but you know, I didn't have a master's degree.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I wasn't a specialist in in any of these domains.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I chose to, you know, uh leverage some of the strengths that I felt like I have had been developing over the years in terms of uh, you know, teamwork and collaboration and leadership.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I was looking for an opportunity to uh branch out and and and find something um within the organization that would give me the opportunity to do so.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was fortunate to uh land a role working for directly directly for the uh president and CEO of Kando Energy as their executive assistant, uh essentially in a chief of staff capacity, uh, where I uh was successful ultimately in that in that interview process.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I spent uh about two years in that role, learning all kinds of different parts of the business, um, you know, sitting on the senior leadership team, learning about business development, learning about general leadership, PL management, um, you know, the various elements of quality, safety, and how all of that ties into running an enterprise in the nuclear industry.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a it was a fantastic opportunity for me.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very lucky to have had that opportunity to uh to play that role.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was meant to be uh short-term in nature, rotational development type of capacity.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And after two years, I was uh plugged into a business development role where I was responsible for a number of different markets, uh ranging from the United States um through uh France a little bit too.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of France, and ultimately I spent the most time working in Ontario, uh, focused on Ontario power generation in particular, um, looking at uh growing their engineering services business, their inspection and maintenance business, spare parts, decommissioning waste management, and the early parts of their new build program.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you really, I mean, we look at your career now, and I think it's so vital to remember that before you can lead, you really have to have that competence and the confidence.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And before you can have influence, you need the credibility.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so, with everything that you were doing, you were excelling on the technical side and doing your work there.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: But even that little thread that you pulled of, you know what, I want to explore more and I want to develop my skill sets in other ways with the business side of things, with the people side of things, even the travel and working in different regions.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, we can never kind of belittle the impact that that has of learning how do different people operate, uh, different cultures, all of those things really started to, again, all build your capabilities and your competencies, but just extend you from this technical guy to someone who, I think you put it to me, um, the three legs of a stool.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a is that how you described it?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Of you have the technical, the people, and the organizational one or the operational?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a mentor of mine, you know, many years ago mentioned to me that, you know, you don't necessarily need to go exactly where you want to be in 20, 30 years, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's important though is that you know what the vector is and the general area that you're going for.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you look at the the span of opportunities in any career as a circle, you know, you can go into multiple different directions, right?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's important is that, you know, you kind of get an idea of what quadrant you kind of want to be in, right?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you can go purely technical, you can go purely finance or purely HR or purely in into a uh a business development type of role.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, for me, my vector was I wanted to lead.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to try to grow something into and to run a business.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: That that's where I wanted to go.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And how I got there, you know, it was it you can go in multiple different directions.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: But a mentor of mine told me that to be in that type of capacity, you need to, you know, kind of live around that circle a little bit in different, in different buckets at different times, and to build up your competencies and to build up the foundation like a stool, right?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you can have different legs of the stool that you can that can you can you can sit on ultimately, but you know, a really weak stool will break.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: A strong stool you can you can stand on, you can have a foundation for your career.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the the legs of that stool was um engineering, technical in some capacity.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was business development and strategy, and it was operations, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the fourth one would be people management.
• 29:34
  unknown: Right.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I I knew at that point when I was told that advice that I only had one leg of the stool, which was the engineering and and in some capacity operations as well with my role in Truck River.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I knew I knew I needed to find areas to grow and develop in those other areas.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So by getting the opportunity as the chief of staff, I was able to kind of feel around a little bit and get an enterprise perspective and ultimately know that when I finished that rotation, I wanted to be plugged into a business development capacity to develop those skill sets.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent around five years in BD working on capture planning and understanding the industry, uh, learning how to build a good proposal and ultimately how to build a strong value proposition around something that you're trying to pursue.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that was uh an excellent opportunity.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I finished those five years, I realized I needed a little bit more uh development in uh you know people management and leadership and in other areas of business in general.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided to pursue an MBA to fill up some of the gaps in a number of areas across uh general management.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and when I finished that MBA, I I was looking for that third leg of the stool.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking for an opportunity to run a PL, a profit and loss, um, and also to find areas to manage people so I could start to work on my management and my leadership skills.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I was fortunate to get that opportunity and and uh work for Connectrix, um, where I uh I spent uh about two years, you know, running their inspection maintenance uh division in different capacities from you know um reactor tooling for uh inspections on Calandria um and on uh pressure tubes to uh you know going into the field and and and supporting uh on the outages and critical path.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, okay, so just to back up a little bit here, it's funny you say the fourth, the fourth um leg of the stool could be people management.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: I always think the people management side is like the top of the stool where people, it's happening with all of them, and you have to be able to manage them in the technical sense, in the business sense, and in the operational sense, because they're they're everywhere.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I always think that's the top of the stool that kind of binds it all together.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if if you don't have a top, what good are the legs, right?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a stool that way either.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: And going back to how you mentioned, sometimes your academia wasn't the strongest.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Mine wasn't either.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I found if I was really interested in something, I always did well, for example, in my history classes.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but if I found myself in a course or in a lesson that didn't really capture my mind, I was not the straight A student.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't have the discipline in that way.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the the reason why I bring this up is do you find sometimes people and maybe young people today, they put so much emphasis on the academia and and doing it right.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if I don't get this, it's gonna limit this.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas I think sometimes it works out the way it is and and follow what you're passionate about, but don't worry so much.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't got good grades, you can change it.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can start to learn, you can better yourself, you can gain confidence in other ways, but it's never too late to pivot and still be exceptional at what you want to do.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, I I agree.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, gr grades on everything.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, ultimately, you you need to have a foundation.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Especially engineers.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like we want you guys to do well in school, because that's you know, 100%.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and to be clear, you know, I I did get straight A's ultimately in my fourth year.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in my MBA, I also I finished top 10% in the class.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: So things pivoted, things transformed.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: You changed the right.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: But what really matters, you know, to me is not just the skills.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first started interviewing students uh, you know, many years ago for co-op positions, I told them like what really matters are the three C's, right?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: You got your competencies, you have your character, and you have your commitment, right?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: The competencies is is part of that is grades, but part of that is also other skills, right, that that are not not necessarily through through school.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: The the character piece is really important as well.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, are you driven?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have good temperance?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Can you work with people?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, are you able to balance your kind of ethical and and uh you know ambition and all that to have good judgment at the end of the day, right?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: So character-based leadership is so key on people and and in my hiring decisions as well.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the commitment piece.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are you committed to a vision?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you committed to a purpose?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can you can you buy into where the company is going?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you be a part of the team and what we're trying to do?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can you be committed to that?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is so key.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can hire the best and brightest student, but if they don't have those other two attributes, they won't be a good member of the team and they won't be successful.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's there's a lot more to it, right?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was uh, you know, earlier in my career building up that kind of stool, so to speak, those were the four uh the four legs of the stool, right?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: But as I've gotten into a different role, your point is exactly correct.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about people at this point, right?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: The foundation's there.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And now how I get results and how I can inspire is is ultimately through leadership, right, and through people and through vision, right?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: So how I'm uh you know able to lead my team and to grow my business, it if my people are successful, the company can be successful, right?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if we do people well, if we do people very well and treat them well, make sure they stay, make sure they're happy, they're trained, they're getting good development, profit will follow.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Schedule will follow, everything else will follow.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: So people come first at this point.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And always have really.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as they always should.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've kind of transcended there.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a point in your career, and you said you you knew you always wanted to get into that leadership role, and and maybe that spurred on some of your strategic thinking of what you needed going and getting your MBA and doing those things.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: But at some point, there must have been this transition where it k became less about your wins and more about ensuring others were getting their wins.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and really what was what are some of the challenges that come with that?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because you seem to be someone who you like to go and get things done and you like to um achieve things.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: How do you transition from being the person who's doing to the person who is observing and supporting others in the doing?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was a difficult transition, and it's and it's still in transition, to be to be honest.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think everybody is in that uh that state of, you know, wanting to get things done, you know, right the first time, and and it's you know difficult to delegate sometimes, but ultimately, you know, if we're trying to do something as a 500-person organization and you know, that will grow, not one person can do it, right?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's key to develop people and to set good expectations and to coach and and ultimately uh you know keep bringing people in to support and to grow um to make sure that the the organization can go in the right direction and be successful.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, from going from an individual contributor in my earlier role, and I I learned a lot about how to get things done and you know, I had good mentors along the way.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And now in in my role today, I I do a lot more um, you know, kind of setting actions and and and you know, tracking and providing guidance and oversight and support to my people versus actually doing individual roles myself.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's times to play both, right?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's times to uh to support, there's times to micromanage, there's there's times to um, you know, give complete rope, there's times to delegate.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: It just depends on the circumstances, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that that really comes down to situational uh leadership, right?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on the person, it depends how new they are to a role, it depends on the significance of the opportunity or the project you're working on.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh you know, ultimately, if we can grow our people to be able to do those things, you know, and and you can create a successor and you can have that person create their successor, then ultimately the entire organization can grow and everybody gets new opportunities.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we need to do ultimately as leaders is to develop people and consider ourselves almost like a training organization, right?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we do training well and we do people well, I'll say it again: profit follows, schedule follows, growth follows.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Business always follows people.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Good business follows good people.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so here's what I struggle with is because I'm going through this, of course.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: My business, we have over 10 people now and it's growing.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm used to, you know, the first two years of my business, it was just me putting on the multiple hats.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an impatient person.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like going from, you know, crawling to walking to running to sprinting.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to get to the sprint.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Where I struggle as a leader sometimes is wanting to just put my team at the end zone.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if we started a project, I want to jump in and say, well, here's here's the answer, here's the end product that we're gonna deliver.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of letting them kind of sort through and guiding them to ultimately the end product for the client, for the podcast, or whatever it is, how do you, how do have you made that transition because it's something I struggle with.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to lead them there and get them there as fast as possible, but you have to allow them to kind of learn that process for themselves.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's very true.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's difficult to, you know, kind of change your paradigm to do that.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, what I've learned, both in in that exact scenario, but also in my own personal growth, is it's more so about the journey versus the destination, right?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: So how we do things um and uh, you know, how we're following process and how we fall as we get up, you know, and get up to to learn from that and you know, get humbled by things and ultimately uh get to where we need to go, and people aren't going to get develop along the way, is more important than just getting to the answer right.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because when you do it that way, you can build more sustainable uh individuals, you can build more grit in the organization as well, which which is important because challenges will continuously come up.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: So having grit is important as well in in in the organization and in the people, right?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't grit get grit if you don't go through the process of you know getting there, right?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a you bring up a key point of what the win starts to look like in a role of leadership.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, maybe I still look at the win as getting to the right answer.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas really I need to start developing myself as someone who sees the win as my team going through the process of g of getting to their right answer.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I have to walk the line because of course when I have my marketing hat on, um I need to make sure it's up to certain standards and things like that, just like you do within the organization.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it it really is that kind of thought process of the win now is not getting to the right answer as fast as possible.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's developing the skill sets that gets everyone across the finish line together.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hard one to learn.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking for an impatient person who just says, we should do this and this and this and this and go do it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it has nothing to do with, I find, even um, trusting the team or anything like that.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have great people that work work with me as I'm I know you have an amazing team behind you.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's almost like this addiction to efficiency, just wanting to get there the quickest route possible.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas sometimes that almost detracts because you're not getting those lessons and kind of the perspective that going on the non-direct journey might give you.
• 40:42
  unknown: Yeah.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to get you have to go through that journey because you're gonna grow at the same time, right?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, and as you grow, you're gonna need people to do the roles that maybe you were doing six months ago, right?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or a year ago, right?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it and if you haven't developed people, then all of a sudden the people that were, you know, that are key leaders in the organization or or whatnot are gonna be overburdened, right?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's gonna result in quality issues or or in in slips or whatever it might be.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's almost a a requirement to be sustainable, to go through these learning processes.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, as you scale, you know, you're gonna you're gonna fall down, right?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Well, that is a very good point.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so nuclear right now, we are on the verge of, I think, growth that we've never seen really in a long time.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's such an exciting time to be in our space.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know our time is running out here, but right now, either within your organization or at large in our sector, what is really exciting you about the nuclear power uh sector right now in Canada and across the world?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell I think that the biggest thing that comes to mind immediately is, you know, when I first entered this industry as a nuclear engineer, you know, when I selected that in my, you know, I guess third year of engineering after I went to my engineering physics program, a lot of people asked me, what are you thinking?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, are are you sure about this?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when I would defend my, you know, reasonings and try to give the value proposition of nuclear, a lot of people would, you know, kind of uh, you know, ridicule that, right?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or or say that uh you're drinking the Kool-Aid, right?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: But that's changed today.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if if you look at where we are today versus 15 years ago, the the narrative and and the overall uh you know conversation around nuclear in Canada and around the world is very positive.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's the most important thing.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have a social license today that we didn't have before.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there would always be the demand on electricity, there would always be some form of uh you know support in different parts of government or utilities.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: But having that social license to me is is what's really special because people are s they're happy about this.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: They get it.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's uh that's what excites me about where we're going today.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell It's funny, it reminds me, I think it's the Loretta Lynn song, uh I was country before country was cool, something along those lines.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: You were nuclear before nuclear was cool, because now clearly we see that you did place the bet in the right industry and we are growing, and there's so much opportunity here.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it is fun that people now kind of are getting on board and wanting to learn more and wanting to engage more.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, more and more are wanting to enter into our workforce and kind of become a part of this.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's what's exciting a lot of us right now.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I looking back, what I love most about your career again is it's a reminder that there's all these little different moments that we're working on ourselves in different ways.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we look back at kind of your childhood and some of your interests that maybe seemed so insignificant at the time, but that was the first building block of your learning and development on the skill sets, the attributes, the even the way you approach learning and what excites you and intrigues you about learning.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: Then we look at the time in your career where you were developing yourself and really making sure that you had those competencies that now in this building block of your career is fully unleashed to lead others who are maybe, you know, still developing themselves.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: You've gone through that and you've taken the time and you've expanded yourself so that your influence is just that much stronger for for Amatome and for the nuclear sector.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to thank you again so much for being in the studio with me and uh for having this conversation.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: It has been so much fun and and I'm glad you're here today.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Caitlin.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I really do appreciate it and thank you for the opportunity.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think Steve Jobs said it, you know, you can only connect the dots looking backwards, right?
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've still got a lot more to go.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm halfway through my career, right?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think uh you can't ever stop learning.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's always going to be opportunity for everybody.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh what I will say is that the world needs nuclear, right?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's uh it's a really important uh time for people in this industry to rally and and and get behind a common mission of building these plants on time, on budget, and finding a way to position Canada to be successful all around the world in this because we have a significant value proposition.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if we can all rally around that, we uh we'll be successful.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: The world needs nuclear, nuclear needs its people, and I want to thank you so much for being one of those individuals and coming in and sharing your story with us today and splitting atoms with me.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Caitlin.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us for this conversation.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: The Splitting Atoms podcast is produced by Splitting Atoms Media, a division of the Carolyn Corporation.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: All of our conversations are made possible through the support of our founding partner, the Nuclear Innovation Institute.