Building a career with caring guidance
WSP engineers Caroline Couture-Trudel and Yasmin Anderson at Centre Block, the flagship building on Parliament Hill. Anita Carley
Young professionals find unique opportunities at engineering giant WSP
Yasmin Anderson is in the early stages of building her engineering career, two years after graduating with a specialized degree, while project lead manager Caroline Couture-Trudel has 15 years of experience managing large-scale engineering and design projects. They are working together at WSP on the design of the largest, most complex heritage-rehabilitation project ever undertaken in Canada: restoring and modernizing Centre Block, the flagship building on Parliament Hill.
“Working on the Centre Block project is truly a dream job, allowing me to embrace my passions for both heritage and sustainability,” says Ms. Anderson. She first became involved at age 19, as a co-op student in the architectural conservation and sustainability engineering program at Ottawa’s Carleton University. With her foot in the door, she continued on the project part-time during her undergrad years and joined the team full-time in 2021 as a structural engineer in training.
“With WSP, you’re given the chance to work on major, high-prestige projects, and for this project, I appreciate that it’s work that’s meaningful for Canadians,” says Ms. Anderson, a structural engineer in training, who describes being guided by the structural design leadership on a project of this scale and historical importance as an “incredible opportunity.” She and the entire team also receive excellent mentorship from the other WSP executive team members, including the project director, Susan Vivian.
Providing mentorship to young professionals is integral to WSP’s DNA. With more and more projects in the pipeline, the company is on a path to expand and rejuvenate its workforce, knowing that people looking to launch their careers value opportunities to work alongside and learn from those with expertise and experience.
The company also has initiatives dedicated to boosting mentorship, such as the coffee meeting program, where young people get partnered with a senior colleague for coffee conversations. Another program allows a junior person to link with a mentor in a country they are interested in.
Ms. Couture-Trudel sees recruiting young people into the ranks as an example of the “power of diversity,” saying youth bring a “breath of fresh air” to the work, all of which benefits WSP’s projects. “I’ve been able to learn new high-tech skills from Yasmin, and we all benefit from her knowledge of the latest advances in sustainability,” she says. “Our new recruits come in with energy, a desire to learn and different ideas that expand all our perspectives.”
The scope and complexity of the Centre Block project allow Ms. Anderson to learn about a broad range of disciplines and areas of expertise, with more than 500 architects, engineers and design professionals contributing to the design.
“As lead project manager, my job is to bring together people from different disciplines and areas of expertise, who in most cases have never worked together before – and to align them to reach our shared goal,” says Ms. Couture-Trudel. “Sometimes, we have truly niche technical specialists involved. And WSP has an incredible network of experts to add resources to projects. For example, we brought in an elevator specialist from WSP in England because of the building’s unique requirements for its elevators.”
All this exposure to multiple areas of specialization has been a tremendous education over the several years of her involvement in the Centre Block project, says Ms. Anderson. The now 25-year-old is zeroing in on a career direction, and she gives much of the credit to Ms. Couture-Trudel’s mentorship.
“Caroline has really had an impact on my career plans,” she says. “Initially, I thought I wanted to be a project manager, and she has helped guide my career more into the design stream. She has encouraged me to get my engineering licence, which I plan to pursue next year. She has really given me the confidence as a young woman to go into the challenging and technical area of design.”
Opportunities to change careers within one company and support for work-life balance
Early on, Ms. Anderson was excited about the prospect of working at WSP because of its international reach and the variety of divisions and projects. In that respect, Ms. Couture-Trudel has been an ideal role model since she has reinvented her career several times since joining WSP in 2008. She began with hotel project management work in Trinidad and Tobago and then relocated to Montreal, where she worked on building projects (for a hospital and a research centre). Then she moved to the transportation sector in projects for light rail and highway construction (the Turcot Interchange Project).
During these years, Ms. Couture-Trudel went on maternity leave and came back to the company to pick up her career journey. Both she and Ms. Anderson say flexibility and work-family balance are principles firmly embedded into WSP’s company culture.
“Working on the Centre Block project is truly a dream job, allowing me to embrace my passions for both heritage and sustainability.
With WSP, you’re given the chance to work on major, high-prestige projects, and for this project, I appreciate that it’s work that’s meaningful for Canadians.”
“I’ve got a nine-year-old and a 15-year-old,” says Ms. Couture-Trudel. “My children still need my attention and support, and the company is there to facilitate that. WSP has excellent benefits and generous policies governing time off and vacations, as well as for flexible hours to help employees balance their lives.”
Ms. Anderson adds, “The company provided me with tremendous flexibility options as I combined my job and my studies. I had very supportive bosses who allowed me to set my hours and made it possible to gain this valuable work experience as I completed my degree.”
“As lead project manager, my job is to bring together people from different disciplines and areas of expertise, who in most cases have never worked together before – and to align them to reach our shared goal. Our new recruits come in with energy, a desire to learn and different ideas that expand all our perspectives. ”
A company committed to innovation
Another feature of WSP that attracts young people is the chance to work for a leading firm that is paving the way in engineering innovation, pioneering new technologies and processes to deal with environmental challenges and to fuel development of new urban environments.
Ms. Anderson has been working on the Canadian decarbonization team. “We’re developing software that helps us study what is called embodied carbon in buildings,” she explains. “The goal is to design a building in ways that reduce things like the amount of steel and concrete that go into it. It’s very innovative, and I believe we’re really at the forefront of developing these types of new technologies.
“The responsibilities I’ve been given and the challenges I’ve been asked to help solve have made my work here so rewarding, and this will certainly prepare me well for career success.”
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