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Steve Chats with a member of the Vancouver Board of Trade, Part 2

Part 2

Steve: So did you then work for, before you came to the Board of Trade, did you work as an accountant, or as a business manager, or human resources? What sorts of fields did you cover?

Jack: Well, when I first got out of school, and I signed up with the CMA program, I started in level one, and part of the-the beauty of the CMA program was to encourage their students to have real-life experience, as well as taking courses through the levels, so as you progressed through the program, you were encouraged to take more and more responsible positions in accounting or finance. So in my first five years, I spent over in North Vancouver. I was the cost accountant with the Versatile Civic Shipyard, which is now defunct; it's no longer there in North Van. I worked within the project a construction team, on some of the first sea-class ferries that were built over there, the icebreakers, the Coast Guard icebreakers, and a couple of big tow barges, log barges that were built over there. That kind of gave me a grounding of the cost side and the budgeting part of the whole financial control process. So from there, after spending five years at the shipyard, I needed to get to more senior-level positions. I left the shipyard and then became Assistant Comptroller with a machine shop operation in Langley, and as I worked through that, when I graduated from my accounting program, I was supposed to really take on-I would be ready to take on a comptroller's ship position. And then I went out to work for a real estate development company in Vancouver, and from there I spent three or four years with the company, and then I basically fell in love with the real estate development business. That's my forte; I spent seven years on my own, moving as a gypsy from one project to another, just hiring myself out as a hired gun, as a budget comptroller. Steve: Oh, so as a comptroller for development projects.

Jack: That's right. Steve: Not as a real estate developer or as a seller of real estate, but as a budget comptroller, which is so important on these large projects, which can easily-in fact, normally-go over budget.

Jack: [laughter] Yeah, because before I ended up here at the Board of Trade, I had just finished up working with a local developer called Concert Properties, which you may or may not be aware of. They are mostly a residential and commercial developer in Vancouver, and they were putting a proposal to build the new convention center-an extension of the Vancouver Convention Center. The project was dubbed "Portside," which was going to go up on the east side of Canada Place, and it was being built in conjunction with the Canada Place pier extension, the Seabus relocation project, as well as a hotel site. That project was about $900 million in the budget for that, and I was the project comptroller for Portside. Because of the NDP government at that time, it was too expensive for them, and so they shelled the project. I was retained after they wound up the project with Portside; I was retained to basically be as part of the wind-up team, and we had a big, huge garage sale, because we had purchased all those materials pre-budget. [laughter] So I was part of the wind-up team with the province. And then from there, I eventually ended up here on the Board. I was looking for a new project to get my hands on, and I asked around, and people tell me if anybody knows anything that's going on in Vancouver, go see Darcy Rezak down at the Board of Trade. [laughter] So that's how I ended up-I set up a meeting with Darcy, came in, and I guess, being in the right place at the right time, he had an opening in the board for a comptroller. A comptroller had just left, so midway through this interview that I was interviewing him for work, he began interviewing me for the job! [laughter]

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Part 2

Steve: So did you then work for, before you came to the Board of Trade, did you work as an accountant, or as a business manager, or human resources? What sorts of fields did you cover?

Jack: Well, when I first got out of school, and I signed up with the CMA program, I started in level one, and part of the-the beauty of the CMA program was to encourage their students to have real-life experience, as well as taking courses through the levels, so as you progressed through the program, you were encouraged to take more and more responsible positions in accounting or finance. So in my first five years, I spent over in North Vancouver. I was the cost accountant with the Versatile Civic Shipyard, which is now defunct; it's no longer there in North Van. I worked within the project a construction team, on some of the first sea-class ferries that were built over there, the icebreakers, the Coast Guard icebreakers, and a couple of big tow barges, log barges that were built over there. That kind of gave me a grounding of the cost side and the budgeting part of the whole financial control process. So from there, after spending five years at the shipyard, I needed to get to more senior-level positions. I left the shipyard and then became Assistant Comptroller with a machine shop operation in Langley, and as I worked through that, when I graduated from my accounting program, I was supposed to really take on-I would be ready to take on a comptroller's ship position. And then I went out to work for a real estate development company in Vancouver, and from there I spent three or four years with the company, and then I basically fell in love with the real estate development business. That's my forte; I spent seven years on my own, moving as a gypsy from one project to another, just hiring myself out as a hired gun, as a budget comptroller. Steve: Oh, so as a comptroller for development projects.

Jack: That's right. Steve: Not as a real estate developer or as a seller of real estate, but as a budget comptroller, which is so important on these large projects, which can easily-in fact, normally-go over budget.

Jack: [laughter] Yeah, because before I ended up here at the Board of Trade, I had just finished up working with a local developer called Concert Properties, which you may or may not be aware of. They are mostly a residential and commercial developer in Vancouver, and they were putting a proposal to build the new convention center-an extension of the Vancouver Convention Center. The project was dubbed "Portside," which was going to go up on the east side of Canada Place, and it was being built in conjunction with the Canada Place pier extension, the Seabus relocation project, as well as a hotel site. That project was about $900 million in the budget for that, and I was the project comptroller for Portside. Because of the NDP government at that time, it was too expensive for them, and so they shelled the project. I was retained after they wound up the project with Portside; I was retained to basically be as part of the wind-up team, and we had a big, huge garage sale, because we had purchased all those materials pre-budget. [laughter] So I was part of the wind-up team with the province. And then from there, I eventually ended up here on the Board. I was looking for a new project to get my hands on, and I asked around, and people tell me if anybody knows anything that's going on in Vancouver, go see Darcy Rezak down at the Board of Trade. [laughter] So that's how I ended up-I set up a meeting with Darcy, came in, and I guess, being in the right place at the right time, he had an opening in the board for a comptroller. A comptroller had just left, so midway through this interview that I was interviewing him for work, he began interviewing me for the job! [laughter]