I got to where I am on a bit of a winding path. My parents came to Canada from England in the 1950s; my dad showed up here with £100 in his pocket, a cardboard suitcase and a toolbox. He was a tin-basher (sheet metal worker) and worked most of his career fabricating restaurant fixtures and cabinetry from stainless steel. I didn’t inherit my Dad’s hands, but I kinda hope I inherited his heart and his appreciation for craftsmanship and skills. I guess in some ways my focus on developing people, and the particular focus I’ve had on what would traditionally be called “blue collar” skills is a tribute to my dad and the thousands of others like him who came and built this country while building good lives for themselves and their families.

Since I wasn’t good enough to be a craftsman, I went to university. In my case this was one of Canada’s 3 (at the time) military colleges; I attended Collège Militaire Royal de St-Jean (CMR) from 1981 to 1986, where the goal was to try to turn me into someone who could lead people—that’s one of the cool things about the military colleges: even though you follow a particular degree path (mine was business administration), because they are more interested in leading people post-graduation, everyone also studied classic and contemporary literature, languages, political science, history, and philosophy. So even as a “technocrat” I got a truly broad liberal arts education.

My first career was thus as an officer in the Canadian air force, and “look after the troops and they’ll look after you” was an early and repeated lesson that has coloured my work ever since.

I left the military in the late 90s, worked in the manufacturing and aerospace industries for a few years, and my work on training and development led me through a round-about way to the world of consulting. I co-founded Griffiths Sheppard Consulting Group in the early 2000s and in 2019 joined two other expert colleagues to create WorkForce Strategies International, where we focus on addressing the human and organizational gaps that lead to improvements in safety, quality, productivity and overall competitiveness.

Most recently, I’ve begun working as the Director of the Skills, Innovation and Productivity centre at the Canada West Foundation, a non-partisan public policy think-tank where I get to take many of the things I’ve been doing at a micro/individual company level as a consultant, and put them through a macro lens to influence better public policy to generate economic success for western Canada.

I’m also a member of the Workforce Forum for the North American Strategy for Competitiveness, a member of the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Talent Pipeline Management network, and a few other things. All revolving around workforce and organizational competency as drivers for growth.

I’ve been inspired by the work of John Stepper and his “Working Out Loud” approach to create this space where I can write about the stuff I’m thinking and learning about, not only in my professional world but also the things I’m doing outside of it—everything from leadership to motorcycles to flying to philosophy—a sort of “laboratory” to cook up ideas, share them, and invite a broader dialogue.

I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you enjoy the journey!