Twenty Years in Infrastructure: An Honest Account
Twenty years in infrastructure teaches you that most project failures are not engineering failures. They are relationship failures, contract failures, and governance failures dressed up as engineering problems.
I started my career in Ontario’s construction industry in 2004 as a co-op student through Seneca College’s Civil Engineering Technology program. My first site was a municipal road reconstruction in the Region of Peel — nothing glamorous, but it was the beginning of understanding how physical infrastructure actually gets built versus how it gets planned.
Over the following decade, I worked my way through progressively complex projects — road widenings in Brampton, highway rehabilitation programs for the Ministry of Transportation Ontario, TTC rehabilitation contracts in Toronto, and eventually rail corridor expansion for Metrolinx through Fermar Paving. By the time I was managing a $110 million Stouffville Rail Corridor Track Expansion as Senior Project Manager, I had sat on both sides of the owner-contractor relationship enough times to understand why it so frequently becomes adversarial.
The Rail Projects That Shaped My Thinking
My years at Fermar Paving shaped my understanding of what it takes to deliver complex rail infrastructure on time and within budget. The Georgetown South Track Grading project — $100 million of earthworks, underground servicing, and rail construction on an active GO-Metrolinx corridor — required coordination with CN Rail, compliance with Canadian Rail Operating Rules, and management of a team and subcontractors across multiple simultaneous work fronts.
The Stouffville Rail Corridor Track Expansion that followed was more complex still. $110 million. Double-tracking an active commuter rail corridor while maintaining passenger service. The design staging plan I inherited had unnecessary crossovers that were adding time and cost. I reorganized the staging, reduced the number of crossovers required, and achieved substantial completion on schedule. That project taught me that constructability — the field knowledge that tells you which design assumptions won’t survive contact with actual ground conditions — is where contractor value gets created or wasted.
The Barrie Double Track Expansion was another lesson in schedule complexity. $80 million of rail construction with interdependencies that required continuous schedule analysis, what-if scenarios, and recovery planning. I was Project Scheduler on that program, and it built in me a discipline around critical path thinking that has informed every program I’ve managed since.
Moving Into the Owner’s Chair
Joining Metrolinx as a project manager in 2022 changed my perspective fundamentally. After spending nearly a decade delivering projects for contractors, I was now sitting on the other side of the table — representing the owner on programs worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Georgetown Train Station Accessibility and Rehabilitation project was my first major delivery role at Metrolinx. $150 million. Accessibility upgrades and full station rehabilitation. The most valuable thing I did on that project wasn’t the project management itself — it was a value engineering analysis that eliminated scope elements that weren’t serving the project’s business case, reducing the overall budget by 10%. And changing the pedestrian crossing design from a tunnel to a bridge, which cut cost by 15%, schedule by 30%, and risk by 20%.
What I also learned was that owner governance — the systems through which an organization makes decisions, approves changes, and manages risk — has an enormous effect on project outcomes. When governance is designed for a traditional procurement environment but a progressive contract model is being used, the friction between the two is immediate and persistent.
The Bowmanville Extension and the CMAR Experience
The Bowmanville Train Line Extension — a $2 billion rail extension on Canada’s busiest commuter corridor — became the central experience of my time at Metrolinx. Delivered under a Construction Manager at Risk model, it was one of the most ambitious progressive contracting engagements attempted in North American transit delivery.
As Manager, and then Acting Senior Manager, I was the primary owner’s representative within the CMAR relationship. I managed the commercial framework, led GMP negotiations, supervised a team of project managers and coordinators, and provided regular reporting to Metrolinx leadership on program performance. I also discovered, through hard experience, every challenge that the CMAR model creates when an owner’s governance framework isn’t designed to keep pace with the collaborative decision-making the contract requires.
The Move to Riyadh
In early 2025, my family and I relocated to Riyadh. It was not an impulsive decision. Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure pipeline — $196 billion in contract awards in 2025 alone, a National Privatization Strategy targeting 220 P3 transactions by 2030, and Vision 2030 programs at a scale I had never encountered in Canada — represented the most significant infrastructure delivery challenge of my generation.
I’m building Concept Dash’s presence in the Kingdom as Chief Business Development Officer for the MENA region. We offer infrastructure PMO services, BIM and digital twin capability, and OT cybersecurity services through our partnership with a NACSA-licensed cybersecurity firm. The Saudi market is more sophisticated, more ambitious, and more analytically demanding than I expected. The recalibration has been ongoing and genuinely educational.
This blog is where I share what I learn — from 20 years of field experience and from the ongoing education of building a business in the GCC’s most dynamic market.