How The Pipeline Started: From a Job-Site Walk-Through to a Region-Wide Initiative

The Pipeline didn't start as a program. It started as a conversation.

A handful of young estimators and project managers from across Windsor found themselves talking after a job-site walk-through, comparing struggles and comparing the different paths that had gotten them to where they were. “We learn a lot every time we talk,” says Patrick Parent, who chairs the initiative's steering committee. “Different struggles, different paths to get to where we got to.”

What stood out was how much value there was in the room, even between people who'd been on opposite sides of a tender that same week. “We were competitors during the tender,” Patrick says, “but afterwards, we're peers. We're all working toward the same goal, trying to better the same industry.”

From an idea to an initiative

Good ideas start at tables like that one all the time. Most fizzle out. This one didn't, in part because Jim Lyons, who spent 29 years as Executive Director of the Windsor Construction Association, had seen a similar idea stall a decade earlier for lack of a champion. “Every great idea needs somebody to spearhead it,” Patrick recalls being told. “Unless there's somebody to really push the initiative forward and get it off the ground, nothing's ever going to happen.”

That's where Patrick's own path into construction became part of the pitch. He didn't come up through an engineering program. He started as a concrete finisher, taught the trade by his stepfather, and worked his way into a leadership role at Oscar Construction from there. Being open about that path, and the years it took to find the right people and the right opportunities, gave other young professionals in the room permission to be open about their own.

Why now

The timing isn't a coincidence. Windsor-Essex, like most of the industry across Ontario, is facing a wave of retirements over the next 10 to 20 years, and not enough people positioned to step into those roles. “The pipeline is trying to get the right people in the same room,” says Jim. “That's essentially the motivation behind this.”

The plan is to build out a formal mentorship program alongside the peer events already underway, pairing members with senior leadership from WCA companies. The goal, as Jim puts it, is simple: “when the tools are gone, all that's left is the people.” The Pipeline is there to make sure the right people are already in the room when that moment comes.