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In this episode, Elizabeth Corner speaks to Kevin O’Donnell, Executive Director of the PLCAC, about how membership organisations benefit the pipeline sector and those who work in it, discussing events, networking, resources, training, skills development, and learning.
This episode of the podcast covers:
This episode of the podcast covers:
- The PLCAC’s primary aims as an association.
- The part community plays in fostering business connections.
- How to define success as a membership organisation.
- How events are evolving to meet the needs of pipeliners.
- How the PLCAC uses data from its members to advance the industry.
- And more!
Sponsoring this episode of the Wold Pipelines Podcast is the TDW SmartPlug® Isolation System — The safest inline isolation system on the market. Learn more here.
Visit www.worldpipelines.com to learn more about our magazine. Please support the show by subscribing, rating and reviewing!
Visit www.worldpipelines.com to learn more about our magazine. Please support the show by subscribing, rating and reviewing!
Creators and Guests
What is World Pipelines Podcast?
The World Pipelines podcast, with Elizabeth Corner, is a podcast that connects and unites pipeline professionals to learn about issues affecting the midstream oil and gas industry.
Hello, and welcome to the World Pipelines Podcast, a podcast series for pipeliners, featuring short insightful interviews with people in the oil and gas pipeline industry. I'm your host, Elizabeth Korner. And in this season of the podcast, we are talking to membership associations for the pipeline sector. We learn about how membership organizations benefit the pipeline sector and those who work in it, discussing events, networking, resources, training, skills development, and learning. We'll discuss the human factor in all things pipelines and seek to understand the unique ways in which organizations foster connection.
Elizabeth Corner:We'll also look to the future of the industry and think about career tracks, hiring, and career longevity.
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Elizabeth Corner:So here we bring you episode 1 in which I am very pleased to welcome Kevin O'Donnell, who is executive director at PLCAC and was chief financial officer at Bannister Pipelines until August 2022. So hello and welcome to the podcast, Kevin.
Kevin O’Donnell:Well, thank you, Elizabeth. And it's a pleasure to be a part of this important dialogue. Just from your introduction, I think we're gonna have a very good conversation.
Elizabeth Corner:I think so too. Very pleased to have you here on episode 1. So in this season of the podcast, we're looking to find out what makes each of the featured pipeline organisations unique. So perhaps you can start us off by describing the PLCAC and what its primary aims are.
Kevin O’Donnell:Terrific. Thank you. So I guess I gotta start off by saying, we consider ourselves, certified platinum now. We just finished our 70th year and celebrated our 70 year anniversary of institutional
Elizabeth Corner:Yeah. Congratulations.
Kevin O’Donnell:Well, thank you. Thank you. It was very, very good. And, I think it was very rewarding event we had back in May. So very proud of that, of that growth.
Kevin O’Donnell:So, you know, your your your question on the primary goals, they we are in business to professionally serve our members, our union partners, and it's very important to underscore the word partners because they truly are our partners. Our owner clients, obviously, they are the, capital behind our industry. Mhmm. And, you know, really we want to be, a multi element leader in the Canadian energy sector.
Elizabeth Corner:Fantastic. Can you just run us through what exactly the PLCAC stands for, for anybody who's not au fait with the acronym?
Kevin O’Donnell:Sure. Certainly. It's a it's a mouthful. So it's the the Pipeline Contractors Association of Canada. We'd be a sister organization to the Pipeline Contractors Association, which is based in Washington and serves the United States of America.
Kevin O’Donnell:So, you know, I mentioned we are 70 years young. We are platinum certified. And, it began with about 30 members. And today, we have over a 160 members and we have an extremely strong fabric. You know, it really allows us to be effective in many aspects of the energy industry.
Kevin O’Donnell:And the original impetus to starting the association was to negotiate, union contracts. That's right. The natural revolution now is that we're very active in many elements of our industry. A big key for us is to advance, you know, our indigenous relations and reconciliation, continuous improvement in our safety measures, and government advocacy, which I'm sure we'll talk more about because that's very important to us. So that that's how we've evolved over the 70 years.
Elizabeth Corner:Fantastic. That's great. That gives us a nice bit of background. Every organisation has something that sets it apart. What would you say, Kevin, is PLCAC's unique selling point, especially, for that Canadian pipeline industry?
Kevin O’Donnell:Very good question. I I have to say it truly is the community. It's the community that's been built. Mhmm. So we have our regular members who are the constructors.
Kevin O’Donnell:We have our associate members who are the suppliers. And a lot of our innovation and ingenuity comes out of our associate members. We have our honorary members. And then, of course, we have our stakeholders, which are the unions, client owners, and, governments at all level. You know, our members really have a long and trusted history with each other.
Kevin O’Donnell:And we really seem to coalesce around challenges and threats. And as you can imagine being in Canada, cold weather nation, vast terrain, widely dispersed population. We have our challenges, but as a group, we come together, we overcome them, and we actually learn in advance through them.
Elizabeth Corner:I wonder why you think that you so naturally kind of, come together on those challenges.
Kevin O’Donnell:Without one another, we're nothing. We really are a team in this, and I mentioned the different stakeholders, but the primary team is the PLCAC, which is the constructor side, and our unions. Our union partners are 4 cracks are integral to us building pipelines safely and efficiently. And we always we have open dialogue, we always work together. We're we're not always going to agree, we know that, but we are going to agree that we have a problem in front of us and we're going to work to solve it.
Elizabeth Corner:Yeah. So that common goal is the thing that brings you together?
Kevin O’Donnell:That's correct. Yes.
Elizabeth Corner:And how do you define success for the PLCAC? I wonder what kind of metrics or achievements do you consider when you're assessing the usefulness or the impact of the work that you do?
Kevin O’Donnell:Oh, it's a, that's a very good question too. And, you know, we, we can always jump in with, you know, the, the stock answers, but the, the true, element that we look at here and I go back to the fabric, the first one's gotta be safety. We've seen the evolution of safety. We've seen how effective our training has been with our partners in the unions and safety programs, not not just the statistics, but actually the uptake in the programs. And we have we have many of them.
Kevin O’Donnell:We refined them. We constantly challenge ourselves on them, and we always aim for a goal of 0. And without that goal in mind, it's tough to know how you're actually really doing. So that's really the first measure. The other thing we, you know, we really have to look at is our labor agreements in Canada, especially with the PLCAC, even compared to other sectors.
Kevin O’Donnell:We have a unique relationship with our 4 crafts. We have a no strike, no lockout agreement. Our terms are are long in nature, conventionally, normally 5 years. And we've had uninterrupted labor supply, for approximately 70 years. And the other one that's very germane to Canada and also in other parts of the world is the indigenous sustainability.
Kevin O’Donnell:But we have, you know, approximately 5% of our Canadian population would identify as indigenous. And our goal is to always include 10% in our hires and training, as well as supply chain, joint ventures, and community efforts. So those are really what we measure ourselves against. Market share is standard. It it's, arithmetic.
Kevin O’Donnell:Anyone can do that. But without the other 3, market share doesn't matter.
Elizabeth Corner:Some really important priorities there. Now PLCAC is known for organising various events throughout the calendar year. Can you highlight for us some of the key events or initiatives that you believe have the most impact on the pipeline industry?
Kevin O’Donnell:Okay. That's a that's a good one and should be an easy one for for me. You know, new to the seat, two and a half years, I I've always known that our convention is ranked among our peers in the States, the UK and Euro, as one of the best conventions. And, let's admit it's fun. There's always going to be an element of fun when you're networking.
Kevin O’Donnell:But we've really amped up our focus on other elements that I mentioned earlier. And, you know, they come a little bit outside the strict confines of just labor negotiations. But I can give you a good example. In May, when we celebrated our 70th, you know, we included, you know, keynote speakers and working sessions that, really impacted our members. And I think it's gonna impact our, association, but also our nation.
Kevin O’Donnell:We had our former prime minister, Prime Minister Harper speak, who's a big advocate for policy reform and for pipeline efficiency. We had senior vice presidents from our major clients come and address and, you you know, and and, speak with our members about the future, speak about the challenges and headwinds and how we can meet them together. And lastly, you know, we had a very important element I talked about is safety, but the extension of safety is mental health. We think about our workers. Our workers are often away from home, family and friends, for months at a time.
Kevin O’Donnell:And there's added stress that, you know, other people wouldn't find in the workplace. And we had an inspirational speaker come, very well received, very open, open to dialogue, and has maintained a relationship with several of our members since then and has spoken to their companies just about mental health resilience. And, you know, we're in this together and there are avenues to resolve the challenges that you can feel, especially when you're away from friends and family for extended periods of time.
Elizabeth Corner:That is really great to hear. Obviously, we know that, at these sorts of meetings, there's a networking side of things, there's a social side. But actually I, what I can hear that you're doing is taking some of those big issues and taking them seriously and addressing them through, different means.
Kevin O’Donnell:Yeah. Indeed. And, it was very well received. And of course we do our post mortems on, on these events. And and, we had very good very good feedback and it's, you know, it's circular.
Elizabeth Corner:Cool. You
Kevin O’Donnell:know, it gives us the energy to to continue doing what we've kicked off and, you know, next year in Banff, Alberta, we're gonna do the same. And the challenge now is to do it a little bit better, but we're gonna maintain, you know, the same priorities.
Elizabeth Corner:Of course. What kind of feedback do you get from people after your, after your conventions?
Kevin O’Donnell:Through the networking, you get a lot of verbal. And it's like any event, it all comes out to you so fast. It's hard to digest and really, you know, exploit what you hear. So we put it out to a formal, SurveyMonkey. And we, you know, we have your statistics for sure, but then you also ask for what did you really think about it.
Kevin O’Donnell:And and the the common theme that came through was the speakers and the industry content and then, of course, the inspirational speakers. So that energised us to do it again. So I think we I think we hit a high note on those.
Elizabeth Corner:That's great. I wonder if you can tell me what the ethos or the guiding philosophy behind the PLCAC is. And then how does that ethos influence the way that the organisation operates and interacts with its members?
Kevin O’Donnell:Another good question. So we are funded and driven by our members. And for over 70 years, I mean, that's feedback enough that we're doing things mostly right and we can always look to improve. I think we deliver a product and a service that allows our members, all categories, to really grow and succeed in their business despite the challenges and headwinds in our industry. We really aim to be at the forefront of advancements in the industry.
Kevin O’Donnell:We're constantly monitoring the industry for the challenges, the headwinds, you know, the future. And we work closely with our our, suppliers. If it's, you know, regarding, obviously, environmental safety and just efficiency. So we do make our visits to their training centers. We make our visits to their, AI centers, which is really cool to see what's happening with the big machineries and small machineries alike.
Kevin O’Donnell:Mhmm. And, overall, it's the balanced approach to our true stakeholders and, I'll call them our shareholders. We've got our shareholders who fund us, and we have our stakeholders are the people who we serve. And that boils right down to, you know, the Canadian population.
Elizabeth Corner:And I wonder if I could ask what makes you a brilliant executive director? What resonates, about the you know, what about the ethos resonates with you as a person when you look back on your career?
Kevin O’Donnell:Well, I guess it has to be, you know, I had a I've had full, scope of the industry. I've had full scope from the field. I've had full scope from the client relations, union negotiations, and working with indigenous bands across Canada. So with those elements, you know, by coincidence happen to be 4 of the most important pillars that we have to balance, I think I have I think I have ground level knowledge and then advanced level wisdom on, on most of them and, not all of them, but I I've also found it's important to know who to call when you don't know. So the Rolodex is important.
Elizabeth Corner:Absolutely. As you've touched upon, the pipeline industry in Canada does face quite a unique set of challenges. I wonder what easily is the most pressing issues that are facing the Canadian industry today and and maybe tell me how PLCAC is addressing those challenges.
Kevin O’Donnell:Well, I will tell you, directly and indirectly, speaking with, you know, my colleagues in, in the UK and in the US and in Australia, Canada's not alone with one of these challenges and that challenge really is, you know, I won't go into the details of it but the government framework that permits pipelines and, extraction of resources and infrastructure It's really it's fractured. I won't say it's broken, but it is fractured. You know, in the last decade, it's been a reactionary process. And that really started with the advance of ESG. Became very well recognized, but not rationalized.
Kevin O’Donnell:And, I can tell you, as an association, representative of our members, we have very, very strong ESG commitments. Mhmm. But we now need rationalization, and we need a system around them that permits the balance of, of really harvesting your country assets while balancing your ESG. 1 cannot supersede the other. The 2 have to work in harmony.
Kevin O’Donnell:Without that, you have uncertainty. And with that uncertainty, we've seen it in the last 10 years where a lot of out of country's assets become stranded. Mhmm. And capital capital will not chase uncertainty. They'll chase certainty.
Kevin O’Donnell:And we saw that. We're moving towards we're moving towards, a position where we are helping influence policy, we're helping to learn from our mistakes, helping to help governments learn from their mistakes and make sure that we have a new and efficient process. That's what we're really doing as an association right now.
Elizabeth Corner:I'm very happy to hear that. Moving on, how would you say that the PLCAC leverages data at its decision making process? Maybe you can provide me an example where data from your membership has played a crucial role in shaping an initiative or a policy.
Kevin O’Donnell:Sure. Well, let's face face it, data is the new data. So you you can't live without it. I would say, the the first one that would come to mind, and this comes from, you know, my time as a CFO as well, is your safety statistics. You know, there is so much data to be mined when you do coalesce all of the data from all of your members.
Kevin O’Donnell:And you can see trends, and you can see needs, and you can see, and probably help forecast, where the threats and challenges are. And we we certainly do work with our members to make sure that the data is available, you know, even if it's pinpointing down to a time of day or a day of week, a day in the pay cycle when accidents are most or more prone to happen, those would be, you know, what we would call lagging indicators. We would know that, you know, based on x number of hours and x number of workers and x number of days, when there's a probability or possibility of, incidents to occur. The other data we have to look at is the leading indicators. So really the frequency of your safety meeting, safety training, hours of training per employee, those are the leading indicators that are gonna, help predict the future.
Kevin O’Donnell:One other, area of data collection we use and it's much smaller, but it's very important because it affects our future of our workforce. You know, we do offer scholarships, and we do have a large, population that applies for it. And we use a third party to stratify the data to make sure that the most qualified people are receiving those scholarships, but also communicating to the populace as well that, you know, hey. Here. These are the indicators and this is the data we'll be looking at.
Kevin O’Donnell:Make sure for next year that you adjust your profile and you hit each one of those, you know, quantums along the way.
Elizabeth Corner:I'm glad you're talking about people now because that is my next question. So the people behind the PLCAC, tell me who makes up the organisation's core demographic and then how do you ensure that the needs of that group of people are met?
Kevin O’Donnell:Okay, great, great question and, I'll probably start with a little bit of a preamble but I think it's important to recognize that, each of our stakeholders or groups are made up of different groups of demographics. Let's start with our staff. You know, we have a very small and dedicated staff. We are very diverse horizontally and vertically. We can all deduce what that means, but we that's been part of my goal here in building the team.
Kevin O’Donnell:Our members, you know, it doesn't take, very lot very much time on Google Chrome to see who makes up a board of directors now. But historically, pipeliners have been a male dominant industry, and I'll call it contained expertise. And that led to, challenges in attracting more people, attracting a diverse workforce, attracting the underrepresented, communities into the industry, and we're looking that. We're working on that. You know, the the opposite side to that is, you know, you have a board of directors with, over 30 years of experience in each person.
Kevin O’Donnell:Mhmm. It's very hard to replace that. And we were all so we're working at onramping and how we're doing that knowledge transfer and attracting those who would not normally feel inclined to land in a board position. And that'll that comes through just entering the industry, and it also comes from applying for and volunteering on committees. So demographic, I mentioned, like, traditional resources is the aging population and predominantly male.
Kevin O’Donnell:So what are we doing with that? We're working with our union, union partners to make sure that anything we can do to help them, attract people from underrepresented communities, meaning in the female population Mhmm. Is a very big push on for that in all of the trades. We advertise in female targeted, media to make sure that they understand the pipeline professionals includes them. Right.
Kevin O’Donnell:And in in Canada, the important one is the indigenous population. Same thing. Making sure that there's training available training available that suits their culture and timing. Making sure they understand the timelines of what it takes to onboard and then retain and stay in the industry. And it's become generational.
Kevin O’Donnell:It's, I mentioned the 10% earlier. We'd obviously like to see more than that because we need the people. We need the people from all aspects of our communities.
Elizabeth Corner:Super. Now going back to your involvement in the industry, I wonder what are some of the most significant changes that you've witnessed, in the pipeline industry, and how the association might also reflect and adapt to those changes?
Kevin O’Donnell:So, as I mentioned, it's over 30 years in industry, so I've I've seen I've really seen a lot. The 2 things, worker safety and safety innovation. I've really seen that take the forefront. And again, when I talked about leading indicators, the time spent on training, the time spent on JSAs, the time taken, period, the time taken to do a task, that's really become part of the culture. And I'm sure it's predominant in many other industries, but I can assure you in the pipeline in Canada, that's number 1.
Kevin O’Donnell:Again, I mentioned the indigenous involvement where now these are sustainable relationships. These are, you know, this this goes from direct hire and training to joint ventures to ownership. And, of course, the third is environmental. Just, a, the awareness, but also the protection of the environment. You know, I just on a recent project there, any movement of water, so diversion of streams, remediation of, any sort of flooding, they had to employ machinery that is new to our industry that those machines cost over $10,000,000 each.
Kevin O’Donnell:There's not too many pieces of equipment in pipeline that cost that, amount of money. So the fact that that commitment is there, I think that's, I think it's an excellent thing and I think it shows that we can be sustainable.
Elizabeth Corner:Fantastic. And finally then as we look towards the future what are your aspirations for the PLCAP? Where do you see the organisation heading in the next 5 or 10 years?
Kevin O’Donnell:Well, I can tell you it it's a dynamic industry to say the least, and we we go through our peaks and valleys, and we just came off of our, you know, historical peak. And, with the valley that came in between, you know, there was there was limited optimism, but I can tell you right now, I'm very optimistic for the future. Okay. And the common themes too, even with the safety advancement, we're very excited about that. We know as Union Crafts, we can build pipelines very safely and efficiently.
Kevin O’Donnell:But also, you know, if you look at even today's data, the Canadian drilling rigs, have increased their number by 25% in the last, 2 quarters, with the, on streaming of, CGL and or TMX. Canada is back in that seat to become an energy superpower. We now have the efficient means to get our, our product to market, and the world is recognizing it. So, I'm very, very, very optimistic about the future.
Elizabeth Corner:Fantastic. Thank you so much for talking to me, Kevin.
Kevin O’Donnell:Oh, my pleasure. Again, very very, excited to be part of the dialogue and I thank you for your time in putting this together.
Elizabeth Corner:My thanks to Kevin O'Donnell for talking us through how the PLCAC works as an organization and for offering some brilliant insight into the unique issues affecting the Canadian pipeline sector. What a great start to season 3. Thanks for listening to the World Pipelines podcast. Subscribe for free wherever you get your podcasts. If you have enjoyed this episode, please rate and review, and forward to a colleague or friend.
Advert:The World Pipelines podcast is brought to you by TD Williamson. The smart plug offers the safety and reliability that pipeline operators depend on. Ready to upgrade your next project? Visit tdw.red/smartplug to learn more.