December 2007

Members in the News 

D. F. Barnes' company Orphan Industries recently received the Canadian Innovation Award of the Business Development Bank of Canada. Jerry Byrne, P.Eng. is president.

Tony Chislett, P.Eng. is the 2007 recipient of the Canadian Dam Association's (CDA) Peter Halliday Award for Service. The Award recognizes the efforts of CDA members who have demonstrated outstanding commitment to CDA and have made valued contributions to the advancement of the Association.

The Religious Social Action Coalition of Newfoundland and Labrador - a group of representatives of various faiths - recently challenged political leaders to offer their solutions to ending poverty in this province. Mahmoud Haddara, P.Eng., is a member of the Coalition.

The 17th annual Newfoundland Electrical and Computer Engineering Conference took place on November 8.  The luncheon speaker was Randy Billard, EIT of Virtual Marine Technologies Inc.

Bob MacLeod, P.Geo. has been appointed Jacques Whitford's Regional Manager for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Chris O'Brien, P.Eng. and Mark Newell, P.Eng. both work for Avalon Microelectronics which recently landed a contract in China. The company designs circuits that are used in telecommunications systems.

Scott Winsor, P.Eng., a construction engineer with the City of St. John's, told The Telegram that the major construction on Water Street East, which has disrupted the business in the area, might be the biggest and most complex water and sewer project ever on the Island.

Dr. Aziz Rahman, P.Eng. is the first Canadian winner of the Dr.-Ing. Eugene Mittelmann Achievement Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' [IEEE] Industrial Electronics Society [IES] for "his life-long outstanding contributions to interior permanent magnet [IPM] motor drive systems and associated delta, pulsewidth and wavelet modulated inverters." Dr. Rahman's IPM motor drive is used in the Toyota Prius hybrid car.

Emad Rizkalla, P.Eng. recently made the news when he moved a large, dying birch tree from Corpus Christi Church grounds to the lobby of the building housing his e-learning company Blue Drop Performance Learning. He said that he wanted a centrepiece -something relating to Newfoundland - for their world headquarters.

Dr. Siu O’Young, P.Eng. leads the Raven Group of Memorial University researchers developing miniature technology for unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs]. In conjunction with manned surveillance aircraft, the UAVs can work in dangerous situations, such as monitoring fire hotspots or tracking poachers, and Raven is considering a commercialized version.

An autonomous underwater vehicle [AUV], developed by Marport Canada, was on display recently at the Unmanned Vehicle Systems conference. Neil Riggs, P.Eng., Marport’s vice president of research and development, says the company has expanded into new markets building AUVs that can search and survey the seabed and supply data for oil and gas companies, ocean sciences and defence. Seaquest X-1 is one of three prototypes which will be built at a cost of approximately $2.5 million.

© Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Newfoundland and Labrador