Time invested is a big win for member Nigel D’Souza

PEMAC board member, Nigel D’Souza, is a Mechanical Engineer who started his career in quarrying production and maintenance engineering later joining Ontario Clean Water Agency as a Manager, Asset & Maintenance Management. Today Nigel is the Asset Management Supervisor with the City of Mississauga, Facilities & Property Management Group and applying his knowledge in strategic business management and asset management. In addition to his day job, Nigel is a very active volunteer contributing to the asset management profession serving on PEMAC’s Board of Directors and as Past President for PEMAC’s GTA Chapter. 

We recently sat down with Nigel to ask about his career journey and how becoming a PEMAC member has impacted his career and his organization.

Nigel discovered PEMAC in 2012, when a colleague who had strong knowledge in maintenance and reliability, introduced the association to him. He was delighted to find out that there was an active forum for formalized training, sharing, collaboration, and recognition for those in the practice.

One of Nigel’s first experiences with PEMAC was as a participant at the MainTrain conference in Calgary, Alberta in 2013. The conference provided an opportunity to learn more about the association, and to meet other practitioners with similar interests. 

Since the MainTrain 2013 conference, Nigel’s participation with PEMAC has steadily increased. Immediately after MainTrain 2013 he began working with other members in the Greater Toronto Area to re-launch PEMAC’s GTA Chapter, and has since been consistently involved with the GTA Chapter team and many other PEMAC initiatives. He was elected to the PEMAC Board of Directors in 2017 and now serves on the board’s Executive Team.

“Knowledge sharing and networking are some of the key benefits to being involved in PEMAC,” Nigel shares. “I am able to connect with others who face similar business challenges, and have been able to impart successful solutions to challenges I may have had, as well as learn from the successes of others.”

Nigel believes that it is important for professionals to get involved associations such as PEMAC.

“Thinking back on how I have grown professionally, I can attribute most of it to the time I have volunteered with various organizations and communities.  I have been very fortunate to be part of great networks and particularly I have strengthened my understanding and developed a great network in asset management through my involvement with PEMAC. The advantages of networking with like-minded professionals and the benefit it yields to growing as a leader are well worth the investment of time in something as little as attending a monthly lunch and learn webcast or something more significant like enrolling in an educational program. PEMAC provides a hub for professionals to connect, learn, and lead. If you practice asset management or maintenance and reliability in Canada, PEMAC is the association you will want to be connected with.

“I always wanted to help organizations solve problems and achieve the best value possible.  My involvement with PEMAC has allowed me to learn from the best of the best and leverage tools, techniques and knowledge to solve technical and non-technical problems for the organizations I serve.  An important part of this has been to foster awareness and recognition of the importance of asset management and maintenance within the organization and its importance to achieving success.  It's not easy to change the culture in an organization, but with the successes demonstrated by PEMAC members at their organizations, the case becomes very obvious. I enjoy what I do and I am proud that I make a difference within my organization and our professional community.”

In addition to his current service on PEMAC’s Board of Directors, Nigel recently began instructing in the Asset Management Professional program and is engaged as an active voice for maintenance and asset management awareness in Ontario especially in the municipal sector. 

Asset management is by definition ‘coordinated activity to realize value from assets’ (ISO 55000:2014, Section 3.3.1), an endeavor that requires winning the engagement and cooperation of others. Nigel’s career path so far is a great example of how connecting, learning and contributing through a professional association is fundamental to asset management professionals.