Engcomp's President picked as one of Canada's inspiring engineers
In the December issue of Canadian Consulting Engineer, a national magazine based out of Toronto, Jason Mewis is profiled alongside six other "exceptional" inspiring engineers from across the nation who "stand out from the crowd" and "shine brightly in their different ways". Have a look for yourself.
The full article is available below on this page, and you can also download the full article as a PDF from the Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine.
Entrepreneur and Ambassador
JASON MEWIS, P.ENG.
At age 39 Jason Mewis, P.Eng. is president of his own consulting engineering company, Engcomp, in Saskatoon. To have started up your own company these days is a rare enough achievement, but this relatively young engineer is also chair-elect (2012-2013) of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies-Canada (ACEC). In that position he will be the public face of an organization representing some of the largest engineering companies in Canada.
Mewis started Engcomp in 2004 when he was only 31, coming from a large international engineering company. An Alberta firm had approached him to start up a branch office in his home town. "I started my business plan for an office in Saskatoon and quickly realized that consulting engineering didn't require a lot of money to get started. So I decided I was going to do it on my own."
That turned out to be a fortuitous decision, because when Mewis called the Alberta firm back to tell them his decision, they had already sold out to one of the giant firms.
Today Engcomp has approximately 40 employees. Echoing Mewis's experience, the company specializes in the heavy industry sector in western Canada, doing multi-disciplinary engineering and project management. It is also developing a niche practice in project risk analysis and risk management, areas that Mewis finds fascinating because they are business-oriented.
He puts a big emphasis on having the right team and trying to ensure that the employees find their work challenging and satisfying.
"I did have a vision for a different kind of business and a different kind of experience for people to work in," he says. "Our view is that if we focus on our people first, they will be as motivated as they can be, and out of that will come a good product for our clients."
"When it comes to entrepreneurism, it's not a common thing to find in an engineer," he admits. "An entrepreneur will make decisions on the spot with whatever information they have at the time. And they will live with that and move forward, and if they're wrong, they will deal with it later and keep on moving forward. You have to be a people-person too. You can't just ignore the psychology of interacting with other individuals. I guess I was blessed with some skills and a personality that works in that way.
For more information on the Canadian Consulting Engineer publication, please visit www.canadianconsultingengineer.com
