Systems analysis

Power systems engineer Willy Kotiuga "always liked tinkering with telephones", causing a short circuit when his parents gave him permission to open one up. His first job was working as a projectionist at Montreal's Man in World theme park in 1972: "it wasn't really engineering design, it was more troubleshooting when things went wrong." The next summer he was designing introductory experiments for undergraduate engineering students at Concordia for Professor James Lindsay. He took the system studies option, learning to look at engineering "as a whole, as part of a larger system". He subsequently developed answers for example problems in a nonlinear programming textbook written by Professor Vidya Sagar, which became part of his foundation for a PhD in that field. Eventually he developed a niche doing feasibility studies for large hydroelectric systems, including a 1000 MW dam in Saudi Arabia. He spent several years restructuring the power sector in India, and worked on the Three Gorges project in China. After adopting a daughter, he decided to "stay put at home", working for an American energy efficiency firm, then Hydro Quebec. Reflecting on changes in engineering, he notes that he started with a slide rule, then "the most powerful calculator, an HP 41 CV, then the first desktop computer in the company". He counsels high school students interested in engineering to broaden education to include economics, politics and human relations. He counsels newly graduated Engineers-in-Training to learn about liability and legal issues. In retirement, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Kings University in Halifax, to prepare him for writing a book featuring his engineering stories.

John Plant worked for Frost and Woods, a farm equipment manufacturing company in his hometown, Smiths Falls, planning to become a chartered accountant. He applied to be a pilot in the Canadian Air Force but problems with his left eye led him to the Regular Officer Training Program at Royal Military College (RMC) in Kingston. After two years, in 1954, he left to train in Royal Navy ships and studied Marine Engineering at the Royal Navy and Naval Engineering College in Plymouth, England. He took a World War II anti-submarine frigate through a refit in Saint John and was then offered an opportunity to do graduate studies at MIT, where he eventually earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering. He arrived with his family at RMC as a professor of electrical engineering in 1965, became department head in 1967, and resigned his commission to become Dean of Graduate Studies and Research in 1970, a position he held for 12 years. In 1983, he became Principal of RMC, and after he retired became President of the RMC Foundation. He was instrumental in merging Region 7 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) with the Canadian Society of Electrical and Computer Engineering to for IEEE (Canada) and also served as President of the Engineering Institute of Canada. He briefly describes the Camp of Seven Wardens that co-ordinates Iron Ring Ceremonies across Canada and the basis of Kipling's poem "The Sons of Martha".