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Michael Carter describes his passion for improving the healthcare system, primarily in Ontario. In 1989, he was asked to investigate how nurses' experiences in hospitals could be improved, and he developed scheduling algorithms for operations to minimize the number of post-operative patients in hospitals on weekends. This evolved into a passion to use systems engineering to improve the healthcare system. He recognized the need to have a "small army of engineers" working in hospitals: he now knows of 180 former engineering students who work in healthcare in Toronto.

Dr. Michael Carter is an industrial engineer who, after completing degrees in mathematics, started as a professor at the University of Toronto in 1981. He defines industrial engineering as "the applications of mathematics, computers, and psychology to developing and building human systems". Dr. Carter's initial interest was optimization and scheduling, and he developed an algorithm for scheduling university examinations that was implemented at Waterloo, Western, Toronto, Carleton, the London School of Economics, Limerick (Ireland) and Otago (New Zealand). In 1989, he was asked to investigate how nurses' experiences in hospitals could be improved, and he developed scheduling algorithms for operations to minimize the number of post-operative patients in hospitals on weekends. This evolved into a passion to use systems engineering to improve the healthcare system: he now knows of 180 former engineering students who work in healthcare in Toronto. He created the Centre for Healthcare Engineering at U of T in 1989 that now has a dozen industrial engineering faculty doing healthcare research. He describes how initially, the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Medical Research Council thought his field was outside their purview, but now they have joint programs to support this research. He recalls his efforts to learn how to use Artificial Intelligence in his work – "just keeping up is a challenge, but it's fun" – and the need for massive quantities of comprehensive data to facilitate effective machine learning. He advises high-school students to consider engineering careers if they are interested in the applications of science and mathematics. He looks forward to "several more years of pushing students into the deep end of healthcare".

Hugh Fraser describes one of the highlights of his career, contributing to the development of reusable plastic shipping containers for Ontario's agriculture industry. He describes his work with both the corrugated cardboard and plastic industries to make this happen. He notes that they are now collapsible, can stack, and require less room in shipping. In a testing phase they followed food products from California right through to Toronto. "It was very interesting – very proud of that work."

Hugh Fraser is an agricultural engineer who grew up in rural Quebec and completed a year as an agriculture student at the University of Guelph before switching into the engineering program there. He attributes his interest in agricultural to his teenage summers working on his family's dairy farm, working field machinery, bailing hay, wrangling steers and picking rocks. His interest in engineering came from his interest in mathematics and science and their applications to baseball statistics, "Magic Brain" Calculators, and board games. While in university, he spent two summers helping to deliver a year's worth of goods to communities on Baffin Island and in northern Quebec, a third working for the Ontario Department of Agriculture conducting surveys to support farmers who were installing tile drainage, and learning to troubleshoot, and a fourth working for a John Deere parts plant in Grimsby. His first job was at the John Deere factory in Welland, reviewing warranty claims, and a year later rejoined the Ministry of Agriculture as the county extension engineer for Brant and Hamilton-Wentworth Counties based in Brantford. He became an expert in Minimum Distance Separation, which stipulates the minimum distances between livestock barns and neighboring homes, transferring the implementation from paper-based rules to electronic computer programs in the '80s. He did work on the post-harvest handling of fruits and vegetables, developing standards for forced-air cooling based on experimental work, and introduced reusable plastic shipping containers to the agriculture industry in Ontario. He mediated disagreements between farmers and their neighbours, in accordance with the Ontario Farming and Food Production Protection Act, and also worked with the Ontario Dead Animal Disposal Act. In retirement, his interviews with farmers between St. Catherines and Beamsville about their irrigation needs, has led to a proposal to create a pressurized pipeline system to irrigate grapes, tender fruit, and other crops. He is currently President of Ontario Barn Preservation, an organization that finds ways to save old barns, has written a book on old barns, and is currently working on a second book. He describes the transitions in his professional career, offers advice to high school students considering a career in engineering, and presents a list of 13 recommendations to new engineering graduates who want to improve their careers.

Elizabeth Weckman describes two of her projects, her PhD work that used lasers to investigate the velocities and temperatures in a burning pan of liquid, and work with the Waterloo Fire Department to develop improved training for fire fighters. Her PhD experiments have been used in recent years as benchmark data by international research teams developing computer codes to predict fire responses. The training director of the Waterloo Fire Department became aware of her work after watching a dramatic short video showing her experiments. This led initially to collaborative work to improve training of fire fighters and subsequently to funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation program for the $5.6 million University of Waterloo Fire Research Lab that has the capability of creating a two-storey house fire at full scale.

Oral history interview with Dr. Elisabeth Weckman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Weckman enjoyed math, sciences, history, and art in high school and eventually elected to take engineering at university instead of archeology or architecture. She started in systems design engineering but switched to mechanical, where her first co-op job was at a copper mine in Turkey. She was introduced to combustion engineering by a professor who ignited an aerosol can in her presence, convincing her that "this is more exciting than plastic gears." Her PhD research used lasers to study the velocities and temperatures in a burning pan of liquid that moved to accommodate the stationary lasers. In the last four or five years, these data have been used as benchmark data for international teams developing computer models for fires. The training director of the Waterloo Fire Department became aware of her work after watching a dramatic short video showing her experiments. This led initially to collaborative work to improve training of fire fighters and subsequently to funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation program for the $5.6 million University of Waterloo Fire Research Lab that has the capability of creating a two-storey house fire at full scale. She describes the evolution of the field of Fire Protection engineering that now has roots in mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, and systems design engineering and requires knowledge of physiology to investigate how fire gases impact humans as they're trying to escape from a fire. She advises high-school students who are curious about careers in engineering – or any field – to be adventurous and not fear making a wrong decision, she believes in learning experiences, not failures. She encourages graduate students to measure their successes in the context of the work they are doing and the individuals they are working with, instead of being fixated on journal publications. She looks forward to the development of holistic solutions in Fire Protection engineering that include "social things, policy, economics, environment."

Doug VanDine answers the question "What are you doing to keep out of trouble these days"? He describes his transition from being a geotechnical design engineer to a researcher and writer of geotechnical engineering history. His first publication gave a history of the Drynoch Landslide in BC, which has been moving for over 6,000 years. He has also researched and published biographiesy of Robert Leggett, " a father of geotechnical engineering in Canada" and Major Leslie Charles, who located much of the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill Manitoba a century ago.

Geotechnical engineer Doug VanDine describes his experiences as an employee of a consulting engineering firm, a professor at Queen's University in Kingston, and as a sole practitioner engineering consultant. Drawn to geotechnical engineering by his love of math, science, and the outdoors, he worked in the western Arctic on three projects after completing his undergraduate degree at Queen's University in 1972. He returned to Queen's to earn a Master's degree that included a thesis based on the Drynoch Landslide in British Columbia, and notes that his subsequent career as a sole practitioner engineering consultant "kept coming back to landslides". He taught geotechnical engineering at Queen's for four years, developing two-week summer fieldwork projects that engaged students in the hands-on practice of the discipline. After purchasing the contents of his office at Thurber Engineering for $500, he founded VanDine Geological Engineering. His many projects include pioneering studies on debris flows that led to assessing and developing mitigation strategies for debris flows on the Squamish and Coquihalla Highways in British Columbia. He also served on the Oil and Gas Appeals Tribunal, the Forestry Appeals Commission and the Environmental Appeals Board in British Columbia, and conducted practice reviews and wrote guidelines for the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. He describes his transition from being a geotechnical design engineer to a researcher and writer of geotechnical engineering history. His first publication gave a history of the Drynoch Landslide in BC, which has been moving for over 6,000 years. He has also researched and published biographies of Robert Leggett, " a father of geotechnical engineering in Canada" and Major Leslie Charles, who located much of the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill Manitoba a century ago.

Cory Jones answers the question "Tell us about the projects you've worked on" by describing the impact that completed water treatment and recreation facility have on the First Nations communities that they serve. He describes his satisfaction to be able to work in an engineering role to help provide such facilities to communities that need them. In response to the question "Is there anything else you want to say", he expresses his desire that the Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents of Canada can work together to provide help and support for those who need it.

First Nations civil and structural engineer and project manager Cory Jones describes his introduction to engineering practice when, as a high-school student, he was employed by a contractor to help oversee the construction of a water-treatment plant in his home community of Cape Croker, Ontario. He found summer jobs while an undergraduate student at Western University and joined R. J. Burnside and Associates Ltd. after he graduated in 1997. He started as a structural designer of infrastructure, including water treatment reservoirs and buildings, and community arenas and recreation facilities, to be constructed for Indigenous communities across Canada. He is now the President of Neegan-Burnside, an offshoot of R.J. Burnside and Associates Ltd., that designs and manages infrastructure projects for First Nations across Canada. He describes in detail the values held at these two firms as being consistent with those a small family-owned and family-oriented business, and also with his own personal beliefs coming from his indigenous background. He advises high-school students interested in a career in engineering to get practical experiences in construction as summer work, and encourages new engineering graduates to learn from the experiences and knowledge of their senior colleagues at their first engineering job. He answers the question "Tell us about the projects you've worked on" by describing the impact that completed water treatment and recreation facility have on the First Nations communities that they serve. He describes his satisfaction to be able to work in an engineering role to help provide such facilities to communities that need them. In response to the question "Is there anything else you want to say", he expresses his desire that the Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents of Canada can work together to provide help and support for those who need it.