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The ever-changing skyline of Vancouver; Fairmont Pacific Rim. 10 | FEBRUA RY 2015 " " Sterling Cooper Consultants Ironically, Steeves didn't make mechanical engineering a career after graduat- ing the University of New Brunswick in 1975 – apart from a brief stint working for Trane, the HVAC specialists. "I had an ownership interest in two ski chalets in Banff, so I gravitated there for a while, and then I hitchhiked to Vancouver simply because I wanted to travel," he recalls. "I became a bartender, then a waiter, and I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with new faces every night." But in 1980, on the strength of the good reputation he'd earned at Trane, he joined MCW Consultants, and for the next seven years he developed his engineering skills on projects such as The Sutton Place Hotel, the Oakridge Centre expansion and Canada Place. That didn't prevent him from pulling up stakes, however; after meeting his wife Deborah in 1987, he decided to move with his bride to Australia. "I'd always wanted to live there," he confesses with a shrug. "I wound up designing systems for clients in Brisbane and Sydney – a great experience." In 1992 the Steeves family – that now included two sons – relocated to Victoria, B.C. and four years later he joined Myles Sterling at Sterling Cooper as a partner. "I was impressed with Myles' professionalism," he says. "He had 14 people and stayed very much under the radar, but with me coming onboard it signaled he was open to evolving the company." Steeves' leadership of Sterling Cooper has not been trouble-free. By 2008 he had grown the company to 35 people, but one year later the recession caused that num- ber to drop to 12. "Thank goodness I managed to find positions in other firms for all but two people," he says. "And of course we eventually recovered. Still, it was a fairly tense time." Steeves takes a dim view of retirement, but Sterling Cooper is nonetheless posi- tioned to thrive when he eventually decides to slow down. He explains, "We have a nice balance of older professionals, new talent and experienced engineers between 30 and 50, an age category that a lot of trades have trouble attracting." To which Steeves adds, "Our younger guys are starting to have families and purchase homes, which makes them really motivated to develop their careers; in turn, this has prompted me to delegate more responsibilities." Sterling Cooper's key people include: Adam Rogers, Gideon Loh, Donald Chan, Ray Quan and Ben Ng, William Steeves, Alexander Boome and Martin Chipperfield. After briefly discussing upcoming work opportunities – specifically mixed-use building projects, a great venue for sustainable solutions – Steeves returns the conversation to more trivial matters: the latest news headlines, his faith in young people and how, if he were to do it all over again, he might follow in the footsteps of his brother, who is an MLA for the New Brunswick Conservatives. And suddenly, the meeting is over. Unfazed by what is obviously shaping up to be a busy day, Steeves reiterates a philosophy that could easily be Sterling Cooper's motto: "If there's a problem, there's always a solution. I was lucky enough to know that from the beginning, and it makes working in my profession a hell of a lot of fun." A Honestly, I never set out to do anything other than good work. I love solving problems: it's what I was made for. That's why I've had such a hard time delegating work; my instinct is to tackle each project personally.

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