Regina Bypass Partners Awarded SCSA’s Inaugural President’s Award
REGINA – The Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association (SCSA) today announced The Regina Bypass Partners team is the recipient of the association’s Inaugural President’s Award for Outstanding Safety Leadership.
With more than five million hours of construction over four years on the newly constructed Regina Bypass and only one time-loss incident, SCSA President Colin Pullar says Regina Bypass Partners was the perfect fit for the new award. The project’s safety record, however, is not the main reason for recognizing the partners with the award, Pullar admits.
“Beyond the incredible safety record, it was the fact that that as a team, they learned how to become more innovative, how to plan exceptionally well, and how to build an effective team,” Pullar said. “They had thousands of people and hundreds of contractors that all had to work from the same song sheet. When that came together, they really started to see great performance, and safety was one of the most recognizable elements of that success. We really wanted to recognize the leadership team for this particular project because there were some fascinating results.”
The SCSA’s President’s Award is presented to an individual or company with exceptional involvement in the promotion and practice of construction safety and recognizes outstanding efforts and work that advances the betterment of safety practices province-wide. The winner also demonstrates excellent safety practices and outstanding leadership in construction. The SCSA’s President’s Award will not necessarily be presented annually, but rather under certain circumstances.
“The SCSA presents the President’s Award in unique circumstances to teams that have done something extraordinary – not so much the size of a project, but the complexity of it,” Pullar said. “Building bridges and roads doesn’t sound complex, but in this case, the complexity came from the size, the scope, the visibility of the project, the politics, and of course, the sheer number of partners, contractors, and workers. I think this was a great display of the types of things that others can aspire to.”
Pullar said there are also other parts of that project that make the Regina Bypass Partners deserving of the award: the team was able to get the project completed on budget and ahead of time. He also noted that Regina Bypass Project Director and Graham Construction Human Resources VP Allisdair Dickenson was a key driver in the project’s ultimate success.
“Allisdair was the person who really engaged and said I am championing this project.
He lead the meetings, he was the supervisor, and while he had a large budgets to look after, he always made people the centre of it acknowledging, if we don’t get this right, the rest of it will fail,” Pullar noted. “He really understood that safety is an integration between really strong business and the importance of people. You cannot have one without the other.”
BACKGROUNDER
ABOUT THE SASKACHEWAN CONSTRUCTION SAFETY ASSOCIATION
The Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association (SCSA) is an industry-funded, membership-based, non-profit organization that provides cost-effective, accessible safety training and advice to employers and employees in the construction industry throughout the province to reduce the human and financial losses associated with injuries. Registered March 22, 1995, the SCSA is committed to injury prevention. Serving almost 10,000 member companies, the vision of the SCSA is to create the Safest Construction Environment in Canada through its mission of Constructing Safety Leadership.
THE SCSA PRESIDENT’S AWARD
This is the inaugural SCSA President’s Award. Unlike other SCSA Awards, the President’s Award is not presented annually and is given at the discretion of the SCSA President with advice from the association’s board of directors. This award is presented to an individual or company with exceptional involvement in the promotion and practice of construction safety. The prestigious award recognizes the outstanding effort of a Saskatchewan person or organization that through their work advances the betterment of safety practices. The winner of the distinguished President’s Award demonstrates excellent safety practices and outstanding leadership in construction.
ABOUT THE REGINA BYPASS PROJECT
The largest transportation infrastructure project in the history of the province, planning for the Regina Bypass started in the 1990s with a general location approved in 2004. The procurement process started in 2013 and construction was complete by the fall of 2019. The project is the first of its kind in Saskatchewan to be completed by a public-private partnership (P3). The Regina Bypass Consortium represents several companies with the experience in Canada and expertise to complete the state-of-the-art project. The Regina Bypass Consortium entered into a Public-Private partnership with Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure in 2015. The Bypass team is in charge of the design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance during the first 30 years of the project (until 2049), at which time, it’s handed over to the province.
FAST FACTS*
The new Regina Bypass was completed in four years.
The project includes 30 years of regular maintenance, reconstruction and snow removal. At the end of the 30-year period (2049), the entire Bypass will be handed over to the province in “like-new” condition.
The project included the construction of:
60 km of 4-lane highway.
40 km of greenfield 4-lane highway
20 km of brownfield 4-lane highway to be resurfaced
12 new overpasses
55 km of new service roads
2 new all movement intersections
2 bridges crossing Wascana Creek
*Source: Regina Bypass Partners