By John McLeod, P.Eng.
APEGGA President 2007-2008

APEGGA has expertise and vision that others have come to rely upon in a complex, changing and challenging world. It was certainly my pleasure to lead such a dynamic and respected organization in the office of President through the 2007-2008 term.

Let’s take a look back.

Geoscience Affairs
Council created the standing Geoscience Affairs Committee in 2007 to steer a strategic initiative to increase geoscience licensure. At issue is compliance with the right-to-title and right-to-practice provisions in the Engineering, Geological and Geophysical Professions Act. These provisions are critical components in our self-regulatory role and our duty to protect the public.

APEGGA completed a survey that confirms what we already strongly suspected — in this province there are unacceptably low licensure rates of 65 per cent for geologists and 53 per cent for geophysicists.

This is a problem we’re addressing. With the support of executives of the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, we began a compliance communications initiative in the fall. Articles and ads appeared in the two groups’ publications, the Recorder and the Reservoir.

We now have a new Geoscience Affairs Manager in place. Watch for us to build relationships with senior geoscience practitioners as we strive to improve our connection with geoscientists and build their rate of compliance.

See the membership statistics at here.

Labour Market White Paper
A survey of APEGGA permit holders, along with information from the Alberta Government and others, enabled APEGGA to peer 10 years into the future to determine whether skilled labour shortages will persist. Such forecasting is never an exact science, of course, but our research suggests that, although there are current shortages, supply will outstrip demand if APEGGA applications stay at current levels.

A summary of the Labour Market White Paper appeared in the March PEGG, which you can read online at the APEGGA website, www.apegga.org. If you’d like to read the entire paper, click on Surveys under Members on the top left-hand side of the home page.

See application statistics here.

Insurance Review
As promised, we resurrected our Insurance Review Task Force, two years after its initial recommendations on whether consultants must make declarations of their professional liability coverage to clients. Also on the agenda were concerns about the value of our secondary professional liability coverage.

Council approved the task force’s recommendations not to make the declaration of professional liability coverage by consultants mandatory and to retain our current secondary coverage.

Association executive directors from across the country annually review the performance of the secondary professional liability program. The task force encouraged them to take a more proactive role, however, in reducing costs and enhancing coverage.

Finally, the task force recommended that APEGGA improve awareness of secondary professional liability coverage, particularly with new and retiring members. To this end, we ran a detailed explanation of the coverage in The PEGG, and used our electronic newsletter to get the message out.

Visit the November 2007 PEGG Online for more about secondary liability coverage.

Strategic Planning
The priority of communicating and consulting with members was elevated to a Guiding Principle in our Strategic Plan. We also enhancing the priority of geoscience licensure.

The 2007 Annual Report links actual results in 2007 to our strategic targets. The report is now available online at www.apegga.org.

Finance
Following the development of an investment policy for APEGGA’s cash reserve in 2006, the Finance Committee developed a three-point policy for budget development. The points are

1. Maintain the unrestricted assets within the range of 15 to 20 per cent of normal operating expenses.

2. Ensure membership dues are adjusted to cover APEGGA’s increased costs of doing business.

3. Incorporate the cost of strategic initiatives identified by Council in the annual APEGGA Business Plan.

Financial statements appeared in the April edition of The PEGG. You can also find them online in the 2007 Annual Report, along with my full report and other results from the year.