Originally posted by Jordan Fujiwara.

Keep Dave MacDonald in mind every time you turn on a light. Well, at least if you live in Nova Scotia. For his Corporate Residency he is working in the Planning and Performance Department at Nova Scotia Power Inc., so the next time the grid goes down I’m going to give him a hard time. (Just kidding, Dave).

Dave, who is from Port Hawkesbury, NS, and received a BSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Dalhousie, is a very busy guy. “Basically each plant has its own budget,” he explains, “and plans on doing certain projects, either environmental, safety or business sustainability. In order to do this, they have to try and ‘activate’ an account for next year. So they submit a package to me that contains an explanation, financials, their net present value (NPV) calculations, etcetera. I have to look at the assumptions they’ve made, do my own calculations and ask questions. I clean it up, forward it to my boss, who approves my work, then it gets sent back to them for revisions.” Dave says he does a few of these every week and that there are roughly 300 still in the pipe. “Yup, I’ll be busy until August,” he says with a grin.

It might sound a bit monotonous, but no submission is the same. “One of the best things I’ve done so far was to be able to give a green project a positive NPV,” he beams. Dave is quite interested in renewable energy so this green (i.e. demand side management) project was of keen interest to him. To be able to give this project a positive NPV means that the project will actually make money for the company as well as help to reduce our carbon footprint… which is actually a bit of a challenge for many green projects. “I was working on the evaluation on and off for about a month. I got a key piece of information and had one of those ‘eureka!’ moments. So not only is this project green, it’s profitable too.”

Dave doesn’t spend all his time plugging away at financial calculations. Since his department is highly integrated with other departments, such as with the specialty engineers, he finds himself up and about quite a bit. “It’s a smart set-up. If I need specific information, there are [engineers] right there.” Soon he’ll be off to visit all the different thermal plants, like the ones in Sydney, Trenton and his hometown, Port Hawkesbury. He’ll also get to see some of the hydro and windmill generators. The great thing is that these field trips aren’t just a tour like the ones you might expect to be given to a traditional intern. Dave will be expected to take information away from the trips about the plants in order to help him with his evaluations.

So what about Dave’s experience with the program? He tells me “it’s been very applicable to what I’m doing in my job right now. All in all, I’ve learned a ******** of information. I think that the program was an amazing whirlwind of knowledge left, right and centre. However, my expectations weren’t that high going in; it ended up being a lot more work than I originally anticipated. I thought I had good time management skills but I had to step up my game. It was a matter of kicking into that upper gear. Now, I feel great.”

Dave agrees with all the previous students in this blog when it comes to the incredible group of people we have in this class and faculty. He also appreciates our diversity: “the really cool thing about this program is the fact that it is unique because we all come from different backgrounds and attack problems from different angles. It’s so powerful.”

That’s all for now. A prof interview is in the works for the coming weeks! Also here’s your reminder to check in on our Twitter feed and to become a fan and be active on our Facebook page.