Pre GS Construction

In 1963 Glen was working for the New Brunswick telephone company as a field inspector for the installation of utilities by contractors. It is there that he learned the details of contract management, payment clauses and scope of work in contracts. On one project he realized that the contractor was doing extra work outside of the contract scope and went to bat for them in getting paid for their extra work. The contractor was EW Farris who he would later go to work for. He then started doing design work on subdivisions for shallow utilities. He didn’t know it at the time but the seeds were laid for being in construction and being a contractor.

In 1964, Glen came out to Edmonton for the first time. Worked as a mechanic service helper for R. Angus (Now Finning), during the construction of the South Saskatchewan River Dam. He got the job through his older brother Gordon who was a mechanic at R Angus. He stayed out west for about a year and then went back to Fredericton, and went back to the NB Telephone company working on microwave towers.

In 1964, Glen went to work for EW Farris as a Foreman where he learned to run projects from the contracting side. He also learned how to operate a 580 Case excavator.

In January 1969, Glen came back to Edmonton and worked for Bannister, and Whistle Enterprises (was Foreman) before landing with Poole Engineering as a Labour Foreman and responsible for putting high pressure gas lines to drilling equipment in the Fall of 1969 at the Big Horn Dam in Nordegg.

Between 1970 and 1974 he worked as a Foreman and Superintendent for Poole Engineering in Saskatoon installing twin 36”high prescon sewer lines across the North Saskatchewan river, Rae-Edso, NWT, installing all the underground for the newly built community where he got has blasting license (he received a $50 Christmas Bonus in 1971 after working up there all season), Thompson, MB putting all the drainage systems in for the airport, Calgary Deerfoot Trail Underground.

The last job Glen did for Poole Engineering was building the Area C Underground for the Town of Edson. He felt that his bonus didn’t reflect all the work he had done and the amount of time he had spent out of town. It was the ‘last straw’. He always said that he felt that if ‘he was going to have most of the problems running projects he might as well have all of them by owning the company’.

During this time between 71 and 74 he was taking business courses and project management courses such as on Critical Path method. He was also trying to save money.