Doug Lapp, Chair of the Executive Committee of the CCGA on the Upcoming Damage Prevention Sumposium in Whistler
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Doug Lapp, Chair of the Executive Committee of the CCGA on the Upcoming Damage Prevention Sumposium in Whistler
Recently President Mike Sullivan sat down to chat with the chair of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance, Doug Lapp, to talk about this October’s conference. They recorded 26 of (newly titled) The Safety Moment Podcast. Here’s a little of the conversation.
The CCGA started a little over ten years ago and is made up of regional partners which include the regional common ground alliances in each province, from BC to Atlantic Canada.
"(The CCGA) emerged really as an organization to deal with national damage prevention issues of national interest, and it continues to do,” says Lapp. "It's been challenged by the pandemic and there's been some big changes in the industry over the last year, even with the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, essentially disappearing which was a real cornerstone of initiating the CCGA many years ago.”
The CCGA began hosting the national symposium in 2013. "Just about a year or so after the CCGA was incorporated. And I do remember that very first one in Kananaskis and I was part of the organizing committee for that. I remember we completely underestimated the engagement we were going to receive. The Kananaskis Delta could barely withstand it, the room was bursting at the seams in terms of the number of people who were there, which was just under 200. It doesn't sound like a lot, but the hotel just couldn't accommodate it. And then, you know, there was 2014 in Banff and that was certainly a high watermark with just shy of 250 people attending.”
The last in-person symposium was in 2019 in Niagara Falls. The CCGA alternates symposium events annually between eastern and western Canada.
"I think people are really looking forward to networking in person again. We've noticed it here in Ontario. We usually hold an in-person symposium in the wintertime and this year it was all set to go and a month before we were ready to kick it off the province imposed a lockdown, we had to completely pivot to a virtual (event) very quickly.”
"(This October’s event) will have excellent content and countless opportunities to engage. It gives people that are working so hard to prevent damages, and support their community, public and worker safety in Canada, an opportunity to have a little bit of fun too, and that's never a bad thing.”
Link to the full podcast episode on Apple Podcasts
Link to the full podcast episode on Spotify
Author: Doug Downs – Stories and Strategies
