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With my birthday just around the corner, I can’t help but wish I could turn back the clock. It’s not that I mind the scattered gray hair or even the slight creaking of bones (provided it doesn’t interfere with my golf swing). No, my yearning for a slightly more youthful me has nothing to do with a fear of getting older. It’s just that, with each new conference I attend, with each new development that’s announced, as new opportunity unfolds, I wish I had my career to live over again.
As recently as the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, I was approached
(as I often am) by a manufacturer who wanted an “in” with Atlantic Canada. I can’t say that I blame him. With Vale Inco spending upwards of $200-million on a nickel processing facility in Long Harbour, Newfoundland, and the Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Project churning its way towards fruition, with development proceeding on the Deep Panuke offshore natural gas project as well as the Hebron and Hibernia South offshore oil projects, and the region’s abundant renewable resources just coming into their own, plus New Brunswick plugging into the energy needs of the American northeast, there are literally billions and billions of dollars worth of capital investmen headed this way.
Though it’s enough to make my mouth water and my eyes slightly tear up, and even though I’ll be scrabbling for every bit of business I can get for a good many years yet, I still know I won’t be able to realize the full and lucrative long-term benefits attached to the many big projects that are underway and around the corner here in Eastern Canada. But there are plenty of people who are; Smarter, more talented and better trained younger men and women who are ideally positioned to reap the wealth of benefits from multiple major projects coming down the pipe over the next two decades.
Yes, I envy the younger generation the wealth and opportunity headed their way. At the same time, I should probably issue just a wee bit of a warning. We “seasoned” folks have more than a few tricks up our sleeves, honed through years of being more competitive in a tougher economic environment.With several months, perhaps even years to go, before this current recession gets thrown off for good, we’re going to be just as hungry for work as you are – but better equipped to fight for it. There’s nothing quite like a good scrap to make you feel young again.
Hubert Hutton
Publisher
