Achieving it in 2001 – only a few years after the ratings system for creating green buildings was established – was a bonus, he continues now it’s expected. (He also sits on the Ivy League institution’s alumni council to help bridge the gap between industry and students.)īourassa was also the first person at Ledcor, where he’s worked for 18 years, to earn a certification in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Besides, Bourassa believes it’s a great excuse to head out on-site when office life is making him “stir crazy.”īeyond hands-on schooling, the Saskatchewan-born COO’s academic resume is a testament to lifelong learning, from a diploma in architecture at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in the late ’80s through to an advanced management development program in real estate at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 2010. Even if it’s not quite the solution, it might spark another thought that gets you to the right one,” he says. “Without each, you have nothing and it’s worth listening to everybody’s point of view. It makes for a more collaborative workplace, he insists, with the person working the shovel being as important as the one sorting out finances. It’s not that the 44-year-old wanted to be in the field forever, but he did feel it was essential for his boardroom role to be more “effective.” Over seafood at Gastown’s Water Street Café near his offices, he explains, “It always drove me nuts that some people in senior positions had never done this – unless you’ve poured concrete or backfilled foundations, how do you know what the guys in the field are going through?”
Following his father and grandfather into carpentry, Chris Bourassa spent 15 years on construction sites before his current role as COO of Vancouver’s Ledcor Properties Inc., the investment and development arm of the Ledcor Group of Companies. It’s not often that you come across a Harvard-educated executive who is at ease in a hard hat and in a pinstripe. "Unless you've poured concrete or backfilled foundations," says Chris Bourassa, "how do you know what the guys in the field are going through?"įrom a Prairies childhood to a Harvard degree, Ledcor Properties COO Chris Bourassa knows all about buildings from the ground up.
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