Most people spend a career in one lane. I haven't. I've been a tradesman, a business owner, a corporate executive, a consultant, and a landlord/tenant, and that range has taught me to look at problems from more than one angle, which is exactly what good governance requires.
I trained as a carpenter through a formal apprenticeship and George Brown College, then spent over a decade building and running my own custom kitchen and bathroom renovation company. Owning a business myself, not just working for one, taught me early on how every dollar has to be accounted for, and how decisions made on paper eventually show up in someone's real life.
From there, I moved into senior sales, executive leadership, and business development roles, including national accounts work with recognized brands like Kohler Co., and years spent as the sales and development lead for Burke Water Systems Manufacturing (Burcam), a manufacturer of commercial, residential, and industrial pumps, including the sump pumps, well pumps, and water systems municipalities and homeowners rely on every day. That work meant understanding water infrastructure from the inside, not just in theory, and it's part of why I take water safety oversight in the current MSC discussion as seriously as I do. I was regularly brought in specifically to grow markets, build distribution networks, and strengthen sales performance for companies that needed real, measurable results, not just activity. That work meant managing large territories, negotiating agreements, and taking direct responsibility for revenue that ran into the millions annually, and on some major builder and developer accounts, budgets and project values that reached a scale comparable to a city's annual budget, not just a corporate one.
I also spent years consulting for manufacturers looking to enter or expand in the Ontario and or greater Canadian market, representing their products, building relationships with C-suite decision-makers, and helping new brands establish themselves here. That work sharpened a skill that matters just as much in council chambers as in a boardroom: knowing how to evaluate an unfamiliar proposal quickly and ask the right questions before committing to it.
Today, that same practical instinct shapes how I approach governance. Serving on the boards of healthcare and community organizations has meant real financial oversight, strategic planning, and accountability to the people those organizations serve. Whether the budget belonged to my own company, a client, or a not-for-profit board, the discipline is the same: understand where the money goes, ask hard questions, and make sure decisions deliver real value, not just good intentions.