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7978 Bo Wasilewski

\Armed with a degree in Engineering and Management, my first posting was to a Management Services unit at 202 Workshop Depot in Montreal where one of our tasks was a time and motion study of various electronic repairs.  It was a useful exercise, but I often wondered how seriously we were taken by senior line management and the unions.

My second posting in 1972 was to the Lord Strathcona Horse armoured regiment, based in Calgary, as Maintenance Officer. I was fortunate to accompany the regiment during its peacekeeping tour in Cyprus. As Duty Officer, on a one day (24 hours) on, two day off rotation, I had plenty of extra leisure time, so I started taking flying lessons with a Greek company, Daedalus Aviation, located at the Nicosia International airport. It was a tremendous adventure flying all over Cyprus, even up to the tip of the panhandle. Unfortunately our unit left two weeks prior to the arrival of the FAA examiner for my pilot’s test. This love of flying led me to become a glider pilot/instructor later in Calgary.

In 1974 I retired from the Forces to join Fenco, a small consulting firm providing engineering and field supervision for Panarctic Oils, which was conducting exploratory drilling in the high Arctic. To drill in the offshore locations, Fenco developed an innovative system of repeated flooding of the parent ice sheet to achieve a total thickness of about 18 feet. This would support a land based rig, brought in by Hercules transport, to an ice runway in the late Dec timeframe. Drilling, testing, and rig removal had to be completed by the Mar/Apr spring thaw. During one of my rotational flights, the Lougheed Electra had her left landing gear collapse upon landing at Edmonton, and the aircraft slid off the runway. By the time the fire trucks arrived we had walked halfway through the deep snow to the terminal!  Next day we were flying to Rae Pt, on Melville Island to complete the rotation.

I joined Gulf Canada in 1976, where I managed the conceptual/ preliminary engineering for various drilling and production systems for the Beaufort Sea and Canada’s east coast. In 1990 I was seconded to the Hibernia Gravity Base Structure Project team in St. John’s as Business Manager. When Gulf pulled out of the project due to financial difficulties following its acquisition by the Reichman brothers, I got the word at the Montreal airport, just having completed a team building session. This was the darkest day of my whole career.

Back in Calgary in 1993, I chose a complete career change by pursuing a dream to become a home builder and I started a company called Wild Rose Homes. An architect friend advised me I wouldn’t like it, but to try it once “to get it out of my system”. I did and no sooner had I  completed my first project, when I received an offer in 1995 from SABIC (Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corp) to become the Manager of Engineering Standards. We were offered an International school in Riyadh for Nicholas  and Alexandra, a resort lifestyle in a walled compound, and numerous opportunities to travel, so with Judy’s encouragement, I took the offer. In contrast to Arctic temperatures of -50C, daily temperatures of 40-50C were no big deal, as long as one had AC. Although we travelled extensively out of KSA, the most unique trip was a 5 day desert camping trip with 3 other families who had diplomatic plates. (2 American, 1 Norwegian). We drove on paved highways from Riyadh to Madain Saleh, an archeological site, for the first night. Thereafter it was 3 days of offroad desert driving to Medina. Luckily our team leader had done this trip previously, and knew a route that would avoid any problems, should we have a vehicle breakdown. We did not encounter a single soul for the desert portion. Our trek paralleled/crossed the ancient Hejaz railway, running from Damascus to Medina, from Laurence of Arabia days. In fact we came across several blown-up trains, partially buried in the sand!

We had to leave KSA in 2000 after a wonderful 5 years because the international school was limited to grade 9, and we weren’t prepared to send Alexandra, our eldest daughter to a boarding school outside of the country.

Back in Calgary, a 6 month hiatus allowed me to get into shape, cycling the numerous city pathways and getting to mountain bike trails in the Banff/Kananaskis area. Then I had to get back to work consulting on O&G facilities engineering- oil/gas batteries, pipelines, gas compression and water injection systems in western Canada, Ecuador, and Australia.

In 2007 I became a full time consultant to ConocoPhillips. One highlight was a 6 month assignment to Aker Solutions in Oslo to oversee the preliminary engineering of a drilling/production facility in the Beaufort Sea. I retired in 2015

Judy and I live on an acreage west of Calgary. We are busy taking care of our young granddaughters 3 days a week, gardening, and small house projects. We still have reasonable health and enjoy occasional strolls, travel, hobbies such as amateur astronomy, and entertaining family and friends who venture to Calgary (for excitement!)