Bringing Clean Water to Communities

Sean Petrus has helped lift more than 10 long-term drinking water advisories across Northwestern Ontario.

As a senior project manager with Colliers Project Leaders, Sean has overseen the construction of water treatment plants in First Nations communities—many who’ve gone years without drinkable water.

“I love making positive changes in the region I grew up in,” says Sean, who is from Thunder Bay.

It’s not only water treatment plant projects that he’s skilled at managing. He’s been in charge of the construction of schools, healthcare centres, housing projects, administrative facilities, and wastewater treatment plants. 

“I make sure that the best engineers and contractors are retained to ensure that capital projects are built on time and on budget, while overseeing the entire construction process on behalf of the client,” he says.

“Most of the credit, however, goes to the First Nations who retain me to manage these projects,” Sean says. “They’re out there advocating for, and coordinating, these developments.” 

It’s a far cry from Sean’s original career ambitions. 

He studied business administration at Lakehead with plans to work in the financial sector, possibly as a stockbroker.

At the end of his third year, though, Sean decided to switch to civil engineering.

“I couldn’t see myself working in downtown Toronto. I wanted to be in Northwestern Ontario, so I decided that civil engineering would be a good fit.”

His first venture into this area was as a project manager with Frecon Construction, an Ottawa company that had contracts with the Department of National Defence at the armed forces base at Petawawa, Ontario.

After a year in Ottawa, Sean headed to the Alberta oilsands where he was a field engineer on a multi-billion-dollar construction site, where he oversaw the construction of heavy civil earthworks projects including the building of roads, tailing dams, and mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls.

“We moved a lot of dirt,” he laughs.

Since then, Sean has tried his hand at an even broader range of endeavours.

He’s been a quality control coordinator at the Detour Lake Goldmine north of Cochrane, Ontario, and managed large-scale drilling projects to support the construction of 407 toll roads in southern Ontario, rapid transit projects, and Toronto’s new east-west subway line.

“I was part of a team that designed geotechnical instrumentation to monitor the subway line to make sure that, as they tunnelled through the earth, the existing infrastructure didn’t collapse,” Sean says. “This is when I really got into project management and decided it was what I wanted to do with my life.”

While racking up engineering experiences, Sean also managed to finish his remaining Lakehead business courses and received his Bachelor of Administration degree in 2016.

Every project that he takes on comes with unique challenges.

“In 2019, I was fortunate enough to be able to work with the Shoal Lake #40 First Nation on their drinking water project,” he says. 

It required a complicated water distribution system—several kilometres of marine water lines had to be installed on the bottom of the lake. The outbreak of the COVID pandemic not long after construction began added to the difficulties, and extensive safety protocols had to be developed.

Despite this, the Shoal Lake water treatment plant won the Ontario Public Works Project of the Year award for Small Municipalities and First Nations Communities —and Sean was delighted.

“Collaborating with First Nations on meaningful projects in Northwestern Ontario is what I find most fulfilling,” he says.