From Acadis France to Hyder London

From ARCADIS Germany to ARCADIS Singapore…

Immediate international collaboration after my Quest: the first of many to come

My Quest took me from my home office of ARCADIS Canada in Richmond Hill, Ontario to the E.C Harris HQ in London, UK. My host Rob Evans arranged for a variety of meetings related to environmental planning, sustainable development, public consultation, social impact assessment. Our discussions focused on introducing key aspects of our work, sharing our experiences and creating a network of like-minded professionals for future opportunities. The online application process was easy and quick to complete. I exchanged several emails with my host as I planned my Quest to communicate my areas of expertise and interests and to discuss what I hoped to gain from the experience.   My host also assisted in providing suggestions for accommodations and travel from the airport. My first impression of the E.C. Harris office was WOW, this is very different. The office was open concept with a variety of work stations, meeting rooms of varying sizes on the perimeter and lockers for employees. It was bright, airy, and lacked the cubical feel I was accustomed to. My next impression was how friendly and helpful employees were when I was introduced. Despite busy schedules and looming deadlines, all made time to answer my questions and engage in discussions on what they did. I was even fortunate to receive invaluable local sight-seeing and restaurant recommendations. One of the most interesting and potentially relevant discussions centred on a sustainability tool developed at E.C.Harris. This tool, the Sustainability Target Assessment Rating (STAR) provides a score-card approach which enables […]

Learning about the mission critical market, practices and culture in Hong Kong

As a licensed electrical engineer with RTKL Associates Inc. based in Baltimore, MD USA, I am part of the mission critical engineering group, focusing on design and construction support for mission critical facilities such as data centers and financial institutions. In the mission critical market, Asia has recently been a strong focus for us, due to the high amount of new facilities being designed and constructed in that part of the world. I applied and was ultimately approved for an Arcadis Quest to spend about a week with the critical facilities group of EC Harris, a built asset consultancy who does project management for a number of large multinational clients in Hong Kong. The purpose of my Quest was to learn about the mission critical market, practices and culture in Hong Kong, and bring back ideas for future collaboration with different Arcadis partner companies throughout the world. My Quest began with a sixteen hour direct flight from New York to Hong Kong. When I arrive dazed and confused I was graciously met at the airport at 6AM by my host Stephen Hilton, who I would be shadowing for the majority of my time there. My interactions with the EC Harris team started on the second day of my trip where I was taken to the corporate headquarters of one of the main banks based out of the city. Hong Kong has always been a hub of worldwide finance since early in its history. Banks are also one of the biggest […]

Emerging Wastewater treatment processes in the US : Aerobic Granular Sludge

The proposition value for public transport

I joined Arcadis France in 2013, within the Urban and Rail Transportation Department. Talking with some French colleagues, I heard that Arcadis NL had participated in a European report (COST : Cooperation for Science and Technology) on Bus of High Level of Service. I thought it was a really great opportunity to share knowledge on Public Transport with our Dutch colleagues and decided to ask for a Quest to Robert-Jan Roos, who participated in the COST program. Three months later, I was in Amersfoort, to start an enriching week! During the first three days of my Quest, I visited several public transport networks in The Netherlands. The first day, I visited with Robert-Jan the city of Almere, a new city, south-east of Amsterdam. This city is a good example of what we can do when we combine urbanism and efficient public transport and I recommend it for everyone who like urbanism. The following days, I visited the Zuidtangent (south of Amsterdam), Utrecht, Enschede (extreme east, on the German border), Ilpendam (north of Amsterdam)… many cities but fortunately, Dutch trains are quite efficient! On Thursday, I was a little bit stressed : it was the day of my lecture! To a dozen of my Dutch colleagues I presented the French concept of BHLS and the new concept of the “light” BHLS. At the beginning, I was anxious to do a lecture in English, but in the end, everything went well. On Friday, I met Bas Bollinger and we discussed the proposition value we could make for public […]