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Gail McClelland, CHRP, RPR, RAS
Bringing expertise from across the pond
Gail McClelland works for the City of St. Albert as a Human Resources Advisor, a position she has held for the past three years. Prior to immigrating to Canada, she was a Human Resources Manager for the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England. She held the British version of a CHRP, which is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (MCIPD) and a Post Graduate Certificate in Management. Gail was pleased to have these qualifications recognised upon her arrival in Canada and gain her CHRP membership, as they are the result of three years hard work. She has since followed up with the RPR and RAS designations through IPM. Gail complains that it is very awkward having RPR, as her spell check keeps changing it to “Ripper” which is causing no end of amusement amongst her colleagues. She is currently doing the Local Government Certificate, which has been great so far in giving her a broad understanding of all the workings of a municipality.
Gail’s role with the City of St. Albert is that of generalist, so she is responsible for a whole variety of duties, including recruiting for positions ranging from administrative assistants to firefighters, training, grievances and investigations, organisational analysis, dismissals, attendance management, collective bargaining.
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Gail McClelland
CHRP, RPR, RAS
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Gail believes she may have gotten her job on the basis of her charming British accent, but maybe it was because of the wide range of experiences she could bring to the position. She had been responsible for over 800 police officers and support staff for eight years in London, so it is possible that the interview panel thought she could probably handle just about anything! As it happens, St. Albert has a small, but great team of four HR professionals who all bring different and complementary skill sets to the job. Gail believes she has been really lucky. She particularly enjoys the fact that St. Albert is a beautiful place to work and live, with wonderful open spaces and trail systems, feels great about doing a job that supports the people of the municipality.
When not at work, Gail keeps busy trying to stay ahead , mentally and physically, of her 4 year old daughter Kyla. Any energy left is spent at the gym or socialising and reading very dark murder and criminal psychology books.
Brenda Bulger, RPR
HR Career a Fortunate Accident
Brenda fell into the field of Human Resources quite by accident.
She began her career as a dietitian having graduated with a Science degree in Nutrition from Mount Allison University and then completing a Dietetic Internship at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax.
Brenda first worked in Ontario as a clinical dietitian but after a couple of years moved to PEI where she began working as a dietetic consultant with the Provincial Government mainly in the area of Long Term Care. A large part of her role was working with staff in the seven government owned nursing homes and manors across the Island. This involved both the hiring and training of new employees as well as the development of HR related policies and procedures.
This exposure to HR eventually led to a secondment with the PEI Public Service Commission. The Commission is an independent and impartial agency that is responsible for providing leadership and coordination to human resources in the public sector of the province. This agency services all government departments and agencies, the regional health authorities and other public sector employers. The Commission provides a full range of integrated human resource services including recruitment, job classification, organizational design and development, human resource planning, labor relations, employee benefits and staff training. Brenda has worked with this agency since 1990 mainly as a staffing and recruitment officer but has also had the opportunity to work in other areas for this very diverse employer. Over the years she has been involved in job classification studies, departmental reorganizations, casual conversion initiatives, development of HR policies, workforce adjustment, and staff training.
What Brenda finds intriguing working for this agency is the vast number of people she meets and the wide variety of positions she is recruiting for from golf course starters to engineers to chefs to nurses to CEOs to HR consultants! Recently she has been involved with the implementation of FOIPP legislation at the agency and dealing with "Duty to Accommodate" employees.
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Brenda Bulger
RPR
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Brenda's interests outside of work have involved committee work with various professional and community organizations. Through her two daughters she has been involved with gymnastics, soccer and rugby. In her spare time she enjoys reading, hiking and gardening as well as biking with her husband Frank. A recent goal is to bike across the island on the Confederation Trail a distance of ~300 kms.
Brenda always likes a new challenge and looks forward to taking on a few more projects before retirement in the next few years. She feels people can very easily get caught up in a "comfortable rut" in their job. That is why she believes it is important to try different things. Her motivation for this is the saying, "The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions" so keep on exploring, expanding and experiencing. You will have a much more exciting and satisfying career path along the way.
Stephen Anderson, RPR
Management troubleshooting with versatility
Stephen Anderson is Executive Administrator at AFI International Group Inc., but his role extends beyond regular administrative responsibilities. AFI International Group Inc. specializes in labour dispute services, assisting diverse clients on a project-by-project basis. The unique nature of the company’s business requires Stephen to draw on a range of expertise besides his management experience.
As Executive Administrator, Stephen is responsible for business development, marketing, client relations, hiring personnel and assisting the President with daily operations. His training as a CDT Tactical Master Instructor and Taekwon-Do Black Belt enables him to multi-task with a disciplined and focused approach.
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Stephen Anderson
RPR
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Before joining AFI, Stephen was well into creating a niche in security-related management. With an extensive security background, he was retained as security advisor for a major developer, coordinating security and public access at several high-rise buildings in Toronto. Prior to that, he managed a staff of 30 at a hotel at Pearson International Airport, where he took on the role of assisting hotel clients with various crises and liaising with federal authorities conducting security-related investigations.
When he joined AFI four years ago, his first order of business was to supervise construction and design of the company’s new headquarters in Milton, Ont. The facility is equipped with state-of-the-art security and is home to AFI’s operations, along with several tenant businesses.
One of those businesses is Creative Imaging Studio Corp, a graphics and Web site production house that contributes to AFI’s crisis management service. So it was a natural fit when Stephen was also named Vice President of Creative two years ago, a title that complements his administrative role at AFI.
At Creative, Stephen directed the launch of CompactDisasterRecovery.com, which provides crisis contingency services and was the first to put workplace disaster plans on portable USB disks so they are accessible during any kind of emergency.
He is a member of ASIS International, the International Association of Arson Investigators, the Human Resource Professionals Association of Ontario (HRPAO) and its Manitoba counterpart, HRMAM.
Stephen contends that while an MBA or other post-secondary education is valuable, some of the best managers are those with astute ‘people’ skills and the ability to mediate and problem-solve, qualities that can’t always be taught in school.
When he’s not working, Stephen enjoys spending time with his young family and mountain biking, which he says keeps him on his toes. As well, he enjoys producing woodcarvings and sketches, which require perhaps the same patience and attention to detail he deems imperative to successful management.
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