“Without each, you have nothing and it’s worth listening to everybody’s point of view. It makes for a more collaborative workplace, he insists, with the person working the shovel being as important as the one sorting out finances.

It’s not that the 44-year-old wanted to be in the field forever, but he did feel it was essential for his boardroom role to be more “effective.” Over seafood at Gastown’s Water Street Café near his offices, he explains, “It always drove me nuts that some people in senior positions had never done this – unless you’ve poured concrete or backfilled foundations, how do you know what the guys in the field are going through?” Following his father and grandfather into carpentry, Chris Bourassa spent 15 years on construction sites before his current role as COO of Vancouver’s Ledcor Properties Inc., the investment and development arm of the Ledcor Group of Companies.

It’s not often that you come across a Harvard-educated executive who is at ease in a hard hat and in a pinstripe.

'Unless you've poured concrete or backfilled foundations,' says Chris Bourassa, 'how do you know what the guys in the field are going through?'įrom a Prairies childhood to a Harvard degree, Ledcor Properties COO Chris Bourassa knows all about buildings from the ground up.

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