OGCA says goodbye to Clive Thurson, announces Giovanni Cautillo as president
The Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA) has a new leader.
Long-time president Clive Thurston officially retired from the position he has held for nearly 20 years. Replacing Thurston is Giovanni Cautillo, the former executive director and chief operating officer of both the Greater Toronto Sewer and Watermain Contractors Association (GTSWCA) and the Ontario Sewer Watermain Construction Association (OSWCA).
The association announced Cautillo’s appointment in a YouTube video on June 1.
In a brief online introduction, Cautillo said he was honoured and privileged to assume direction of the 80-plus year old association, and said his goal was to continue to build on the work done by Thurston and the other staff at OGCA.
Meanwhile, on May 29, Procore hosted a send-off webinar for Thurston. In it, host Sanjeev Dhillon, field marketing manager for Procore Canada, asked Thurston to reflect on some of his accomplishments in the industry and with the association.
Thurston said he joined OGCA at a time when the association was in transition. Under his leadership, he brought a spirit of cooperation to not only the association’s membership, but also key players in the province’s construction industry. Where previously, owners understood they could influence construction activities by playing parties against one another, Thurston said, the combined efforts of OGCA and partners like the Consulting Engineers of Ontario and the Ontario Association of Architects elevated construction’s standing and influence in the eyes of owners.
“We saw that although we worked at the industry from different perspectives, we shared interests,” he said. “Our groups—and others—came together to form alliances like the Construction Design Alliance of Ontario and the Construction Employers Council, and we changed the face of the industry. We brought people together, and communicated, and stood up to owners who were making things difficult for us—and we won.
“We understood that when we acted together, people would listen to us, and we could change things for the better.”
One of the issues of which Thurston said he was proudest was the association’s work on prompt payment in Ontario. OGCA was among several groups that helped to shape the outcome of the province’s prompt payment regime, and create the system by which money flows more quickly and reliably through the construction pyramid.
Thurston also said he was proud of the work done by the OGCA to advance the cause of health and safety among Ontario contractors. The association’s approach was to transform the discussion around the issue into one around cultural change, rather than a regulatory issue.
Doing so helped create fewer on-site incidents (OGCA members record 40 percent fewer long-term injuries than other general contractors, Thurston said), and helped the association bring the Certificate of Recognition program to the province as a standard for health and safety management.
OGCA also led the way to creating the League of Champions—a safety networking group for signatory members.
One of the things Thurston was most passionate about during his term as OGCA president was contract fairness. Time and again, his association would fight back against owners that had inserted onerous or otherwise unfair language and terms in their construction documents. OGCA members worked together to present unified fronts before owners that inserted such clauses. They qualified bids or refused to bid work.
“Confrontation has disappeared as a result,” he said. “A few owners are still inserting these kinds of clauses, but contractors know to price these jobs accordingly to allow for any trouble they’re letting in. All we’ve ever asked for is fairness, and I think we’ve made a lot of good strides on that.”
Having said that, Thurston cautioned that the job is far from done. As those procurement officers he worked with closely start to retire, a new generation of officers who lack the same corporate knowledge, have to be re-educated.
Looking ahead to retirement, Thurston said he plans to stay on with OGCA to mentor Cautillo as much as possible. He also intends to remain available to the association and its members as an independent consultant and a certified arbitrator and mediator.