COCA presents annual awards
The Council of Ontario Construction Associations (COCA) named its annual award winners during a special event in Niagara Falls on June 9.
The council bestowed its top honours – the Cliff Bulmer Award – on Graeme Aitken, the Executive Director of the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario. The award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to furthering the relationship between the construction industry and the Ontario Government. Aitken has actively pursued a number of health and safety issues with the provincial government, many of which, COCA said, have benefited the entire construction industry.
Also receiving recognition for their work on behalf of the construction sector were Workplace Safety and Insurance Board Chair and long-serving Kitchener-Waterloo MPP Elizabeth Witmer. She and labour and employment lawyer Michael Sherrard, who chairs Skilled Trades Ontario, received COCA’s Construction Hard Hat Special Achievement Awards.
COCA presented its Industry Ally awards to individuals outside the COCA federation who have made significant contributions to the success of the construction industry or who have contributed to improvements to the industry environment in Ontario. This year’s awards recipients were:
- Ian Howcroft, Chief Executive Officer of Skills Ontario,
- Rod Cook, Vice President, Workplace Health and Safety Services and Matt Wilson, Director, Workplace Health and Safety Services – both of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board,
- Patrick Dillon, the former Business Manager and Secretary-Treasurer of the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario,
- Craig LeSurf, President of Gillam Group Inc. and Chair of the League of Champions, and
- Ron Kelusky Ontario’s former Chief Prevention Officer.
The recipients of this year’s Chair’s Award include Jim Lyons, the Executive Director of the Windsor Construction, Sue Ramsay, the General Manager of the Hamilton Halton Construction Association, Any Pilat, the late General Manager of the Sarnia Construction Association, and the Grand Valley Construction Association. All were celebrated for their contributions to COCA’s success.
Finally, receiving COCA’s President’s Award were Karen Sheldrick, the General Manager of the Niagara Construction Association, and Trina Hayden, a director at NORCAT, a not-for-profit technology and innovation centre headquartered in Greater Sudbury, and a member of the board of the Northeastern Ontario Construction Association.