EW 004 – Finding A Better Way To Execute A Major Infrastructure Project: How CAO Jodi Brown Got A Win For The Town Of Bon Accord

Gordon Sheppard (00:00.416)
And then I'm going to say welcome to the show and ask you to introduce yourself. And then I'm to say, tell me about one of your favorite wins. And we're just going to, it's going to move from there. Is that fair? Great. Jodi, welcome to the show. It is great to have you here.

Jodi Brown (00:05.4)
Mm-hmm.

Jodi Brown (00:11.062)
Hey, yeah, that sounds great.

Jodi Brown (00:16.408)
Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Gordon Sheppard (00:20.311)
Jodie, you know, a lot of people aren't gonna know who you are. So, you know, if you could introduce yourself and let us know about your role and what that kind of encompasses, that'd be great.

Jodi Brown (00:28.64)
Okay, thank you. So my name is Jodi Brown. I'm the Town Manager for the Town of Bon Accord I've been here for about three years now and yet my job is very busy. I have a very busy role here and anyone else who's a Town Manager or a CAO will certainly understand that. We juggle pretty much everything on a daily basis from

an operations perspective. So we take direction from Council and implement Council's vision on a daily basis. So love the work. It's a great job. Lots of fun. And yeah, I'm here to talk a little bit about that today in more detail.

Gordon Sheppard (01:05.828)
Yeah, and never a dull moment, right? For a chief administrative officer, it just, it never slows down. It's so fun. I look at bit of your pedigree there on your LinkedIn profile as well. You've earned your way up to this role through multiple different places. So I can't even imagine if we had sort of hours and hours today, we would talk about all those different things that you've come into. But luckily, you know, again, one of the ways we kick this off is to say, tell us about one of your favorite wins. And if you could describe it for us, that'd be great.

Jodi Brown (01:32.162)
For sure. So one of my favourite wins recently is just working on a stormwater park project. And so often people don't think of stormwater as super exciting. But for us, it has been a really, really good project that we're excited to share with the community at large today who might be watching this. So the town of Bon Accord has a wetlands area that has been, it's a permanent wetland, so it's been a part of the

community for a very, long time. And unfortunately, what we've started to see in the last, say, 10 years or so is some flooding issues with it. And also, it's starting to, the bottom is starting to fill with sludge and it's making less room and less capacity for stormwater management. so, initially, we looked at doing a traditional stormwater facility and that cost

was anywhere from I think 13 to 22 million, which for a community of 1,500 people is really, you know, not very feasible. And so we started to really look around at other opportunities and I think as I've mentioned before in talking with you, Gord, one of the things we thought about is there has to be a better way. There has to be a more feasible way. And so in speaking with colleagues and speaking with different experts in the

field, we were able to discover a new option called a naturalized storm park. And so we're excited about that. It's a nature-based solution and it will ultimately lead to better overall storm water management as well as a park community for our community. And it also revitalizes the nature aspect of a wetland. So the species living there from birds to any other animal species that are living

in that area will have a much better habitat and environment for them as well. So we're excited about that part of it. It cleans out the water with filters too, so that will allow us to irrigate. So that way that water can be used in the event of a drought, which we're starting to see in Alberta more and more. We could use that water to actually, you know, water our sports fields or water our flowers or even local farmers might be able to use it. So really excited about the outcome.

Jodi Brown (04:01.59)
this project.

Gordon Sheppard (04:03.709)
How remarkable, there's so many things to kind of break down in there. And again, in your role, you would see all kinds of proposals and possibilities. And I'm gonna guess, you know, like, it's funny, I wanna get into the structure of what I call the anatomy of a win to start this conversation off. And maybe I'll use that structure to, you know, sort of get to some of the things that I'm really interested in talking to you about. The anatomy of a win, the way I describe it is, you know, what was the strategy? What was the work plan? Who were the people involved? What was the operational component?

Jodi Brown (04:07.288)
Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (04:32.52)
What results did you kind of get at the end? I'll start at the strategy level. And you mentioned it really clearly. know, there's a reality to infrastructure investment for anybody. you know, strategically, you were faced with an issue that just didn't fit in there. There wasn't going to be a possibility of, say, doing it in that traditional way, you know, based on the dollar amounts that you were quoted early on. Strategically, then, how did you, how did this, what was the strategy to go and find this other better solution?

Jodi Brown (05:02.06)
Yeah, so I'll talk a little bit more about that and I realized I didn't mention that the cost for this new approach is actually significantly less. We're looking at five to six million instead of 13 to 22. So that was one of the key factors and then of course you put in the environmental benefits as well. However, to get back to your question on strategy, so my strategy was really to talk to people. Talk to my colleagues. There's, you know,

lots of expertise out there from my other CAO colleagues and even municipal managers at the senior level. And in doing that talking with them, I was able to connect with an engineering firm, Magna Engineering, and they had a new approach that I had heard about from my other CAO colleagues and how effective it was and how well it was working for them. And so I reached out to that engineering firm and they came forward with this additional option for us to

And so that has been just fantastic to work with them and have their expertise to look at a new and different way of approaching things.

Gordon Sheppard (06:12.726)
For other leaders that are listening, that strategy of reaching out to your network, how important is your, I mean, this is one issue that you've solved, but how important is sort of the maintaining that network for you in terms of helping, I'm sure with other issues as well?

Jodi Brown (06:17.324)
Mm-hmm.

Jodi Brown (06:27.666)
it's critical. You know, we all work in the same field and often we're all experiencing the same challenges. So being sure to have those connections and speak with your colleagues at conferences and even just reaching out to them by email or phone to say, hey, I see that you're, you know, doing this really cool project and I'm wondering if you could tell me about it. That is really valuable in itself. And I've done that more than once for a number of different issues.

And I find that I always get a really positive response. People are willing to help and willing to share their knowledge and expertise and successes. And so that's always a benefit and I would encourage anyone to do that.

Gordon Sheppard (07:10.305)
Well, it's funny in strategy, like when I facilitate strategic planning, you there's always talking about your vision, mission, values. It sounds like the people that you're reaching out to share values, that value of, you know, give, moving that information around, making each other successful, sort of floating all the boats. Does that make sense?

Jodi Brown (07:27.248)
definitely and like you alluded to earlier municipal government is certainly challenging. We always have a lot of different and unique situations that we're dealing with on a daily basis and so being able to have that support network with your colleagues is really important and many many times over the years I found that to be a huge

resource for me as even a senior manager or a chief administrative officer to be able to reach out to others in the field and ask their thoughts and their experiences to learn from.

Gordon Sheppard (08:04.13)
So very intentional to have that strategy in place, to have the network, to know that when you come up against something, an issue, you've got someone to reach out to. So very intentional on the strategy side. The second part of the anatomy of a win that I would call is what I'll call the work plan. So there's a practical part to this. So the what, who, and the when. How did you reach out to that network? How many meetings did you have to have? Really kind of break it down detail-wise for me, because again, I think other leaders can learn from that as well.

Jodi Brown (08:14.04)
Mm-hmm.

Jodi Brown (08:32.066)
Sure, well I didn't really have a formal work plan to be honest and maybe you know if you are very very busy like I do find I'm very busy sometimes it doesn't have to be that formalized. You can sit down and create a work plan and you know specific outcomes and strategies but all I did was talk to the person next to me at a conference to be honest and got them to tell me more about their experience with a similar but different issue.

And they referred me to...

to Magna Engineering as a possible resource for us to speak with. And so from that conversation, I did speak with the representative from that company and had a really good feeling about some of the things that they were sharing with me. And so it was really that simple. Talk to the people next to you at a conference. It helps. And then also, you know, even if you're in municipal government, you're familiar with the trade

shows that are at all of our conferences and so I went from engineering firm to engineering firm to engineering firm and asked the same question and that's another strategy I guess. So mine was less formal and more informal and I just reached out and asked a lot of questions of anyone who I thought may have some background or some experience to help us out. So really talk to a lot of people, ask a lot of questions, that's all I did for my strategy.

Gordon Sheppard (10:04.581)
Keep talking, keep asking the questions. It's funny about the work plan. There's a bit of, I'm going to say, semi-formalness in this, because there's that idea of being intentional to go to the conference. That's sort of intentional. And then there's actually, when you're at the conference, being intentional kind of when you're there. So it's remarkable for me about when I'm working through this anatomy of things that people have these things in there. And again, I just am trying to point out the ways, the specific details that other people can go to their next conference and make sure that they, one, speak up, like just don't be shy.

Jodi Brown (10:10.744)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (10:34.499)
and then take advantage of all those different things that are there. And how nice to have a big pool of engineers to talk to, because you wouldn't have gotten the same answer from each engineering firm. Is that fair?

Jodi Brown (10:46.282)
No, yeah, that's very fair.

In fact, some actually pointed me in the direction of Magna Engineering when I asked the question. So I think that there was, there's a lot of, they have a good network amongst themselves as well as engineers and that helped us connect to their firm because they are very specific to stormwater from what I understand. And so that was helpful. yeah, definitely don't be afraid to approach people. I find that people are often

really open to being asked and very willing to share their stories and share any advice or expertise that they have and so definitely I would encourage people to do that.

Gordon Sheppard (11:29.531)
I love it. And there's that moment when you're talking, you know, with an engineering firm that may not have the solution, but you have the ability to sort of, you know, get through that conversation and maybe ask that right question of like, well, you can't help me, but do know somebody? There's something like that kind of exchange going on, or maybe they brought it up or whatever, but that's that piece that we can actually be active about kind of going forward. Good. So we've got sort of the strategy, the work plan of sorts, semi-formal that you might call it. There's a bunch of people involved in pulling off a win like this. And let's just start with you.

Jodi Brown (11:41.718)
Yep. Yep.

Gordon Sheppard (11:57.553)
There's sort of you if we had to describe it, right? And there's something about you in this moment in time where you get these early quotes, you know it's unacceptable. What happened for you sort of internally in a sense in dealing with this problem that was a factor? Like what was your attitude towards it in a sense?

Jodi Brown (12:16.408)
Well, I don't give up easy. I'm not somebody who gives up very easy.

And so I just kept trying to find a feasible solution. And I know that, for example, Bonaccord is very focused on environmental initiatives. And so from that perspective, we were really looking at this is also a wetland. So although our town stormwater tends to drain just from when the town was built many, many years ago, our stormwater just goes that direction towards the wetlands. And so we wanted to take an environment

approach as well always our town has that our council is very committed to environmental awareness and initiatives so that was always in the back of my mind as well is looking for an option that would support that wetlands as an ongoing environmental area and so we wanted to make sure that you know the wetlands could thrive is like yes where I'm coming from we want that for our community and then the idea of having an amenity and a park for our

for our community was really a big motivator as well afterwards. And so you mentioned other people so I want to talk a little bit also I have an infrastructure manager that is really excited about this project and very committed to it and sees it as very valuable for the community looking forward to the future in the long term. Just what his comments were is just imagine people driving down the highway and seeing this lovely park and wetlands area in our community.

and then also of course for our residents. So he was a big driver behind this as well and I obviously have his support too with this project being the technical expert because I am definitely not. I can speak about it at a high level but this is really his area so he was a big champion behind this project and still is.

Gordon Sheppard (14:11.092)
Isn't it fun to sort of, I love the retrospective on this in a sense, because we've got you, someone who doesn't give up easily. How nice to have, you you in place. That's pretty neat. And then you've got an enthusiastic sort of technical expert, you know, internally, right? Somewhere in there, you got to pitch this up to council. Is that fair that they got to get involved? Is that?

Jodi Brown (14:17.804)
Yeah.

Jodi Brown (14:23.905)
Mm-hmm.

Jodi Brown (14:29.452)
Yes, yeah and our council is very supportive. As I said, they have a commitment in our strategic plan to environmental awareness and initiatives and so they were very excited about this project as well and obviously supported it as we're moving forward. And yeah, I think we have a really wonderful team here between council and administration. We work really well together. We each have a different role but work really well together and I think the success of the team is shown in this project.

Gordon Sheppard (15:00.289)
Interesting and I just to go back to the strategy piece. So you have sort of a strategy for the town That then this is almost a subset of that strategy So there's there is a layer in there of even sort of deeper, know, because you're driven from that big idea of you know Pretty the environment as one aspect. That's wonderful. So now we got the internal people we got the council Then you had to go to the conference someone had to put on the conference to sort of have that happen There's all the engineering firms that are there and then you ran into this engineering firm Tell me a little bit about them and their attitude that sort of was a big part of getting this win

Jodi Brown (15:21.784)
Yeah.

Jodi Brown (15:30.182)
well they're fantastic to work with and I would suggest anyone could reach out to them for more information about the firm. But they've certainly been really supportive in helping us with grants and helping us with the technical piece.

I just really can't say enough good things about them, to be honest. We've had a really good experience working with them. And I don't want to go too much into the technical because it's, you know, not my area. But certainly they were a key factor in helping us to see the value and benefits of this project for our community and to help us get, you know, excited about this and to share it with our community in a meaningful way.

Gordon Sheppard (16:10.433)
I love it. And then there's your community. So, I mean, like, what I can hear already is there's maybe some farmers that are going to get some access to whatever clean water they can use. You've got the chance to have people walk down your streets where that water is going to benefit things. What are some of the other impacts of this project? And again, who is impacted?

Jodi Brown (16:13.154)
Hmm

Jodi Brown (16:30.06)
Well, so we have started a Parks and Trails Committee as well. And so that committee will be central in helping us to consider where a trail should go around that.

wetlands area and I believe just in speaking with some of the committee members that they really see that as a huge benefit and would like to see it. We also have a large, shouldn't say a large, but we do have some bird watchers in our community and I think that they've already, we've got a little stand there with some pictures and one of our local residents took some of those pictures of some of the local birds and so I think that'll be huge for our community, those that really enjoy bird walking, those that enjoy walking and being out in nature.

and we have this natural area right there that's perfect for that. So I think that's another thing that will be a huge benefit is yes, there's the stormwater piece, which is really critical to municipal infrastructure, but there's also the quality of life piece where people are able to enjoy their community and have a beautiful park-like setting to walk around. And that's our end goal.

Gordon Sheppard (17:34.446)
Friends of ours are bird watchers and they've got that app on the phone where if they're in the, whatever, in the woods, they can hear the four different types of birds and tell you what they are.

Jodi Brown (17:43.988)
I know that's amazing. I wish I had that skill, but I don't.

Gordon Sheppard (17:48.109)
it's an app, it's on the phone, it's telling you the type of, anyway, it's just super fun. But again, when we talk about, again, you started with the win, you said we have this project. The people part is really interesting because we're hearing about the tenacity that it takes from your end, there's the council support, now you're get these benefits from this win. So many people obviously are affected and I think that list probably could go on and on if we sort of stayed on that step, but that's just wonderful to hear again how many people have been sort of positively impacted by this win for you and the town.

Jodi Brown (17:57.357)
Mm-hmm.

Gordon Sheppard (18:16.964)
The fourth step in here is operationally, what was in place to allow this win to occur? I'm gonna say there's a procurement process of sorts or a contracting something, there's regulatory aspects, there could be, I'm gonna say, internal software tracking, but what were some of the major operational components that allowed this win to

Jodi Brown (18:38.818)
Well, you know, it takes a lot of work.

on staff part to do the research in terms of what we need to do now going forward. So we are just at the beginning stages. We've completed a feasibility study and now the next steps will involve, as you mentioned, the procurement process, the planning process, the community engagement process, because there will be more of that forthcoming. And also just understanding what the next steps are from a very technical level. We do have some decisions

to make in terms of which options that council would like to go with in terms of finalizing the project. So right now we're just at the engineering stage and following that would be the first construction stage. So my guess is we have three to five years left before we would get to actually completing the project.

Gordon Sheppard (19:33.681)
What a, I mean that's long haul for a project. I mean that's quite a long time and again you've got to make sure it all happens within the legislation for example. The provincial legislation and the different types of things that are going on there. There might be internal policies, procedures. Are those factors as well?

Jodi Brown (19:36.28)
Yeah.

Jodi Brown (19:49.42)
Definitely. Basically because we're very small, we have a small staff and so it would probably be mostly myself and our infrastructure manager that would be doing the oversight, working with engineering teams down the line as well for the project. And so that involves a lot of grant reporting and getting other grants. And we're also looking at actually some different funding support. So there are some foundations

and some other organizations across Canada that may fund a project like this because it's new and innovative and environmentally based. So right now we are doing the research to find those opportunities to help offset the cost. So there's as little impact to taxpayers as possible.

Gordon Sheppard (20:37.56)
It takes forever to track down those grants and those funding sources, doesn't it?

Jodi Brown (20:41.76)
Yeah, it does. It's a lot of work, but you know what? It's worthwhile in the end and it'll really benefit our communities. And that's what we're here to serve our community and serve our residents. That's what we're here for. And so it does take a lot of time, but I think the end goal is worth it.

Gordon Sheppard (20:59.95)
It's interesting to hear about how much behind the scenes work it takes, right? So at some point, five years from now, someone's gonna be bird watching and maybe won't think about it very much, because they're gonna be enjoying themselves out in nature. In the meantime, there was five years worth that started with Tenacity that got us to a conference, that got us to an engineering firm, that got us to this moment in time where it pulled together and we went through all the granting and we tried to relieve the tax. Like, I love the complexity of this and it's just so lucky to be with you, sort of the center of it, to be able to describe the details, again, that I think a lot of people.

Jodi Brown (21:08.524)
Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (21:27.881)
going to get a chance to learn from. The fifth step in the anatomy part is how do you measure the result? What sort of things are you measuring to know that it's a success?

Jodi Brown (21:36.502)
Well, once we get to the end of the project, the first goal would be to see better management of stormwater first off, so to see less flooding, more stormwater capacity, to see our wetlands show signs of revitalization, and also to have the ability potentially to irrigate with that water, whether it's internal use for the town or whether it's another, you know, local farmer, having that opportunity to be able to irrigate would be the third.

outcome and then of course once we have that park in place that people are able to enjoy that would be the last outcome that we would use as a measure.

Gordon Sheppard (22:17.616)
And I heard in there somewhere, you know, if you do the cost benefit analysis, there's sort of a early quotes, maybe getting at half price. Is that another factor?

Jodi Brown (22:25.372)
definitely. The cost is significantly less than we originally anticipated and we're just continuing to work, continuing to work towards reducing that cost in terms of impact to rate payers. And so as you can imagine, we have a number of infrastructure projects on the go. So it is really important that we try and keep costs down, especially for a small size community. There's always roads that needs to be fixed. We have an arena that we're working on updates.

So all those other priorities also come into play. So the more funding we're able to get for this project, the better for our local taxpayers.

Gordon Sheppard (23:04.51)
Love it. And somewhere in there, the qualitative side is there's some sense of satisfaction. How would you sort of measure your own satisfaction in a sense if you had to talk about that?

Jodi Brown (23:13.292)
Well, I always like to, this is my fourth community I've worked in and in the municipal realm. And so anytime I leave a community after I've been there for some time, I like to be able to know that I made a difference for that community. So for me to be able to, to move on in my career when I retire and look back and say, that, you know, that stormwater park looks really awesome and the community really loves it. And it made those outcomes that we talked about earlier happen. And so,

that to me would be wonderful to leave that legacy and I always want to leave a positive legacy so I think that's where this would come from for me.

Gordon Sheppard (23:53.076)
is great. I so appreciate that you've taken the time to come and share this story, again, that I think a lot of other people can learn from. It sounds like it's been satisfying for yourself and it's in the middle of that journey right now that's going to get over the finish line in three to five years, but it sounds like you're on your way. And when we hear about an innovative solution like this, isn't that nice to know that there are alternatives to typical ways to do things and that there's maybe cutting edge or use of natural things that maybe can be done a little bit better.

Jodi Brown (24:21.836)
Yeah, for sure, definitely. And thank you for inviting us, you know, inviting me here to talk about Bonocourt today.

Gordon Sheppard (24:28.512)
Really appreciate it. Thanks for being on the show.

Jodi Brown (24:30.56)
Okay, thank you.

Gordon Sheppard (24:35.126)
Jody, I'm going to follow up with your contact information. So if people need to get in touch with you, there, I'm going to say a public address that we can pass out.

Jodi Brown (24:43.04)
Yeah, it's just cao at bonicorn.ca. Okay. Sure.

Gordon Sheppard (24:46.526)
Okay, so I can mention that in sort of the post part. then Kendra got in touch with you about sort of bio headshot and that kind of thing. That's great. Well, that's just super, right? Were you nervous there? How'd you?

Jodi Brown (24:53.228)
Yes.

Jodi Brown (24:56.8)
No, no actually I didn't find it too bad. Just a little bit repeating myself a little bit but other than that I think it was not I didn't find it nerve-wracking at all because you I know you're recording so I know you can cut stuff out if I really mess it up.

Gordon Sheppard (25:13.164)
Yeah, think that's just gonna flow great. That's really good. So what we're gonna do is we're recording now in sort of December, January. We'll let you know kind of, I'm gonna say end of January, early February when this is coming out and we'll keep you in mind and we'll do our best to get it out to as many people as possible. Would it be okay in the meantime to take a clip or two to throw on social media to promote the upcoming episode? Would that be reasonable for you? Yeah, we'll be pulling parts out of it and doing that kind of thing.

Jodi Brown (25:16.44)
Yeah.

Jodi Brown (25:34.579)
sure, yeah that's cool. Yeah, no that sounds great. Yeah, I can't think of anything else really to mention at this time, but yeah, no thanks for having us and help spread the word.

Gordon Sheppard (25:46.059)
Okay, and then I'll just leave one thing hanging there for you. It doesn't have to happen today. Another part of the, what's gonna happen, I think we're gonna go for three times a week for the podcast. So this would be a Monday episode where we learn a business issue. The Wednesday episode is gonna be for nonprofits. So we're looking for nonprofit wins. So it could be a specific nonprofit, but I heard about a fella from KPMG who talked about supporting kids with disabilities.

Jodi Brown (25:57.996)
Okay.

Jodi Brown (26:01.544)
okay.

Jodi Brown (26:11.427)
Gordon Sheppard (26:11.629)
and getting them into the workplace. And there's a great win that he got there. And then the Friday episode is going to be a personal win. And so I would invite you back to share a personal win or a nonprofit win, or if you have somebody to suggest, please, we'd love to hear. just looking for great stories as we go forward. And then just to let you know, stories that are coming on board are one fellow is going to talk about loving mentoring people in the accounting area. Someone else can talk about building $100 million screw piling business and the ups and downs and what it's like to deal with banks and partners and

Jodi Brown (26:27.224)
Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (26:40.554)
United Shareholder Agreements and all those things. That's gonna be a good one. And a whole bunch more coming out. So we'll keep you informed about that as well.

Jodi Brown (26:46.968)
Yeah, I'll keep that in mind because I do know a couple of nonprofits for sure. My background is FCSS. So that's what I started. Yeah, yeah. So I'll keep that in mind for sure.

Gordon Sheppard (26:53.912)
perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of it for me is in my own work as an advisor, you know, executive coach and business advisor, this kind of thing, I've done a lot of the strategic planning where I do the full days and pull that off. And what strikes me about the EDs and it's interesting to hear about people that worked in it is they often can get isolated. And when I deal with them, I know I'm able to bring a lot of help with that package of strategy meets leadership development, meets leadership team development. But my curiosity around supporting them is one to get it vocally out there. And also, again,

have a resource for other EDs to listen to as we kind of go forward.

Jodi Brown (27:27.722)
And so how do I follow you though? Cause I'd like to, like, it sounds like great stories, but I don't, not really sure how to follow you. is it on LinkedIn?

Gordon Sheppard (27:33.571)
What we're gonna do is we're getting that sort of set up. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take your CAO email and include that on a list. And it'll probably at a certain point give you an email to say either can you just log in and subscribe and that'll kind of get you on the drip and we'll give you sort of updates and let you know when the episodes are coming up.

Jodi Brown (27:49.56)
Okay, that sounds good. And the last thing, Gord, I wanted to ask, like you reached out to me on LinkedIn, but a couple of times I've been reached out to for...