Angus McLean English, P.Eng.

Angus English has spent decades offering his time and talent to promote and support the engineering profession. Since 2005, he has served on many of ACEC-BC’s committees, their Board of Directors, and has held a number of leadership roles, including Treasurer and Board Chair. 

He also sits on the board of the Engineers and Geoscientists BC Foundation, a registered charity that provides scholarships and bursaries to engineering students, supported by donations from professional engineers. At the moment, the Foundation is seeking to increase the financial value of its scholarships, because the costs of education and living have risen dramatically. To that end, English recently helped hire the Foundation’s first fundraising specialist to lead and oversee fundraising. That person’s mandate is to secure more financial support from organizations as well as “people like me who've enjoyed a great career as a result of their education,” rather than simply asking them to donate to the Foundation by “rounding up” when paying their annual professional dues, he says.

A long-time volunteer with United Way of British Columbia (formerly Lower Mainland), he has led many workplace campaigns, has been a campaign cabinet member since 2016, and stepped up to co-chair the organization’s campaign cabinet in 2020, during the pandemic’s first year. His motivation is simple: “So many people need help. How can you not help? It seems selfish not to, because even little things can make a big difference in people’s lives and sometimes all it takes is to be asked to help.”

Angus has held executive roles at AECOM and other leading engineering consulting firms overseeing large water and sewer projects throughout B.C.’s Lower Mainland. He is currently AECOM’s Project Director for the Northshore Wastewater Treatment Plant for Metro Vancouver. Angus says getting large, complex jobs over the finish line isn’t always easy, especially when there are several project partners and many stakeholders who all need to align on an end goal. That’s where his leadership philosophy—set the example by aligning personal actions with shared values and most of all, be curious—comes in handy. He is always willing to listen to other points of view and to try to create understanding. “People are easier to work with when you're genuinely interested in them and their needs,” he says.