“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
This couldn’t be truer for James Scott, our VP of Operations at PBA Group. He continually brings a positive attitude, strong work ethic and passion to work everyday – even after 5 years with PBA. We would like to congratulate James on his 5-year work anniversary! You have been a tremendous asset to our team!
As the Vice President of Operations, James manages many of PBA Group’s internal and external operations including company culture, strategy and change facilitation/management, employee relations, IT, and marketing communications. He’s also responsible for project oversight, strategic land planning, and regulatory approvals on all of PBA Group’s developments.
James began his career with PBA Group of Companies as Vice President of Planning. An urban planner by training and with nearly 25 years of experience in planning and land development, James brings an expert perspective to PBA Group’s operations. Before joining PBA Group, he spent over 14 years as a planning consultant with Stantec and has worked as a consultant and strategist in the delivery of multi-million-dollar land development projects in Western Canada. James also managed in-house planning and strategic advancement of planning approvals as the Manager of Community Development for Three Sisters Mountain Village in Canmore. At Three Sisters, he was a part of the winning team for a CUI/CBN “Brownie” award for brownfield redevelopment as well as a sustainability award from UK property publication Homes Overseas.
James also believes in giving back to the Calgary community, and currently serves as a volunteer BILD nominee on the Calgary Planning Commission (2019-2021), a committee that makes recommendations to Calgary City Council on land planning and development.
James is a big family man as he is a husband and father of two daughters who are 20 and almost 17. They are also a ‘cat’ family as they have two 1-year old brothers (Winston & Salem), adopted from a farm near Cochrane. James is also a big bike enthusiast. When he’s not riding, you can find him building and “refining” (we all know you’re just tinkering, James) his bikes with his “ultimate tool set”. He also enjoys cross-country skiing with his wife and dreams of participating in the Svalbard Ski Marathon, the northern-most cross-country ski marathon (mostly because you’re accompanied by polar-bear guards). If he won an award for anything it would be a tie between ordering the most pizza in a year and buying the most coffee beans. A fun fact about James: He was born in the UK, lived in east England and moved to Calgary at age 14 and has not left unless it’s for travel, which he loves and continues to pursue.
One of the things that James loves about working for PBA is its family feel, agility, and the ability to get involved in a wide variety of projects and operational aspects.
James began at PBA during our 50th anniversary year and is now celebrating his 5th year with us during our 55th anniversary year. We asked him what celebrating #PBA55 means to him and how has iPBA changed the last 5 years. This is what he had to say:
“I knew PBA working in a consulting capacity at Stantec for 8 years before joining the company in 2015 and got to know the organization back then. PBA has changed a lot since those days actually, as it has grown and taken big steps in its evolution as a developer in the past 5 years. As an organization PBA has evolved and grown on many fronts in terms of business growth, increasing our community profile and looking inward at culture and expression of core values.”
Thank you, James, for all that you do at PBA Group. You make our team shine as one of the leaders in our company. Happy 5 years and we can’t see what you do in the next 5!