Employee Spotlight: Matthew Malone

Civica’s latest Employee Spotlight features a Q&A with Matthew Malone, Project Manager and VP Business Development at Civica.

Can you tell us about your background and what inspired you to pursue a career in the civil engineering industry??

I attended the University of Toronto and completed my masters of science degree in hydrology. I started looking for a career in the STEM field right away, focusing on companies that were interested in water, and got a call from a company called Civica that wanted me to work on municipal infrastructure. Little did I know I would be going into some pretty interesting sewers in the GTA pretty much right away. It was amazing to see how much water is managed in underground infrastructure that you do not see every day. It gave me an appreciation of the work that municipalities do in managing this vital resource.

What does a “typical” day in your job look like?

My typical day is pretty hard to nail down. I work on projects, communicate with clients, build marketing content, write proposals, attend lots of meetings…it is interesting because there is quite a bit of variety and it is also very challenging at times.

What do you enjoy most about your job, and what are some of the biggest challenges you face?

I enjoy interacting with clients and colleagues, learning about their problems and working together to create solutions. Most of the challenges we face relate to communication and engagement – when we are able to clearly convey the importance of our work to external stakeholders, it makes tackling those challenges much easier and satisfying.

Can you share a recent accomplishment or project that you’re particularly proud of?

I completed my EMBA last year at Queen’s University, that was a big personal and professional accomplishment. We have some projects where we are able to create wastewater system capacity for new developments using creative solutions and I am happy with the outcomes from that work.

How do you stay creative and innovative in your work, and what inspires you to think outside the box?

I usually take things day-by-day and try to improve incrementally. There are a lot of really neat and innovative ideas that can be taken from other industries that we can adopt for our use. Taking time to disconnect from the day-to-day rat race to learn about other technologies/ideas is something I do to try to bring innovation to my role.

What advice do you have for someone who is interested in pursuing a career in civil engineering, and what qualities do you think are important for success in this field?

It is a great field of work and you will get many opportunities to meet smart, talented, and kind people. For success, you need to be open to new experiences while also having great communication and technical skills.

What do you see as some of the biggest trends and innovations in civil engineering right now, and how do you think those will impact the industry in the coming years?

The big elephant in the room is AI and how this technology will impact our industry and pretty much every industry out there. There will be some big transformations in the ability to collect and analyze big data, of which there is a ton in our industry. I don’t think we will see robots installing infrastructure on their own any time soon, but you never know.