Alec is the President of ECCO Recycling and Energy Corporation, incorporated in 1992. The company has evolved under Alec’s leadership from a landfill to a major waste processing facility in the City of Calgary.
Alec was born in Southern Alberta, graduating with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1971 from the University of Calgary. His career has included a comprehensive range of engineering projects, from waste management and water treatment to land reclamation and transportation infrastructure. He has experience in system design and operation of sanitary, dry, commercial and oil waste disposal facilities, and for utility installations and land stabilization projects, working in both government and in the private sector, on domestic and international assignments. He has worked on numerous waste management projects in Alberta and BC where sensitive environmental conditions needed to be addressed while establishing cost-effective solutions. His expertise in waste handling has taken him to work on the development of a master plan for solid waste management for Shanghai, on a sewage treatment project in Malaysia, on several countrywide solid waste management projects in the Caribbean and one stint for the United Nations, providing guidance for waste management improvements in the Middle East.
Alec’s leadership was important in developing a Public/Private Partnership, the first in Alberta, between the City of Calgary and five local engineering and construction firms. The project office, with Alec as CEO, was responsible for major new infrastructure pro-jects from 1998-2005, from concept development through design, land acquisition, construction and commissioning. Projects included LRT extensions, new stations, major roadways and bridges that moved Calgary to a new level of service to its growing communities.
The need for environmental sustainability in waste management and energy production has become urgent. Alec and ECCO have been on the leading edge of the industry with their existing recycling services. The addition of EREC, (ECCO’s Recycling and Energy Centre) will economically and efficiently protect landfill space, recycle valuable material and produce an alternative fuel for industry. EREC incorporates state of the art technology for processing wastes into a wide assortment of products and commodities, targeted to recover in excess of 85% of the waste stream for productive uses.