23
NATIONAL BULLETIN | Issue 2, 2025
introduced to people in the trades,” 
he says.
In addition, the students work on a group 
project that requires them to solve a 
problem through the eyes of a contractor. 
For example, “The square footage is too 
small or it’s in New York City, and there’s 
no laydown area,” Getty says. “They’ve got 
to create a company and a backstory; it’s 
significant work.”
Through the course of their studies, “they 
meet people from the industry, they go 
to jobsites, they come to our events, like 
our Christmas party. We host a student 
summit every year; all the students are 
invited to attend a two-day networking 
summit. This January it was in Ottawa,” 
he says. “The goal is to get them hired 
into the industry, but more importantly, 
to teach them about the industry so when 
they do get hired, they provide  
immediate value.”
The FLAC is working towards an 
extension of the educational partnerships 
that would extend mentorship activities 
to the high-school level. “It’s not an 
immediate return on investment,” says 
Getty. “It’s 15 or 20 years.”
The biggest annual event for the council 
is the Emerging Leaders Conference. Two 
editions have already been held, and the 
third is set to take place at the Novotel 
Toronto Centre in downtown Toronto 
from March 25 to 27, 2026.
The 2025 Emerging Leaders Conference 
took place March 27 and 28 in Toronto. 
It saw about a 45-per-cent increase in 
attendance over the first edition. Presented 
by Procore Technologies, the sessions 
addressed a variety of topics, ranging from 
mental health in the workplace to emerging 
AI technology, project management, 
contracts and industry practice issues.
The conference also included interactive 
sessions around lean and pull planning 
and a keynote presentation from author 
and motivational speaker Mandy Gill, 
who spoke about some of the content 
discussed in her 2025 book Reset with 
Resilience: A Guide to Greatness When 
Your Goals Go Sideways. A wide range of 
speakers included people from industry 
associations, union representatives, 
consultants, legal experts and such 
companies as Procore and Mitsubishi 
Electric Heating and Cooling.
The conference activities are designed to 
“provide tangible education that can be 
taken back to the office, but also soft skills 
to help the next generation of leadership 
and provide resources and tools that they 
can take back to be more effective in their 
own roles,” Lancastle says.
An important component is an 
informal armchair session with seasoned 
professionals that gives future leaders 
an opportunity to simply sit down in a 
relaxed environment and ask the types of 
questions they might feel uncomfortable 
bringing up in the course of an  
ordinary workday.
“A lot of young professionals are hesitant 
to ask questions of the senior people at 
the company; through this conference, 
they feel like they’re tied to somebody 
they can talk to,” says Getty, who adds 
that he regularly fields calls from young 
professionals who need advice on topics 
like how to ask for a raise. “Our job as 
professionals in this industry is to win 
work and build jobs, but our goal in this 
industry is to make the industry better. It 
has to be better when we retire than when 
we started; it has to evolve.”
“If we can think more progressively and 
more about the value-add items that 
we have to offer, then we need to do 
it,” he concludes. “Every single person 
in this industry – it doesn’t matter if 
you’re turning wrenches or the leader of 
a Fortune 500 company – our job is to 
make the industry better.”  
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