Jeff Pascua, P.Eng., M.Sc., Transportation Engineer
Can you tell us a little about your journey in engineering and what inspired you to pursue this field?
I distinctly remember a meeting I had with my high school guidance counsellor back in Ontario centered around career planning. I had received my driver’s license around the same time. Where a lot of my friends and peers were obsessed with driving their newly-obtained cars like their favourite action movie stars, I found myself more intrigued with other related things like the highways, the streets, the rules of the road, and all of the other systems in place that they relied on. After sharing this with my guidance counsellor, he suggested pursuing civil engineering as a career, with a focus on transportation. I was always comfortable with mathematics and physics, so it made sense to me.
I’d say I had an unconventional upbringing into engineering. After a three-year college diploma and two years as an undergraduate student, I chose to pursue a master’s degree in civil engineering, where I had studied relationships between injury risk, the built environment, and one of the most commonly overlooked groups in the transportation system—pedestrians. During my graduate studies, I remember presenting my thesis research at a major national conference. An audience member approached me afterwards and asked what my plans were after school; I told them that I’d be in looking around in the job market. Turns out that I was talking to my soon-to-be manager in my first transportation engineering job.
Since finishing school, I’ve had the opportunity to work in some interesting positions, including involvement with vehicle collision forensics, municipal development transportation policy development, and helping shape the built environment for not only motorists (like my high school peers), but for all road users regardless of transportation mode, age, or ability.
Wanting a change in lifestyle, I moved to British Columbia (by myself!) in 2022, where I joined Binnie’s Transportation Engineering and Major Projects group, working on transportation and traffic projects and living the dream I’ve had since my high school days.
What do you love the most about working for Binnie?
Even to this day, I’m still astounded by the many opportunities and avenues for learning that Binnie offers. For instance, every year, Binnie offers its employees an education allowance to be applied to various professional development. I’ve personally made extensive use of it over the past couple of years on things like improving my project management knowledge, as well as working towards further professional designations.
Aside from the education allowances that Binnie offers, the amount of learning done through projects and peers is unquantifiable. Since joining Binnie, I’ve had the privilege of working on very interesting projects under some amazing engineers and project managers. Some project examples include pedestrian behaviour modelling for a new state-of-the-art soccer facility, assessing highway access management for a First Nations group, and corridor safety studies within Metro Vancouver to improve the road user experience. That’s not to say you only learn through project work; I find the number of times I’ve learned something new and/or interesting just by having a quick coffee chat with a fellow employee quite amazing.
What is one piece of advice you would share with someone who is interested in pursuing engineering as a career?
I’ve been fortunate enough to have some great mentors through my engineering career so far. They’ve imparted many pieces of advice to me over the years, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to share one of them. When I was younger, I always had this idea that you had to know/remember everything in school in order to be successful in the workplace. Turns out, I couldn’t have been further from the truth! To that end, I suppose the one piece of advice I’d give to prospective engineering professionals is: you’re not expected to know everything in your field, and that’s OK!
One shouldn’t feel discouraged to ask as many questions as you need to put together a solution strategy and prevent small problems turning into big problems. Coming up on my seventh year in the industry, I’m happy to answer as many questions from a junior or co-op student so as long as they show the drive to learn. One realization that helped me was that all the engineers I’ve worked with were also junior at some point in their respective careers, but have worked their way up to be where they are now—so why not learn from someone who’s ‘been there’ and ‘done that’? Like I’ve alluded to previously, I think one would be surprised what they can learn from a five-minute coffee chat with a current professional.