Angela Hickie-Miller leverages collaboration and project management skills to deliver major projects

Angela (front centre) with colleagues in the Regina office (l-r: Nicole DeBond, Thomas Goddard, and Nancy Inglis)

As Manager, Special Projects in our Regina office, Angela Hickie-Miller leads a talented group of project engineers, project managers, administrators, and analysts to deliver major projects, including some of Canada's largest and most complex projects. Her team, including Thomas Goddard, Stella Madsen, and Pamela Procyk, bring decades of project delivery experience coupled with expertise in project, financial, schedule, and document controls; information management; analytics; communication; and collaboration.

"Working with this amazing team has been one of my career highlights!"

Recent examples of the group's success and involvement on large-scale assignments are the award-winning $1.88 billion Regina Bypass project, the Westside Irrigation project in Saskatchewan, and the Municipal District of Acadia and Special Areas joint irrigation project in east-central Alberta in Treaty 7 territory. These complex projects require budget and schedule control, risk management, collaboration with multiple partners, and stakeholder engagement.

The Special Projects team members are typically involved in all aspects of project management, through all phases of a project. Typically, one of the first steps of their projects is setting up a project collaboration site to enable efficient and secure data sharing and collaboration for use by internal and external personnel.

"It’s important to create a virtual project environment that is easy to use, well supported, and has excellent search capabilities. We try to keep things simple and get input from the project team to ensure that they are onboard with the site development."

Angela tells us, "Our Special Projects personnel are often the 'go-to' contacts for project information. Depending on the project, we may use lists or logs to track submissions, issues, decisions, lessons learned, and other important data. We analyze information to get a handle on its importance. We are also often involved in the compilation of technical information and therefore can serve an active role in ensuring project deliverables have a consistent voice and reflect the client's expectations."

Financial controls include contract management and amendments, ongoing monitoring of budgets and schedule, and invoicing based on an agreed-upon work breakdown structure. Project dashboards are provided to clients on a monthly basis that provide a snapshot of each project's status. Updates on project deliverables, schedule, and earned value forecasting are also included.

"For multi-consultant projects, we may develop project-specific templates, naming conventions, and other procedures which may support the development of the Project Management Plan, Quality Management Plan, and Project Safety Plan. We provide project onboarding training sessions to help roll out the various information. Training is also a great opportunity to build a strong and supportive team environment."

Angela is a Civil/Environmental Engineer, who first joined Associated Engineering in 1996. She started her career on the design and management of municipal infrastructure projects. She later held a role as Senior Engineer in charge of proposal development for the Regina office. Presently, in addition to her management role, she is also involved on the Acadia irrigation project and the City of Edmonton's Capital Line LRT project.

Angela and her father attend the Hospitals of Regina Foundation Donor Appreciation Gala

When asked about people who have influenced her career, Angela shares, "I've had many influences and mentors in my life and career, including my parents; Ken Hicks (a long time Associated project manager); and my former colleagues from the Yorkton Tribal Council. Each of my mentors demonstrated a remarkable ability to overcome obstacles and contribute so much to society. As a leader, Angela believes in building on each other’s strengths and supporting one another through challenges."

Over the years, Angela has volunteered extensively with APEGS, Extendicare, Regina Food Bank, Inclusion Regina, and many more.

"Currently, my main volunteering work is with my daughter’s baton twirling club, as I serve as Club President."

She says, "Associated's Regina Branch Manager kindly allows me to host club meetings at our office. As a female dominated sport, baton twirling doesn’t get the respect or funding it deserves, even though the level of athleticism and dedication is on par with other competitive sports. Therefore, any help we can get is so appreciated. Thank you Associated Engineering for your support!"