Soirée de l’excellence en génie 2018 — the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec pays tribute to the excellence and know-how of its members

MONTREAL, May 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec paid tribute to the excellence and know-how of its members at the 14th Soirée de l’Excellence en genie on Wednesday, May 30, 2018, at Grévin Museum.

"The Soirée de l’excellence en génie is an opportunity to pay tribute to the engineers who set themselves apart through their innovativeness and remarkable achievements. The 2018 recipients of the OIQ awards truly reflect the diversity in engineering and remind us that engineers work in all sectors and actively participate in improving the well-being and prosperity of our society,” stated Kathy Baig, Eng., FEC, MBA, President of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec.

2018 Grand Prix d'excellence
Engineer Roland Charneux won the 2018 Grand Prix d'excellence, the highest distinction awarded by the OIQ to one of its members. This prize has been awarded every year since 1991 in recognition of outstanding professional practice by a Québec engineer. The engineer who receives this prize serves as an example for the profession and is recognized for his or her visionary qualities, innovative achievements and social commitment.

Mr. Charneux has worked at Pageau Morel for more than 40 years. A proponent of energy efficiency, he has always given priority to this value. Over the years, he has become a reference in the field of building engineering in Québec, Canada and elsewhere in the world. Roland Charneux has received over 25 awards for projects he has worked on, including 9 international honours, particularly for the designs of Mountain Equipment Co-op's headquarters and John Abbott College’s Anne-Marie Edward Science Building, in addition to energy improvements made to Complexe Desjardins.

An exceptional ambassador for the engineering profession, Mr. Charneux has always advocated that practice should be supervised. He has helped train a generation of engineers and made them aware of their responsibilities and the values of impartiality, rectitude and transparency which all engineers must demonstrate. Every day, he supervises the practice of young engineers and passes on his passion for engineering to them.

2018 Prix Génie innovation
The goal of the Prix Génie Innovation is to encourage innovative engineering by recognizing its value both in terms of the results achieved and the efforts made. This year, the award was given to the team of engineers at Pyrowave, which created a commercial technology for recycling post-consumer plastic into chemical products that can be used to recreate new plastic. This innovation will undeniably have a positive impact on the environment because it will enable material to be recycled that all too often ends up contaminating land and sea.

Pyrowave has a solution that can detach monomer molecules from the polymer structure and recycle these molecules by bringing them back to the beginning of the polymer synthesis process. This innovation will transform the polymer industry – materials with interesting mechanical and thermal properties for packaging, but previously known for being hard to recycle. By reusing the molecules in Pyrowave's unique process, the extraction of petroleum resources and greenhouse gas emissions can be avoided when producing new molecules.

Hommage awards in recognition of outstanding contributions
Engineer Mark Driscoll received the Hommage Émergence award, which recognizes the professional achievements of an OIQ member who is 35 years of age or younger. Mr. Driscoll, a professor at McGill University, sets himself apart through his numerous contributions to biomechanical engineering and spinal column engineering. At 35, he is already a co-applicant of 23 spinal column-related patents and has successfully commercialized 3 spinal column medical devices which are used in over 15 countries. One of them was also honoured in 2014 for being the best diagnostic device.

Engineer Andrée-Lise Méthot received the Hommage award for entrepreneurial members. In addition to founding and leading Cycle Capital Management, an important venture capital platform for clean technologies, Ms. Méthot has built an entire ecosystem for the industry; first, she co-founded Écotech Québec, the clean technology industrial cluster, and then created SWITCH, the Alliance for a Green Economy in Québec. Today, Québec’s cleantech sector bears the mark of engineer Andrée-Lise Méthot, and her influence in the field is growing elsewhere in Canada and the world.

Engineer Patrick Paultre received the Hommage award for members in research or education. A structural engineering professor at the Université de Sherbrooke and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Earthquake Engineering, Mr. Paultre's work has a two-fold focus: basic research and its practical application through the development of standards. As a structural dynamics expert, Mr. Paultre has made major contributions in several areas and actively used his knowledge to ensure that earthquake engineering expertise was developed locally in Haiti after the devastating earthquake there in 2010.

Engineer Stéphane Vaillancourt received the Hommage award for outstanding social commitment. Throughout his career, Mr. Vaillancourt has put his expertise to use for many charitable organizations. For instance, he has chaired the board of directors of Little Brothers of the Poor and Imagine Canada. As President and Chief Executive Officer of the YMCAs of Québec since 2002, this committed engineer has not only actively supported the development of academic achievement programs in the YMCA network in Québec and Canada, but also led the creation of a new community and sports centre in Montreal’s Cartierville district.

President's Volunteer Service Award
Engineer Houssem Sfaxi received the President’s Volunteer Service Award. This award is given to an engineer who demonstrates exemplary commitment toward his or her professional order. As Chair of the Estrie Regional Committee from 2006 to 2017, Mr. Sfaxi was actively involved in carrying out various training activities and set himself apart particularly in engineering promotional efforts at secondary schools in his region. Now that his term as Chair of the Estrie Regional Committee has ended, he continues to be involved in the OIQ as a member of the Professional Inspection Committee.

Through its policy on rewarding professional excellence, the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec seeks to recognize the achievements of engineers whose careers offer an example of how the four key values of the profession, i.e. competence, ethics, responsibility and social commitment, can be fulfilled. The recipients of its awards are also chosen on the basis of their leadership, know-how and self-management skills.

About the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec
Founded in 1920, the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec has a membership of some 63,000 engineering professionals in all fields, except forest engineering. The OIQ’s aim is to be a unifying organization and a reference for professionalism and excellence in engineering. Its mission is to protect the public by acting to ensure that engineers serve society with professionalism, compliance and integrity in the public interest. For more information, go to www.oiq.qc.ca.

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