Gord Alexander Joins Inertia

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Inertia welcomes Gord Alexander to the team!

Upon graduating from SAIT Polytechnic’s Architectural Technologies program in 2003, Gord began his career at Cutforth Technologists where he focused on completing plans for hotels all over rural Alberta as well as custom summer homes at some of our popular lake communities.

Gord then moved into the residential world full time when he started at Albi Homes where he did all aspects of design from custom homes, site construction supervision, and management . As part of the product development team they were the recipients of several local and national SAM awards for design excellence. During his time here, Gord also completed the Lean Construction Program which focuses on customer value, construction and design efficiencies, as well as improved process flow and a minimization of waste. It is these principles that Gord is mindful of when designing any new residential project.

Gord has spent time getting builders like Homes by Dream up and running by helping set up design software and procedures as well as providing several new house models with everything from cozy starter homes to move up models and Estate homes. 

Inertia’s commitment to urbanization through bold and striking architecture is what made Gord most excited about joining the Inertia team.

Welcome Gord!

Inertia Welcomes Marcella Borrelli

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We're very happy that Marcella Borrelli has joined our team at Inertia!

Marcella graduated from SAIT Polytechnic in 2011 with a diploma in Architectural Technology. Throughout her education and early career, she has developed many valuable skills including a working knowledge of AutoCAD, Revit, and best construction practices.

After graduating she worked at a small custom firm PDW Design, gaining knowledge in completing as-builts, and creating construction drawings for both residential and commercial spaces. From there she obtained a position at Excel Homes, where she became a member of the production team. In 2014 she made the move to the custom home world at Phase One Design, where she managed many projects, completing construction drawings, growing her design skills and knowledge of many municipalities Land Use Bylaw in Alberta and BC. In her spare time Marcella enjoys exploring her love of cooking for friends and family as well as indulging in her love for live music by attending many local shows. She enjoys giving back to the community as is actively involved with volunteering and organizing many local charity events.

Welcome Marcella!

Yvette Perot Earns CCCA Designation

Yvette Perot, our Contract and Construction Administrator, has just earned her designation as Certified Construction Contract Administrator.

As prerequisites of this designation, Yvette is a member of Construction Specifications Canada and has successfully completed the Principles of Construction Documentation and Construction Contract Administration course. Yvette also has well over the minimum of five years experience in the administration of construction contracts.

More information about this designation is available here. Congratulations Yvette!

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Paul Mowat Joins Inertia and Gravity

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Paul Mowat has had a well established career in Calgary as an architectural contractor. We’re happy to announce that he has chosen join the team here at Inertia and Gravity.

Paul has over twenty years of experience on a wide range of projects from multi-family, long term care and independent living facilities, low-to-mid rise buildings, commercial, institutional, correctional and custom house design and detailing. His primary focus is on detailing the sequencing of building materials, the building envelope design and barrier membrane continuity and integrity.

In addition, Paul also has extensive contract administration experience having managed building phases 1, 2 & 3 of a long term care and independent living facility in Evanston, Calgary. During the three years on this site he used his expertise in building design to provide guidance to the site supervisor and sub-trades to successfully execute the contract documentation. This was achieved while maintaining quality control and remaining on budget and on time.

In his spare time Paul likes to build rustic custom furniture, barn doors.

Welcome Paul!

Welcome Aboard Amy Ford

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Amy Ford has joined the team at Inertia and Gravity!

Amy started her career working for Omega Partnership in the United Kingdom as an RIBA Architectural Assistant, working on residential projects for many different housing developers. Whilst working at this firm, Amy completed her BA(Hons) degree in Architecture from Kingston University in 2014. Throughout her 14 years at Omega, Amy worked on single family house design, multi-family developments, listed building applications and masterplan design. 

Amy left to gain more construction experience and started work for Thames Design and Build as a Design Manager, taking projects from initial conceptual design, development and building permit application through to on-site project and site management. Here she worked on custom home design, interior design and additions. 

Amy’s passion for skiing and winter sports brought her to Canada in 2016. Her first role was with Home by Avi Urban as an Architectural Designer working for Multi-family projects. Amy then took a position at Envision Custom Renovations where she was responsible for interior design, additions, specifications and selections.

Welcome Amy!

Anthony Pienkos Joins Our Team

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We're pleased to inform you that Anthony Pienkos is now on the Inertia and Gravity team.

Anthony Completed his Architectural Technologies diploma in 2016 From SAIT in Calgary. Prior to discovering his love of architecture, Anthony studied Anthropology at MRU and installed modular partitions from suppliers such as DIRTT and Teknion on notable projects including Norman Foster’s Bow Building and the University of Calgary.

Anthony comes to us from DIALOG in Vancouver, where he worked as a contract administrator assistant for the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Westbank and DIALOG Joint Highrise Project known as Vancouver House which was awarded “Future Building of the year 2015” by the World Architecture Festival. During his time at DIALOG, Anthony was also able to become a Canadian BIM Council certified P2 BIM coordinator. 

Not only is Anthony a competent Revit user but he is also well versed in design and visualization Software such as Lumion, Sketchup, Adobe Creative Suite and 3DS Max as well. He also has experience using BIM software such as Navisworks, 360 BIM glue and Revit Live.

Welcome aboard, Anthony!

Welcome Back, Paul.

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Inertia is celebrating it's twelfth birthday this month. As we've reported before in this blog, Inertia was founded by Trent Letwiniuk, Stephen Barnecut and Paul Shannon back in aught six. We worked out of our houses at first, then into one basement, and another, and then teamed up to share office space with Casola Koppe Architects. In fact, Paul has spent the last five years with Casola Koppe learning about how to bring large residential projects off the spreadsheet and into reality.

We're very excited to announce that Paul has returned to Inertia, and has taken up the role of Senior Project Manager. Paul is now running Inertia and Gravity's larger and more complex projects.

Paul completed the Architectural Technology program in conjunction with the Co-operative Education Program at Fanshawe College in Ontario in 1999. The Co-operative Education included one semester per year of on-site work experience, which put his theory into practice. Upon graduation, Paul moved to Calgary and soon began at Calbridge Fine Homes as their sole designer/draftsman and product developer, working on mostly custom homes and small multi-family projects. In the Fall of 2003, Paul moved to Jager and AlanRidge Homes as the Senior AlanRidge Designer and member of the product development team. At Jager and AlanRidge, Paul worked one-on-one with clients and was able to further hone his skills in the custom and estate home market. In the Spring of 2006, Paul left Jager and AlanRidge to co-found Inertia Corporation where he managed his own group of clients.

In 2009 Paul took a hiatus from Inertia to work at Robert Pashuk Architecture and pursue the RAIC Syllabus program. After spending a year and a half back at Inertia, Paul then took a role as Senior Architectural Technologist at Casola Koppe Architecture where he continued to work on larger multi-residential projects. He returned to Inertia and Gravity at the beginning of 2018 in the role of Senior Project Manager.

We're happy to have you back, Paul.

Welcome Harvey Hibo

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We're happy to announce that Harvey Hibo has joined the team at Inertia and Gravity!

Harvey received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto in 2003. He has since worked with a variety of design firms and developers, closely involved in aspects of architectural service ranging from evaluation, planning and design. Harvey is registered as an Intern Architect with the Alberta Association of Architects (AAA).

Harvey brings 15 years of experience in the field of technical, construction drawings and contract administration with strong background in institutional, recreation, commercial and community projects involving master planning design and processing contract documents. Harvey provides value to Gravity and Inertia's clients through his design innovation and process efficiency.

We're happy to have you, Harvey!

Kathryn Thorkildsen Joins the Inertia and Gravity Team

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Late last year, Kathryn Thorkildsen joined the team at Inertia and Gravity.

From Frank Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry, Kathryn has always had an appreciation for all styles and methods of architecture and knew from a young age that she would have a career in the industry. In 2003 she graduated from the Architectural Technologies program at SAIT and has since had a primary focus in Single Family Residential.

Kicking off her career working for Evans 2 Design Group doing architectural controls, Kat moved on to work with Jackson Baker McCormick Design Group. There she managed her projects in all aspects including the creation of detailed construction drawings, product research, permits, and working with each trades to ensure the end result met or exceeded expectations. As a member of the innovative product development team at Albi Homes she honed in on her love for design, and her team was rewarded with multiple Regional and National SAM awards. Bringing both her technical skills and her passion for design, Kat joined Inertia and Gravity in the fall of 2017 and is a welcome addition to our team.

Welcome Kathryn!

Inertia and Gravity Welcome Sadaf Rabbani

Inertia is happy to announce that Sadaf Rabbani has joined our team.

Sadaf received a Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 2008. During and after graduation, Sadaf worked for three years as an architectural designer in an architectural firm, where she gained design experience in several residential projects ranging from single family to multi-residential buildings. 

After moving to Canada, Sadaf started her Master of Architecture study at the University of Calgary, and received her degree in 2014. Following that, she started working as an intern architect at IBI Group, where she was involved in several projects ranging from commercial to residential buildings. Sadaf has gained experience in different stages of the design process including programming, schematic design, design development, building code review, construction documentation, and construction administration. To extend her knowledge into more detailed aspects of residential buildings, Sadaf joined Inertia Corporation in March 2017. 

Nooshin Esmaeili Joins Inertia and Gravity

We've very happy to have Nooshin Esmaeili with us at Inertia and Gravity.

Nooshin received her Masters of Architecture from the University of Calgary in 2012. Soon after graduation she became registered as an Intern Architect with the Alberta Association of Architects (AAA).

Prior to joining Inertia Corporation in 2017, Nooshin was involved in various industrial, commercial and healthcare projects at Amec Foster Wheeler and at Stantec. She gained extensive knowledge in different phases of the architectural process including design, contract administration and project management.

Welcome to the team, Nooshin!

Jason Glasser Joins the Inertia Team

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With Inertia's growth, and the creation of Gravity Architecture, we saw the need to bring on a professional project manager to ensure that every job we work on proceeds as smoothly as possible and that very little falls through the cracks. We met Jason in December of 2016 and were able to bring him on board at the beginning of January this year.

Jason brings more than 20 years of industry experience. He started ‘on the tools’ as a framer and HVAC installer while attending Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. After graduation, Jason worked at small architectural firms working on institutional and commercial projects in Ontario, and then transitioned to Calgary as a Senior Architectural Technologist and job captain on large scale institutional projects. More recently, Jason had the role of Project manager and Contract Administrator working for architectural firms such as Kasian Architecture, Sahuri + Partners, and the Calgary Airport Authority. 

We've very happy to have Jason on the Inertia and Gravity teams.

Welcome Kerri Hallman

We're pleased to announce that Kerri Hallman has joined our team at Inertia and Gravity.

Kerri comes to Inertia Corporation with 20+ years’ experience in the architecture industry. Kerri graduated on the Dean’s List from 3 year Architectural Technologies program at St. Clair College of Applied Arts & Technologies in Windsor, Ontario. Her first job was with a small firm in Victoria, B.C. and upon moving back to Calgary she has worked with Cohos Evamy Partners (Dialog), Riddell Kuczaba Architecture, Poon McKenzie Architects (NORR) and Sahuri + Partners.

We're very happy to have Kerri on our team!

Office Skydivers

Normally, we think we’re pretty lucky to have the great staff that we do. Occasionally, we’re lucky just to have them stay alive long enough over the weekend to show up again on Monday morning. 

The steadfastly responsible, somber and occasionally comically derisive Tom Jenson skydives far more frequently than anyone would expect. He started two years ago and had done it at least three time and has plans to go again. He says he skydives as a way to celebrate his nieces' and nephews' 18th birthdays, but we think he might start doing it for no reason at all.

His affection for skydiving has been infectious and this past weekend, Chris Fedyna joined him! 

Tom: loving the view of the Alberta plains.

Tom: loving the view of the Alberta plains.

Chris: calm and serene during his first dive ever. 

Chris: calm and serene during his first dive ever.