News
How childhood days spent with his father led to working on the largest hospital redevelopment project at VCH
By
Sam
McLeod, Project Manager with the Richmond Hospital Redevelopment Project
April 25 2023
Sam McLeod is a Project Manager with the Richmond Hospital Redevelopment Project. Ever since moving from a small town in Saskatchewan to Vancouver over 20 years ago, his contributions to maintain and improve Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) buildings have been extensive. Now, almost a year into his role, he is excited for what comes next on this 10-year project. This is his story.
I grew up in a small town, 20 minutes outside of Regina in Lumsden, Saskatchewan. We lived on a vegetable farm with a market garden and my grandparents lived on the farm right next to us. My Mom’s family lived in North Vancouver so we came to visit the ‘big city’ often and I remember coming out for Expo ’86.
As a kid, I had a ton of energy and couldn’t sit still at home, so on the weekends and every school break I would go to work with my Dad. He was one of a few heating ventilation and air conditioning specialists in Saskatchewan. Back then, you had to manually adjust dampers and ducts in the ceiling to change airflow and it was the perfect job for a restless kid. I think I’ve been in the ceiling of every government building and school in Saskatchewan.
Coming full circle to a fulfilling health care career in project management
I did a lot of different things before finding my way into health care. First, I got a music scholarship to a University in North Dakota, then I went into geology and seismology and then I decided to pack my bags, move to Vancouver and get into structural design. Everything that I learned being ‘on-the-job’ with my Dad taught me how to work with diverse trades people and set me up for success with where I am now.
Soon after moving to Vancouver, I joined the VCH capital projects team where I was hired to catalogue architectural drawings and I’ve been working in health care ever since. Over the last (almost) 20 years I’ve worked in various project management roles across many different teams and then in mid-2022, I joined the Richmond Hospital Redevelopment Project.
Working on one of the largest redevelopment projects in our region
I do a lot of the background work that nobody sees - like electrical upgrades to increase the overall electrical capacity and power requirements on the Richmond Hospital campus. There is so much behind-the-scenes work that goes into a project this big.
This team is amazing
I am amazed at how helpful and supportive the team at Richmond Hospital is. All of the leaders help us get things done and when project updates are being shared, words of appreciation and ‘good jobs’ are always shared. I’m truly blown away by everyone who supports this project. Everyone knows that the end goal is to improve patient care and they are all doing everything they can to get there.
I’m super excited to be working on this project and I’m looking forward to doing more work to contribute to this hospital and the Richmond community.
Learn more about the Richmond Hospital Redevelopment Project
Learn more about the Richmond Hospital Redevelopment Project. As announced in July 2021, the revised business plan to expand Richmond Hospital has been approved. Richmond Hospital will add a new nine-floor acute care tower, the Yurkovich Family Pavilion, which includes an intensive care unit, a fully equipped medical imaging department, a pharmacy, and short-stay pediatrics. With its growing and aging population, this will give Richmond the acute care it needs moving into the future.