After overseeing the City of New Westminster’s engineering department through a period of significant change in the city, Jim Lowrie is calling it a career.
Lowrie took the helm of the city’s engineering department in August 2003, after beating out a field of 42 candidates who responded to a Canada-wide recruitment campaign. With retirement beckoning, his last day on the job was April 30.
“Every day, every week, every month has been exciting, interesting and different,” he said. “I have been fortunate to be part of some of those big projects – Westminster Pier Park, the Anvil Centre. And a lot of private development and investment – Plaza 88 at New Westminster station, Port Royal in Queensborough, Victoria Hill, and others, the Bosa development Pier West on the waterfront.”
Before working for the City of New Westminster, Lowrie worked for Pitt Meadows for 22 years, where he served as the director of engineering and development services and the deputy chief administrative officer.
When he first started considering retirement, he anticipated the second wave of COVID-19 would be over by the time he retired. His retirement plans include travelling, cycling and doing some photography.
“If I can find a way to combine all three interests into one, that’s what I’d like to spend my time on,” he told the Record. “I often have my camera on my bike. I am always looking for some good shots. I am getting into a bit of street photography and landscape photography. I haven’t had the time to spend on any of that.”
Lowrie’s original retirement plan was to visit his son in the United Kingdom and do some cycling around the U.K. and continental Europe this summer, but that’s temporarily on hold because of COVID-19 so he’ll be doing a lot of cycling in the Lower Mainland.
At Monday’s meeting, council members commended Lowrie for his contributions to the city.
“You have been a constant professional here at the City of New Westminster,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “The engineering department is by no means a straightforward or easy area in any city operations; whether it is traffic, transportation, rail noise, sewer, waste collection, they all fall under the engineering department, and you get them all. I get many emails and correspondence from residents. I would say almost half of them are somewhat related to engineering; this isn’t a slight to engineering, this just means engineering is involved in so many different aspects of the city and obviously there are so many different challenges.”
Cote said it’s been wonderful to see how the city has been able to advance a lot of work that falls under the engineering department, including environmental initiatives, the development of a master transportation plan and train whistle cessation.
“You will definitely be a loss to the City of New Westminster with your retirement, but I do want to congratulate you and wish you the best of luck in the next chapter and the next adventure in your life,” Cote said. “I got to thinking about some of your cycling adventures, so I am sure they are going to play a big part of your next adventures. But we are definitely going to miss you here at the city and on council Mondays.”
Coun. Jaimie McEvoy said he first met Lowrie as a citizen, after voicing concerns about a pothole in Queen’s Park. (He’d been riding his bike in the park when he hit a large pothole and was thrown from his bike.)
“Thank you for making my job a lot easier because any time I came to you with a concern from a member of the public you pretty much got on top of it right away,” he said. “You always treated all of those people with respect and treated their concerns as legitimate and tried to find a way, and I really appreciate that.”
Serving the city
Lowrie said he’s considered it an honour and a privilege to serve the residents of New Westminster.
“I am leaving behind a strong leadership team in the engineering department, very talented, capable and committed staff,” he said. “They work hard to serve the residents and businesses each and every day.”
Lisa Spitale, the city’s chief administrative officer, said Lowrie made “huge contributions” to the City of New Westminster. Along with being a solid engineer, she said he has a strong background in management and leadership strategies.
“I found that one of the real skill-sets he brought to the senior management table was that expertise in best practices around project management and capital budgets, big project-management techniques,” she told the Record. “It was really helpful, especially now that we are doing more and more big projects like that. Having someone with that professional expertise, there was a real value-add to the discussion around the management table.”
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