Nigel Bell
Joined the Department of
Communications (DOC) in 1974. Retired from Industry Canada in 2007.
Entré au ministère des
Communications (DOC) en 1974. Retraité d'Industrie Canada en 2007.
I joined the Department of Communications as a Radio
Inspector in January of 1974.
Trained as an electronics technician back in Halifax at the vocational school
and having worked on some radio projects in my past seemed to please Merle
Styles and Larry Reid who both interviewed me for the job. I started work on the
third floor of the Hastings street office in Vancouver, at the corner of
Hastings and Granville and then at 800 Burrard St. when the office moved there.
After
a few years, I won a position as supervisor at the Cloverdale Monitoring Station
at 3884 192nd Street in Surrey and in fall of 1977, moved my home to Langley.
The office soon became a District Office and my supervision
duties covered Authorizations, Investigations, and Monitoring.
I attended the British Columbia Institute of Technology part time and earned a
certificate in Public Administration.
After a few years I transferred to the Regional Office as the
Emergency Preparedness Officer for the region, but continued to work from the
Cloverdale facility.
In the early 1990s, the Cloverdale (or Langley, as it is sometimes incorrectly
called - the office is actually in Surrey) office was combined with the
Vancouver office and the result was one District Office serving the whole of the
Lower Mainland located in north Surrey (the Gateway office). However, I
continued to work at the now abandoned Cloverdale office.
In 1989, after 10 years of part time study, I received my BA
degree in Communications and Computing Science from Simon Fraser University.
Terry Spurgeon, a Transport Canada emergency preparedness officer, and Peter
Anderson, a professor at SFU and I developed a proposal for the Cloverdale
office that was presented to the Council of Senior Federal Officials in the
Pacific Region. It won their approval and the Joint Alternate Site (JAS) was
born. Its purpose was as a joint federal facility to support training,
exercising and preparation for emergencies in the Pacific Region. I managed the
facility and together with Peter Anderson, developed telecom projects that
supported emergency telecommunications (my primary role).
One of the highlights of my career was collaborating with
Michel Milot on the national emergency telecom file. I became involved in NATO
work and established a website based at Simon Fraser University for the NATO
Civil Emergency Planning directorate and the planning boards and committees. The
JAS continued to operate until 2006 and the facility was then boarded up. My
on-going tele-work had already moved to my home some years before.
I retired in August of 2007 and continue to live in Langley, BC with my wife,
Jette.
Nigel Bell
January 2009
Links - Liens
1995 - Emergency
Telecommunications - When a Little Co-operation Goes a Long Way
2001 - IC's
Emergency Response Teams Spring into
Action
2001 - Les équipes
d'intervention d'urgence d'IC au cœur de l'action
(Scroll down to the last photo. Nigel is in the
group photo)