August 18 - Canadian Pacific

Whenever I tell anyone that I’m working at Canadian Pacific (CP), the immediate response is always “Driving trains?” Well, no, the trains don’t stop on the 7th floor of Gulf Canada Square. What does happen on floor 7, however, is the managing of CP’s multimillion dollar Information Services department. Running a railway in the 21st century requires more than just trains and tracks, this organization uses over 100 different computerized applications in its day-to-day business. Not only do these systems keep the trains on time, they also manage crews, provide enterprise planning support, and give CP’s customers a self-service portal to track and manage services.

Obviously, all these services cost money to build, run and maintain, and being able to track these costs is key in making decisions and improving efficiency. That’s the job I do. The first day there I was shown the current system for Service Costing (as it’s called in the biz) and asked what I could do to improve it. Almost two weeks later I’ve nearly finished a completely new version of the model. The previous version was suffering from neglect, mainly because updating it with new data was such an unpleasant task. On the other hand, the new system I’ve constructed is designed to streamline the data entry process (or fully automate it, where possible), along with fully automating the data processing, reporting and export processes- components of which I suspect used to take place on a solar calculator.

All together, working at CP has been a very rewarding experience, not only have I learned about Microsoft Access, the internship has been invaluable in helping me learn about how big business IT functions, introduced me to the world of modern railroads, and given me many great experiences I can certainly apply in my future endeavors.

Collin Fair
Hometown: Carstairs, AB