When Marbin graduated in 1961, he took a job as a member of of NDOT,s bridge design team.

He
went on to work for the O.K . Electric Co., Inc., and eventually moved into steel tubular products
business for Valmont Industries – a company that designed highway lighting, traffic, signing and
trasmission structure – and then Ameron Pole Products.

Along the way, Mabin became a nationally-recognized expert in the design of pole structures for
street, outdoor lighting, traffic lights and highway signage. Even in retirement, he serves as a
consultant, reviewing plans for design companies who need an engineering stamp of approval on
their plans. In 1993, Mabin purhased Custom Engineering and turned the faltering company into an
award-winning, minority-owned success story.

Mabin said his life experiences have motivated him to point more blacks toward the field of
engineering, just as others influenced him.”It wasn’t always easy,” he said,”but it’s been a good
ride.” Let me start by saying that when i was an engineering student, never in my wildest dreams
could I have imagined hwo much fun I would have as a consulting engineer, the places it’s taken me,
the people I’ve met, and the things I’ve been able to accomplish that I’m so proud of.

Today I,m President of McElhanney Consulting Services, a consulting engineering firm of about 400
people based in Vancouver. I’m also a past-Chair of the Association consulting enggineering
Companies (ACEC). “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how much fun I would have
as a consulting engineer,the places it’s takenme, the people I’ve met, and the things I’ve been able
to accomplish that I’m so proud of”

I studied civil enginering at the University of Manchester, in England. My first taste of consulting
engineering was as a summer student in 1968, when I worked as an inspector on a highway
construction project in the south of France. I had the good fortune that my mother was French, and
she’d made a few phone calls to get me the job. So my first advide for you is don’t knock the job your
mom gets for you – it might be the best job you ever get. Fourty years later, I still go back to look at
that highway when I visit France, and I’m proud of what I did, even though I played such a small part
in it.

On that job I learned that you can make a difference. It was the fisrt commercial project in the world
to use reinforced-earth retaining srtuctures, invented by a Frenchman, Henri Vidal. I used my
students text book to do some slope stability analysis, and suggested that, at a particular location,
instead of a single 10 metre high wall we build two 5 metre high walls with a terrace in between and
my idea was accepted.So my second piece of advice to you is: don’t be afraid to question the status
quo, and to suggest changes. Even if your ideas are off the mark, people will nitice that you have a
questioning and creative attitude.

I also learned on that project in Frence that as a consulting engineer, your skills are transfereble to
different countries. So as soon as I graduated I headed over to Canada, where I spent the summer
explring north American, then found a job with a consulting engineering firm in Vancouver, met the
woman who became my lifelong partner, and I’ve been based in Vancouver ever since.

“Don’t be afraid to question the status quo, and to suggest changes. Even if your idea are off the
mark, people will notice that you have a questioning and cretive attitude.”

I was the bottom person on the totem pole, and in those days, before computers, before even
electronic calculators, I had to do a lot of the menial tasks. But I found that no matter who menial
the work, there was always a way to improve on how it was done, by creating a template or a short-
cut or a graph. My third piece of advice: no matter how menial the task, find the better way to do ot.