Almost anywhere that a casual glance falls on a map of western Canada, someone from the McElhanney group of surveying, engineering and mapping companies has been at work. McElhanney’s name is associated with pipelines and projects across the oil patch of British Columbia and Alberta, highways and bridges in both provinces, ferry terminals, airports, power projects, and the Sea to Sky Highway and other infrastructure required for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
McElhanney crews have also navigated ships and undertaken ice monitoring in the North Atlantic and Arctic, microwave transmission path surveys in Africa, and mapping of some of the remotest parts of the planet.
Throughout its one-hundred-year existence, the name McElhanney has been synonymous not only with adventure and innovation but with integrity, determination and achievement. It all started in Vancouver, B.C. in 1910.
With the dawn of the new decade, McElhanney is celebrating one hundred years of being in business since William Gordon McElhanney first opened his surveying and engineering practice on West Pender Street in Vancouver in 1910.
By 1956, when W.G. McElhanney retired, he had three partners, George Smith, Fred Nash and Gordon McRae. Between them they had numerous employees and crews working on projects throughout the oil patch of Western Canada and had added some impressive projects to their corporate résumé, including the surveying required for the massive hydro generation plant at Kemano for the Aluminium Company of Canada.
From there the firm grew to incorporate extensive engineering, surveying and mapping work both at home and abroad. By 2010, McElhanney crews had undertaken work in more than 90 countries, and the organization had grown to more than 800 people working in numerous branch offices across western Canada and internationally.
McElhanney will be celebrating its centenary throughout 2010 with our staff, our clients and the people in the communities in which we live and work, in a variety of ways.
In 2007, we commissioned award-winning B.C. author Katherine Gordon to research and write a book chronicling McElhanney's history. Katherine had already published a best-selling history of land surveying in B.C., Made to Measure, which received high praise from both the professional surveying community and the literary world alike and which won the 2006 B.C. Book Awards Haig-Brown Prize for Non-Fiction.
We asked Katherine to write our story in the same literary narrative way, bringing our stories and adventures to our employees and clients and to anyone with an interest in the history of western Canada in a compelling book with which we could celebrate our success throughout 2010 and beyond.
The result is Maps, Mountains and Mosquitoes: The McElhanney Story, 1910 - 2010, a beautiful hardback book packed with numerous colour photographs and illustrations which narrates our story from its inception in 1910 (including biographical information about our founder, W.G. McElhanney) right up to 2010.
William Gordon McElhanney may have inherited his independent streak, as well as his knack for survival against the odds, from his mother, Esther Gordon. In the early 1870s, she was a sixteen-year-old impoverished Irish immigrant arriving alone in New York City. Undeterred by her vulnerable status in the rough and bustling city, Esther promptly found herself a job in New York’s thriving garment industry. Soon afterwards, she met and married Robert McElhanney, another Irish immigrant, who worked for the city police force. Neither of them ever looked back towards Ireland...
To read the entire first chapter, click here.
Maps, Mountains and Mosquitoes is available for purchase in hard copy or digital format for $24.95 plus GST. To order a copy, please click here to email us. Please include information we can use to contact you to arrange for shipping (phone number or email address).
In 2007 McElhanney decided to sponsor two Canadian athletes as part of their McElhanney is very proud of Matt and Sara and how hard they have
Sara Renner can be reached through the website of herself |
Come back to this page from time to time to check in on the latest legacy
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McElhanney offers a number of annual scholarships to various tertiary institutions in Canada. In 2010, McElhanney Consulting Services is doubling all of the scholarships it offers. For more information about these and other scholarships offered by McElhanney, please contact Brandi Harrington (bharrington@mcelhanney.com). |
McElhanney branch offices plan to celebrate with a variety of events throughout May and June 2010.
May 2010
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June 2010
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