Meet Norman Doerksen, Tsartlip’s Director of Capital Projects (Infrastructure, Public Works and Housing). Read his introduction interview below.
Norman: So I’m born and raised on Vancouver Island, primarily grew up out towards Jordan River, so I’ve lived on the West Coast my whole life. Our family’s originally Métis from Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. So that’s basically Métis and Cree heritage there. I’ve been very active in the Indigenous communities for most of my life, at different levels and capacities. I’ve been in the basically construction and public works related industry for over 25 years, different capacities, and also an environmental background as well. So I feel really fortunate to work within the nation.
And, again, a lot of that too is dealing with facilities and buildings background, too. So I’ve got a bit of a cross section of experience in that. For me, it’s been a good opportunity to come here to learn as well. So, it’s that balance and kind of work together, it’s a team approach. We’re here to support each other. Title doesn’t really mean anything, it’s really about working together as a group to support each other.
What experience and expertise do you bring to the table?
So again, background primarily, I’ve done lots of background within public works related, and engineering related stuff, environmental related works as well. So I’ve done lots of different work within infrastructure, utilities, buildings, and facilities.
And then also, my other background, and really, I guess you could say, my love or appreciation for the land is environmental as well. So, working in natural resources and dealing with those different aspects of invasive plant removal, and dealing with riparian habitat restoration as well.
So that’s a bit of a background, and then just also working in the Indigenous community at different capacities at a volunteer level, as well on culture. That’s kind of it in a nutshell, I’m pretty lucky. I don’t know, you’re around long enough to get to learn different things.
What’s your title and what are you up to at Tsartlip?
I believe my title is Director of Infrastructure, Public Works and Housing. And so basically with Tsartlip, working with the infrastructure, water, sewer and roads, and just looking at maintaining and updating our current system.
And then the other capacity is within housing, working with the housing team, in providing adequate housing and trying to find an ability to create more housings within the nation and maintain what housing the nation currently has on that, and provide adequate resources in that to try and manage all the assets within the nation as well, that’s a bit of a longer term program.
What do you do when you’re not at work?
Believe it or not, what I do off work is I love the outdoors. So like I said, I was born and raised on the west coast. We pretty much live and breathe out in the woods all the time. So I spent a lot of time out in Port Renfrew, Pacheedaht First Nations territory, up on the San Juan Ridge and that area, so we spend a lot of time out there, basically relaxing. We do a fair bit of harvesting out there as well. We have a couple of spots that we’ve been going to forever since we were kids and we spent a lot of time out there with my kids. I’ve been married for 32 years and got a lovely wife that still tolerates me and I have three three grown kids as well, which turned out to be pretty, pretty good kids, so, yeah.
