Your term as board chair spans only two years, which is simultaneously a really short period of time, and also a pretty long period of time. What do you want to achieve during this time?

Walter:  I think it is very important that we look to the vision and mission we have, to look at the strategy and look at how we do research, and then prepare the organization for the next 10 years. I really like the diversity within the organization because it leads to good ideas, but it also requires management. Otherwise ideas go in all different directions or you get various groups that focus on doing their own thing, and we lose connection to each other.

So what I really want to achieve is make everybody think about how we put PRCI on track for the next 10 years as an organization. How do we get members; how do we keep members? How do we do research? How do we engage internationally; how do we engage with governments?

PRCI is a unique organization because it has the ability not just to do research, but to also organize events and publishes compendiums and developing knowledge transfer courses and training. It’s an organization which can do so much more with knowledge generated than most of the other organizations, and that's what I find very interesting. We can leverage this position to get more of this knowledge out there, to engage more with governments, to engage more with standardization bodies and educate the new generation of engineers. That's what I like about PRCI: these abilities to really do something more with the results of your research.

PRCI is based in North America. As a chair who represents an operator outside of North America, you have an added layer of insight from an international perspective that you spoke about earlier. How do you plan to leverage your unique perspective and experiences to foster global collaboration and knowledge exchange within PRCI?

Walter:  These different perspectives, which you see in the board meetings and the Executive Assembly, help people to realize that there are different solutions to their problems. This realization can open your mind to new ideas and help you to run your business.

Another aspect are the standards we all use. If you want to really understand the standards, or if you want to influence them, it's good to speak to other people who have used them or are closer to the process that resulted in the standard. They can explain what was meant and how they can be interpreted. Because what ends up in a standard can be a minimum level that everyone could agree on, but perhaps it is not the absolute best that could be done. Then it is interesting to know what didn’t make the final version.

The same applies if you participate in a project at PRCI. Being a part of the process enables you to understand the decisions which were made during the project, and you can take this knowledge back to your company when you implement the results.

Any result from research or any published standard still requires humans to look at it, and to interpret it, and to decide which parts are relevant for them and which parts are not. That's what global collaboration can bring because you're getting this diversity of thought and insight. Otherwise, you're going to be solely focused on just your country or your area, your pipeline and your regulator and in the end, this can lead to weaknesses in the system. It'll just drive you down a tunnel and in the end, you'll see a lot of common cause failures. Why? Because you've been doing exactly the same thing. You didn't realize there was somebody in some other country or some other place who saw this problem and solved it.

Sustainable growth and innovation are critical to the success of organizations. Do you have any strategies that you envision implementing or expanding upon to foster growth and innovation within PRCI?

Walter:  With PRCI, you look at the issues that you face and try to come up with solutions, and try to find out what you perhaps don't know or what people outside the direct industry are working on.

Around sustainability now, there's a lot to do with leak detection: improving how quickly leaks can be detected and identifying where they are happening to limit the amount of methane that leaves the system. The question is, are we doing enough to develop this technology?

We see the creativity of other parties can affect this as well. For example, there are environmentalists who utilize technology for leak detection to basically point out to operators where they have a problem, and they're not doing that from the kindness of their hearts, per se. On the one hand, they are doing it to help the environment, but on the other hand, they use it as a means to pressure operators to take action. You can look on that as a negative, but you can also embrace it as a positive. If there are techniques out there which can help limit leaks, then you should use them. You should embrace them and go forward to ask, “How did you do this and where did you come up with this?”

So on the one side, sustainability helps you achieve the mission that the public would generally want you to achieve, and that's improving life on the planet. The other side is also very simple. If you don't move with the times, at some point you're going to end up with stranded assets which basically have no value. So it doesn't really matter if you look at it from a perspective of a shareholder or an environmentalist.

You have to always continuously look forward and adapt and change. It's not the strongest that survive; it's the most flexible that survive. The most adaptable are the ones that come out on top in the end.

How will you leverage your diverse experience and expertise to enhance the collaboration that you want to see between the industry stakeholders, the government bodies and PRCI and anyone else involved?

Walter:  I think it depends greatly on how we can get people interested to share and participate. One of the things which I find very interesting is knowledge transfer. At first it’s seen as getting knowledge out there to the members, and then it’s getting it out there to non-members who can buy reports or courses. But then you can also get it out even broader than that, moving towards regulators and other stakeholders, and the public.

At Gasunie, we set up a training course for the government to learn about pipelines. It was a course where we explained everything about pipelines and storage, basically about how the entire gas system works. The aim was, that in the end, you could have a good dialogue about the things operators are facing and the challenges that are there so that when they make rules, they understand some of the constraints for the rules. When they look at the risk, they have a sense of the balance between risk reduction and cost. Then when you have a dialogue with them, they understand why you are doing what you do.

One of the ways you can promote collaboration is to just be transparent about your challenges. Now, what PRCI’s role should be as research organization, is something to discuss. We aren’t an advocacy group; we’re a research group, but there are ways to foster collaboration and engage. That's something that you should keep it in the back of your mind. We can use our position and our knowledge to be a part of improving collaboration for a broad group of stakeholders.

Because communication is critical, are there any core messages or vision regarding the importance and impact of PRCI’s research initiatives that need to be communicated to our existing Members? What do you see that we could what the common Member should know about?

Walter:  It starts with a basic value proposition. On the one hand, there's the research and the other hand, there’s communication and interaction.

I tell people I'm a safety guy, you know. Organizations and pipelines and buildings, those are just static assets. They are why we do things, but a means to an end. Our goal is to safely and reliably provide products for people to use and it's the people in our companies who make the difference in the end.

That's one of the huge benefits from PRCI. When you get engaged, you can talk to a lot of other people who have similar interests, similar backgrounds, but from different companies with different perspectives. You can engage on a technical level with them, which is what a lot of subject matter experts really enjoy, you know, technical details and what can help you make it better and safer at your own company.

One of the things which is always good, and actually very important for PRCI, is engaging people at events. These events are where you present research, but also have open forum discussions, working sessions, poster sessions or even, presenting awards. You have to keep the people enthusiastic and engaged. That's why a lot of people join organizations. All of the knowledge that is available is nice, but you stay because you meet people, you engage with people, you make connections, you might visit them and their companies. Your network is really strengthened.

As a board, we’re trying to make a calling card, in effect, from the vision and the mission statements. We want to take be able to take them to colleagues and say, “I'm a member of this great organization. Do you have somebody engaged in safety or integrity or design, and want them to get to know colleagues in the industry, exchange ideas and just generally get better?” That is what PRCI really good at and what I really like.

To ensure the transparency and understanding of PRCI contributions to the industry, what is one way that you plan to champion and support initiatives that effectively communicate our research outcomes to industry, stakeholders, policymakers and the public?

Walter: One of the things I'm very enthusiastic about is that PRCI is now working together with ASME organizing the International Pipeline Conference (IPC) in Canada. This is a very well-known and well-respected conference that a lot of people from Europe attend. If there's one way to really get the message out there, it's to collaborate with something which is already well-known and well-respected. This collaboration will really help build the PRCI brand and target people already interested in pipelines but perhaps not yet familiar with PRCI.

What advice do you have for member companies?

Walter:  My advice is look to the young people that you have and send them to PRCI now so that they can engage with the great SMEs that we have while they're still active and pick their brains. Get them engaged now while there's a chance to get educated, while the knowledge is still there and still accessible. If you wait too long, too many SME’s will have left towards retirement and you will have to build that experience up all over again, reinvent the wheel, and that's just not efficient.

Another thing I really love about PRCI is that if you're enthusiastic about something and you want to research it, you will get support. If you put in the time, if you champion it, you will get the support to do it. It's also a great opportunity for young people to learn to manage a project and budget responsibility, to learn how to engage people and keep them active, and how to organize things. A lot about getting things done is engaging with people and getting them to do something. These are very important skills, and it’s about communication, and they can be practiced at PRCI. Get somebody in there and get them active.

Any advice for the industry?

Walter:  My advice to the industry is to be an early adopter. Don't be the incumbent who tries to protect their stake because you're just going to lose in the end. Move with the times. People will expect different things from you in different areas, but be flexible. If that means that some part of your system is more gas based and others are more oil based, and yet other parts want to do hydrogen because it's in another state or country, then do that, but be flexible . That's the only way you will keep your license-to-operate.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Walter:  Something a lot of people don't realize is that we are working on something which will last longer than the average human lifetime. The pipeline system will last longer than their own lives. By the time we retire, these pipelines will still be there, still being taken care of. That's why I see it as very important to be flexible.