Energy City export a powerhouse in oil and gas

As a city, Estevan is known for its power generation, but one day it may be recognizable for the powerful women who come from within its boundaries.

With the release of the Women’s Executive Network’s list of the top 100 most powerful women, Joanne Alexander, a native of southeast Saskatchewan and graduate of Estevan Comprehensive School, was among those powerful women. Alexander, along with the other nominees, were honoured at an awards gala at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Nov. 27.

The daughter of Darryl and Lorraine Cox, now of Midale, she grew up around Estevan in Bienfait, Macoun and Griffin. After graduating from ECS in 1984, she studied law at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and has been working since 2008 at Precision Drilling Corporation, a drilling rig contractor in Calgary that also has a presence in the Energy City.

“For me, I’m pleased to help raise the profile of women in the oilpatch and at Precision Drilling, in particular,” said Alexander, Precision’s senior vice-president, general counsel and corporate secretary.

With her position at Precision, Alexander works in the oil and gas industry, an intrinsic link to her childhood growing up around oil wells, but women aren’t always the first to come to mind when thinking about who works in the industry.

That’s changing.

“I would like to ensure people there are some tremendous women in my industry and really extraordinary women,” she said, noting Catherine Hughes, who sits on Precision’s board of directors.

Even still, Hughes is the lone woman on the nine-person board. Womens’ ubiquity in the industry may still fall a little short of parity.

While there may be a greater quantity for young boys looking up to the top businessmen in the country, the quality is just as diverse for young girls seeking inspiration from the most powerful women.

“I have a lot of role models, and hopefully I’ll be a role model for the generation coming up behind me,” said Alexander. “I’m a very big advocate that we need women in math, sciences and engineering, and all kinds of professions. There are more women in the legal community then there are, say, in engineering, but that has changed over the course of my career.

“I’d love to see over the course of my daughter’s career that she sees just as much change in other industries.”

Alexander said she was never short in finding people to inspire her and provide a positive image to follow, both from the women and men in her life.

“I’ve always had great female mentors and great male mentors, too. Having mentors is the important thing. I never felt like I was hampered from pursuing anything I wanted to do just because I was a female, so I think we’re seeing groups like WXN, which is the one I know best, but groups like that that are seeing policy on diversity and trying to further those women at the senior levels.”

And Alexander is an example of movement up the chain. In her time at Precision, she has moved into a senior position, starting out as the only lawyer the company had. They now have a legal department as they’ve expanded operations into the U.S. and Middle East.

It was in the early years of her career, between 1992 and 1994, that she worked in Russia.

“That’s the early days of the Yeltsin era and the free markets coming into play,” she noted.

She later lived in Colorado in the late-1990s. She said both situations provided excellent learning opportunities, both professionally and culturally. She now continues to travel as part of her job, with regular trips to Saudi Arabia and South America.

“Wherever there’s oil and gas, I’ll probably go there.”

While she grew up in southeast Saskatchewan, immersed in a culture driven by the energy industry, she said that background didn’t necessarily play into her move into the oil and gas world of Precision Drilling as much as her desire simply to live in Calgary.

“I picked Calgary, and then oil and gas sort of picked me,” she said.

“Growing up in southeastern Saskatchewan, you have a passing familiarity with it. I knew a little bit. I’d seen rigs out in the fields and knew what pumpjacks are, but I’ve certainly learned a lot more by being inside the industry, and I’m learning more all the time. I’m learning more about rigs than I ever thought I’d know.”

She said the award is meaningful because people she works very closely with those who nominated her.

“It certainly feels very fulfilling to be recognized by your peers, which is really what this is. I feel very supported by Precision and the people who have mentored me over the years,” said Alexander. “It has been raising the profile of women at Precision. That’s what this can do, to make sure that women can succeed at senior levels in an oil and gas company.”

Alexander finds herself in good company, joining a group of top 100 award winners that includes some of Canada's most iconic women. The list includes Dr. Roberta Bondar, astronaut; Arlene Dickinson, chief executive officer of Venture Communications; Christine Magee, president of Sleep Country Canada; Kathleen Taylor, chair of the board of Royal Bank of Canada and Michaëlle Jean, former Governor General of Canada.