Meet the Team: Harold Cowen, Project Coordinator

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A Natural Mentor

“I’m the old guy in the field here,” Harold Cowen, one of KLC’s Project Coordinator’s, jokes. As a Project Coordinator, he leads a group of labourers in the field while mentoring them through each project. Teaching comes easily for Harold. Before starting at KLC, he taught construction at Fleming College. “I really enjoyed that,” he offers “but I find I’m also doing a lot of that here. Sharing knowledge, having hands-on experience to relate to opposed to reading a book on how to be a carpenter. I have a lot of practical experience. I find that’s what I like doing, spreading that knowledge.”

Starting out in Carpentry

His knowledge comes from his own experiences with two important mentors in his life: his father, and a gentleman named Bob Beanie based out of Minden, whom Harold started out working for as a carpenter and labourer. From there “it just evolved that I had a lot of different people that I worked with so I take what I’ve learned from those different people and now I have different strategies and different ways of doing things because there’s more than one way of doing something. I always try to find the most efficient way of doing a task.”  

When asked what parts of the job he enjoys the most, Harold says “the whole aspect of it, from start to finish, whether we’re taking a piece of land and making a house on it, or taking existing homes that were almost demolished and creating a better space at the end. I enjoy that whole process, not just getting to the end, but all the steps throughout. A lot of people like to see the end game but I like to see it all the way through. There’s no aspect that I don’t really like. Well, maybe taking out the insulation, that’s not fun, but I like the variety.”

What Makes KLC Unique

When asked what makes KLC a unique company, Harold recalls that before working at KLC he wondered how the company supported such a large office staff. Now, he realizes that he wasn’t aware of all that the office staff do. “Now being part of it,” he adds “you see all the items that I had to deal with in the field, a lot of it is taken care of in the office ahead of time instead of flying by the seat of your pants. You’ve got a plan and you can execute that plan.” KLC has a practice of creating field and office binders that contain all necessary documents for the project like plans, permits, and selections which help to serve the Project Coordinator and keep the project on task. Harold sums it up as “Here at KLC, we coordinate.”

He also cites that KLC having its own designers is a major win for any ongoing project. “If you want to make changes, having designers on staff is a huge asset.” Other companies that Harold worked for would subcontract plans and the designer wouldn’t be someone they worked with directly. “They’d be a sub-trade,” Harold explains “We’d have to send the drawings back to them and be at the bottom of the list. Here, we can just come in and say ‘we’re making a change’ and within a day or so we can have new changes and drawings. It definitely helps to keep your job on schedule.”

A Love for Craftsmanship

Harold’s love of craftsmanship also extends to folk art. “I made a set of Winnie the Pooh characters for my daughter. I cut them all out with a scroll saw and painted them.” He mentions how much he enjoys the process of making wooden toys for his daughter. It’s something that he could see himself continue doing because “it’s something that I thought of years down the road, if I retire, it’s some little thing I could do.”

Harold Cowen is a Project Coordinator at Kawartha Lakes Construction. To connect with Harold or the KLC team to chat about your own home renovation or custom built project, contact us today or give us a call at 705-652-5241.