Teamwork is the name of this alum's game

Egidio Mosca BASc ‘98

Egidio Mosca chose engineering as a career, “because I thought I could invent something really cool and be a millionaire.”

Almost 20 years later, “It hasn’t happened yet,” he laughs.

Engineering is an “obstacle course of the mind” explains Mosca who graduated in 1998. “This is how the field was explained to me on my first day as an undergrad in mechanical engineering (automotive option) at the University of Windsor.”

He’d always loved math and physics which made engineering a logical career choice. “Mechanical systems and how they interact was a passion of mine.

“I chose Mechanical Engineering because it tied in perfectly with what I was good at and was easier for me to understand.”

Though Mosca was born and raised in Windsor, making the local university a convenient choice, he chose the University of Windsor because, “It had the best engineering program that focused on what I loved—cars! The Automotive program was the only one of its kind in Canada at the time.”

The alumnus says that he “truly enjoyed the professors and the classmates, some of who have become friends for life. I won’t forget that part of the experience.”

The importance of teamwork was a key takeaway from his academic program. “Interaction with people and teams is a daily part of everyone’s work day.”

He’s applied this classroom theory to his daily life as an engineer in a variety of roles, beginning with his first employer, Chrysler Canada.

After a 10-year career there, he wanted to try something different and left his role as an operations supervisor.

“Energy efficiency in buildings and mechanical systems always seemed interesting to me, so I left Chrysler and went to work for Honeywell Building Solutions as a district operations leader.” 

He spent five years helping hospitals and factories learn how to conserve energy and “heaps of money by doing simple things.” Multiple energy saving opportunities presented themselves, he says. “There was a lot of low-hanging fruit—things that were simple to identify— including lighting retrofits and building control scheduling.” Some of the more complexity opportunities included the installation of control and mechanical systems.

During his time at Honeywell, Mosca moved into the P3 (Public-Private Partnership) portion of the business that provides facility management services. “I worked through eight projects in various phases of bid, construction and operations, and learned a great deal through some hard lessons and some small victories.”

“These projects are so complex that, regardless of how great the lawyers are, there is always something missing in the Project Agreement and the need for negotiation and partnering is a must. I’ve been fortunate to work with some great people from many different projects and diverse companies.”

Though his professional ambitions were satisfied, “I was working too many hours and had a young family. I decided to try something related but a much slower pace.”

Mosca next joined Fengate Real Asset Investments, as the representative of the “ProjectCo” (the party that leads the P3 consortia).

He began as a director on four projects in southwestern Ontario and then accepted the associate vice president role for Western Canada (B.C., Alberta, Saskatoon and southerwestern Ontario).

Mosca must navigate difficult issues between Fengate’s clients to find common ground. “Each project agreement (PA) is thousands of pages and the project’s requirements can be interpreted in multiple ways.”

Reaching back to his early lessons on teamwork, he relies on five people to manage his western Canada portfolio, which includes an acute care hospital, an outpatient facility, a university, two mental-health facilities, two courthouses, and one bus operations and maintenance facility. “We do our best to keep things running smoothly.”

He says he thrives on the satisfaction of developing a solution to a complex problem with which all parties are content. 

“I make people feel comfortable in knowing that problems exist everywhere in every job. We need to work through them, respectfully, as a team, to a resolution that can work for all sides.”

Mosca also brings that teamwork and work ethic to his spare time. Over the past 20 years, he has dedicated an enormous amount of time to volunteering in the youth soccer community. He is currently president of the Caboto Soccer Club, treasurer for the South Windsor Youth Soccer Club, and a jack-of-all-trades for McAuliffe Park Soccer. “I help with Club communication (usually from a hotel room somewhere while I’m on the road), putting teams together and lining and maintaining the soccer fields at the park.”

On top of that, he coaches three Caboto Soccer teams and two for the Liverpool International Academy, based out of Michigan. “It definitely takes a great deal of time…it’s almost a second job! I couldn’t do it without support from my wife Lisa, great board members and incredibly knowledgeable and dedicated assistant coaches.”

Mosca was honoured with an Award of Distinction from the Essex County Soccer Association and has a scholarship in his name that is awarded annually to a Caboto Soccer Player who has shown love for the community and is attending secondary education.  “Receiving these awards is an honour, but at the end of the day, the greatest feeling is being known as Coach Egidio from so many players over the past 20 years.”

“I’ve always loved soccer and felt fortunate to have had great people navigating me through the game from a boy to a young man,” he says.

“I needed to give back.”