ACL Steel Ltd. president Paul Seibel, who has long been active in construction as well as community circles, is being inducted into the Grand Valley Construction Association’s (GVCA) Hall of Fame.
“The 2018 choice was easy,” GVCA president Martha George said in a statement. “Paul Seibel has devoted his professional life to the construction industry, as well as a good deal of his personal life.
“As a long-time GVCA member, he has contributed thousands of hours of his time and financial resources to make the industry more ethical, more professional and more competitive.”
A graduate of the civil engineering technology program at Conestoga College and a former GVCA chair, Seibel became aware of the association while employed at XDG Ltd. in Breslau, Ont.
Seibel joined the company in August 1975, initially working in the shop. He became a shareholder in 1988, subsequently acquiring XDG’s metal fabrication assets.
He changed the company’s name from XDG Metal Fabrication to ACL Steel in 2003.
“While at XDG, I took a lot of courses at the GVCA,” Seibel recalled in an interview. “I really became involved in the association around 2005 or so, after I relocated the business from Breslau to Kitchener.”
He was elected GVCA chair in 2011.
Over the years, Seibel has served on the boards of numerous associations, among them the Canadian Construction Association and the Ontario Region of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction (CISC).
He has also been active in the Canada BIM Council.
“What happened is that I really became interested in what was going on in the industry in general,” he said. “I got invited through the GVCA to attend Construction Day at Queen’s Park.
“I quickly realized that you need to speak with a unified voice if you want the politicians to listen to you.”
Seibel subsequently convinced the CISC’s Ontario Region to join the Council of Ontario Construction Associations as well as Prompt Payment Ontario.
A past chair of the steel institute’s Ontario Region and a current board member, Seibel has represented the CISC in prompt payment discussions at meetings of the National Trade Contractors Coalition of Canada.
“This is our bread and butter,” he said in reference to the need to get involved in issues affecting the industry. “We need to stick together, we need to work things out.”
During the course of his career, Seibel has also been active at the community college level. He spent 17 years on the program advisory committee for the architecture-construction engineering technology program at Conestoga College.
“I think it is important for us in the industry to provide some guidance,” he said. “We want to make sure that the students graduate with the most up-to-date knowledge.
“If, for instance, they hear the term Building Information Modeling (BIM), they will know what that is.”
Also at Conestoga, Seibel was a driving force behind the development of a new post-graduate program designed to give students specialized training in structural steel detailing and the management of such projects.
Training in the two-year program is directly related to industry standards and working conditions within North America.
Students will learn computer-aided design skills, BIM, building code requirements, specifications and estimating to assist them with challenging projects.
An optional co-op component includes placement in a fabricator’s facility.
“The concept is that when you come to the fabricator’s office, you will (in part) be working in the drafting department as well as in estimating, project management and in the field,” Seibel said.
“We want the students to work hands-on in the shop as well.”
Seibel will be officially inducted into the Hall of Fame Feb. 27 at the GVCA’s AGM dinner in Kitchener.
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