I'm another of Jim's hires at Calgary Water. He didn't just hire me, he made much of my career possible. I was out of the engineering profession in 1982, part of a huge recession. I got a computer science degree, and was installing spreadsheets for City IT when Jim hired me as the IT coordinator for Waterworks, but then he kept adding duties that made it more and more an engineering job - I wound up getting hired over to the Engineering side again just after he retired, promoted by guys Jim had hired and inspired to make Waterworks a research-oriented, invent-it-yourself, leading water utility.
Soon, I was writing and presenting research papers in both Engineering and IT, developing our new mapping system, and was handed the water main replacement budget to manage as a senior engineer. It let me combine the two professions in a way that might never have happened anywhere else. Jim had already invented a new type of water pipe, based on an oil industry product, and prevailed on Shaw Pipe of Calgary to make it and market it (for which Jim got nothing, of course) - Shaw went on to sell the stuff all over the continent. He also bravely switched us to plastic pipe, 1980, the moment it was approved, and Calgary enjoys one of the best pipe infrastructures on the continent, most of it corrosion-proof; I was actually handed a pretty easy job keeping it well.
Meanwhile, at Glenmore Labs, Dr. Erika Hargesheimer was encouraged to write peer-reviewed research papers, a great rarity for utility staff. Like Rob Pritchard, whom Jim also developed, Erika went on to become a General Manager of the City. There was basically nothing luckier for your career than to be noticed by Jim Bouck.
I'll stop - but not because I've given a full accounting of all Jim's accomplishments for Calgary. The city is deeply in his debt.
