[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Well, good afternoon and welcome back. We’re really excited to have the Exchange 2.0 formally launching. I know a lot of people have been looking forward to this.
And we couldn’t be happier than to have the guests that we have with us today. Mr. Alan Dale, he’s got a voluminous background, a lot of experience. And we’ll dig into all of that today.
And at the end of this broadcast, as your bait to stay and listen to everything that we talk about, we’ve got a pretty exciting announcement and you’re going to want to wait to hear what’s coming up next. This is going to be a podcast different than anything else. We’ll look at issues, dig into them and tell you the story that you’re not going to find other places.
So before we get started, in your own words, Alan, why don’t you introduce yourself, your background, and you’ve got a varied background from the Navy. You’re a leader. You have a culinary expert as well, but we can get into the drumming.
But I think you’re experiencing the defense sector and specifically your leadership along a whole bunch of different areas, including engineering. But tell us a little bit about your background and let’s get into the podcast.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Well, listen, it’s great to be here. And thanks for thanks for inviting me on. You know, you and I have known each other a long time.
But for the guests out there, I’m assuming this is global. This is this is from the broadcast center here in Charlottetown, trending in Sri Lanka. There’s no doubt about it.
But anyway, so maybe Pakistan, maybe we have following there. You and I have been there for sure. Yeah, Alan Dale, originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland, really just sort of a regular Canadian family. You know, I grew up with four older sisters and I was the youngest in the family. So I had five mothers growing up in East End, St. John’s, had a really good childhood. There’s little doubt about that.
Joined the Navy young. I joined when I was 17 and I moved away from Newfoundland and I really didn’t get back to Newfoundland much in my time after that. So although I’m from Newfoundland, I haven’t really spent a lot of time there, although it’s quite near and dear to my heart, as you can well imagine.
Yeah, I joined the Navy. Listen, I had a great career in the Navy, you know, 30 plus years in the Navy. And I got to tell you, if I could do all that over again, I certainly would.
It really gave me the foundation for who I am. You know, today it taught me a lot of lessons, it taught me a lot of things I shouldn’t probably be doing in life and taught me a lot of things I should be doing in life. So I but I’d recommend that sort of career path to most young people now that are looking.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
So you’re not from the Bay. I can tell from your accent and the discipline, not to interrupt you, but that the discipline of the Navy, is that something you’d recommend for any young person, especially today, where people have maybe more challenges than they’ve had in the past. But I know a few people that at a younger age that could really benefit, I think, from from what the Navy or what the armed services can can offer.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
It’s a good it’s a good question, you know, and, you know, just like we are evolving and the way we interact with work and people and, you know, as we change from generation to generation, so do does the Navy and its style of leadership and discipline. And so, yeah, I do think it’s a good place for people to go and sort of learn some skills. One thing that I think in the Navy that teaches you the most is the value of friendships and collaboration and how important those things are in your life, in your social fabric.
So, you know, just last week I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, and there’s two people that I met while I was out there, both people, one I hadn’t met or hadn’t seen in 38 years, and the other one was 36 years. And we picked up a conversation with one another. It was just as if we had seen each other the day before.
And it’s that sort of shared friendship and that social net that the Navy gave me. And I think that those type of things, more so than discipline, that the Navy or armed services provide you, right? And so so that’s why I would recommend it, because it’s neat things like that.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Well, even that collaboration, knowing your career as I do, your time at the UPI School of Sustainable Design Engineering, the consulting you’ve done, a lot of what you’ve accomplished is collaboration, is working with others. And Gale Force Wins, those are interesting collaborations.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
It’s all, you know, it’s, yeah, of course, it’s all about relationships. It’s all about building relationships, you know, respecting people’s sort of points of views and personalities, but sometimes sort of focusing people a little bit. I think all of that finds its way in the military.
You get a lot of ideas, but at the end of the day, you’re going down a path. And it’s that sort of thought process that allowed me then to move into, you know, private industry, work with private engineering company here in PEI, and then into UPI in the engineering program. And that was, I want to tell you, that was a lot of fun working in that sort of connecting up academia with industry and then starting your own consultancy.
And now, with Gale Force Wins, which is another sort of video content creation company based out of Newfoundland with a guy that I went to basic training with, believe it or not, in 1985. So there you go. That’s how far that goes back.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Well, you know, on the Navy contribution, and we’ll talk a little bit about what you’ve achieved there, I’ll let you speak to that. But from commanding ships to the CO in Charlottetown, pretty senior roles within that organization.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
You know, one good thing about any sort of time in armed services is it challenges your leadership ability very young. So you’re often quickly put in charge of people and then you quickly understand human dynamics and what made people tick and things like that. So leadership is, you know, we all know now as we get a little older, and we’ve seen a lot of things happen, leadership comes in all directions and all this type of thing.
But you get to test yourself very young when you’re in the Navy, for sure. That was one of the most exciting things for me. I always enjoyed that aspect of how can I sort of make the people that work with me or around me, how can you make their life better in some way?
And you know, when you start off in the Navy, those are small things, right? Those are tiny little things that can make that person’s life better. But as of course, as you advance and as you have more responsibility, of course, right, you’re able to do bigger things and stuff like that.
Sometimes I get a little bit frustrated when I see that not playing out, not only in the military setting, but in other settings. That was a point of frustration for me throughout my both my military service and my professional journey afterwards, when I would see leadership not being exercised properly, that would sort of piss me off a little bit.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
No question, I can see that. Well, I want to come back to leadership, specifically as it relates to PEI. And having just come through a recent progressive conservative leadership race, you probably have some insights there.
But while we’re talking on defense, one of the great opportunities, I think, is presented because of a lot of issues, not least of which is what’s happening globally, but the defense opportunity in Canada, and the rearmament, refurbishment, reinvestment in defense for Canada. You’ve been passionate about this. You’ve made a lot of statements on how PEI and the companies in PEI can benefit from this once in a generation opportunity.
Let’s delve into that a little bit to talk about how PEI, are we seizing the moment? If we’re not, what could we be doing differently that we’re not doing today? Are there companies that aren’t even aware of the opportunity?
And how can they pivot to position and have PEI benefit? Because this is a pretty substantial opportunity that is, you know, other places are seizing this, I’m not sure PEI is.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Yeah, there’s so much going back there. I mean, first and foremost, there’s never been a time like this in the history of our country, where so much energy and attention is being put on defense. Now, we don’t have to dive into the reasons why all that’s happening right now in the world, but it’s happening, right?
So we move from not making our 2% NATO commitment, we’re nowhere near that. In fact, many countries weren’t, only a few were. And moving more towards a 5% NATO commitment, this is a huge amount of money.
So how do you sort of achieve that and still do it in such a way that it benefits all of Canada, not just certain parts of Canada? That’s a real trick to all of this. So we’re moving in that direction.
We have leadership at the federal level right now, that has sort of targeted that we are going that way. And they’re pretty steady on that they’re coming out with policies and statements and programs that will allow everybody to benefit from this. And right now, it’s I don’t want to say it’s the Wild West.
But it’s certainly an opportunity for people to really look at this and say, this is pretty much a blank canvas here. How do I position myself within this to be a part of this, right? To benefit the people around me, to benefit my company, to benefit my community, to benefit my province, right?
How do we do that? And you’re right. Some people are way ahead of the game.
Some companies are way ahead of the game. Some communities are ahead of the game. Some provinces are probably ahead of the game, right?
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
So if you were to rank order what’s happening across Canada, are there certain provinces that are either better positioned or more aggressively positioning to fulfill the opportunity?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
I think the provinces that had traditionally had a big military footprint already, we’ll just use Nova Scotia as an example. So the home of the East Coast Fleet over there, and there’s a many, many other military sort of units and stuff based in Nova Scotia, and a deep history, right, with the military in Nova Scotia. Provinces like that have already been in the conversation.
They’ve been in the game. And they see the opportunities sort of in front of them and they’re doubling down on this stuff, right? Shoring up what they already have and doubling down.
The provinces that have been less involved in the conversation, that have less military presence, are trying to find their way back into the conversation. And Newfoundland’s a great example of a province where it had a great military history, most of it with the Americans actually, had a great military history. I mean, great assets in Newfoundland, geographically positioned such that, I mean, it’s a strategic place to base things on.
And it still is, especially with folks on the Arctic and things like that. But to be honest with you, it had sort of not paid attention to the defense sort of conversation for many, many years. They now have a new government in place with a fresh mandate and a couple of key ministers with, you know, significant military service who see the opportunity and are diving into it.
So you’re starting to see collaboration zones and things like that sprouting up in Newfoundland with a defense focus. Where they never would have mentioned that before. Now, you know, a collaboration zone, for example, the Co-Innovation Center.
Great collaboration center in St. John’s, Newfoundland, focused on technology, focused on mining, and focused on defense. Right there in the middle, you got a pillar fully focused.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Connecting the entire province.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Connecting everybody together, right? And they’re looking for ways to pull all this together. And that’s where I see the opportunity, right?
So let’s look at sort of, let’s look at the province broadly. Let’s take Prince Edward Island and look at it broadly. We’ve got some pretty cool things going on in this province.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Good infrastructure.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
There’s great infrastructure. But many people would not necessarily see the connections they need to see. And I think this is where we got to get better.
So you look at, you know, in the eastern part of the island, you’ve got the climate change lab out there with a focus on food security. Well, if you can’t find the connection between food security and defense, you’re missing the point, right? I mean, this is an important conversation.
Look what’s happening around the world. I mean, look what happens after invasions happen, food problems, things like that. Food security is a part of it.
Look what’s happening in the Arctic. How are we going to do things like that? So most people would not see the climate change lab as a connector.
I think it’s a huge connector, right? You look at the PEI BioAlliance. Huge alliance of companies doing very well.
In fact, I would argue probably the BioAlliance here in PEI might be a crown and the jewel for Canada, right?
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
It’s a quiet one. Unless you’re in that sector, you tend not to know much about the activities that are happening there.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
But there’s a huge opportunity for them in defense, right? Everything from bioware on soldiers to check their health and things like that. Again, right, to medication.
There’s all kinds of opportunities in the biosector. So these folks need to be looking at their sectors differently.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
As you said earlier, should there be a collaboration, like an organized collaboration? Or is it something an industry or a company can go just take advantage of themselves?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Yeah, you know, my feeling is associations and things like that, they’re very good. They can bring people together, bring people into the conversation. What I see is that when industry leads it, it just tends to go further.
It just tends to go further. I’ll give you an example of that. I was in Victoria for a month.
I went to a Rotary Club meeting in Saanich. So Saanich is way, way in the southern tip of Vancouver Island there. A group of people got together, 95 companies focused on defense.
And there was no industry association bringing them together. There was no funding from the province to have this meeting. There was no executive director.
This was all grassroots industry. They were advancing at a pace that I found unbelievable. They were getting organized.
They were ready to move. They were ready to make the investment. They brought key speakers in to understand the challenges, to see the opportunities.
Sometimes, and don’t get me wrong, I love when government and academia and industry come up.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
I know where you’re going with this. It’s a break in the wheels of progress. Government gets in the way.
And I think habitually, Islanders will hardly take a lead without finding out how government plays a role. Government are only too happy to get the credit for being involved. It usually just slows down the process.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Sometimes it’ll slow down the process, for sure. I mean, the government’s got their sort of ticks that they need to make. These are economic development and all of this kind of stuff.
I was at a defense trade show the other day and a very good friend of mine, who’s been incredibly successful in the defense sector, came up to me and he said, Al, everybody here, they seem to be talking about economic development. He said, I don’t understand it. We are at war.
There’s wars raging around us and these people are still focusing on economic development, as opposed to, this is something that we really need to lean into a little bit faster than economic development. Economic development can be a beautiful byproduct.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
But it doesn’t move at the speed of the theatre of war.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
We need to move much faster than the way that engine normally moves. So back to the point. I find sometimes when government fuels these things, and thank you for doing it, but step away.
Understand, allow the creativity, allow the innovation. Oftentimes, executive directors will be hired, they’ll be put into place. Well, don’t get in their way.
Allow them then to sort of thrive in the space that you’ve set up for them. I find sometimes that’s not the case and then that slows the whole thing down. And then that becomes a little bit frustrating.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
So back to the infrastructure for a second. We’ve got an ice-free deepwater port in Georgetown, largely underutilized. We’ve got an aerospace park in Summerside, been utilized by the aerospace industry.
Are these assets that should be part of a conversation around supporting the defense industry, or are they doing enough today? I don’t know if the port is.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
So, I mean, the port is not very active, for sure. And, you know, that port has done work for the military in the past. So it’s not like it can’t be tooled up and ready to go again.
In Canada right now, shipbuilding is tricky and it’s complicated. I would only say in Canada, but around the globe, it’s tricky and it’s complicated. I think when we stick to the marine side and on the port side, I think what Prince Edward Island, and if we were to look at that port, I think what we really need to do is find a unique spot, find a unique area to play.
I don’t know, I’ll make things up here. But that could be radar repair for marine assets. It could be submarine systems, right?
It could be something that’s specific and unique that we then become experts in, right? It’s very niche and we become an expert in that. But so then not only does Canada get the benefit of that, but then we’re building a skill set that the entire world needs.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
So you’ve traveled extensively. Are there countries, what’s Canada’s reputation like globally? Are we seen as a country that can still provide these services?
Have we lost our competitive positioning?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Well, I mean, the challenge with sometimes in Canada, particularly on the shipbuilding side, is we build, we build, we build, we stop, but everything goes away.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
The government stops, so we collapse.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
And industries, right? An industry gives up, you know, they say, well, we’re not building right now. They let everybody go and then they got to rebuild it all up again.
So we’re not seen on the world stage as the shipbuilding country of the world. Now, that being said, when we build a ship, they’re a very highly sought-after ship. They’re a very, very good product.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
But a long period to build a ship. There’s got to be micro parts, like you suggested, within that ecosystem.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
And look bigger than just Canada. It was always my point to defense clients that I take on, right? I say, look bigger than what’s at your doorstep, right?
And look, right now the entire NATO Alliance is ramping up to 5%. Every country is having the same conversation. Can we do this?
Can we do that? Every country is trying to find out, if I spend all this money, how does it benefit my country? How do I become the expert at something so that somebody has to come to me to buy that part, right?
That’s the conversation we should be in. That’s what we should be doing.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
So if a country, if all the countries are militarizing, which is the environment we’re in, you know, Trump is certainly excited about that. And the companies within the US who benefit from that are probably excited. Does it destabilize the world?
I mean, you come from a military background. Is the armed service reinvestment globally a good thing for global stability? Or does it just create a race of friction amongst countries that weren’t as adversarial prior to the investment?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
I think we have become complacent. I think many countries, and ours included, have become complacent, right? And right now the world is a different place.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Insecure.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Insecure, it’s a different place, right? And people are starting to say, well, I need to maybe rethink my relationships. I need to sort of build up my own sort of defenses and things like that.
But it’s also a driver, right? I mean, when countries invest in their militaries, and there’s a lot of good spinoffs here, right? I mean, there’s, people get trained, people become leaders, like we talked to at the beginning, right?
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
We’re coming back to that subject.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
We’ll come back to that, right? People become leaders. And there’s a lot of spinoffs to that whole conversation.
I don’t think that it destabilizes the world. I think we’re just sort of, we’re in a correction right now. We’re getting back to a place where we’re saying, oh, well, we need to take a little bit more responsibility here for ourselves.
And that might mean increasing our military spending. So I think, personally, I think it’s a great thing. But I, but I don’t think it’s a great thing to make more bullets.
That’s not my point. There’s more to defense spending than bullets. Right.
Which is, I go back to the…
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
And there’s education. There’s the people that need to be trained to provide the service and the ancillary services around those.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
A hundred percent. There’s, there’s occupations, there’s training, there’s education that we don’t even understand now.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
So this is a whole GDP contributor that we’re not taking advantage of.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Exactly right.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
And as the economy transforms, which we’re under-transforming, we might come into AI in a minute, but we are going through a transformation. We probably do need to educate and have opportunity and focus for younger people and even people changing careers, mid-career.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Yeah.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
It’s a lot. We’re covering a lot of ground.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Well, that’s a big, that’s a, look, you know, that’s a big conversation, the defense conversation right now, and everybody’s in it and everybody is trying to find where they can help paint this picture. But I would say, get in the conversation, because if you’re not in the conversation, you will be left behind. There are fast movers out there that are going and they’re having good luck.
We have some great examples here in Prince Edward Island. I mean, just yesterday, Aspen Camp Energy Systems signed a deal with Hanwha Ocean in Korea. Now, this is one of the only two companies down-selected to build Canada’s next submarine fleet.
This is a huge, huge signing.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
And what a success story to repatriate Jason Aspen back to PEI in the contribution that he’s made. So what will that mean for employment, investment, opportunity? Can it stay in PEI or does that infrastructure have to go to another jurisdiction?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Yeah, well, I think that, I think it can be both those things. I think it can be both those things. I think that there can be certainly infrastructure here in Prince Edward Island, and I think infrastructure here in PEI can grow.
But I also think that his company can grow elsewhere. But what is really interesting about Aspen Camp, this is exactly what this whole defence industry strategy is all about, which is dual-use technology. So Jason had proven his technology time and time again in oil and gas, and all of a sudden it has perfect application now for the military sector.
And now he’s just entering into the conversation, but entering in at a whole different level. This week they were in Hong Kong, last week they were in the United Kingdom briefing to the NATO, all the NATO procurement officials about what they have. That’s what we need more of in Prince Edward Island.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
And it’s a spinoff opportunity. So if you look at what Regis Duffy created from his incubation, and we talked to the bioscience community and how large and impactful that is, same things happen in aerospace when they salvaged the base and added the small engine repair, large engine overhaul. Now we’ve got an aerospace industry.
The dot-com period did it in defence. The opportunity is how the contributors spin out and people who work for Jason or others today create their own firms that contribute to this space. That’s where the great GDP contributors come from.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Well, that’s the Verifin thing, right? In Newfoundland, when Verifin was bought out, the amount of spinoff companies that have been…
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
This is for the exchange, a stock exchange?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Exactly. Yeah.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Okay.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
So when they were bought out by NASDAQ and now there are all these spinoff companies and…
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
And who would think Newfoundland would connect to New York?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Or Silicon Valley. Right. Right.
I mean, it’s an incredible thing. And then Kraken Robotics all of a sudden becomes the second unicorn in Newfoundland within 10 years. Another dual-use technology success story, right?
These guys see the opportunity and go after it. I’ll tell you, Kraken Robotics is an example. I mean, they…
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
That’s underwater submarine…
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
Underwater robotics and sensors and things like that. Now underwater batteries. I mean, incredible what they’re doing.
They made their living in oil and gas, saw an opportunity in defence and rapidly moved into it, had great success. But they didn’t have success in Canada first. They had success in Europe and then the Canadians looked at it and said, oh, I might want that.
Okay. And then other countries looked at it and said, I might want that. So it…
But you got to start moving, right? And the companies that wait for the government to sort of push them down the path will be left behind. Sure.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
So what’s different about Newfoundland? Why do we have entrepreneurs achieving that level of success? And we have success in PEI.
These are pretty remarkable connections into the largest market in the world, US. What do we need to do differently? Is it the cod liver oil sort of contribution or what is it that we’re missing for that inspiration of entrepreneurialism?
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
I think it’s an aggressive business attitude, right? People see it… Is it survival?
Is it you’ve got to force… Well, it’s resiliency. It’s, you know, there’s all kinds of terms that you can use for…
And are we complacent? Is that the… Complacent might be strong, but I think that we’re content and it’s not just a Prince Edward Island thing.
This is like a bit of a Canadian trade, right? Where, oh, I’m not sure if this is good enough. And you see that starting to change, right?
They’re the people that have had great success of, you know, we got everything we need. Why, why would we go somewhere else? They should be coming to us, right?
And that’s, I think, the different thought process. I think that you’ve got to shift your mentality and say, you know what? We can do it just as good here, right?
Or we can do it better here. Why are they not coming to us? And that’s the beauty of this whole defense industrial strategy is that we have an opportunity now to participate, to create those things.
And Prince Edward Island, size is its strength. It’s got the agility to do this. You just got to get out of the wrong way.
Right.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
That’s a lot of subject. Let’s take a break. Let’s come back.
There’s a couple of things we want to get into. Not least of which is leadership. But we’ll take a break for a moment, do a quick sponsorship.
Yeah, we’ll be right back. Thank you.
[Allan Dale (Guest)]
This episode of the exchange podcast is brought to you by LaborMind, your AI driven workforce intelligence solution.
[Blake Doyle (Host)]
Well, welcome back. Thanks so much. And thanks for our sponsor for being part of this.
Back again with Alan Dale. We’re talking about a whole bunch of things. And really, I think the focus of the conversation is around collaboration.
Prince Edward Island achieving its potential and delivering all that it can for future generations and for itself. A good conversation about the defense strategy, how we can take advantage of it. I want to talk about something that’s important to all Islanders.
And this is something that we’ve discussed in the business edge. And it’s health care and health care. In my observation, you can agree or disagree, but this is the good frictional point of the conversation.
It’s under a lot of stress. I lost my family physician recently as at least 40,000 other Islanders. It’s a big percentage of the population that don’t have access to basic health care.
I think that’s a limiting factor for potential growth, for recruitment. Engagement of people who might look to PEI is a vile place to live. Health PEI, I don’t like to talk about that because it just degradates the system and makes recruitment more difficult.
But I think it’s a conversation we have to have. And I’m happy to discuss it. You’ve got some familiarity with the health care sector at a 30,000 foot sort of view.
What are your thoughts on health care? How do we get out of this quagmire that we found ourselves in? We’ve got a lot of barriers within bureaucracy.
There’s overlapping responsibilities. And then most importantly, we’ve got a professional cohort that feel maybe unrecognized, underappreciated and are very frustrated. And now we see some departing.
And I think you’ll continue to see that exit. How do you know you’ve worked with the Navy on recruitment? How do we reposition PEI, rebuild the health service and ensure Islanders have the appropriate access to the care that they deserve, require and need?
