She’s only been on the job for two weeks, but she’s already started working on moving the town forward.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood, we spoke with Tammy Hogg, 48, new chief building officer with the Town of Collingwood.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: I grew up in Guelph.
Q: Where did you attend college or university?
A: I went to college at Mohawk. I went for architectural technology.
Q: Did you always know you wanted to explore a career in building?
A: Oh, no.
When I first started in my program, it wasn’t even on my radar. It was a co-op program, so my first co-op was with the City of Mississauga in their facilities department. When I graduated, they had an opening in their building department and it just went from there.
Q: What is your experience prior to making the jump to come to Collingwood?
A: I was in Mississauga for about four years. Then, I moved to Oakville for a short stint. I was moving my way closer to home.
Shortly after, an opening came available in Guelph. I took that and spent 15 years there.
I progressed through the system starting with small buildings and moving up to larger, more complicated buildings.
Then, a management position became available at the City of Kitchener, so I was the manager of permits there for five years.
During COVID-19, I was looking for a little bit of a change to expand my horizons. A job as the manager of building for the City of Kingston came up, so I took that to add to my experience.
When I was there, this job in Collingwood came up and it just seemed like a natural progression.
Q: What is it about building that interests you?
A: It changes every day.
What I like about the job specifically is helping people see their dreams come together, when talking about homeowners who may be building an addition, or building a new home. Those are the rewarding parts of it.
It’s always changing.
Q: What appealed to you about Collingwood specifically?
A: Collingwood is a little bit closer to my family.
I also have friends here. Any time I’d come up to visit them, I enjoyed the outdoor lifestyle. Being by water, for me, is calming, so being able to see that every day helps my mental state and keeps things positive.
It’s a cool little community. I’ve only been here for two weeks full time.
Q: Coming to Collingwood, what are your first impressions from a building perspective?
A: Building, in general, we seem to be as busy as any other municipality I’ve worked in. The issue with building specifically across Ontario is the ability to recruit building officials.
There’s not a large pool of qualified building inspectors available, so trying to recruit building inspectors to lessen the workload for the ones that are here has been the challenge since I came into management.
The team here is great and works together. We cover for each other. I’ve been out in the field already.
Q: Are there any misconceptions about the building industry out there that you’d like to correct?
A: Yes. One thing is people say they don’t want to get a building permit because it’s difficult.
It’s really not. We’re here to help. We’re here to help you figure out the process. We’re not here to stop your project.
Q: What kinds of things do you like to do outside of work?
A: Right now, I’m just travelling around with my dog. We like to go for walks and be outside.
I just found a recreational ice hockey pick-up league here in Collingwood, which I’m looking forward to joining.
Anything to get out there and to stay active.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: Not on a personal level, but on a professional level, I’d like them to know I’m here to help with building and getting things moving through the permit process. I’m looking forward to being a part of this team and moving forward.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we’ll be speaking with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way, letting them tell their own stories in their own words. This feature will run on CollingwoodToday every weekend. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
