Retirement comes with great memories and many friends
There will be plenty of things Dan Baril will miss about his time at Calian as he dips his toes into the deep end of the retirement pool. Sure, he will miss his job as Senior Vice-President Space and all that went into that role, but moreover, Baril will miss the colleagues and friends he’s made in his 30-plus years with SED Systems and later Calian.
I made some incredible friendships with the people here. You’re working on projects with them, you’re travelling with them,” says Baril. “A lot of the people who are here have been here for a long time. And so, you form these bonds. They all were very influential on me and helped shape me into somebody who, I hope, is relatively decent who has a good head on his shoulders,” he says. “You learn a lot from them, both from people you work for and people who report to you, as well. What kept me here was the people that I worked with.
Armed with a computer science degree and coming straight out of the University of Saskatchewan with a strong desire to put his education to good use, Baril learned quickly that there was power in numbers.
“It was always about teamwork here. It was always trying to do the right thing for the customer and for the company,” he says. “To me, that appealed to my sense of values, so I was able to do a job that I felt good about and was proud of.”
Hired in 1990 as a software developer, Baril found that Calian provided room for growth and success. In 2012, he was named Business Manager Gateway Systems. Three years later, he was promoted to Vice-President Software Defined Solutions, where he stayed until 2022 when he was named Senior Vice-President Space.
In all those roles, there were challenges, Baril says, but having a great team around him provided a comfort level for him to prosper.
“There were always new and interesting things. Although my first project, I stayed on it for, I think, seven years. But you learn a lot. In university, everything you do is like little toy problems and finally, you’re building these massive software systems, so learning the scale and the mission-critical aspect of the software was huge, a huge learning curve.”
As his career progressed, he embarked on different projects which often led him to plenty of overseas travel.
After a while, I started keeping stats and it was 19 different countries, three and a half years on the road, 155 different trips over the course of my career.
Those included 44 trips to the United Kingdom where he spent more than a year in London.
“A big part of the draw of this job is that you are visiting places around the world. You are doing things that are pretty cool… you’re working in the space industry. But at the same time, you get to see all these places you normally wouldn’t get to visit.
“Luckily for me, the big trips were all back when I was young and before I had kids, so it was no big deal for me to take off for three months. I was fortunate in that way that it happened at the right point of my life to take advantage of that.”
Those early days and memories remain close to Baril as his vision now changes to a different future.
“As soon as you say you are retiring, you start reminiscing with people about things you shared along the way. It’s an emotional time.”
Now he can look back at how lucky he was to spend his career with Calian and not have to leave the city that was his home. “I was extremely lucky to stumble into a place that works internationally in an industry that I love, with great people, all without having to leave my hometown.”
There is no fear about the future for Baril as he and Allison, his wife of 27 years, embark on a new chapter of their lives.
You know you are going to miss the place, miss the people. You think you made at least a small impact on the people and the industry and you’re proud of that.