Hello TroiWest Community! We wanted to take a moment to introduce you to another member of our staff. In this month’s staff spotlight we would like to feature Melanie Miranda.
Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Melanie has consistently looked for opportunities to work with companies that are transitioning, growing or changing. Her mantra would be “to bring order to chaos”, which is evidently her sweet spot.
While she had interests to pursue engineering, family life steered her towards a Business Management Diploma through N.A.I.T; an educational pursuit that she quite impressively juggled while raising small children.
Melanie’s initial work experience was in the Oil and Gas industry where she had roles in office administration, inside sales, tender proposals and technical document control. While in this last office position, the controller of the particular company left to work in the home industry and invited Melanie to join. In this new role Melanie worked as a construction administrator, and over a period of ten years developed this department within the company. Melanie worked at another company in home construction as a production coordinator before joining Troiwest; a company she discovered upon the recommendation of Kimberly, a previous coworker who had recently been hired on by TroiWest. While not having directly worked in the same departments, both were confident of the other’s skills and work ethic and so joined TroiWest at roughly the same time.
When asked why she transitioned from Oil and Gas to Construction, Melanie explained that it was “more of a people move than an industry move”. Melanie recognises the importance of strong personal relationships and knowing that she has people that she can rely on. She also mentioned that Oil and Gas tends to be a bit “more volatile” while Construction typically is rather stable in comparison, a change that she appreciated.
Melanie was initially hired to TroiWest as a Construction Administrator but this role quickly evolved into the title of Production Manager. She describes her role as Production Manager as follows: “I ensure that everything in the company moves forward in the most efficient, cost-effective way”. She assesses why there are delays, and how things can be improved so that the delay is not repeated. She monitors timelines and information and ensures that everyone receives all the information they need at the right moment. Possessing skills akin to her interest in engineering, Melanie offers a strong attention to detail and accuracy of information in her current role at TroiWest as well as being somewhere her team describes as their “sounding board”.
In her day to day work, Melanie particularly enjoys streamlining systems. “I enjoy putting information on spreadsheets,” she says. “Keeping track of things and making sure that things are done in the order they’re supposed to”.
Melanie’s role as Production Manager is a vital element in the construction and delivery of the home that Troiwest and our clients build together. She strives to make sure that the processes are completed timely, accurately and logically.
When asked what advice she would give new homeowners, Melanie advises clients that “while the neighbourhood you want to live in is important, Edmonton’s climate forces people to spend a lot of time indoors. The focus should be how your family will use the spaces within your home.” She recommends really looking “at the functionality – how you do things and how your family works”. To all clients she recommends that they do research ahead of time to figure out what they like in a home so that when the time comes to make decisions about various things, they can make better informed choices.
While Melanie had experience in larger companies and the corporate culture, Melanie particularly likes working in a company like TroiWest because it is personal. She explains that “people who make the decisions are around you and they know you”.
Jesse, the President and General Manager of Troiwest describes her contribution as follows: “Melanie brings a wealth of knowledge and structure to the team. Her ability to accurately assess, organise and analyse is a tremendous asset when managing the thousands of details that make up the process of homebuilding. Melanie has developed systems and processes that have allowed us to decrease our construction times as well as increase efficiency and communication amongst the team. She is essentially the support system of the organisation!”
We trust that as you embark on a building project with Troiwest, you will find Melanie’s experience and suggestions as invaluable as we do.