Gurpreet knew early on that his career path would be unique. He wanted to be an engineer, but his natural outgoing personality also drew him to sales and connecting with customers to solve supply chain challenges.
Today, he is the product supply manager at Co-op Refinery Complex, owned by Federated Co-op Ltd.,(FCL) in Regina, Sask. He holds a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Waterloo, an MBA, and the designation P.Eng. (professional engineer).
“I was offered a position with Suncor Energy at their Sarnia Refinery right out of engineering school,” said Bhatia. “I spent six years at the refinery working as a process engineer and taking on engineering projects and learning about refinery operations.”
In the mid-’90s, he embarked on a part-time MBA program at Wilfrid Laurier University. For three-and-a-half years he went to class in the evening and worked during the day.
“Halfway through that program, the company took pity on me and realized I had a bit of a commercial inclination,” Bhatia joked.
The company moved Bhatia to the downstream corporate offices in downtown Toronto, which turned into a full-time position as a planning analyst and shortly afterwards he was promoted to the Manager, Business Development position.
This is where he began working in the commercial side of the industry, using his engineering and manufacturing skills. “It kind of married the two skill sets: having to use my engineering skills and understanding the products and new business.”
Bhatia was born in India and moved to Canada with his parents when he was a year old. His father was a physics professor and his career took the family around the world.
For a time, “We were Canadian citizens living as ex-pats in the Middle East. So I did a year at the University of Kuwait. We had maintained our ties here in Canada. After university in Kuwait, I decided I wanted to continue pursuing my education.”
Once back in Canada, Bhatia settled in. He worked on a variety of projects at the refinery level and was responsible for working on business cases and new (at the time) products like biodiesel and ethanol. During this time in his career Bhatia, worked closely with the marketing groups to make sure the products met the expectations of the marketplace.
He was also seeking ways to extract more value from refinery production, which led to his next role as manager of chemicals for Suncor’s Sarnia facility. The role included managing Suncor’s interest in a marketing joint venture with Sunoco Chemicals of the US, Supply Planning for the refinery’s chemicals production and maintaining a sales portfolio across Canada with key strategic accounts. But after 7 years in the role Suncor merged with Petro-Canada and the position was eliminated as a result of the decision to unwind the marketing venture. He stayed through the transition period, and in 2011, returned to the Middle East to be a consultant with Saudi Aramco.
When the opportunity came along in Regina to take on the supply manager role at FCL, he jumped at the opportunity to move back on the fuel supply and marketing side of the industry. Gurpreet has been with FCL for three-and-a-half years now and is happy with his expanded role and impact he’s been able to have using his skills and experience.
“Certainly when you look at the expertise I bring to the table, it was more on the supply planning, marketing and commercial side, but also with knowledge of refinery operations and the manufacturing processes.”
FCL’s Co-op Refinery Complex in Regina serves the Co-operative Retailing Systems gas bar and card-lock locations from Northwestern Ontario to Vancouver Island.
Bhatia’s job includes leading FCL’s refined product supply department to make sure the product is available throughout the geographic regions it operates in. His group manages short and long term trade and supply agreement negotiations with other industry participants. The group’s responsibility extends to managing FCL’s renewable fuels compliance through the acquisition, distribution and blending of biofuels and is actively involved in the compliance reporting and emissions tracking processes.
These days, Bhatia is enjoying his job as well as a more even work-life balance. When he first moved from Toronto with his wife and daughter, it was a big change for everyone as they left friends and family behind, but they’ve settled in nicely.
“It was a bit of a culture shock insofar as the lack of traffic,” he says. “It’s beautiful — the ability to get home at a reasonable time. The ability to just go home and have lunch with our daughter when she’s off school is fantastic. I’m really enjoying what I do both from a personal and career perspective.”
