Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

In this episode, Justin interviews Nick Quigley, Risk Manager at the Saskatchewan Association of Rehabilitation Centers (SARC). This is Nick's second career, after starting in the Canadian Military. Nick explains how he joined the military before graduating from high school, the training and education he received, and his field of operational risk and training safety. He says he loved his work, but in 2019, he was medically retired with PTSD. Retirement got old fast, and when he got the opportunity to help a company recover from the problems of the COVID shutdown, he stepped up. From there, he joined SARC, where he works today. Nick speaks of the recycling mission of SARC, and how he has increased his education while there, receiving the RIMS-CRMP recently, and continues his studies. He recounts some of the activities of the Saskatchewan RIMS Chapter (SKRIMS), where he serves on the board. He shares how he manages his PTSD and why he advocates for removing the stigma around mental health. Listen for insight on living with PTSD while managing risk at a major non-profit organization.

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:14] Public registration is open for RISKWORLD 2026, which will be held from May 3rd through 6th in Philadelphia. Visit RIMS.org/RISKWORLD to register.

[:27] About this episode of RIMScast. Our guest is Nicholas Quigley, RIMS-CRMP. He is the Risk Specialist for the Saskatchewan Association of Rehabilitation Centers, or SARC.

[:52] We will discuss recycling, energy efficiency, how his military career led him to risk management, and mental health awareness. But first…

[1:01] RIMS Virtual Workshops. The next RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep Course will be on May 13th and 14th. The very popular CBCP and RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep Bootcamp will be held from May 18th through the 21st. The next RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep Course will be held on June 9th and 10th.

[1:21] Links to registration are in this episode's notes.

[1:23] Webinars. On May 14th, Origami Risk will return with a new session, "Future-Proofing Your Risk Program: Keeping Pace with Scale, Complexity, and Visibility."

[1:35] On May 28th, Zurich returns with "From Underwriting To Risk Management: What To Expect From The Growing Demand For Data Center Construction." Register for webinars at RIMS.org/Webinars or through the links in this episode's show notes.

[1:50] Folks, RIMS is back on YouTube. Our handle is @RIMSOfficialChannel. We've got plenty of videos there, including RIMScast, RIMScast Canada video podcasts, and other informative and entertaining content from RIMS. Subscribe to the channel today!

[2:10] On with the Show! Our guest today is Nick Quigley, the Risk Specialist for the Saskatchewan Association of Rehabilitation Centers (SARC). He is an educator, a veteran, and a member of the Saskatchewan RIMS Chapter (SKRIMS). Justin met Nick at a SKRIMS event.

[2:34] Nick will discuss the work he does for SARC, which handles recycling and energy efficiency, his involvement with SKRIMS, his certifications, including the RIMS-CRMP, and what it's like to be an educator.

[2:48] For Mental Health Awareness Month in May, and in Canada, Mental Health Week from May 4th through 10th, Nick will tell us how PTSD impacts his life and his career as a risk professional, how he handles these challenges, and offer words of comfort. Let's get to it!

[3:18] Interview! Nick Quigley, welcome back to RIMScast!

[3:32] Nick is wearing a shirt that reads: Risk Manager: I solve problems you don't know you have. Nick has worn that shirt to board meetings, senior management meetings, presentations, and to his class when he was teaching.

[4:22] Justin mentions a great presentation Nick led last year. After the presentation, Justin wanted Nick to be on RIMScast. Nick also has a RIMS CRMP Story.

[4:57] Before Nick was out of high school, he saw an ad for the summer: Do you want to make $6,000 this summer, and do you like being outdoors? Nick grew up in a small community on Prince Edward Island, and he loves the outdoors.

[5:34] He filled out paperwork, not noticing the top of the form, Government of Canada, Department of National Defense. When he showed up at the recruiting center for testing, he saw what he had done.

[6:06] Nick followed through, did his basic recruit training and his trades training, and became qualified as a signals operator. His job was radios, satellites, and IT. He enjoyed it. But he got an opportunity early on to focus on operational risk and training safety.

[6:35] It was not a traditional 9-to-5. Every day there was something different. That's what kept it exciting. Nick retired in 2019. Then came COVID. People who knew Nick's background asked him to come work with them. He went back to work and found out he enjoyed it again.

[7:16] Nick found a second life, working full-time again, in risk management. Nick's background was in operations and crisis and emergency management. He has a degree in emergency management.

[8:17] Nick says retirement was fun, at first. All his friends had to go to work, while he did what he wanted. It was also lonely, because all his friends were at work. It got old, really fast.

[9:19] Nick says when he retired, he did some little projects and woodworking, but that got old, too. Doing it all day felt like work, not a hobby or a passion. It got lonely and boring, and he needed a change.

[9:51] Nick got recruited into risk management from somebody who knew his military background and offered him a chance to assist them during COVID. He got his ISO 31000 while he was there. Shortly after, he went to a large, non-profit charity where he is the risk manager.

[10:38] The charity manages all the recycling across the Province of Saskatchewan. Nick got his RIMS-CRMP within a couple of months of starting this position. He has been a lifelong learner. Education can lead to a better outcome when it comes to real-world applicability.

[11:14] Nick says education gives you a baseline understanding of what you need to know. Experience allows you to modify what you have learned to fit the situation.

[11:44] People tell Nick he has more letters after his name than in his name. He believes education is important. Now he is working toward becoming a Chief Internal Auditor from the IIA.

[12:21] Nick explains how SARC operates across Saskatchewan. They collect aluminum cans and other materials from customers and return the deposit fees to the customers. They sort and process the materials and ship them to downstream market partners for recycling.

[13:49] SARC has several streams: aluminum, plastics, glass, flexible packaging, and styrofoam.

[14:00] Yesterday, April 20th, was Earth Day. SARC takes that seriously. SARC's mission is to have a large recycling presence and to be the best at what they do.

[14:52] Nick is fascinated by innovations coming out now in how we leverage technology. Nick read an article about Finland using their data centers underground to heat houses and businesses.

[15:38] Nick is always looking for ways to make things more efficient or streamline processes to make them better. If we can do that by reusing materials instead of taking them out of the earth, why not?

[16:02] Nick is the Risk Group at SARC. He is a department of one. He gets to dictate his priorities, with guidance from senior management and the strategic initiatives. He can look at things across the organization. Nick has the trust of senior management.

[17:03] Nick makes sure senior management is apprised of situations that will negatively affect them, their mission, vision, values, or the strategic priorities. They rely on his expertise when things pop up.

[17:32] Nick says when he started, one of the interesting things he got to do was to follow the recyclable material from start to finish. What does it go through at SARC, and where does it go downstream? He spent a lot of time building out those processes to make them efficient.

[18:10] Nick worked with Operations and Processing to see how they are doing it and look at it from the perspective of reducing risk, unneeded redundancies, and bottlenecks.

[18:45] SARC and SARCAN, the recycling system, have been around since 1989. They had processes. It's a large, fairly mature organization, with about 1,000 employees in 76 locations across the province, serving 1.1 million people.

[19:15] Nick's role was to validate the processes. Are they efficient? Can we do better? What can we change? How does the customer experience get better? We want people to bring back their recyclables. If it's a barrier, they're not going to bring them back, and it's wasted material.

[19:31] Saskatchewan has a collection rate that's higher than that of other provinces. Some provinces don't have a system. Others rely on a curbside collection system.

[20:16] The provinces share knowledge. They have a collective, and...

Energy Efficiency, Mental Health Awareness, and Risk with Nick Quigley