Business View - December 2014 139
elsewhere for employment, while the majority stays
within the county in various roles, according to Mo-
bushar Pannu, Northumberland’s director of transpor-
tation and waste since arriving from a municipal job in
Toronto in 2010.
“Some of the key employment sectors currently in the
County are agricultural, tourism, and manufacturing.
We have a very strong agriculture base and many resi-
dents work in this industry,” he said.
“There are some larger industries west of us in Dur-
ham Region – for example, General Motors and Ontar-
io Power Generation – their offices are fairly close to
us and some people do commute to work at those lo-
cations. Not as many go all the way to Toronto, though,
maybe less than 5 percent.”
Pannu oversees a Transportation and Waste Depart-
ment whose by-the-book responsibility covers man-
agement of the county’s road network and waste de-
partment, alongside provision of plumbing, sewage
inspections and maintenance and repair to 22 county
buildings and 344 social housing units. The day-to-day
tasks include oversight of effective and safe operation
of over 500 kilometers of arterial roadways within the
county, in addition to winter maintenance operations
and ensuring quality design and construction of the
municipal infrastructure through its project engineer-
ing group.
His workforce of 120 includes across many disciplines,
including a county-run recycling plant that sorts, bales
and markets all recyclable materials collected within
Northumberland, and serves as a regional enterprise
PUBLIC SECTOR
