Apr 8, 2024
May
25
2021
A day in the life: Kelly Howlett
A day in the life is a new series giving you the opportunity to get to know your colleagues and leaders better – giving you a snapshot into their life at work and beyond their regular work hours.
Name: Kelly Howlett
Location: Calgary, AB
Role: Manager, Collaboration West Assets
Kelly Howlett has been with TC Energy for 14 years beginning her TC Energy journey in Regulatory followed by the time spent with Canadian Mainline Rates group, then Corporate Evaluations doing financial modeling. Eight years into her TC Energy experience, Kelly and her family moved to our Mexico City office to join the Mexico Commercial and Business Development team.
“My TC Energy experience has been amazing, and Mexico particularly had me working with great people in a fabulous climate. My twin boys spent their first years in the city, and as a family, we miss it! We are fortunate to have had that experience,” Kelly says.
These days, Kelly is Manager for Collaboration West, a group that is focused on collaborating with our NGTL customers to achieve mutually beneficial solutions while strengthening relationships. Here’s a peek into a day in Kelly’s life.
My typical day....
Quiet time
First thing in the morning, it’s important for me to have time to myself to take care of body and soul. I spend 40-45 minutes on my trampoline– it makes me feel like a little kid followed by personal time devoted to reflection and spiritual growth.
Morning rush hour
My sons, Austin and Martin, are seven year old twins in grade two. Once they’re up, it’s a busy time getting them ready and out the door to school.
Team catch up
Every morning, the Collaboration team starts the day with a Teams chat. Catching up online – including pump up tunes – gets us motivated. This helps us bridge what we miss from connecting at the office.
Customer meeting – prep and present
Having customer meetings requires a lot of prep work so before we go into a virtual meeting, I’ll spend some time going over my notes and talking points. It’s definitely challenging to collaborate online – especially when our meetings can have up to 80 people – but our team has come up with great ideas and we’ve been able to advance topics and solutions with customers over the last year. As chair of the Tolls Tariff Facilities and Producers (TTFP) forum for our NGTL customers, it can be challenging balancing different viewpoints but it is rewarding. It’s important that we develop mutually beneficial solutions with our customers.
Lunch
My husband, also a TC Energy employee, is working at home too. At lunch we connect and catch up. We’re vegetarian so lunch is usually a quick salad but once in a while we have veggie burgers from Dairy Lane as a treat, or Mucho Burrito which reminds me of living in Mexico.
Meet with team to discuss customer meeting outcomes
A lot of viewpoints means a lot to talk about for next steps. My team will meet to go over what we need to do to meet our commitments and prepare the agenda topics for the next meeting. TTFP meetings are monthly but related task forces for specific issues meet more frequently.
Individual work
After collaborating internally and externally, it’s alone time to catch up on emails and phone calls with coworkers and customers.
Family time
Collaboration continues once the twins get home! We spend time talking about our day and helping with homework. Our family loves to read so we build in some reading together time before the kids go to bed. The twins enjoy the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and I gravitate towards high-performance books. I recently read Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and loved it because it fits in well with TC Energy’s diversity and inclusion goals.
Wind down time
We are not a TV family – I was going to check out the Oscars but I don’t even know if we have cable anymore! So, my wind down time is chatting with my husband or sometimes more reading. It’s early to bed and early to rise.
