The 2020 Association of Consulting Engineering Companies - Saskatchewan (ACEC-SK) Young Professional Award recipient is Kai Li, B.E., P.Eng. Kai was born and raised in a small town in China. His parents wanted him to have the best education possible and decided to send him to study abroad. In 2008, at the age of 17, he came to Canada by himself as an international student to study in the University of Saskatchewan. After spending 9 months in the U of S Language Centre learning English as his second language, he successfully passed the language requirements and began taking university classes.
BIn university he worked as a Residence Assistant while living on campus. Kai took a 16-month internship with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Highways. He volunteered as Peer Assisted Learning mentor and International Peer Leader. He sat on the University Student’s Council as an international student representative.  He led the CIM Saskatoon Student Chapter as the student chapter president. While participating in all of the above extracurricular activities, Kai graduated from the U of S Civil Engineering program with distinction in
2013.
While working for WorleyParsons, Kai participated in some large mining projects. Working with his next employer was Park Derochie Coatings (Saskatchewan) Inc., he obtained first-hand proposal writing, construction management, and corrosion protection experience. 
After getting some construction experience, Kai went back to the consulting engineering industry working for Engcomp as an intermediate structural engineer. At Engcomp, Kai started to stamp drawings and take gradual responsibilities on structural design. He regularly participates in structural asset integrity audits to help Engcomp clients protect their employees and assets. He performed site services to gather information of as-built compressed air lines then studied deficiencies in the current compressed air system and contributed to a recommendation report. Kai also worked on steel connection design projects for local fabricators and certified related shop drawings as a professional engineer. He delivered technical presentations for Engcomp and the NACE conference on his corrosion concerns in the mining industrial. Lately, he has been actively working with Engcomp’s business development team to maintain existing client relations, identify new opportunities and develop proposals as required.
He has volunteered with APEGS on several initiatives. He volunteers on the ACEC-SK Young Professional committee helping with event organizations. He has volunteered with the  Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and Saskatoon Engineering Society. Kai also contributed a Capstone Design project to the U of S fourth year mechanical students, aiming to solve a challenge in the mining industry. He has acted as a client to the student’s team and provided guidance and assistance on the design project.