PARTNER
ONTARIO, CANADA

Phone Number
rsteckley@SHEDC.COM

Ross has been designing and managing agricultural, high-tech commercial, institutional and industrial project sites for over 40 years in both Canada and the USA. He became an associate of SHEDC in 2008 and the Canadian Partner in 2015. One of the founding partners of SHEDC, Rocky Lane Jr., recruited Ross into North Carolina from Canada in 1992 where Ross established the first USA satellite office for Tacoma Steckley Engineers, now Tacoma Engineers of Guelph, Ontario. Ross no longer carries letters behind his name and in an earlier life thrived as being professionally registered as a Certified Engineering (Civil) Technologist (CET), a professional international facility manager under IFMA, a registered professional interior designer with both ARIDO in Canada and ASID in the USA.  This variety of professions allowed him to ‘fall into economic development’ in a very non-traditional way, at least by academic standards anyway. Ross simply joined the Ontario Industrial Development Council in 1982 and started breaking new ground for many industrial developments in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.  Ross entered the USA under NAFTA guidelines and later under the extraordinary ability category, receiving ‘Green Cards’ for he and his family in 2000. Now as simply ‘Ross’, he enjoys bringing difficult projects into reality finding novel ways and means in achieving success under the client’s direction. Small business clients find unique ways to grow their business interests and assets under his creative approach toward community development and often focus on minority and women owned business development efforts.

Ross returned to Canada when seven philanthropists asked him to head up a Brownfield, multi-use project for a non-profit dealing with youth in trouble with the law due to drug dependencies. When in North Carolina was chief founding volunteer executive of Halifax County Boys and Girls Club. Ross was a founding president of the Roanoke River Partners, a ‘splashy’ eco-tourism collaborative involving five neighboring eastern NC counties. Ross currently sits on the advisory board of the Waterloo Region Small Business Centre (er) with four other City executive developers and business leaders who collectively make a difference in the fast-growing Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. Ross recently located and found growing businesses for a 66-acre Agri-Tech Business Park in Perth County, Ontario. Over one million square feet of industrial and commercial space have been designed by Ross with more than 75 businesses started in both Canada and the USA. Several of these businesses gain national attention.

Professional Experience

• Sanford Holshouser Economic Development Consulting (SHEDC), Raleigh, NC, USA

• President, T. Musselman Excavating, Baden, Ontario, Canada

• Under Philanthropists’ Lead - Project Manager, Ray of Hope, Kitchener, Ontario

• Manager of Business Development, FARM Solutions LLC (Financing for Black Farmers)

• Economic Developer and Site Director, Business Development Center, Metropolitan Housing and CDC

• Economic Developer, Washington County, NC, USA

• President, Tacoma Steckley and Associates-NC Inc., Weldon, NC, USA

• President, Tacoma Steckley and Associates, Inc., Guelph, Ontario, Canada

• President, Architectural Accord, Guelph and Stratford, Ontario, Canada

• President, Ross Steckley Developments Inc., New Hamburg, Ontario, Canada

• Design Build Project Coordinator, Len Ariss Construction, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Education, Awards, Certifications

• Entrepreneurial Thinking for Small Business

• Women in the Economic Development Business by IDEC

• ‘Special Training’ for identification of Brownfields involving various clean up methods

• Understanding Addictions within Community a ‘series’ created by “Minds” of Waterloo Region

• Graduate “Rural Development Institute” NC Rural Economic Development Center, Raleigh, NC

• Money Smart- Financial Literacy Training, Wachovia Bank, Washington, NC

• Group-Peer Lending and Micro-Lending, NC Rural Center, Raleigh, NC

• ASHI approved, Home Inspection Certified, Professional Career Development Institute, GA, USA

• Team Building and Executive Coaching, Strategic Development Inc., Raleigh, NC USA

• Marketing, Sales, Design Build Lease Opportunities by Jack Miller of Texas

• Advanced Negotiation Courses by Jack Miller of Texas

• Project Management: York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

• Specific Project Management Training for Specific Construction Projects

• Selling and Negotiating Strategy: The Fails Management Institute, Atlantic City, NJ, USA

• Conestoga College, Doon Campus, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Construction Engineering Technology Awarded three scholarship awards including 2nd and 3rd year design awards

• Waterloo Oxford DSS, Baden, Ontario, Canada - Science Technology and Trades

• Granted expansion of a business into USA under L1A NAFTA regulations in 1992

• Awarded Green Card for working in the USA under ‘Alien of Extraordinary Ability’ in 1999

Away from the Office

Ross works from his home and really enjoys doing dishes, mowing lawn or shoveling snow when he is not engaged with his SHEDC work. These same activities would be viewed as ‘being away from the office’ however the ‘real fun’ takes place when he is able to assist a non-profit gain some more capacity in achieving one or more of their goals. With a great wife beside him and some of their family living in North Carolina as well as Canada, being away is being with family. A long drive is better than a back rub for Ross and grants him a real opportunity to relax.