2025: A Year Spent Learning

December 31, 2025 · 2 min read

As 2025 comes to a close, what I remember most is not a single project or moment, but the feeling that reflection began to turn into something more grounded and deliberate.

On a personal note, I also want to thank everyone who took the time to share their own experiences, perspectives, or feedback on the topics I have explored throughout the year. Learning is a continuous process, and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with everyone.

I spent much of the year thinking about the same ideas that have been pulling at me for a while. Infrastructure. Delivery. Capacity. Trust. What changed is that I stopped circling those ideas from a distance and started engaging with them more directly, and more honestly.

Some of that came from showing up in new ways. Taking part in a live CBC Radio conversation about train travel in Canada allowed me not just to talk, but also to listen to the experiences of people who rely on those systems. Attending railCAN 2025 and listening to experts who work inside complex systems talk about what actually makes them work. This also meant paying attention not just to the headlines, but to the details.

Some of it also came from the work I do through Rail Fans Canada. Documenting projects as they move from planning to delivery has been one of the most grounding ways to learn. From videography, photography, and research, 2025 was a year where I continued to build the skills that help me explain complex systems more clearly. That is where infrastructure stops being abstract and starts revealing what works, what struggles, and why.

I also wrote more this year. Or at least, I tried to. Writing helped me make sense of what I was seeing and experiencing, including publishing my first op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen on public trust, budgets, and what delivery actually means.

Professionally, I continued my work inside public institutions, where delivery is not a concept but a responsibility. Budgets, coordination, reporting, execution. All of this while continuing to develop myself through my MBA, a conscious investment in my own capacity, giving me better tools to contribute where delivery, trust, and systems matter most.

For the first time in a long time, as 2025 comes to a close, I feel more aligned with my own values and ambitions. Not finished, not solved, just aligned. My interests, my work, and my ambitions are pointing in the same direction. Toward delivery that earns trust. Toward systems that work for people in practice, not just on paper.

That feels like a good place to end the year.

Here is to 2026, and to building on that momentum.