Engineered for Integrity
Team Profile: Mark Nudd, President and CEO
On many days, Mark Nudd is thinking about engineering, strategy and the hard economics of modern industry. But some of his clearest convictions were forged somewhere simpler: on the tools, in the field, learning how things actually work, and learning that trust, once earned, must be honoured.
An Industry Wake-Up Call
That combination of practical know-how and deeply held values sits at the heart of InnoTech Engineering, the Calgary-based firm Nudd co-founded after what he describes as an industry-wide wake-up call. Around 2015, he watched customers struggle to get projects approved in a dramatically changed business climate, with tighter scrutiny and less tolerance for waste.
“We had to completely change how we were thinking about projects and how we executed them,” he says.
Where Strategy Meets Technology
For Nudd, the opportunity was not just to deliver automation projects, but to help clients make better decisions much earlier. Too often, he says, technology partners were brought in after key calls had already been made; sometimes without the best information and often without a clear link between technology spending and corporate strategy.
“That’s what InnoTech was created to do: bring strategy and technology together, and use technology to enable strategy,” he says. “That’s also what we mean by our vision to ‘lead the engineering revolution.’ (It means) not doing it the same way we’ve always done it, but getting involved earlier and approaching projects in a smarter, more strategic way.”
Seeing the Gap
The spark for the company came unexpectedly. After leaving a senior leadership role, Nudd was approached by an owner-operator for help on a major project. What began as consulting work soon revealed a market gap.
“About six months in, it hit me: these guys need a company to help them with this stuff, and they just don’t have that right now,” he says “There wasn’t a company out there, at least that I knew of, that really understood the inside and inner workings of these big organizations – how they sanction projects, how they justify them and how decisions actually get made. Too often, traditional firms were brought in after key decisions had already been made, with a mandate to execute rather than collaborate. We wanted to get involved earlier, work more closely with customers and help ensure technology decisions were aligned with corporate strategy, because that’s what leads to better decisions, greater efficiency and meaningful savings.”
Values as an Operating System
From the beginning, InnoTech was built around more than technical competence. Nudd says the company has placed “an extraordinary amount of emphasis on our vision, mission, and values” from day one, and that those principles still anchor the business as it grows.
Its internal disciplines – summed up in the acronym T.E.A.M. – help turn those values into daily practice: taking ownership, embracing teamwork, asking questions and making improvements. Together, they shape how employees treat one another and how clients experience the company.
“We’re genuinely disciplined and committed to it,” Nudd says. “And what that means for a client is predictability.”
That consistency matters in a sector where outcomes can hinge on trust. Nudd is especially clear about the principle he will not bend.
“Honestly, it’s simple: honour your commitments. That’s the one thing I refuse to compromise on.”
An Operator’s Perspective on Value Creation
It is a philosophy rooted in his own background. Nudd is not a traditional engineer; he came up through instrumentation, literally growing up in the field. That experience gave him a front-line understanding of operational technology long before data, automation and AI became boardroom imperatives. In his view, OT is where business value is created. It’s “the cash register,” and that makes thoughtful engineering decisions even more important.
Business as a Way to Serve Community
Yet for all the talk of systems and strategy, Nudd measures success in human terms. He speaks with equal intensity about creating meaningful work, helping people thrive and using business as a vehicle to serve the wider community. Through InnoTech Cares, the company supports about a dozen mostly local charities focused on addictions, homelessness and food insecurity, inviting staff to volunteer their time and backing those efforts with donations.
It’s a challenge to narrow down the organizations you want to help, says Nudd, but you’ve just got to “pick some, stick with it, be consistent.”
Built Together: Family and Leadership
That idea of steady, values-based follow-through also shapes the story of InnoTech itself. Nudd credits his wife, Colleen, with playing a foundational role in the company’s development and in helping test the original idea. In the early years, she handled “literally everything: bookkeeping, project controls, admin, the whole thing.” Today, she manages the company’s accounting and finance functions and remains a key part of its operations.
“She’s a sounding board, the steady one in all of it, and she takes a lot of the brunt of the tough days,” he says.
He is also quick to credit InnoTech’s management team, whose commitment has helped carry the company through the inevitable twists and turns of growth. Building a business, Nudd knows, is never a straight path, and he sees that team’s resilience, loyalty and shared belief in the company’s values as central to InnoTech’s success.
Where Competence Meets Character
In the end, what makes Nudd’s vision of engineering compelling is not just innovation. It is the conviction that competence and character belong together. That smart strategy, honoured commitments and care for people are not separate ideas, but part of the same promise.
That belief is rooted in something larger than business philosophy. For Nudd, it comes down to the enduring value of relationships, and the trust built over time with clients, colleagues and family.
“Treat people well, because relationships are everything,” Nudd says. “When everything else falls apart, what’s left is the relationships you invested in and the people you invested in, starting with family and then working down from there.”