From wildfires to weather apps: Kevin Comeau and his team deliver when it matters most

Meet Kevin Comeau, a dedicated Moncton-based Service Delivery Manager at Shared Services Canada (SSC). Kevin manages a team of technical advisors, overseeing the provisioning and management of network, hosting and telecom services that are essential to the Government of Canada’s (GC) operations. His role is crucial to delivering outstanding service performance for our partners. Kevin focuses on building strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders and understanding partners’ needs.

When Canadians check their weather apps to plan their days using Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) forecast, they’re using the SSC technology that Kevin and his team support. This integral team ensures that ECCC’s critical applications for weather, environmental analysis, climate change and research run smoothly. To gather, analyze and disseminate the data needed to deliver those programs, robust and reliable IT services are a must.

Kevin’s team has become his partners’ trusted resource for navigating complex situations. Kevin is proud of his contributions to the 5-year modernization plan for 26 climate change regulatory applications, in particular his role in addressing underlying infrastructure issues in a legacy data centre. A recurring system error prevented industries from meeting their reporting deadlines. The applications would return errors and time out while ECCC industry clients were submitting data. Unsaved data would be lost and clients had to re-enter it. This error could not be narrowed to a single physical system.

Approached by ECCC for technical support, Kevin stood up a team of experts to create a more robust system to monitor their IT services. The result was reliable, seamless, incident-free support. The team’s work exemplified true collaboration by engaging stakeholders, building strategic partnerships, and streamlining services—garnering them a hard-earned SSC Award of Excellence.

When wildfires threatened another legacy data centre in Yellowknife last August, Kevin and his team were pulled into emergency action. They rallied stakeholders to support partners concerned about losing data and infrastructure.

“It’s not every day you see a team come together in a few hours,” Kevin said. “We swiftly shut down ECCC servers, safeguarding GC assets and data.” They provided regular updates to stakeholders and the Emergency Management Team, showcasing the value of teamwork and proactive communication.

“I find it very fulfilling to oversee IT service management activities for other GC departments, ensuring high-quality service delivery.” Kevin said he is “driven to make a difference” and “looks forward to developing our IT services to better meet the constantly evolving needs of the GC, ultimately delivering exceptional services that benefit Canadians.”

SSC is the digital backbone of the GC. Our employees work diligently behind the scenes to ensure the GC is powered to deliver when Canadians need it most. Kevin’s story is just one example. Meet the people of SSC and learn more about how SSC’s service delivery teams come through for Canadians as part of Delivering Digital Solutions Together for Canada.