Carol Hopkins: retired Director General, Integrated High Performance Computing Management

Meet Carol Hopkins.

Carol Hopkins worked with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) for 37 years before recently retiring from her position as Director General, Integrated High Performance Computing Management at Shared Services Canada (SSC). Carol is proud to have supported the mission and mandate of ECCC alongside her likeminded and passionate colleagues.

“Working in IT for Canada’s weather service, there wasn’t a day where the mandate wasn’t top of mind,” she says. “I felt a lot of pride in being a member of a team where everyone’s objective was to improve the efficiency, quality and user experience in direct support of the mandate to help save Canadian lives.”

Carol began her career with the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) as a student in 1984. She spent the summer at the Canadian Meteorological Centre, developing weather models and optimizing them to perform faster. “I started with a group of 30 students, taking turns on DECwriters to work on coding conversion and porting for the first Cray supercomputer,” she says. DECwriters were a series of specialized computer terminals, which were commonly used by the MSC in the 1980s.

Carol continued to work closely with the MSC through the Chief Information Officer Branch (CIOB) and then Shared Services Canada (SSC) following its creation in 2011. “MSC is a place where people have the tendency to spend their entire career,” she says. “Among many wonderful things, this creates an environment where employees really get to know each other. Even though I have provided services to many other departments, I have always felt like a member of the MSC team.”

Carol has witnessed many important technological advancements throughout her career with ECCC. “When I started, the only way to move your file from one mainframe to another was by using the supercomputer as a network switch,” she says. After the MSC introduced their first network, the pace of these advancements quickly accelerated. “It exploded. All of our systems were interconnected. At the time, it felt like a gradual evolution.” From the introduction of personal computers to the newly updated radar networks, the changing technological climate was a constant motivation in the work Carol performed.

Carol has always stressed the importance of engaging women and girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic (STEM). In 2017, Carol chaired a conference on Women in High Performance Computing, and was nominated for the role of Women’s Champion at SSC for 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. During this time, Carol also served as a mentor through the Dr. Roberta Bondar STEM Career Development Program. A highlight of being the Women’s Champion was participating at the Montreal Science Museum event for the International Day of Women in Science in 2018 and 2019 with her colleagues.

Here are a few random facts about Carol:

• What was your first job? Stroller pusher. I was 3 1/2 years old and I was hired by a neighbour to give their newborn baby strolls up and down the street for a dime! That was a fortune and I didn’t realize it.
• If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be? I’m glad you said the world. I’m not enough of an adventurer to say Mars or the moon. Anywhere in the Mediterranean: I still need to satisfy my teenage desire to go to Greece.
• What is your favourite game or sport to watch and play? Swimming.
• Would you rather ride a bike, ride a horse or drive a car? Top down, wind in my hair. Although I do need to get back on a horse as it’s been a very long time.
• If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? How to choose! Something made with love and enjoyed with a glass of wine! Gnocchi with porcini mushroom sauce using Pino sausages from the Soo. When there’s time, a delicious Ragù, or even more time, duck confit. Of course, the running joke with friends is anything with bacon!
• If you could go back in time, what year would you travel to? I wouldn’t change a thing, but I wish I had been old enough to go to Woodstock or to a Beatles concert.
• What are your hobbies? Reading, learning, cooking/baking, yoga. On the unusual, riding my stand-up paddleboard with my oldest sheepdog, Juno.
• What is your favourite flavor of ice cream? At the ice cream parlour, my first choice is Tiger Tail, but I made coconut ice cream using a fresh coconut, which was divine!
• How many pairs of shoes do you own? A pair for every occasion! These days I’m mostly wearing flip flops and work boots. And no, I don’t know how many pairs of flip flops I own!
• If you were a super-hero, what powers would you have? Telekinesis and all of the other powers Samantha had.
• What form of public transportation do you prefer? I love the train and I take ferries when there is the opportunity.
• What’s your favourite zoo animal? Penguin.
• Summer or winter? Spring, summer, fall and winter. In that order, but I love them all.
• If you could share a meal with anyone, living or dead, who would it be? I just finished October Horse so Caesar and Cleopatra are high on the list, yet Keith Richards still comes first.
• What’s your favourite holiday? Christmas to New Year’s, which includes my husband Doug’s birthday on January 2, because it’s celebrated over a period of time with both family and friends.
• Do you love or hate roller coasters? Love the old-fashioned wooden roller coasters.

See more people