Peter Silva: Manager of Data Interchange, Shared Services Canada

Meet Peter Silva.

Since 2011, Peter Silva has been working closely with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) in his capacity as Manager of Data Interchange for Shared Services Canada, but his history with ECCC began long before then. In 1988, Peter joined ECCC fresh out of school and spent the first ten years of his career performing critical work installing and servicing supercomputers for the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC). Having discovered his passion, Peter has specialized in weather telecommunications ever since, leveraging systems to assure meteorologists have the data they need to succeed.

“Weather telecommunications go back 150 years, to the first parliamentary funding for the Meteorological Service of Canada,” says Peter, explaining how this funding was essential in the development of telegraphy for immediate weather communication and forecasting in Canada. Over the span of his career, Peter has observed the continual advancements of the MSC. “When I started working, weather telecommunications was all custom work, and the World Wide Web did not exist.”

Peter has been a key player in many innovative web projects throughout his career, following Environment Canada’s weather pages from the early days of the internet up to today. Peter has many fond memories of his time with ECCC, from running a contest for the world’s fastest computer application in the early 90s to being on the first www.top500.org list in 1993.

According to Peter, the best part of his job is working with open source software, particularly Linux operating systems. “With open source, if you care, you can always find out why things are the way they are,” he says. “When a part of your job is understanding why things go wrong, total transparency makes your work feasible.”

Peter is recognized for his work with MetPX Sarracenia, a Meteorological Product Exchanger project hosted on GitHub. Started in 2004, the project has been a success that Peter continues to work on today. In recent years, Peter is also co-leading a committee at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for the modernization of weather telecommunications.

A memorable highlight from Peter’s career was in 2005, during Hurricane Katrina. His team successfully implemented a caching web proxy that allowed the Canadian Hurricane Centre website to remain available, ensuring Canadians had the most accurate, timely and accessible information needed to stay safe.

Here are a few random facts about Peter:

• What was your first job? Delivered (mostly Italian) furniture.
• If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be? Flat cycle tours in Europe.
• What is your favourite game or sport to watch and play? To watch? America’s Cup sailing. They won’t let me play!
• Would you rather ride a bike, ride a horse, or drive a car? Bike.
• If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? It needs to be nutritionally balanced… Ensure? Blech!
• If you could go back in time, what year would you travel to? This time is better than any other in history. I hope and think it will keep getting better.
• What are your hobbies? None really, open source software?
• How many pairs of shoes do you own? My wife says five too many… that’s usually how many are in the wrong spot in the house.
• What form of public transportation do you prefer (air, boat, train, bus, car, etc.)? Human powered (aka cycling). I just wish Canada had infrastructure like the Netherlands.
• If you could share a meal with anyone, living or dead, who would it be? I would love to meet my grandfather on my mother’s side. He died in the Second World War.
• What's your favourite holiday? Christmas.
• Do you love or hate rollercoasters? Hate.
• What's your favourite movie? Blade Runner… not sure which cut. 
• Where do you see yourself in 10 years? I don’t plan, I just deal with what is in front of me!