“Go Big or Go Home.”
Ryan Evans, P.Eng., CMVP, CBCP, is an accomplished engineering executive, entrepreneur, educator, and board leader whose career has been shaped by a lifelong instinct to build, solve problems, and turn ambitious ideas into practical results. With more than two decades of professional experience, Ryan has developed a distinctive combination of engineering expertise, business leadership, strategic planning, sustainability knowledge, and entrepreneurial judgment. As President and Principal of EVNA Engineering & Consulting Ltd., he has built his career around a fundamental belief: better buildings can create better outcomes for businesses, communities, occupants, and the environment.
Ryan’s passion for engineering began well before it became his profession. From an early age, he was fascinated by building things and understanding how systems worked, an inclination that ultimately led him toward engineering technologies and mechanical engineering. He earned a DEC in Engineering Technologies – Energy Management from CEGEP John Abbott College before completing his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at Concordia University in 2007. He went on to become a licensed Professional Engineer in Ontario and earned the Certified Measurement & Verification Professional and Certified Building Commissioning Professional designations, establishing a technical foundation that would support an increasingly broad career in business, engineering, and leadership.
Ryan’s entrepreneurial journey is closely connected with EVNA Engineering, where he has spent approximately two decades developing an organization dedicated to high-performance buildings, energy efficiency, and sustainability. EVNA’s core work encompasses energy modelling, building commissioning, measurement and verification, energy auditing, performance engineering, deep energy retrofits, and technical advisory services. The organization has accumulated a portfolio exceeding 1,000 energy models and more than five million square feet of energy audits, demonstrating the depth and range of the technical environment Ryan has helped lead. As the business evolved, Ryan’s responsibilities expanded beyond engineering into customer relationships, business development, strategic planning, project and program management, financial oversight, and the day-to-day realities of entrepreneurship.
That combination of technical depth and commercial experience has given Ryan a comprehensive understanding of the built environment. His project exposure has included multi-residential developments, offices, retail and commercial properties, industrial facilities, hospitals, municipal buildings, refrigerated warehouses, grocery stores, and complex district heating and cooling projects. His experience extends across energy modelling platforms and into building codes, standards, commissioning, measurement and verification, lifecycle analysis, submetering, cost allocation, and energy conservation. EVNA’s modelling work has also required extensive knowledge of standards and frameworks including ASHRAE 90.1, NECB, the Toronto Green Standard, and the BC Step Code.
Throughout his career, Ryan has increasingly operated at the intersection of engineering, sustainability, economics, and organizational strategy. He understands that high-performance solutions succeed only when technical possibilities are connected to financial realities and stakeholder priorities. This perspective has influenced EVNA’s approach to helping building owners and operators evaluate improvements that can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions while protecting asset value, controlling operating expenses, and improving occupant environments. Ryan recognizes that even technically excellent solutions require stakeholder support and a credible economic case—two challenges EVNA has repeatedly encountered in high-performance building design.
Ryan’s influence also extends beyond individual projects into industry programs and standards. Through EVNA’s experience reviewing energy models in Ontario, the company was invited to participate in the redesign of the High Performance New Construction program in 2016 and 2017. EVNA provided recommendations from both applicant and project-reviewer perspectives and was subsequently asked to develop the Custom HPNC Workbook Version 7, which was used by program applicants until the program’s cancellation in 2019. The company has also advised Sustainable Buildings Canada on program improvements and contributed input toward Enbridge initiatives, illustrating Ryan’s exposure to the broader systems through which energy policy, incentives, engineering practice, and market adoption come together.
Education and knowledge-sharing have been another important dimension of Ryan’s professional journey. At CEGEP John Abbott College, he served as both a professor and continuing education instructor, teaching commercial and industrial energy auditing as well as building codes and standards. These roles required him to translate sophisticated technical concepts into practical knowledge that students and professionals could apply in real-world environments. His teaching experience complements his leadership style: he values clear communication, collaborative problem solving, and the ability to make complex information understandable enough that people can confidently act on it.
Ryan has carried this collaborative mindset into board leadership through his service with Sustainable Buildings Canada. Board participation has strengthened his interest in the strategic side of organizations and reinforced his belief that meaningful governance is built through thoughtful discussion, diverse expertise, constructive challenge, and alignment around long-term objectives. Ryan is actively interested in expanding his board involvement because he genuinely enjoys the business component of leadership and the opportunity to help organizations determine where they are going, how they will grow, and how they can translate strategy into measurable results.
As a prospective director or advisor, Ryan offers more than a specialized engineering perspective. His career has required him to think simultaneously as an engineer, entrepreneur, business owner, project leader, client advisor, educator, and board participant. He brings practical familiarity with bookkeeping and accounting alongside strategic planning, customer relations, business development, construction, engineering, and program management. He is comfortable working with organizations of varying sizes and is open to opportunities across industries, giving him the flexibility to apply his problem-solving approach well beyond the traditional boundaries of engineering and construction.
Ryan is also a strong advocate of integrated design—the idea that better outcomes emerge when stakeholders align early around common objectives instead of operating independently within functional silos. That philosophy is reflected in EVNA’s work coordinating architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical disciplines and recommending design changes when projects require improvements to achieve their performance objectives. For Ryan, collaboration is not simply a leadership preference; it is a practical mechanism for reducing rework, improving decision-making, creating accountability, and achieving stronger long-term outcomes.
Underlying Ryan’s professional accomplishments is a genuine concern for the future of the built environment. He views sustainability not simply as an engineering discipline but as an opportunity to reconcile environmental responsibility with sound economics and better human experiences. His work has consistently focused on reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions while maintaining healthy, comfortable environments for building occupants. This balance between ambition and practicality defines much of his leadership philosophy: meaningful progress requires bold objectives, but those objectives must ultimately translate into solutions that organizations and communities can implement.
Bilingual in English and French and experienced within the Canadian professional landscape, Ryan brings an ability to communicate across technical, business, and governance environments. Away from the boardroom and engineering world, his personality remains closely connected to the hands-on curiosity that first drew him toward engineering. He enjoys building things, mechanical pursuits, snowmobiling, automobile racing, boating, nature, and the outdoors. These interests reflect a personality energized by motion, exploration, mechanics, and tangible challenges—qualities captured naturally by his personal motto, “Go big or go home.”
Looking ahead, Ryan sees board service as an opportunity to apply the full breadth of his experience to organizations pursuing growth, transformation, innovation, and long-term value creation. He brings the discipline of an engineer, the accountability of an entrepreneur, the perspective of an educator, and the collaborative instincts of an experienced board participant. Whether the challenge involves strategy, operations, construction, sustainability, technology, organizational growth, or complex problem solving, Ryan approaches it with curiosity, practical judgment, and a determination to create tangible value.
Character:
Ryan leads with accountability, curiosity, persistence, and a genuine desire to build things that create lasting value for organizations and communities. His entrepreneurial career and commitment to sustainable building performance demonstrate a willingness to take responsibility for difficult challenges while remaining focused on practical results.
Knowledge:
Combining more than two decades of professional experience with deep expertise in mechanical engineering, high-performance buildings, energy management, commissioning, measurement and verification, construction, sustainability, and business leadership. His experience as an entrepreneur, educator, technical advisor, and board member enables him to connect specialized knowledge with the broader commercial and organizational considerations behind important decisions.
Strategic:
Ryan naturally evaluates challenges through both technical and business lenses, considering long-term performance, financial implications, stakeholder alignment, risk, and opportunities for growth. His experience developing EVNA, contributing to industry programs, and participating in board governance equips him to help organizations move from ambitious objectives toward clear, executable strategies.
Communication:
An experienced collaborator and educator who can translate complex engineering and business concepts into language that diverse stakeholders can understand and use. His bilingual English and French capabilities, teaching background, client leadership, multidisciplinary project work, and board experience allow him to communicate effectively across technical, executive, and governance settings.
