During her career as an architect, Lola Adeyemo stickhandled major industrial renovation projects — but her interests have always gravitated towards project management.

“When you’re an architect, you create detailed designs and give them to clients who hand them off to builders or contractors. You don’t have a say on the finished product,” Adeyemo says. “I was not satisfied with just doing the design — I really wanted to be involved in the process of getting something built. As a project manager, you make that happen.”

Today — after graduating from SAIT’s Project Management Certificate of Completion in 2024 — Adeyemo is a contractor overseeing five projects across campus, including renovations to the basement of the NK wing.

Located in the Senator Burns Building, it was essentially unchanged since opening in 1967. The refurbishment — led by the School for Advanced Digital Technology (SADT) — called for the former print labs to be turned into a modern, multi-purpose education space for students in the three specializations within SADT’s Interactive Design program: Graphic Design, Web Design, and User Experience.

Adeyemo, who moved to Canada from Nigeria, enrolled in SAIT’s project management program to gain North American credentials. Her expertise and talent — coupled with her status as a recent student — made her perfect for the Burns basement project.

“I recalled my student days in Nigeria, where sometimes the conditions were not as conducive because multiple departments shared one lecture hall,” says Adeyemo. “As a student at SAIT, I found the facilities much more welcoming. It was comfortable and accommodating with smaller class sizes and places for everyone to sit and work. This new space I worked on for SADT takes that to a higher level. It’s comfortable for students, efficient for academic staff and flexible for everybody.”

Before installing new technology in the repurposed space, Adeyemo faced the challenge of getting rid of old and outdated equipment, including a massive, four-colour printing press about the size of a truck — the mammoth Heidelberg SM52, which weighed in at 4,800 kgs (10,582 lbs). After Adeyemo hired a company to make the big move, everything came together.

Adeyemo says the old printing shop is now a bright, open space that can accommodate up to 120 students.

“It can be one big lecture hall or divided into three classrooms. It’s also built for small work groups,” she says. “The room is equipped with room dividers that are noise baffles and, rather than desks, there are tables topped with whiteboard material good for group work. There are also ten 85-inch TV screens surrounding the space with wireless connectivity. The monitors can be used separately or can all display the same thing at once.”

Throughout all the change, Adeyemo kept this complex renovation on track, coordinating the work of multiple team members including consultants, contractors, subcontractors and SAIT employees. “I enjoyed working with the vendors, consultants and our general contractor,” she says, “That’s what always piques my interest in project management.”