Onsite at 81 Bay Street, Toronto (CIBC Square south tower) coordinating the largest elevator manufacturing and installation project in our company's 30 year history - 43 custom elevators constructed of annodized aluminum and travertine.

Welcome to my website

Darren Scala | Durham Region, Ontario, Canada

My Online Presence Without Social Media

In an era dominated by social media, I chose a different path in 2010 after learning how these platforms monetize and exploit personal data. This website serves as my sole online presence—a place where I connect and share with friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances without contributing to social media data collection. With decades of experience in inside and outside sales, combined with a strong background in IT and network security, I bring both technical aptitude and a naturally outgoing personality. While I enjoy genuine connection, I deliberately avoid social media to safeguard my family’s privacy. If you're on social and would like some effective tips for boosting your online privacy & security, click here.

We had several crews at 81 Bay Street, our largest-ever project, but Kevin and Drew performed the lionshare of the work. At the end of the project with 43 elevators installed and approved by EllisDon, and before leaving, I wanted a photo of the three of us together, because together we went through a <i>lot</i>.

Most recently, I have had the pleasure of coordinating medium-sized commercial construction projects up to $2.4M in size at Canada’s premier elevator architectural finishes firm. The work was fast-paced, complex, and highly rewarding—exactly where I thrive. Highlights included collaborating with seasoned mechanics on job sites, working alongside skilled craftsmen on our 65,000 sqft production floor, and negotiating make-to-order product sales —often incorporating exotic materials— for esteemed clients such as Kingsett Capital , Oxford Properties and BentallGreenOak .

"As project coordinator and acting public relations representative, I am privileged to accept accolades from these prestigious organizations on behalf of our dedicated team, whose hard work and talent made our achievements possible."

The Fairmont Royal York Hotel was by far the most prestigious and demanding undertaking in our company’s history. Valued at $1M and executed in the midst of the hotel’s massive $100M renovation, the project faced unique challenges — my predecessor resigned just weeks into the job, and midway through, the incumbent elevator service provider was replaced by hotel ownership, amplifying complexity. Luckily for me, Otis Canada was far more professional, safety conscious and cooperative than the outgoing provider.

Despite these hurdles, our dedicated teams, supported by a couple skilled subcontractors with unimpeachable work ethic (shoutout to Tyler Williams , our metallurgy magician, and Nadia Tkachenko, our talented Ukrainian goldleaf artist whom I discovered by chance in a Whitby art supply store, arguably the most dedicated person on the entire project), successfully brought the two-year endeavour to a strong and rewarding close. Kingsett approved, and so do hotel guests.

The project I am most proud of, however, is Manulife bank:

Extremely proud of the (almost) finished product - Canada's first video wall elevators at Manulife Canada Headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario

Manulife's bold vision led to the creation of Canada's very first video wall elevators, and our team was honored to bring this ultra-modern, innovative concept to life. Despite complex engineering hurdles, stringent TSSA code requirements, and plenty of skepticism around, our nearly two-year journey of persistence and collaboration resulted in a stunning success. Manulife’s creative team can now push visual content to their elevators' OLED Wallpaper video walls remotely from Singapore — live and in real time. This milestone showcases both Manulife’s progressive approach to banking and our team’s strength in technical excellence and innovation.

On the Manulife project I served as network architect in addition to project manager. Here I'm installing my networking hardware and media into ThyssenKrupp's GAL Elevator Controller at the top of one of the elevator shafts at Manulife bank in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. We manfactured and installed 4 video wall elevators.

I enjoy coordinating these complex jobs, and working in a firm with such strong teams. I respect and admire the owner for leading our business with integrity. But when our veteran scheduler resigned, I inherited their duties in addition to my own, and while I gave it my all, it soon became clear the added workload was unsustainable. I partnered with our HR Specialist to interview candidates for a replacement scheduler, but after a year without a hiring decision and continued extra duties, I reluctantly chose to move on in pursuit of a healthier, more balanced workload and life. It was one of the toughest decisions I've ever made.

Enjoying a winery in Niagara On The Lake

I was a small landlord for 22 years, and during that time, have built a substantial collection of professional-grade power and hand tools to maintain my property. I also have pneumatic tools for automotive repair. I try to standardize on DeWalt and Ingersoll Rand, two quality names that don't let me down. Some tools I have at the ready: Dewalt table saw, reciprocating saw, oscillating saw, circluar saw, mitre saws (12-inch & 20v 7 1/4-inch for finish trim), jigsaw, router, sanders, impact driver, hammer drill, 60v trimmer with soil tiller attachment, hedge trimmer, drywall gun, rotozip, long-throw air chisel, impact wrench, ratchet, etc., as well as quality hand tools like the German-made Nela Premium finishing trowel (love that!). I exited the rental market but still enjoy tackling home renovation projects. I also enjoy actively managing our investment portfolio, diving into the latest computer technology (yep, still a tech nerd!), and enjoying movie nights with my high school sweetheart on an incredible Atmos A/V system that rivals commercial theaters. While we still appreciate the silver screen, we don’t visit theaters as often anymore — watching at home is just so much cozier!

When Sabine walked into my portrait studio, I did not know that she would be the first bride I would photograph in the digital camera era. She will <i>always</i> hold a special place in my heart for trusting me with her wedding day, even though I had no bridal portfolio to show her! (all of my film prints and negs from weddings were destroyed in a flood in my apartment). Being so beautiful, photogenic and easy-going was like a gift from above.

My main hobby over the years has been photography. I started with a Pentax ME Super 35mm when I was 12. Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, Yousef Karsh and Edward Burtynsky are my favorites. You can browse my photos here and read my customer reviews here. I'm definitely far from the greatest out there, but for me, photography has always been about more than just the images — it's also about the experience people have when in front of a camera. I worked hard to make that experience enjoyable for folks, so they can relax and look great on film, and I ended up finding way more success than I ever dreamed possible. At one point, I was so overloaded with backlog that a few clients became unhappy with me, but I was able to satisfy 98.2% of my clients over 12 years and 310 weddings. Through it all, I had an amazing time making pictures with my brilliant and talented lady Teresa, along with some hard-working assistants (shoutout to Sara, Jaclyn, Christine, Steve, Mike and Gill).

Although I would not describe myself as a stereotypical ‘computer geek,’ I have been deeply involved with PCs since 1980 and received early training in Assembly Language Programming at a specialized private school that my mom sent me to. A full decade before the Internet became publicly available, my hacker pals and I were already exploring the future of digital communication through early email systems using a national network called DATAPAC and international networks called FidoNet and UUCPNet . At 14 I taught the BASIC programming language at the brand new Scugog Memorial Public Library. I registered my first Internet domain name in 1996 and began offering PortPerry.com email accounts and dial-up Internet access to local residents and businesses, personally visiting each person to set everything up for them. For many years, I worked as an independent IT consultant, providing direct support to individuals and SMB.

Exploring the Thousand Islands in a helicopter

My home office workstation today (which I built during the COVID lockdowns to stay busy) is a hyper-performance Windows 10 system powered by an AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3955WX CPU paired with an ASUS Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI mainboard, and an EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 GPU. Equipped with three large 4K displays, it handles demanding applications and heavy content without breaking a sweat, including Adobe Photoshop for image editing, Adobe Premiere Pro & After Effects for video production, Adobe InDesign for layout design, SketchUp for 3D modeling, BlueIris Security with CodeProject AI, as well as multi-monitor securities trading on Questrade’s robust Edge platform. In addition, I run the Microsoft 365 suite (aka 'Office 365' or 'MS-Office'), including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Teams and OneDrive, as well as Salesforce CMS and project management Gantt charts effortlessly. In fact, I can run every application mentioned simultaneously and still have capacity to spare.

I made this website with Brackets code editor and Fancybox JavaScript library, and highly recommend both.

If you have questions or comments please contact me here.

Thank you for taking the time to visit! 🙂