To call Ilka Stewart well-travelled is a bit like describing a marathon as a pleasant little jog.
Yes, Stewart who joined the Department of Psychiatry in November as a program administrator - does get around.
Since she ended her two-decade-long stint as a program administrator at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in 2005, Stewart has covered a lot of real estate.
From a college in Abu Dhabi to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to remote work camps in Northern Alberta, Stewart has had a front-row seat for everything from rocket attacks and bomb disposal operations to massive oilsands construction projects.
"Some people thought I was nuts to leave a secure job at NAIT, but I was absolutely bored with my job. I knew it inside and out, plus the money I was being offered (to leave) was really good. So I knew it was a risk, but I went anyway," she says.
"Thank God I came back with all my limbs, but it was the best experience of my life. I learned so much, I met so many people from all corners of the world, and I was even able to do a bit of travelling while I was over there. It was quite a life-changing experience, to say the least."
Stewart's first stop after leaving NAIT was at the Abu Dhabi Men's College, which is part of the United Arab Emirates' Higher Colleges of Technology. She actually returned to NAIT for a short time after her contract ended, but not for long.
By 2005, Stewart was back in the Middle East, this time stationed in Iraq as a program administrator with California-based Tetra Tech, a global consulting, construction and engineering services firm that had contracts with the U.S. military.
"The first project I was on was a U.S. Air Force project involving the construction of brigades, clinics and border forts. Then I transferred to the U.S. Department of Defense, which was doing unexploded ordinance demolition," she recalls.
"There were ordinances everywhere. The teams would collect rockets, grenades, mines you name it. Then they'd build trenches and use C-4 (a plastic explosive) to blow it up. My job was to document what was found and how much. I was a kind of mobile administrator."
Although Stewart says a security team always accompanied Tetra Tech's employees, her job wasn't without risks. On one occasion, while she was posted at Camp Victory, a major U.S. military base near Baghdad, a rocket landed smack in the middle of camp.
"Thank goodness it landed at 6 a.m. We were still in our Hooches (living quarters) and there was a big clearing in the middle. Believe it or not that rocket hit right in the clearing, spraying shrapnel everywhere. We had some Filipino and Iraqi ladies who did our laundry but they didn't come in until 7 a.m., thank goodness, so nobody got hurt."
On other days, the results were far more tragic.
"Some security team members lost their lives. That was hard because we got to know them personally. Sometimes you'd be out on convoys with them or talk to them in camp. Then all of a sudden they didn't come back. That was tough. There were a lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) to deal with too."
Stewart worked on two projects in Iraq before returning home to Alberta, where she enjoyed a few months off before she returned to Iraq to work with a security team.
"I was with them for almost a year. Then one of my girlfriends called. She was working in Afghanistan, and her company won a contract to expand the U.S. embassy in Kabul. They were looking for an administrator, so off I went to Kabul. I was there for about 14 months."
After that contract ended in 2011, Stewart spent time travelling with her sister and brother-in-law in Austria and Germany, where her parents were born. Upon her return home to Alberta she snagged a job with Stantec, the big consulting services firm, working in the company's international division in downtown Edmonton.
"I was filling in for an employee on maternity leave, and when I finished there I got a job with an Irish company called Kentz Canada (later acquired by SNC-Lavalin), working on the (joint ExxonMobil - Imperial Oil) Kearl Oil Sands Project. I wound up doing four projects with them."
When the last project ended, Stewart's career took another 180-degree turn. She received a job offer in the General Pediatrics Residency Program, working as a program administrator. But after six months, she was lured back to the oilsands by Kentz Canada, and subsequently, a major South Korean firm. Both had contracts with Suncor's Fort Hills project.
"I was there for four work rotations. I knew it would end eventually, but fortunately I got an interview for my current position with the Department of Psychiatry, and I started here on Nov. 29th. I'm filling in for Sarah Alexander, who is on a one-year maternity leave."
Stewart is quick to admit that her learning curve remains fairly steep, just two months into her new job, and she doesn't have all the answers yet. But she says she is enjoying the challenge.
"At present I'm working mainly with the General Psychiatry Residency Program, including Dr. Ron Oswald, the Resident Program Director, and Dr. Roger Brown, the Associate Director of the Resident Program. There are seminars every week, and right now we're busy doing the residency matching, so you have to get the doctors and the residents on the same page. It's all about organization and communications."
In a strange way, Stewart says acclimatizing to her new role in the Department of Psychiatry is not entirely unlike her first foreign work experience in Abu Dhabi, more than 15 years ago. "Number one, it's a different work culture, so you need to understand the culture first and foremost," she says.
Despite her extensive foreign adventures and varied work history, Stewart says she still loves going home to Stony Plain, a small rural farming community 40 kilometres west of Edmonton. She has lived there since 2002.
"I feel like I've only lived there half the time because I've worked overseas so much, but it has really grown. I grew up on a farm west of Stony Plain, near Westlock, and I still love to see the fields, the grain fields or the hay fields. I find it very soothing," she says.
So are her foreign adventures finally behind her now? "You never know, you never know," she says, with a smile. "I might end up in the United States one day. My good friend lives in Virginia Beach, down in Virginia, and I'm still in touch."