Calloused hands,
hard miles, and the
credentials to back it up.
Evan has worked the oilfield, raised horses and cattle, travelled the world, and spent years helping people figure out what they're actually built for. ConnectUs is what happened when all of that finally came together.
It started in
Australia.
February 2016. Evan was on holiday in Australia — the kind of trip you take when work is good and life feels like it's tracking. Then he visited a YWAM centre in Newcastle and watched what they were doing with and for Papua New Guinea. And something shifted.
Not a breakdown. A conviction. That there was more to life than working for a paycheque or his own self-gratification. That the experiences he'd had — farming, the oilfield, the travel — were supposed to add up to something. He just hadn't figured out what yet.
That trip led him to join YWAM. Which led to years of leadership development work across multiple countries. Which led back to Canada with a clearer picture of who he was and what he was actually for. And when his son Oliver was born, that picture came into even sharper focus.
The question wasn't new. But the answer finally was. Build something for the people nobody builds anything for. The ones in the trades, the oilfield, the mine sites. The ones doing the work that keeps everything running — and getting nothing back for who they actually are as people.
That's the origin of ConnectUs. Not a business idea. A response to something real.
Walking into that YWAM centre in Newcastle wasn't a coincidence Evan takes lightly. The conviction he felt there — that his life was supposed to count for more — has been the thread running through everything since. It's the same thread running through every ConnectUs program.
Where this
comes from.
Credentials matter. So does the ground you've covered getting them.
Grew up farming. Learned early what it means to show up every day regardless of how you feel — to work with animals and land that don't care about your excuses, and to find real satisfaction in physical work done right.
Worked on major oil and natural gas projects in northeastern BC — some of the most demanding resource work in the country. Knows the culture, the schedule, the pressure, and the people from the ground up.
On holiday in Newcastle, Australia, Evan encountered a YWAM centre doing significant work in and for Papua New Guinea. The conviction that followed — that there was more to life than a paycheque and self-gratification — changed the trajectory of everything that came after.
Joined YWAM and spent close to three years working across multiple countries in coaching, discipleship, and leadership development. Built the facilitation skills and the human development framework that runs through every ConnectUs program.
When his son was born, the question of what all of this was for became impossible to sidestep. The answer pointed directly toward ConnectUs — built on the conviction that body, mind, emotion, and spirit aren't separate projects. They're one life.
ISSA-certified personal trainer. Certified Enneagram Practitioner. CliftonStrengths Coach. Based in the Yukon — unforgiving land, uncompromising people.
What the industry
gives you. What it doesn't.
Evan didn't build ConnectUs because he read a gap in the market. He built it because he lived on both sides of this table.
The Job Training
- First aid certification
- H2S Alive
- Industry-specific safety courses
- Equipment operation tickets
- Box-ticking. Another card for the wallet.
The Person Training
- Understanding how you're wired
- Why you lead the way you do
- What's driving your stress and your decisions
- How to show up at home the way you do on site
- What you actually want your life to look like
The people doing the hardest, most essential work in this country are the least likely to have access to this. That's not an accident of the market. It's a failure of the industry to take its people seriously as people — not just as workers.
ConnectUs is the correction.
The whole
person. Not just the worker.
Every ConnectUs program is built around four pillars. Not because it sounds good — because splitting any one of them off leaves you with an incomplete answer.
For those who want to go further, the spirit pillar runs through every ConnectUs program as an optional faith track. It's built for the person who senses that purpose isn't something you manufacture — it's something you discover. You don't have to opt in. But if that resonates, it's there.
The credentials
behind the work.
Not certifications for the wall. Tools that actually show up in every session, every program, every conversation.
ISSA Certified Personal Trainer
The physical pillar isn't an add-on. Evan is a certified personal trainer because the body is part of the program — not a separate conversation.
Certified Enneagram Practitioner
The Enneagram is the core identity framework in every ConnectUs program. Evan is certified to use it the way it was designed — to create real self-awareness, not personality-test entertainment.
Gallup CliftonStrengths Coach
Strengths-based development gives people a language for what they're already good at — and a framework for building on it instead of grinding against their own wiring.
10+ Years Leadership Development
A decade of facilitation, coaching, and leadership work spanning YWAM, multiple countries, and direct work with men in resource industries. The classroom experience to go with the field experience.
This work is rooted
in something real.
In February 2016, standing in a YWAM centre in Newcastle, Australia, Evan got a clear look at what it means to give your life to something that matters. He wasn't looking for it. But he couldn't unsee it.
What followed — nearly three years with YWAM across multiple countries, work that was hard and stretching and formative in ways a job never could be — shaped the foundation that ConnectUs is built on. The belief that every person is purposefully made. That your life is not a series of random shifts and paycheques. That understanding who you are is the starting point for everything else.
The faith track inside ConnectUs is optional. But for the person who feels the pull of something more — and wants a space to take it seriously — it's woven into every program from day one.
Ready to find out
how you're wired?
Start with Core Sample. It's self-paced, built for people with no time to waste, and it's the clearest picture you'll get of what ConnectUs is actually about before you commit to anything.