I began working at the City of Ottawa in the parks and recreation department in the 1980’s and loved my job, but also had the misfortune of having to deal with a thieving, lying, grifting Ron Albert. I was also heavily involved in several hockey organizations and programs in the Ottawa area over the years and witnessed first-hand how the teams and the kids playing hockey were negatively affected by this man.
Since being an arena worker is mostly janitorial work and a low paying job, requiring no skills whatsoever, the city of Ottawa would often have no choice but to hire workers with a criminal past, no skills and or education, not even a high school diploma in order to fill these positions and this is where people like Ron Albert get hired. Having a strong union that protects the lazy, thieving, terrible workers can be a problem. We love our union, but the issue of protecting terrible workers like Ron Albert was something that always offended and bothered all of us honest hard-working people that care about our work and the tax-payers of Ottawa. To see a thief like Ron Albert constantly stealing from everyone and the city while always getting protected from being fired, bothered all of us. Until now, with so much evidence, they weren’t able to protect him anymore.
This BS scam artist should be in jail, but now he’s conning people and organizations into some kind of a Zamboni scam that has everyone at the parks and recreation department laughing so hard, they are literally falling off their chairs when they hear about Ron Albert’s latest scam. Ron Albert is repeating what was told to him and all other arena workers since the 80’s. This is something that many of the engineers at the Zamboni company looked into themselves at their headquarters in California over 25 years ago. Now Ron Albert is telling everyone that he came up with the concept of converting the snow from a Zamboni into water to be re-used while he was at work, nothing can be further from the truth. It was told to him and constantly discussed with everyone at every arena meeting, at every arena course, many years before Ron Albert even drove a Zamboni. What a pathetic little man, needing to have people think he came up with this concept. I’m surprised he’s not telling everyone he also came up with the invention of the Zamboni or the invention of the wheel, the combustion engine, the light bulb, the electric car or any other thing he’s seen or heard other people talk about over the years. Everyone knows the amount of water a Zamboni uses, including the people at Zamboni. With the Zamboni corporate headquarters located in California, they know the value of water way better than anyone else and looked into it themselves in the 1980’s. I know for a fact it was always discussed at every arena meeting or training course, at the Ontario recreational facilities association (ORFA) and many other such organizations and conferences throughout North America that I’ve attended over the past 35 years. It was discussed at every Ottawa parks and recreation arena meeting since the early 1980’s and that’s where Ron Albert heard it discussed over and over and over again with hundreds of other arena workers over the years. However, none of them ever tried to take credit for what everyone already knew, discussed and talked about at nauseam over the years. Every independent engineer, even the ones working at Zamboni confirmed trying to convert a Zamboni to recycle the snow back into water was the most expensive and least efficient way of resolving the issue of recycling snow into water and how it would just end up being terrible for the environment, extremely expensive, while destroying the ice resurfacing machine and the surface of the ice itself, to name but a few of the major issues. One engineer compared it to trying to convert a lawn mower into a washing machine in order to wash your clothes while cutting your grass, and that would actually make more sense. Somehow, Ron Albert is convincing people that all of those independent engineers, mechanics and other experts working at Zamboni know less than he does. That concept was looked into nine ways till Sunday and always found to be too expensive, extremely inefficient and very cumbersome, not to mention all of the added environmental issues, waste of energy, material and labour required to do something that already has a very simple and inexpensive solution. No arena will want the added cost, labour and many other issues that come with converting something that was meant to do something totally different. Next, Ron Albert will be telling people he’s converting televisions into electric cars, because that would make more sense.
Supervisors and management had a very hard time trying to get anyone to work with Ron Albert. Anytime Ron Albert’s name was mentioned, it was always followed by a lot of eye rolls and comments like “what’s that lying, thieving, BS con artist up to now” or “what’s he stolen now” and so on, but never, ever would you hear someone say something like, he’s a good guy or he’s a hard worker, or honest and dependable, it was always Oh No! what’s he done now, what’s missing and I’m not working with him. He was never invited to any function, party or after work gatherings for a reason. I was even told that his co-workers would need to take pictures of the work area before being relieved by Ron Albert in order to have a record of the items and equipment when they left, so they wouldn’t be blamed for anything Ron Albert stole once they left.
I’ve heard over the years how he’s tried to get suppliers, business owners, mechanics and contractors with the city of Ottawa to be involved with his Zamboni scheme, and fortunately for them, they know what he’s all about and smart enough to find a reason not to be involved or distance themselves from him, but apparently, he’s conned some poor unsuspecting people and business owners out there that don’t know him and believe his BS stories. This is to warn everyone that doesn’t know him yet, do yourselves a favor and learn from everyone else. Look into his background and lack thereof. Ask about his lack of education, criminal past and reason for having to leave Ottawa for so many years and why he was let go from the city of Ottawa.
To have so many people, business owners, hockey organizations and others at the city of Ottawa dislike and distrust a person so much, says volumes. I’ve never seen a person so distrusted by so many people at work, how no one wanted to work with him, how so many hockey organizations wanting nothing to do with him. Unfortunately, I think Ron Albert will continue with his scams and BS stories by using other reputable people and business owners as front men and women while ruining them in the process, because he has no morals nor does he care about anyone or anything but himself.