Events & Conferences
Annual General Meetings
AGM 2009Speakers and Presentations
The Honourable Carolyn Bolivar-Getson Minister of Natural Resources MLA for Lunenburg West |
| Carolyn Bolivar-Getson was born in Bridgewater. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Saint Mary's University. Since 1988, she has been the owner/operator of Getson’s Convenience Centre in Newcombville, Lunenburg County. Carolyn was elected municipal councillor in October 1997. She served as past chair of the council’s Finance Committee, chair of the Planning Advisory Committee, Recreation Focus Group and Hillside Pines Home for Special Care. She was also a member of the Fire Services Committee, Strategic Planning Team and the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg’s Facility Committee. First elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2003 and re-elected in 2006, her Cabinet duties have included: Human Resources, Public Service Commission, Seniors, Emergency Management and Environment and Labour to name a few. Community Involvement has included volunteering with the Boy Scouts of Canada, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Bridgewater Hawks and the Nova Scotia Fury. She is also past president of the Newcombville Elementary School Parent-Teacher Association and a founding member of the Baker Settlement Ladies Auxiliary and a past member of the Baker Settlement Fire Department. |
Jay Brenton Regional Manager, Environmental Monitoring and Compliance Division Nova Scotia Environment |
| Jay Brenton is the Northern Regional Manager for the Environmental Monitoring and Compliance (EMC) Division of the Nova Scotia Department of Environment. EMC delivers the majority of environmental licenses, approvals, provides inspection and auditing services and conducts compliance and enforcement activities. Jay holds an Agricultural Engineering degree from McGill University and has been employed by the Department of Environment since 1986. Regulatory Approval Process for Industrial Activities |
Brian Fisher Digital Information Services Supervisor Nova Scotia Natural Resources |
| Brian graduated from Kings/Dalhousie with a B.Sc in Geology in 1979 and a combined honors in Geology and Economics in 1981. After several years working in exploration, he attended COGS and in 1990 received a Diploma in GIS. Following this, he worked for Falconbridge for several years as a senior systems technologist and then as a GIS specialist for the Woodlands Division of J.D. Irving Ltd. After operating Fisher Geomatics Consulting for a year, Brian joined the Minerals Resources Branch of DNR in 1995, where he is currently employed as a Senior Geologist and supervisor for the Digital Information Services Group.
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Hugh Fraser Senior PR Council Bristol |
| Hugh has worked for a variety of clients, from multi-national corporations to local non-profits, from the worlds of energy, health care, government, transportation, education, and beyond. He has considerable experience in high-stakes communications and environmental issues involving the public, government and the private sector, from open houses to news conferences to public hearings. Hugh also leads Bristol’s Media Think – customized media training sessions, designed to help clients get their messages out to the public.
Before joining Bristol, Hugh served as Press Secretary to the Premier of Nova Scotia, John Hamm. As press secretary, he was the public spokesman for the Premier and the government. He spent a decade as a journalist with CBC Television and CBC Radio. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Dalhousie University and a Master of Journalism from Carleton University. He has served on the board of the Canadian Public Relations Society (Nova Scotia) and is a member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). In the winter, he can be found in hockey rinks around Nova Scotia. In the summer, he is on the baseball field, coaching minor baseball in Halifax. (No professional aspirations). Strategic Communications Plan |
Hugh Gillis Strategic Coordinator, Planning Secretariat Nova Scotia Natural Resources |
| Hugh was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He graduated with a BSc in physical geography and a BDEP from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Hugh worked at the Department of Mines and Energy from 1987 to 1989. He left to become a planner and later Director of Planning for several municipalities across Nova Scotia. He returned to DNR in 1998.
Natural Resources Strategy 2010 |
Avard D. Hudgins |
| Avard D. Hudgins lives in Truro, Nova Scotia. He obtained a B.Sc in 1957 and an M.Sc in 1960 from Acadia University. Avard has been promoting/arm waving about the great diversity of mineral deposits in Nova Scotia for many years and knows the chances for new significant discoveries are great.
Mineral Environments in Nova Scotia |
Dr. Josh Leon Dean of Engineering Dalhousie University |
| Dr. Joshua Leon is the Dean of Engineering at Dalhousie University. He previously served as Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary. Before moving to Calgary, Dr. Leon was a faculty member in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal. He earned his BSc and Master’s degrees in Mathematics and a PhD in Biophysics at Dalhousie University. Dr. Leon is a Professional Engineer and a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geologists of Alberta and the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia.
Throughout his career Dr. Leon has been a very active researcher. He has published over 80 peer reviewed articles on computational science, electromagnetics, bioelectric phenomena and cardiac electrophysiology. His current research focus is on the acceleration of numerical software using Graphics Processing Units (GPU). Dr. Leon is a co-founder of Acceleware, a publicly traded company based in Calgary Alberta. They are the recognized world leader in General Purpose GPU computing and employ almost 100 people. |
Dr. Douglas Ian Milburn, Ph.D Chairman and VP Sales and Marketing Protocase Inc. |
| Dr. Milburn, a native of Sydney Nova Scotia, holds a B.Sc (Honors Physics) from Mount Alison University, as well as M.Sc (physics) and PhD (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of Waterloo.
As a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, Dr. Milburn studied with Dr. K.G.T. Hollands, a pioneer in the field of solar energy and high performance glazings. After leaving grad school, he founded Advanced Glazings Ltd., North America’s leader in high-performance glazings for architectural daylighting. Dr. Milburn was President of the company from its founding in 1995 until 2007. In 2001, he co-founded Protocase Inc., an innovative company that supplies custom electronic enclosures to engineers and designers, along with partner Stephen Lilley. He now works full time in the role of Chairman and VP in charge of Research and Development and Sales and Marketing. Dr. Milburn is a director of Advanced Glazings Ltd., Protocase Inc, Cape Breton Development Corporation, and the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Engineering at Cape Breton University. He has been active in his local business community, helping found the Council on Innovation, an organization dedicated to creating innovation based business startups, and GENA, which worked on access to capital challenges for ‘gap-stage’ innovation companies. Economic Change, Innovation, and the Mining Industry |
Jeff Poole GIS Specialist Nova Scotia Natural Resources |
| Jeff graduated from Saint Francis Xavier University with a B.Sc (honours) in Geology in 1984 and pursued graduate studies in geology at Memorial University of Newfoundland from 1885 to 1987. He worker as a mineral exploration geologist for the next several years working primarily in Newfoundland and Labrador. He became a P.Geo. in Newfoundland in 1991. He attended COGS and in 1995 received a Diploma in GIS. He worked in Ottawa with Statistics Canada for a period of three years before joining the Minerals Resources Branch of DNR in 1998 where he is currently employed as a Geologist and GIS specialist.
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Hugh Smith RBC Olympian |
| Hugh was born in Sackville, Nova Scotia and currently resides in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
In 2008, Hugh Smith competed in Beijing with Team Canada in “Good Luck Beijing”, a preparation competition for the Olympic Games. Hugh also placed fifteenth in the all-around gymnastics event at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro. Most recently, he won a silver medal on the vault at the 2008 National Championships and a bronze medal in the all-around Elite Canada competition. His current goal is to represent Canada at the London 2012 Olympic Games, and he hopes to eventually own his own gym and coach others to success.
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Dr. David Wheeler Dean of the Faculty of Management Dalhousie University |
| Dr. David Wheeler is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. The Faculty of Management comprises four Schools: the School of Business Administration, the School of Public Administration, the School of Information Management and the School of Resource and Environmental Studies. The Faculty of Management at Dalhousie has a values-based approach to management education and research and is united by the philosophy of ‘Management Without Borders’. The Faculty has approximately 2000 students in two undergraduate and eight graduate programs, two of which are based on distance/blended learning models.
Professionally, Dr Wheeler is an internationally experienced academic and business person with more than two decades of senior executive level involvement in change management and sustainable business practice, research and teaching. David is regularly requested to provide support to senior management teams in pursuing strategic change and he has particular expertise in service industries (eg education, retail, consumer goods and finance) and extractive industries (eg oil and gas and mining). David Wheeler’s former academic post was Director and Erivan K Haub Professor in Business and Sustainability at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto. The executive development arm of the Haub Program, the Sustainable Enterprise Academy, remains North America’s premier offering in sustainable development training for business leaders. During David’s tenure, York University was regularly ranked in the top few schools worldwide for its integration of sustainability issues into the business curriculum. David has published more than 70 articles and book chapters in a wide variety of academic journals, books, parliamentary inquiries and popular journals, and has delivered speeches to numerous conferences and events. Top tier journals in which he has published include the British Medical Journal, the Lancet, the Journal of Applied Bacteriology, Water Research, the Journal of Portfolio Management, the Journal of Business Ethics, Long Range Planning, and the MIT Sloan Management Review. David has done numerous television and radio broadcasts on environmental and social issues and business. David was principal author of The Stakeholder Corporation - the first business text to be endorsed by former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He was an advisor to the UK Government on governance aspects of the Company Law Review, a member of the UK Government Advisory Committee on Consumer Products and the Environment and the Reference Group for Canada’s National Report to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10). He was co-founder of the UK business-led Committee of Inquiry - A New Vision for Business that reported directly to Prime Minister Tony Blair in November 1999. Prior to his recent academic appointments, David was a member of the Executive Management team of international cosmetics firm The Body Shop International. David spent 7 years overseeing a business operating in 50 countries with worldwide retail sales of $1 billion and when he stepped down was the longest serving member of the senior team. As Executive Director (Senior VP) of Environmental and Social Policy David had strategic oversight of human resources and learning, sustainability issues and non-financial auditing and reporting. In his time with The Body Shop, David developed the company’s groundbreaking Values Reports which were rated top in a worldwide ranking by SustainAbility for the United Nations on corporate environmental and social reporting. David started his career in the water industry where he specialized in water pollution control. Later as a Senior Research Fellow at the Robens Institute of the University of Surrey, he became a leading researcher and commentator on standards of drinking water and recreational water in the UK, achieving World Health Organization Collaborating Centre status for the Robens Institute. During his time at Surrey University, David was a frequent consultant to United Nations and other development agencies working in water and sanitation programs in less developed countries. He supervised development projects in twelve countries in Africa and Latin America and co-developed the DelAgua drinking water test kit which is now used by numerous agencies in developing countries. The invention won a national award, presented by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The device is still in production and is distributed worldwide. Advisory Work In his career, David Wheeler has advised a number of organizations and individuals, including:
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