Art Hunter, Nigel Weir, Jean Dougherty, Gordon Kubanek, John Hollins, Yasmin Asgarali, Catherine Smith, David Pollock, Ted Manning.
Missing: Laisa Beach
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David Pollock, Chair
David Pollock currently serves as the Co-ordinator of Finance and Administration for the charity, Citizens for Public Justice and is a published author of environmental novels. He still runs his own consulting firm.
He has served as Executive Director at BIOCAP Canada Foundation and as Executive Director of the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, leading the advancement of holistic and sustainable solutions.
He has extensive experience working in the fields of international development, social justice and … the environment and a rich background in directing not-for-profit organizations and multi-stakeholder relations. He served as National Consultant to the Anglican Church of Canada on Peacemaking and Economic Justice. He has also published the non-fiction work (The Iceberg and the Fire of Love: A Call to Ecological and Social Compassion) and is a producer of numerous educational videos. He has taught courses in the philosophy of social sciences at Roger Williams College in Rhode Island.
The breadth of his experience ranges from Director of Development Education at CUSO to a position in senior management at the Bank of Montreal. He served on the Board of Climate Change Central in Alberta and served as Director and Vice Chair of the Sustainable Development Technology Foundation (SDTC). Mr. Pollock served on a number of non-profit boards including the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Project Ploughshares, The Churches Task Force on Corporate Social Responsibility and The International Anglican Council on Justice and Peace.
He holds degrees from Queen’s University in Political Science (Hon B.A.) and from the University of Toronto (M.A.). Mr. Pollock is the recipient of the Alberta Centennial Medal.
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Yasmin Asgarali – Vice Chair
Yasmin Asgarali migrated to Canada from Trinidad in her early teens, experiencing ‘Climate Change’ rather suddenly, on December 21, 1969, when she landed in Winnipeg Manitoba. She studied Geography, Psychology and French at the University of Manitoba. After earning her Bachelor Degree, she studied Business Administration and Accounting, and The Art of Film which nurtured the seed of creativity that arrived with her from Trinidad, and later bloomed into one of her current part time careers, Photography.
After moving to Ottawa in 1981, she continued studies in ‘Quebecois’ French, Human Resource Management, Conflict Studies, and Microsoft Office in French. She earned a Certificate in Effective Facilitation for Business Analysts, and other leadership courses while working for the federal government. She briefly studied Reiki, later earning a Diploma in Psychosomatic Therapy, building on her sustained interest in Natural Health.
In 2009, she joined the Body and Brain Healing Centre (BBHC) where she earned her Red Belt in Healing Martial Arts (DahnHakDo), and in 2011, became a certified instructor of Korean yoga at the BBHC.. She continues to teach Korean yoga there on a part time basis, and serves as a consultant, currently working on a Training Manual with text and photographs for the 2018 Instructor Training Course.
Yasmin joined CACOR in 2016 and became part of the Communications Committee working with a web designer and the design team to create the current, new web presence. She accepted an appointment to the CACOR Board of Directors in 2017.
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Catherine Smith, Secretary
Catherine Smith is a paleoanthropologist who specializes in the study of how climate change and new dietary strategies have shaped the course of our evolutionary history over the last three million years. She has researched a number of important dietary transitions in our past, including the shift away from the forest fruits preferred by our ape relatives, to eating roots and tubers, to the adoption of meat eating, and ultimately the origins of agriculture. Her work has often used the principle that “you are what you eat” and she has thus employed stable isotopic analyses of fossil teeth and bones to determine the dietary habits of past populations.
Catherine received degrees from Trent University, The George Washington University, and Harvard University in Biological Anthropology and Archaeology. She has conducted field research in locations ranging from northern Ontario to Capetown, South Africa, and spent many field seasons dodging hippos in the Congo. She has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals on this research.
Catherine has also taught anthropology and biology for over 30 years at both the university and high school level and has received national recognition in the United States for her teaching, including winning the prestigious Siemens Award for Excellence in AP Science Teaching. As a CACOR member, Catherine is particularly interested in climate change and how human diet is, and will be, affected by environmental change and population growth. This past year, she has turned her attention to examining the role that agriculture is playing on climate change, and how we can change our dietary practices to ensure a more secure, healthy, and sustainable food supply for all people.
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Gordon Kubanek, P.Eng. – Treasurer
Born in Montreal. Studied Chemical Engineering Queens U. then McGill (Masters).
Worked for MacMillan Bloedel in B.C. then retrained as a H.S. teacher, working in Pennsylvania, Quebec, Australia and Ottawa. Trained in System Dynamics (simulation method used for Limits to Growth) software from MIT, using these skills to present at subject world conferences and to work as a consultant. Have become a environmental advocate, having been a Green Party candidate three times and a Third Order Franciscan. Retired to become a beekeeper and writer.
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John Hollins, Past Chair
Dr. John Hollins earned a B.Sc. in Physics at the University of Bristol and a Ph.D. in Biophysics at the Institute of Cancer Research, a postgraduate college of the University of London.
Immediately after graduating, John emigrated to Canada. He conducted research on the metabolism of radionuclides in mammals at the National Research Council of Canada and the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique in France; he worked on the first federal policy and programs in renewable energy at Energy, Mines and Resources; he served as Director of the Energy Branch at Environment Canada, representing Canada at the OECD Group on Energy and the Environment and the International Energy Agency’s Programme of Energy Technology Systems Analysis. He served as Executive Director of the Energy Council of Canada.
John has been active in community and municipal affairs for 40 years. He is currently Advisor and Web Master of the Ottawa Sustainability Fund, a philanthropic fund. He plays the organ regularly at la Paroisse St-Joseph d’Orléans.
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Larisa Beach, Director
Ms. Larisa Beach, co-founder Neptec Design Group, Ottawa, in 1990, has over 35 years experience in Aerospace. As VP Space Systems & International Business Development (retired) she was responsible for expanding Neptec products globally. Through her active participation on its executive team and board of directors, she helped build Neptec into an award-winning company doing business world-wide and helped develop the successful commercialization strategy to spin off Neptec’s space technology into terrestrial markets.
As Program Manager for the NASA Space Vision System and OBSS Laser Camera System, she won NASA’s Space Flight Awareness and GEM Awards and led Neptec to win NASA’s George M. Low Award and Group Achievement awards.
Previously, at SPAR and Leigh Instruments, her defense projects included Tactical Navigation System (TACAN) and Deployable Flight Incident Recorder (DFIRS).
Ms. Beach loves overcoming programmatic challenges and dealing with professionals from diverse international cultures.
She has retired, but has decided to embark on a second career. She is taking a one year diploma course at Herzing College as Community Services Worker. On completion, she plans to work in an area where she can help people that are in need of help (either in a senior’s residence or hospice).
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Ted Manning, Director
Dr. Ted Manning is President of Tourisk Inc., an international consulting firm based in Ottawa and providing integrated planning for heritage sites and tourism destinations, development of measures of sustainability and accessibility and environmental management solutions worldwide. Dr. Manning has worked in more than 50 countries in the creation and implementation of improved methods for planning environmentally and culturally sensitive areas and reduction of the ecological and social footprint of human activities, particularly tourism for the UN World Tourism Organization, World Wildlife Fund and the UN Industrial Development Organization for its coastal development program in Africa. He served as Executive Manager, Sustainable Tourism for Tourism Canada and Director of Sustainable Development for Canada’s Government Consulting Company and Associate Director of Sustainable development and Chief, Land use policy and planning for Environment Canada. He has published 23 books and over 100 articles on sustainable development, tourism and environmental management topics, He has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome and member of the International the Club of Rome and Adjunct Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University.
His website is www.tourisk.com,
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Nigel Weir, Director
Born in London U.K.
Nigel Weir has a B.Sc. in Chemistry and passed early years at Northern Electric R and D on the development of integrated circuits. Returning to university, he obtained an M.A. in Economics and joined the Federal Government in the Research Branch of the CRTC. He was involved in a wide range of studies on the Canadian communications industries concerning their economic health, social issues, and policies to promote Canadian programming. He became Director of Policy Research.
Now retired, he is interested in the formulation of a “new economics” which reconciles “progress” and preservation of the natural environment.
As a volunteer, he has participated in: village projects in less developed countries, as a speaker for Friends of The Earth, and with Friends of The Public Library.
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Jean Dougherty, Director
As a trained biologist and geologist, I had a 36 year career with the Geological Survey of Canada, working to maintain Canada’s treasures of paleontological specimens and data. These fossil collections are used to understand the vast geologic history of Canada, providing a timescale for this history, understanding how the Canada’s landmass has changed through time, and at what rate this change has occurred. Today, this highly informative science—which some see as esoteric—underpins our understanding of anthropogenic climate change and provides primary evidence that this change is actually happening. Presenting explanations of why geology and paleontology are important to citizens became a major focus of my endeavors. These presentations explain how fossils are used in geologic research, how we know our current climate crisis is anthropogenic in origin, and how geology should inform decisions about land use planning and resource management.
I have been active in my community, serving on several boards, as a union steward for the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada ending as the chief steward for Natural Resources Canada, and as a soccer coach and a karate instructor for children. Now retired, I am spending more time with my family, especially my grandchildren, with the objective of doing what I can to leave the planet in a state in which my grandchildren may have a decent quality of life.
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Art Hunter, Director
Dr. Art Hunter is a graduate from the Royal Military College (Mechanical 1963), Imperial College (U of London – Aeronautical), and the National Defence College (XXXVIII). He was a member of the Telesat Canada’s spacecraft design team for Anik A, Deputy Manager mechanical systems for the Communications Technology Satellite (Hermes) and Project Manager for the Canadarm project at the National Research Council of Canada. Later, as a Project manager for the Industrial Development office, he did the design, development, test and evaluation of the electronics network CA*Net (now part of the Internet). He has worked with about 100 Canadian companies as an Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) Senior Project Manager and as President of Drex Engineering Consultants for over 30 years. He has a broad knowledge of many technical disciplines including Information Technology (PCs to networks), Mechanical, Electrical, Aeronautical and Civil engineering, mining machines (like Tunnel Boring Machines), cosmology, physics, healthcare non-biological technologies, electrical grid, microgrids, indoor climate control, and non-fossil fuels energy generation (emphasis on “Condensed Matter Nuclear Science” and its associated technologies).
He first joined CACOR in 1985 but took some time to do some extensive global travel, then to become active again in 2013. Hobbies are global geopolitics (via Stratfor), Personal Computers and the Internet, tracking game changing science and technologies, climate change, Low Energy Nuclear Reactors, indoor and outdoor furniture design and build, wrote a book on the “Taxation Investment Engine”, energy efficient home construction techniques, development of the Fossil Energy Freedom Project (demonstration that an Ottawa home can generate electrical power in a microgrid, heating, cooling and urban transportation without direct use of ANY fossil fuels during all seasons) and a member of the Probus Club of Ottawa-Rideau.