Jean Dougherty, Chair, Board of Directors
As a trained biologist and geologist, Jean 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 her endeavours. 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.
She has been active in her 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, she is spending more time with her family, especially her grandchildren, with the objective of doing what she can to leave the planet in a state in which her grandchildren may have a decent quality of life.
Ted Manning, Vice-Chair, Board of Directors
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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David Pollock, Past 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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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, Treasurer
Gordon received his masters in Chemical Engineering from McGill and, after a short stint in the Pulp & Paper industry in B.C., he worked mostly as a high school physics teacher in the USA, Australia, and Canada. In the midst of that career he learned about and took the course from MIT on System Dynamics on-line which enabled him to use these ideas both in the classroom and as consultant for National Defence. A deeper understanding of the modeling in ‘The Limits to Growth,’ and subsequent readings, convinced him to act. That is when he became a Green party candidate, writer, Beekeeper, Third Order Franciscan, and eventually a CACOR member. He has had significant experience as a teacher using new technologies and spent the last year teaching high school students on-line because of COVID19.
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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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Gabriella Gref-Innes, Director
Gabriela has been a member of CACOR for close to 20 years and served on the board of directors for 4 years until 2018. She has also been a chair of the Values Committee for 5 years and co-chair of the Program committee and member of several other committees. In 2013, Gabriela retired from full time Public Service with the Federal Government, where she worked for over 35 years in various capacities from different departments, in the field of International commerce and development. She dealt with international Governments, United Nations, and other International Financial Institutions, and supported Canadian companies in various sectors including environment, space, and transportation. Prior to joining the Federal Government, Gabriela launched one of the first international trade companies in Ottawa, owned by a woman through which several Trade Commissioners received some training. Educated in Europe (Romania) and Canada (Carleton University, Ottawa), Gabriela’s field has been in Literature and Arts and International relations and Commerce. Gabriela has been a full-time advocate for justice, equity, and protection of nature’s diversity and rights. As a mother of 4 and grandmother of 7, Gabriela feels fully committed to using her network in supporting the future and healthy survival of our environment.
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Jeff Passmore, Director
Jeff Passmore has worked in the renewable energy, renewable chemicals, and industrial bio-economy sectors for more than 40 years, both as a consultant, and, for 12 years, as Executive Vice President of Iogen Corporation, an advanced biofuels production company. His expertise includes strategic investor relations, project capital attraction, site location assessment – including feedstock availability and price, and corporate communications. He was a key player at the table in negotiated investments by Shell, Petro Canada, Goldman Sachs, and VW.
In 2010, he launched the Passmore Group Inc., a management consultancy focused on providing clients with the necessary tools to lead to the more rapid commercialization and deployment of technologies in the bio-economy and cleantech sectors. His area of concentration has been on attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to Canada targeting primarily US and EU companies.
In 2016 Passmore created Canada’s inaugural Industrial Bioeconomy Business Conference “Scaling Up” focussing on the financing and commercialization challenges faced by biochemical, bioenergy, and advanced biofuels technology providers.
Passmore has served on the CleanTech Advisory Board of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and Canada’s National Advisory Board on Energy Science & Technology.
He is the:
- Past Chair of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association,
- Past Chair of the Canadian Wind Energy Association,
- Past Chair of the Solar Energy Society of Canada,
- Past Vice-Chair of the Independent Power Producers’ Society of Ontario,
- Past President of the Ottawa Chapter of the International Association for Energy Economics.
- Past-President of the Rotary Club of Ottawa
Phil Reilly, Director
Phil obtained his BSc (focused on Plant Physiology, Plant Biochemistry, and Ecology), which led him to two years of employment by Pollution Probe-Ottawa, ten years of largely contractual employment (largely communication oriented) with various Federal Government departments (Energy, Mines and Resources, Canadian Wildlife Service, Information Branch of Environment Canada), and a couple of years employment by an Ottawa environmental consulting firm. Phil next spent 16 years as “Dad at Home” during child-raising years and this provided the opportunity to initiate a “Mom & Pop” perennial plant nursery (closed in 2009) which operated for 25 years.
Phil has always been an advocate for including native plants in home landscapes. His family’s rural property is certified as “Backyard Habitat” by the Canadian Wildlife Federation and a “Monarch Waystation” by Monarch Watch. Local community food self-sufficiency and successful small-scale farming networks are his continuing interests.