Executive:
Robert Penrose, President
Robert and Dorli are the proud and busy parents of sports-mad Will. They live in North Vancouver and love to venture into BC’s parks and wilderness to hike, camp, ski, canoes, and kayak. Robert has been a director for many years at CPAWS-BC, where his key focus areas have been human resources, communications, and planning.
Robert Penrose is a manager in the Safety, Health & Environment department at BC Hydro. Prior to joining BC Hydro, Robert was a part-time research associate at Simon Fraser University and a consultant. His research at SFU focused on strategic land use planning and public participation processes. As a consultant, Robert worked on issues including watershed and coastal management, land use planning, and environmental assessment. And before SFU, Robert worked in Vancouver with IBM Canada as systems engineering representative in the industry group.
Robert holds a Masters in Resource and Environmental Management from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby and a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen's University in Kingston.
Georgette Parsons, Past President
Georgette Parsons is Mountain Equipment Co-op’s Chief Information Officer. She began her career with an honours degree in Economics and Environmental Studies. Since 1988, she has been instrumental in developing MEC’s information systems, communication and marketing functions, and has supported the development of MEC’s community involvement policies. Georgette is a long time climber and an avid downhill skier.
Julie Davidson, Vice-President
Julie has a strong passion for the outdoors and wild places, inspired in her childhood years by hiking and sailing, and later fostered by involvement in the outdoor recreation industry. All of which led her to become a volunteer on the CPAWS board; she also serves as a National Trustee, as Vice-President. She has 25 years experience in human resources management, with a focus on organizational development in the not-for-profit sector. She brings facilitation and mediation skills, with a solid background in helping small/medium businesses succeed, resourcefully and effectively. She has been involved with CPAWS for over a decade, and she supports wholeheartedly its 50/50 goal...protection of at least 50% of Canada's publicly-entrusted lands and oceans.
Michael Barkusky, Treasurer
Michael Barkusky has enjoyed outdoor activities, particularly in the mountains and in the marine environment, since childhood in Cape Town, South Africa where he was born and grew up. He studied economics at the University of Cape Town earning a first degree in that field in 1977, and came to Vancouver as a graduate student in 1980 acquiring an MBA at The University of British Columbia in 1982. He chose to settle in Vancouver after graduation and in 1985, obtained the CGA designation. He currently divides his time between his accounting and consulting practice and work as an ecological economist for the NGO-coalition working on the implementation of ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest. In 2008-09 Michael completed a Masters-level course in ecological economics by distance learning through the University of Nebraska. He enjoys rock-climbing, hiking, snorkeling, windsurfing and skiing. He served as Treasurer of the BC Mountaineering Club for two years in the early 1990s, and more recently, has served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics.
Gail Ross, Secretary
Gail has worked for 34 and a half years with BC Parks in various capacities, including as a park interpreter at Manning, Garibaldi, Golden Ears and Mt. Seymour parks; interpretation specialist for Northern B.C.; and as regional resource management and planning officer in Prince George. Her responsibilities included conservation management, interpretation, education, park planning and leading negotiations for the protection of 1/3 of the province area as part of the Protected Areas Strategy. She currently also sits on the Board of Park Elders and the Young Naturalists of BC, and is a club leader in Prince George. She is a sessional instructor at UNBC in the Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Management program and is on the training committee for Interpretation Canada.
Directors:
Kai Chan
Kai Chan is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability (IRES) at the UBC. With his extended lab group (ConCISE Research), he investigates the ecology and evolution that underpin ecosystem resilience to species invasions and infestations; he fosters better decision making for the multiple benefits that humanity derives from nature (ecosystem services); and he examines the structure and substance of our duties to non-human organisms and future human generations.
Karin Emond
Karin practices environmental law with a large downtown Vancouver firm. The best place to find her, however, is skiing in the mountains or surfing in the waters off the west coast of Vancouver Island. In her role as CPAWS BC Chapter's newest Board member, Karin is committed to working to protect the wilderness places that make BC so special.
Mike Fenger
During his three-decade career in government, Mike Fenger provided conservation advice on behalf of Ministry of Environment to government. He was instrumental in developing the inter-agency Wildlife Tree Committee, a member of the provincial Old Growth Task Force and the co-chair of the Biodiversity Working Group that guides forest biodiversity conservation outside of Parks. After leaving government, Mike finished the book Wildlife and Trees of British Columbia, a collaboration of three biologists and two foresters on managing wildlife trees.
Currently he is the principle of Mike Fenger and Associates Ltd. and remains active advising on sustainable forestry and conservation advice. Mike is President of a NGO Friends of Ecological Reserves whose wardens work as extra eyes and ears for MOE staff to safe-guard Ecological Reserves.
Richard Paisley
Richard Paisley is the Director of the Global Transboundary International Waters Governance Initiative at UBC and a member of the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. Richard’s current research and teaching interests are primarily in the areas of international water and energy law, negotiation and environmental conflict resolution. His outside interests include down hill and cross country skiing, biking, back packing, tennis, kayaking and coaching soccer.
Rebeka Ryvola
Rebeka has temporarily left wonderful British Columbia to work for Ecologic Institute, an environmental policy think tank in Washington, DC -- but she'll be back. She graduated from UBC's Global Resource Systems program (BSc Hons) in 2011. Her education focused on environmental and political science and it is the intersection of these areas that she is most passionate about. She is happiest when outside and loves learning, writing, and talking about environmental and global issues.
Wayne Sawchuk
Wayne Sawchuk lives in northern BC, Canada. He grew up as a logger, trapper, sawmill worker and wilderness guide, and has become known as a conservationist, author and photographer who has fought to protect the country he once logged. He is the recipient of the federal Canadian Environment Award of 2008 and the Province of British Columbia Minister’s Environmental Achievement Award, in 1998, both given in recognition of his conservation work which includes the establishment of the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area, 6.4 million ha. of wilderness located in northern BC. Most recently, he was nominated to the Explorers Club, based in New York.
His photographs have been widely published, and he is the author of Muskwa-Kechika, The Wild Heart of Canada’s Northern Rockies. Sawchuk continues to lead 3 month horseback expeditions into the backcountry of northern BC in the summer, and travels widely speaking about his conservation work.
Amy Thede
Amy grew up on Georgian Bay in Ontario, and has had a passion for the natural world since a very young age. Amy completed her undergraduate degree in Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Waterloo. Prior to coming west in 2008 she worked for Ontario Parks. She is currently completing her Masters in Resource Management degree at SFU, focusing on land use planning, protected areas planning and management, and conservation policy. She hopes that she will have a long career in conservation planning and the protection Canada’s outstanding natural areas. Amy loves canoeing, hiking and photography and can often be found enjoying good beer and live music with her friends.