2016 CEPA Foundation Fall Meeting

Biographies



Bruce Anderson Bruce Anderson is one of Canada's most respected public opinion researchers and strategic communications advisors. In 1980, he was appointed Special Assistant to the Federal Minister Responsible for Government Communications. In 1983, he joined Decima Research, and was appointed President of Decima in 1989, at the age of 32. Mr. Anderson left to become a founding partner of the Earnscliffe Strategy Group and helped lead that highly regarded company for 15 years. He rejoined Decima as CEO in 2004, as and led the company for 4 years of growth, during which it was twice named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies. After completing a transaction with Harris Interactive in 2008, Mr. Anderson opened his own research boutique. In 2013 he became Chairman of Abacus Data, one of Canada’s fastest growing young research companies. In 2012, he helped found a new advertising boutique, i2 Ideas and Issues Advertising, which blends creative and media planning skills to build winning public affairs campaigns. The firm has become a leader in its market, serving a wide range of industries including mining, oil and gas, pipelines, telecom, banking, defense and security and urban transit. Mr. Anderson advises many blue-chip corporate clients and industry associations and has done years of in-depth polling on politics and public policy. He has worked extensively with the Canadian Energy Pipelines Association. He has served as a top advisor for several political leaders in the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties. He is one of Canada’s leading commentators on public opinion and political affairs, a regular member of the CBC’s popular At Issue panel and writes a weekly online column for the Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper.

Chris Bloomer Chris Bloomer has over 30 years of experience across a range of upstream, downstream, domestic and international energy businesses. He began his career at Shell Canada and moved with increasing responsibility from exploration and production to economics and corporate planning, oil sands development and operations, pipelines and oil and NGL marketing. Following his tenure at Shell, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Castle Energy where he was responsible for the Canadian crude oil marketing business and US exploration, natural gas production and pipeline operations. Subsequently, he was a Founder, President and Chief Operating Officer at Talon Resources Ltd., a Latin American-focused midstream/pipeline project development and crude oil marketing company. Chris then went on to spend ten years as a senior executive with Petrobank Energy & Resources, providing leadership throughout a period of significant corporate evolution for the company. Here he held the roles of Vice President Heavy Oil, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Director. Immediately prior to joining CEPA, he was Chief Executive Officer and Director at Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd. Throughout his career, pipelines have been an integral aspect of all his business activities in Canada, the United States and Latin America, involving operation of existing pipelines and pioneering new pipelines and access to new markets for both oil and natural gas. Mr. Bloomer has a degree in Geoscience from the University of Toronto, has served on several public and private Canadian energy company boards and is a member of The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA).

Nancy Broadbent Nancy Broadbent is Executive Vice President, Academic at Portage College. During her 25 years at Portage Nancy has served in both administrative and senior executive positions. Nancy has worked extensively with the trades and technical programs that build and service the oil and gas industries in Northern Alberta. Currently, Nancy is responsible for strategic leadership of all programs including oversight of program development for the College’s Pipeline Training Centre. A focal piece of equipment at the Pipeline Training Centre will be the fully functional process loop that in its 10 acre size will simulate portions of Alberta’s transmission industry infrastructure. Nancy has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration.

Minister James Gordon Carr James Gordon Carr has been a dedicated business and community leader in Winnipeg for more than 30 years. He began his career as a musician, as an oboist and trustee with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. He then moved on to journalism, working as an editorial writer and columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press as well as a reporter for CBC Radio. Jim entered public life in 1988, when he was elected to represent Fort Rouge in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. He was also the deputy leader of his party. Jim later went on to become the founding CEO of the Business Council of Manitoba, where he worked alongside business leaders to address issues critical to Manitobans and Canadians. Jim has been an active volunteer with a number of local, provincial, and national organizations. He was the founding co-chair of the Winnipeg Poverty Reduction Council, and is a former member of the boards of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Canada West Foundation, and the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice at the University of Manitoba. Jim’s community leadership has earned him numerous awards, including the Canada 125 Medal, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and the Order of Manitoba.

Dave Core The future of energy transport and family agribusiness is at a crossroads today. As founding president of the Canadian Association of Energy and Pipeline Landowners Associations (CAEPLA), Dave Core has dedicated most of his working life to helping resolve conflict between pipeline landowners and industry. Dave grew up on a family farm featuring one of Canada’s first cross country oil pipelines. After college he farmed full time, and subsequently pursued business ventures in the ag sector. A lifetime of living with the operational, safety, and environmental impact of pipelines and power lines led Dave to take an interest in Canada’s landowner movement and to research the ethics of expropriation. Later, he would set out across the country, following the major energy corridors, to talk to thousands of fellow pipeline landowners. Dave’s experiences in farming, business, and politics has helped him see that the problems associated with energy transport are best addressed at the local grassroots level - not via distant, top down, bureaucratic intervention. Instead, Dave and CAEPLA call for partnership with industry and respect for property rights as the keys to ensuring safety and environmental stewardship standards that surpass outdated and too often biased government regulations.

Minister Cliff Cullen Cliff Cullen was born and raised on a grain and cattle farm near Wawanesa and graduated from the University of Manitoba with a diploma in agriculture. He was first elected MLA for Spruce Woods in 2004 and was re-elected in 2007, 2011 and 2016. He has been involved in his community for many years, serving as captain of the volunteer fire department and volunteering on various community boards such as the Glenboro Community Development Corporation, Community Round Table, Glenboro Curling Club and the Glenboro United Church. Cliff is an ardent activist for the environment. He has held the position of president of the Manitoba Weed Supervisors Association and the provincial manager of the Association for a Clean Rural Environment. On May 3, 2016 he was named Minister of the new department of Growth, Enterprise and Trade.

Ron Hugo After obtaining his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, Ron Hugo started his professional career as a research scientist with the US Air Force Research Lab in Albuquerque, NM where he performed basic and applied research in support of the Airborne Laser program. He worked within the Atmospheric Characterization Group and was responsible for data integrity during four around-the-world data collection campaigns. In this role, he was able to spend his days flying in a Gulfstream II business jet while addressing the challenge of performing sub milli-Kelvin temperature fluctuation measurements using a sensor smaller than one-tenth the diameter of a human hair, all while moving at 85% the speed of sound. After 10 years in the United States, he returned home to his native Alberta and became a professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Calgary. During his seventeen years at the University of Calgary, fifteen years have involved some form of administrative service including Associate Head, Department Head, Associate Dean, and Director of the Pipeline Engineering Centre. His research focus is currently split between pipeline engineering and engineering education. As Pipeline Centre Director, he coordinates research activities of approximately 15 professors and oversees the process of highly-qualified personnel development through the PEC’s graduate courses. As the Li Ka Shing (Canada) Foundation Chair in Engineering Education Innovation, he explores the ever-changing landscape of higher education. This includes the following: a 5-week accelerated product development course taught to teams of Canadian and Chinese students in the Guangdong Province of China each year; YouTube lectures that have been viewed by tens of thousands of students from around the world; and co-directing an international engineering education reform initiative that now includes over 120 collaborating post-secondary institutions from seven global regions.

Trent Keough Dr. Trent Keough is President and CEO of Portage College. Portage is nearly 50 years old and serves a northeastern Alberta population which includes 7 First Nations and four of Alberta’s eight Metis Settlements. Trent has 20 years’ experience training people for the oil and gas industries in places like Newfoundland, Qatar, Oman, the Emirates, and for the past 10 years in Alberta. At Portage, Trent has been working to build Canada’s first pipeline training centre on the 140 acres Portage now owns in Athabasca County. When fully completed, the Pipeline Training Centre will be an in situ training site simulating remote work locations and offering boots on the ground work on pipelines, including construction, operations, maintenance, and emergency response to spills and leaks.

Kim McCaig Kim has been in the Executive Director role with the CEPA Foundation for the last three years and this is an organization that brings together the entire Canadian Pipeline Industry in a forum dedicated to innovation and implementation of practices in order to exceed society’s expectations with respect to safety, quality, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility. Mr. McCaig has worked within the pipeline transmission Industry since 1974 in the areas of field operations as well as operational strategy, policy development and project management. Mr. McCaig has been a highly engaged member of the various communities in which he has lived. He is a past national president of the Kinsmen & Kinette Association of Canada, and a past member of the Board of Governors for Nipissing University. He has facilitated Board Governance Training through the Alberta Government Volunteer for Not for Profit Board Development Program. He also facilitates Board Development activities through CentrePoint Non-Profit Management as a volunteer. Mr. McCaig holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Queens University and is a life member of the Kinsmen & Kinette Organization of Canada.

Tim McMillan Tim McMillan was appointed President and incoming CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) on October 1, 2014. The Saskatchewan native is responsible for leading activities in education and communications as well as policy and regulatory advocacy on behalf of CAPP member companies, which represent over 90 per cent of Canada’s upstream oil and gas production. Tim grew up on a family farm near Lloydminster, where the McMillan family first homesteaded more than a century ago. After earning an economics degree from the University of Victoria, he traveled and worked overseas as an Information Technology professional. He later returned to the family farm and founded and operated an oilfield services company. His solid understanding of the oil and gas industry from both a business and landowner perspective, coupled with his background in economics, propelled his desire to seek a seat within the Saskatchewan Legislature. In 2007, Tim was elected as a Saskatchewan Party MLA in the riding of Lloydminster. From 2010 until his appointment as President of CAPP, Tim held several strategic cabinet portfolios in the Government of Saskatchewan, including minister of energy and resources and minister of rural health. Tim lives in Calgary with his wife and their two daughters.

Jim Tweedie James Tweedie is the Director, Operations, Safety and Integrity Management at the Canadian Gas Association. In his role at CGA, Jim has been involved in files such as energy security, damage prevention, health and safety, RNG, and asset management, renewal and integrity, just to name a few. Before joining the CGA, Jim had an extensive 35 year career with Enbridge Gas Distribution. From 2004 to 2008, Jim was Manager of Operations, Eastern Region for Enbridge, where he garnered much of his knowledge and expertise in the natural gas distribution industry. Prior to this, Mr. Tweedie was a Manager of Construction and acting Regional Manager of Enbridge’s Eastern Region. Additionally, he has worked on a number of international gas distribution feasibility studies and construction evaluation projects in Turkey, Mexico, and Malaysia. Jim is currently the co-chair of NRCan’s Critical Infrastructure; Energy and Utility Sectors Network and a past Chair of the Board & current Executive Committee member of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance.

Dharma Wijewickreme Dr. Dharma Wijewickreme is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada. He joined UBC in 2001 after serving geotechnical consulting practice for 11 years, where he acquired extensive experience in the field of earthquake geotechnical engineering with particular reference to seismic geotechnical retrofit and design of pipelines and highway bridges. At UBC, Wijewickreme’s research mainly focuses on pipeline geotechnical engineering and earthquake liquefaction of soils. Wijewickreme pioneered in the establishment of the new Pipeline Integrity Institute (PII) at UBC in partnership with the pipeline sector, including industry, provincial government, and professional associations, and he serves as the Director of the institute. The vision of PII is to champion world-leading pipeline engineering practices and innovation through advance education/training and applied research. Wijewickreme serves on the editorial boards of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal and ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal, and he is inducted Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. He received the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering Horst Leipholz Medal in 2013 for outstanding contributions to Engineering Mechanics and Practice in Canada. Wijewickreme has been elected to serve as the President of the Canadian Geotechnical Society starting 2017.

Kent Wilfur Kent Wilfur is vice president of project execution for Spectra Energy Transmission’s operations in Western Canada. In this role, he oversees engineering, project management and construction for all major capital expansion projects, including the Canadian LNG and Spectra Energy Liquids business groups. Wilfur has close to 25 years of industry experience in engineering, supply chain and project development. He first joined Westcoast Energy in 1991, moving through several engineering positions, before transitioning to supply chain management in 1999. In 2005, Wilfur moved to Houston, Texas, to serve as general manager of project development and asset planning. From 2009 to 2012, he led an enterprise-wide supply chain transformation effort for Spectra Energy. Prior to his current role, Wilfur held the title of general manager, projects. His responsibilities included project management for major expansion projects in Western Canada, as well as overseeing project development and project control teams. Wilfur earned a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and also holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario. He is a member of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association and a Board member of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association Foundation.

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