SWANA DAYS & AGM 2020

 CEU Form Attendee List Presentations to Come

SWANA Days Agenda

Marcos Alejandro Badra, City of Richmond

Since joining the City of Richmond in 2018, Marcos has led work on circular economy initiatives. He also oversees the Hazardous Materials Management Program at the City’s Works Yard operations. Before joining the City of Richmond, Marcos had more than 15 years experience in life cycle assessment, zero waste programs, waste management, environmental risk assessment, and environmental management system, supporting numerous industries (chemistry, pharmaceutical automotive, energy, food & beverage, pulp & papers and mining) in Latin America and Europe. Marcos’ expertise includes circular economy, sustainability, cross-cultural dialogue, partnership building, stakeholder engagement, and human development.

Marcos participates in several international non-profit organizations’ committees focused on sustainability, circular economy development, community development, and social justice. Marcos is passionate about sharing what he learns to help others accelerate efforts to the transition to the circular economy in harmony with the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. Passionate by creativity, innovation and education, Marcos is also a lecturer in diverse online Post-graduation programs in Latin America.  He holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Environmental Management from Blas Pascal University.

Krysta Powers, Waste Management

Krysta has been with Waste Management since 2018 where she has focused on recycling development in British Columbia. She also works closely with WM’s Corporate Sustainability Services team and consults with their Corporate Innovations and Development team on new materials coming to market and technologies related to recycling fiber-based materials. Prior to joining WM, Krysta consulted for businesses and municipalities on various waste-related projects and conducted an 18-month independent research project on achieving a zero-material waste home. Krysta is a certified TRUE Zero Waste Advisor and graduated from the University of Calgary with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (2017) with specific expertise in fiber-based materials.

Sara Bixby, SWANA International

Sara is a Deputy Executive Director for the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA).  She leads most internal operations, was the project manager for development of SWANA’s Zero Waste course and is currently the project manager for a State Department funded, industry training and capacity development project in Colombia.

Before joining SWANA, she ran a public solid waste agency with a landfill and transfer station; worked as a consultant and as a local government recycling coordinator. After 10 years on the Board of Directors, she served as SWANA’s International President in 2011 at which time she helped organize the first steps in the Young Professionals Initiative.

Lindsay Kelly, City of Vancouver

Lindsay is a dynamic leader with 10+ years of developing innovative solutions to enable improved service delivery by the City of Vancouver. In August 2019, she was brought in to Zero Waste to lead the implementation of a Driver Display tablet and lead a Data Analytics group that would allow for the business to answer their ongoing and emerging issues with data. She and her team of data analysts support a number of initiatives that we will be reviewing in the presentation. In her spare time, she takes programming classes and uses her programming skills to optimize her rowing training to crush university aged kids in rowing regattas.

Christine Woodhouse, City of Victoria

Christine holds a Master’s of Applied Science in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of British Columbia and is registered as a Professional Engineer in BC. She has fifteen years of professional experience in environmental protection, including twelve years with the BC Ministry of Environment. With the Ministry, Christine worked in areas such as industrial compliance, greenhouse gas emissions reporting and municipal solid waste and recycling policy. She also served as Director of the Integrated Pest Management Section.

Christine is excited to have pivoted to municipal government, now navigating Zero Waste policy development at the City of Victoria.

Tony Sperling, Sperling Hansen Associates

Dr. Tony Sperling, P.Eng., Ph.D., is a landfill design specialist with a Doctorate in Geotechnical Engineering. Over the past eighteen years Tony has managed or participated as the Lead Engineer in more than 750 engineering design, development and closure projects at landfills, as well as hydro-geotechnical investigations, environmental monitoring studies and other solid waste related projects for municipal and private sector clients. Dr. Sperling develops the most appropriate closure design concepts for a site, based on his extensive experience in landfill closure, and coordinates design teams to ensure that project objectives are realized and systems are integrated.

Dr. Sperling is recognized as one of the leading geometric landfill designers in North America. He has been an invited lecturer on landfill design and operation at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and an author of more than 20 technical papers on landfill design and fire control. He is also actively involved with the SWANA Pacific Chapter as MOLO certified faculty.

Suki Singh, WorkSafeBC

Suki is an Occupational Health & Safety Consultant with WorkSafeBC. Originally from the UK, Suki, along with his family, moved to Canada in 2007. For over 20 years, Suki has worked in various operational and safety related roles, primarily in the transportation and manufacturing sectors. During this time, he has helped build and implement occupational health and safety management systems, as well as worked as a COR (Certificate of Recognition) program manager with the Trucking Safety Council of BC (SafetyDriven).

In his spare time, he still enjoys watching “proper football” aka soccer, and also enjoys coaching as a volunteer coach at a local youth soccer club.

Alida Kusch, Dillon Consulting

Alida is an Associate for Dillon Consulting Limited and has 15 years of experience as a waste management specialist.  She has been engaged on national projects and has experience in solid waste management master plans, waste diversion and reduction program development stakeholder engagement and dumpster diving.  She is active in the solid waste industry and currently serves as Treasurer of SWANA’s Ontario Chapter.

Roxy Hasior, GHD

Roxy is a solid waste engineer working at GHD, although lately she’s been sharing an office with two rambunctious Devon Rex kitties. She’s been involved in landfill and transfer station design for a number of years, and has recently made a foray into organic waste management facility planning and design.  She is interested in the nexus of waste and renewable energy and is excited for future energy revolution.