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Virtual Event – December 3, 2020

SWANA AGM Agenda

Time: 12:05 PM Call to Order

  1. Appointment of Chairperson and Secretary for meeting
  2. Call to Order (Mark Watt, Chairperson)
  3. Minutes of Last AGM November 21, 2019 (Andrew Marr, Secretary of Meeting) – Details in AGM package link on the website
  4. President’s Report (Mark Watt)
  5. Report from Training Committee (Nicole Steglich)
  6. Report from Advisory Board Representative (Karen Storry)
  7. Report from Scholarship Committee (Mike Stringer)
  8. Report from Membership Committee (Al Lynch)
  9. Report from Conference Committee (Tauseef Waraich)
  10. Report from Safety Ambassador (Lynne Vidler)
  11. Treasurer’s Report (Deacon Liddy) – Details in AGM package link at top of page
  12. Appointment or waiving of Auditor (Deacon Liddy)
  13. Election of new Chapter Directors (Allen Lynch) (Board Member Bios)
  14. Other Business
  15. Next board meeting scheduled – Thursday, January 21, 2021 3:30 PM – 6:00 PM
  16. Adjournment

Board Member Bios

New Board Members

Ian Wiebenga

Ian is the Manager of Solid Waste Operations for the Capital Regional District’s Hartland Landfill in Victoria. He has over 25 years experience in the manufacturing (pulp and paper, cement and concrete), energy (oil and gas) and waste management sectors (recycling and landfilling). He recently joined the waste management industry and has become passionate about trash and the circular economy.

In his downtime, Ian enjoys fishing, hunting, camping, surfing, hiking and kayaking.

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Mircea Cvaci

Mircea L. Cvaci, P.Eng., MBA, is the Vice President and Senior Civil Engineer with Sperling Hansen Associates and the co-founder and Director of Business Development of DroneX Survey Inc. He is a BCIT lecturer for the Landfill Design Course and builds on his passion for sharing knowledge and giving back to the community. He has over 15 years of experience in solid and liquid waste management

He has been an active member of the SWANA Pacific Chapter since early 2009.

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Krysta Powers

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.

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Executive

Mark Watt – President

Mark started his environmental career with the City of Kelowna where he held several positions over 30 years. His expertise areas are: wastewater, environmental planning and implementation, analytical program development, infrastructure planning and solid waste.

He was instrumental in the development of Ogogrow and Glengrow at the Glenmore Landfill – a safe compost made by combining biosolids (Ogogrow) and coarse wood chips and fiber for residential garden use. He is SWANA certified and an instructor of MOLO, landfill gas, landfill operations basics, waste screening, HHW and composting.

He continues his solid waste and environmental career as a consultant and is currently SWANA Pacific’s Chapter President.

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Tauseef Waraich – Vice-President

Tauseef Waraich is a Manager of Recycling and Waste Management Division at Cowichan Valley Regional District. He has degree in Master of Science in Environment and Management.  He has more than twenty years of experience in the environmental industry, working in both private sector and public office.  As a consultant, he has worked with many municipalities and regional districts throughout BC and Alberta providing services in Recycling and Waste Management planning, Priority based budgeting, Zero Waste, Contaminated Sites, landfills management, monitoring and sampling, auditing, and Risk Assessment. Tauseef plays Cricket and enjoys outdoor activities including exploring different cultures and languages.

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Karen Storry – Advisory Board Director

Karen is a Senior Engineer for Metro Vancouver Solid Waste services. After graduating from Civil Engineering at UBC, she worked on the construction of the Canada Line before transitioning to solid waste planning at Metro Vancouver. Karen has been a member of the region’s Zero Waste Implementation Team for over 10 years. In that role, Karen has worked on a variety of waste reduction and prevention programs and policies. Her focus is on circular economy and the 3Rs.

In her spare time, Karen is completing her MBA in the Circular Economy from Bradford University. She also volunteers as her local chapter’s International Advisory Board Member for the Solid Waste Association of North America.

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.

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Al Lynch – Past-President

Al worked in the solid waste industry for 30 years, 7 for private haulers and the last 23 as the Manager of the North Shore Recycling Program (NSRP), a tri-municipal agency in North Vancouver, B.C. Canada.  Al was the Manager of the NSRP from 1990 to 2013 and was responsible for planning and administering all waste reduction, composting and recycling programs.  Al represented the municipalities on various regional government committees and producer responsibility groups and made many presentations on a variety of subjects at national and regional conferences, including WASTECON.  In addition, he sat on the Board of Directors for the National Zero Waste Council.

Al has been a member of SWANA since 1990.  He served on the SWANA International Board (IB) from 1995 to 2005, was International President of SWANA in 2004, and was the Canadian Representative to the IB from 2011-2014 and again from 2017-2019.  He is currently a member of SWANA International’s Recycling Task Force and has served all of the roles on the Executive of the Pacific Chapter.  He is currently the Past President.

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Andrew Marr – Secretary

Andrew Marr has been with Metro Vancouver for 29 years, mostly in solid waste but with some years in water, liquid waste and environmental management. He is currently the Director of Solid Waste Planning, overseeing a group of engineers, planners, and others to implement the 3Rs activities in the region’s solid waste master plans. This includes the policies (e.g. regional disposal bans and regulations, input into provincial and national waste reduction and recycling policies) and programs (e.g. input to regional public education and behaviour change campaigns, interfacing with provincial EPR programs, participation in Canada-wide waste programs such as co-chairing a Plastics Advisory Panel for the National Zero Waste Council).

Prior to joining Metro Vancouver, Andrew spent 7 years in the private sector in rechargeable battery R&D, and in hazardous waste management. Since 2004 he has also taught waste reduction and recycling technology at the BC Institute of Technology. He is a registered Professional Engineer (Environmental) from the University of BC.

His spare time interests include hiking, travel and martial arts.

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Deacon Liddy – Treasurer

Deacon Liddy is a Professional Engineer working in the civil and environmental engineering industry. Leader in solid waste management facilities and systems, First Nations infrastructure, and greenhouse gas assurance/consulting.

He has been with GHD for over 16 years.

In his free time, he likes to grow grapes in the Similkameen Valley.

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Kevin Johnstone

Kevin Johnstone has been involved with SWANA for 6 years, first as a student member, then as a YP, and now as YP committee head. He has been working as an Environmental Engineering Technologist for Ecowaste Industries for 4 years. He became involved with SWANA after connecting with some members at a networking session after a conference. Those connections helped Kevin complete his undergraduate thesis at BCIT, graduate, and find his first job in the industry doing waste audits.

Kevin values SWANA as an organization that allows him to continue to make new connections, learn about the industry, and participate in conferences. He looking forward to serving the SWANA BC/Yukon chapter throughout his career in solid waste.

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Larry Gardner

Larry is the Manager of Solid Waste Services at the Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN). He spent 28 years as a provincial regulator with the Ministry of Environment before joining the RDN in 2014. His two recent accomplishments are: Leading the transition from manual to automated curbside collection to 30,000 homes and receiving provincial approval in March of 2020 for a Solid Waste Management Plan that proposes an economic model that grows the waste industry around waste diversion. He is also involved in an FCM sponsored project to assist Vietnam with reducing GHG releases regarding waste management.

He has been married for 35 years and is enjoying his first grandchild immensely. He is looking forward to his retirement where he can spend more time with his family.

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Heidi Gerlach

Heidi Gerlach is a solid waste management specialist with extensive experience in municipal and regional solid waste planning and contract management in British Columbia. Her expertise includes stakeholder and community consultation, program evaluation and waste management policy analysis. She has over 20 years’ solid waste program management experience, 15 of those as a staff member with BC local governments (City of Chilliwack and Fraser Valley Regional District).

As a Project Manager at Dillon Consulting, Heidi oversees multiple waste diversion/recycling remediation projects in the Metro Vancouver region and throughout BC and Canada.  Her team develops strategic framework, vision and targets for zero waste strategies and a circular economy.

In her free time, Heidi takes her dog for trail walks and wonders if she can put her empty toothpaste tube in the flexible plastic packaging bag.

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Paul Henderson

Paul Henderson is a Professional Engineer with more than 30 years’ experience in the municipal sector.

As the General Manager of the Metro Vancouver Solid Waste Services Department, Paul leads the team responsible for waste reduction and recycling as well as residuals management for Metro Vancouver’s approximately 2.5 million people.

He has a degree in Bio Resource Engineering, a Masters of Applied Science in Civil Engineering from the University of British Columbia and a Masters of Business Administration from Simon Fraser University.

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Scott Hoekstra

Mr. Hoekstra is the Manager of Landfill and Compost Operations at the City of Kelowna and oversees the Glenmore Landfill and Regional Composting Facility. Mr. Hoekstra is a Professional Chemist and MOLO Certified, and has been involved in the British Columbia environmental industry for more than 25 years. After starting a career with Environmental Laboratories, he worked with HAZCO (later known as Tervita) on sites including large contaminated sites remediation projects, Industrial Oil Sands Landfills in Alberta, hazardous waste facilities, privately owned Construction and Demolition Debris landfills, and municipally owned Sanitary Landfills in British Columbia. In addition to being a Director with the SWANA Pacific Chapter, Mr. Hoekstra is the Past President and Board Member for the Association of Chemical Profession of British Columbia.

When not working, he spends time skiing with his daughters and enjoys golfing.

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Calvin Jameson

Calvin Jameson is from Lil’wat Nation (Mount Currie) but originally hails from the Vernon, BC area. He has been the Lil’wat Nations Public Works Superintendent in Mount Currie for over 5 years. Calvin is also the President of the Indigenous Zero Waste Technical Advisory Group (IZWTAG) and the first Indigenous Zero Waste Operations trainer.

When he’s not in the office or in the field, he and his wife Jaclyn are parents to 3 boys and 3 foster daughters. He’s a part time coach to 2 of his boys’ ice hockey teams in Whistler (WMHA).  His goal is to use his skills, knowledge and experience to improve the water and solid waste systems for all nations.

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Tony Sperling

Dr. Sperling is the President of Sperling Hansen Associates, a well-established solid waste engineering services consultancy in North Vancouver that is currently celebrating 25 years of service. Leading a team of 28 skilled and enthusiastic design professionals, he has been involved in more than 1,500 landfill and solid waste planning projects in BC during the past 30 years.

Landmark projects completed under his direction include the award winning Forceman Landfill and Thornhill Transfer Station Project, four progressive closures at Vancouver Landfill covering over 225 acres, Nanaimo’s Geogrid Berm expansion and Hartland’s innovative leachate collection system, amongst many others.

Since March 2019, Tony has started putting his landfill operations knowledge to daily practice, in his new role as Manager of Operations at New Providence Ecology park, a 200,000 tonne per year waste management facility in the Bahamas. Tony is also an internationally recognized expert in Landfill Fire Control, an active member of North Shore Rescue and a passionate skier intent on logging 50 ski days this winter.

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Nicole Steglich

Nicole Steglich is a Professional Engineer with over 14 years of experience in the solid waste industry. The majority of her experience was gained with the City of Vancouver’s Transfer & Landfill Operations Branch, where Nicole managed environmental projects and programs to ensure compliance with applicable regulations. In 2020, Nicole took a temporary role with the District of Squamish as the Integrated Solid Waste Specialist to gain experience managing curbside collection and zero waste programs.

Outside of the office, Nicole enjoys practicing yoga, spending time in the beautiful outdoors with friends and family, and trying new recipes.

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Mike Stringer

Mike worked in the solid waste department of Metro Vancouver (formerly GVRD) between 1989 and 2012 following 5 years with the provincial Ministry of Environment and 15 years in private industry with Kodak Canada.  His work in solid waste included regulation development and administration and liaison with municipal, provincial and federal agencies and the private sector.

Mike has been an active SWANA member since 1990 serving as a director at large for most of the time.  He helped to establish and continues to administer the chapter scholarship program and currently is the chair of SWANA’s international scholarship committee.

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Wilbert Yang

Wilbert Yang is an environmental engineer with 30 years of experience in the environmental and waste management field.  His experience can be summarized in the following manner:

  • As a regulator, he assessed waste discharges and developed regulations and guidelines for the waste management industry.
  • As a municipal planning engineer, he developed waste diversion programs and worked with cities to implement and improve those programs.
  • As a consultant, he works with cities across North America developing solid waste master plans, implementing organic waste management programs and benchmarking solid waste management systems.

Wilbert loves solid waste planning because it influences the way we live – hopefully for the better. He also recognizes that in the world of solid waste management “one size does not fit all” and the best system is one that suit the community’s values and ultimately something that its members would use”.

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Lynne Vidler – Safety Ambassador

Lynne is a Lead Senior Engineer at Metro Vancouver with more than 13 years of experience in the Solid Waste field.  In her current role she is primarily involved in capital planning and asset management, data analysis and weigh scale operations.  Prior to starting with Metro Vancouver, Lynne spent 10 years in the pulp and paper industry, working at mills in Port Alberni, Powell River and Delta. Throughout her career she has been actively involved in safety and emergency management, and she is a firm believer in putting safety first.  She is currently the Safety Ambassador for the SWANA Pacific Chapter.

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