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David Angus

JPAC Chair

After almost 20 years working in the private sector, Dave Angus became president and chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce in 1999. Since then he has served as president of the Chamber of Commerce Executives of Canada and represented local chambers on the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Strategic Planning Committee. He currently sits on the board of directors of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives, representing Canadian chambers.

Under his leadership, the Winnipeg Chamber has increased its membership to the highest level in its history (more than 2,060 corporate members) and has not only been recognized by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as an Accredited Chamber with Distinction but has also received recognition by the American Chamber of Commerce Executives for being in the top 10 Chambers for membership growth.

The Winnipeg Chamber has been instrumental in bringing a World Trade Centre to Winnipeg, establishing an international trade conference called ‘Centrallia’, establishing Leadership Winnipeg, and many other new initiatives. The current Manitoba BOLD campaign, a policy designed to mobilize the community behind bold ideas, has stimulated an interest in the area of sustainability and has led to the development of the Chamber’s Clean Energy Policy.

Mario Molina

President
Mario Molina Center

Physical chemist Mario Molina was born in 1943 in Mexico City. Interested in science at an early age, he created his own chemistry lab in a bathroom at his home. After completing his studies in Mexico and Germany, he moved to the United States in 1968 to obtain an advanced degree in physical chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated in 1972 and went to the University of California, Irvine, in 1973 to continue his research and later went work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1989, he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he remained until returning to California in 2004 to teach at the University of California, San Diego.

Molina is best known for his study on the effect on Earth’s upper atmosphere of man-made compounds. He noted that some compounds, such as chlorofluorocarbons, were having an adverse effect on the ozone layer. Molina shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry in recognition of this work.

Gord Lambert

Executive Advisor
Sustainability and Innovation, Suncor

Gord Lambert is executive advisor, Sustainability and Innovation for Suncor Energy. In this role, he works with the CEO, board, Executive Team, and with industry peers and other stakeholders to drive improvements in environmental, social and economic performance through innovation and collaboration.

Prior to Suncor in July 1997, Lambert spent two years as director, Sustainable Development for TransAlta Corporation and 15 years with Imperial Oil Limited in Environment, Health and Safety, Planning, Operations and business development roles.

He is involved with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in support of its work on climate change, energy and sustainable development within the business community. He is currently on the boards of the Suncor Energy Foundation, Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), the Canadian Water Network, chairs of the boards of Carbon Management Canada and the advisory board of the Network on Business Sustainability. He is also a former Canadian representative on the CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee.

Lambert is currently Suncor’s Shareholder Steering Committee representative on Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) that has been established to accelerate the pace and scope of environmental performance improvement through collaboration among 14 major oil sands companies.

Lambert completed the Ivey Executive Program in 1996. He is a current member and past director/treasurer of the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists. He graduated in 1980 from the University of Guelph with an honors bachelor of sciences degree.

Ricardo Samaniego

Director
Center for Applied Economics and Public Policy (CEAPP)

Professor and researcher at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Ricardo Samaniego Breach directs ITAM’s Center for Applied Economics and Public Policy.

In the public sector, he serves by appointment of the President of Mexico, as on the board of directors of PEMEX Refinacion and is also president of the company’s Investment and Strategy Committee. Previously, he served as under secretary for Energy Policy and director of Modernization for the Federal Electricity Commission.

In the international arena, he has worked as an economist with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and as a consultant for the InterAmerican Development Bank and the United Nations Development Program.

Samaniego has taught courses on energy economics, public finance, public sector economics, microeconomics, monetary theory and policy, international trade, econometrics and statistics. At ITAM, he was head of the Department of Economics and director of the master’s program in economics and the master’s program in public policy. He has been a visiting scholar at the Energy Laboratory of MIT and in the Economics Department of UCLA.

He graduated from ITAM in economics and holds a master’s degree in that field from the University of Chicago, where he is also a PhD candidate. He was awarded scholarships from Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt) and the Fulbright program. The ITAM alumni association has awarded him its prize for academic sector merit.

Kent Klitgaard

Professor of Economics
Wells College

Kent Klitgaard is a Professor of Economics and the Patti McGill Peterson Professor of Social Sciences at Wells College in Aurora, New York. He teaches a wide array of courses including energy economics, ecological economics, environmental economics, microeconomic theory and the history of political economy. He is the co-author of Energy and the Wealth of Nations (with Charles A.S. Hall) and author of several papers in journals such as Sustainability, Ecological Economics, Conservation Biology, and the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Kent has a long history of activism concerning environmental and energy issues.

Irasema Coronado

Executive Director, CEC

Irasema Coronado was appointed Executive Director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), effective 1 December 2012.

Irasema Coronado, PhD, was a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso, and was also an affiliated faculty member in the Environmental Science and Engineering PhD program. At the university, she served as an associate provost (2008-2012), associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts (2006-2008), chair of the Political Science Department (2005-2006), and assistant professor of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies (1999-2003). Dr. Coronado was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico (2004-2005), and a faculty member at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas (1995-1999).

Dr. Coronado has held other academic and visiting scholar positions at the University of Texas at San Antonio (1998-1999), the University of Arizona (1997 and 2001), El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Sonora, Mexico (1992-1995), and Cochise College (1991). Dr. Coronado is currently a member of the boards of Frontera Women’s Foundation, the Coalition Against Violence Toward Women and Children on the Border, FEMAP (Mexican Federation of Private Associations), and the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation. Dr. Coronado holds a BA from the University of South Florida and an MA and PhD from the University of Arizona. Hispanic Business Magazine named her one of top 100 influential hispanics in the United States in October of 2010.

Aaron Cosbey

Associate and Senior Climate Change and Trade Advisor, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

Aaron Cosbey is an environmental economist specializing in the areas of trade and sustainable development, international environmental governance, and climate change. He works on two program areas for the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD): trade and investment, where he serves as associate and senior advisor, and climate change and energy, where he serves as associate. He manages IISD’s program of work on trade, investment and climate change.

He is a past member of International Trade Canada’s Market Access Advisory Group, past member of the Deputy Minister for International Trade’s Academic Advisory Council on Canadian Trade Policy, and of the Minister for International Trade’s Environmental Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade, where he chaired the working group on the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Rosío Vargas Suárez

Researcher
North American Research Center, UNAM

As an academic in the field of political science and international studies, Dr. Rosío Vargas Suárez has engaged in intensive work at several educational institutions in Mexico and abroad. A full-time professor from 1984 to 1988 in the Energy Program at Colegio de México, since 1989 she was worked as a full-time researcher at the North America Research Center (Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte-cisan) at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (unam), where she was also coordinator of the Mexico-U.S. program from 1997 to 2000 and of the Global Studies program from 2001 to 2009. As a postgraduate professor of International Affairs in the College of Political and Social Sciences at unam and the fes-Aragón campus, in 2012 she gave a seminar as part of the doctoral program in Energy and Development at Universidad Superior de San Simón in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Her distinctions include award-winning research at Harvard University, given by the Center for International and Foreign Affairs and the Harvard Mexico Foundation (1991). She was also selected in 1992, along with another nine Mexicans, to participate in the Partners in Trade: Progress Through Understanding working group by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and the U.S. Department of State. In 1997 she was invited to form part of the group of international advisors to the Energy Forum of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (pecc). In 2001 she was appointed member of the Joint Public Advisory Committee (jpac) of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (cec). She is currently a member of the National Research System.

Laurie Burt

President, Laurie Burt LLC

President, Laurie Burt, LLC, Boston, Massachusetts

Laurie Burt is president of Laurie Burt, LLC, providing independent strategic advice in the clean energy, climate and environmental fields to foundations, businesses, non-profits and public officials throughout New England and the country. Ms. Burt most recently served as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection under Governor Deval Patrick, where she championed the integration of energy and environmental programs, energy efficiency opportunities for all utilities and public infrastructure, and market-based policies to promote new technology, jobs, and a clean energy economy.

As Commissioner, Ms. Burt represented Massachusetts both regionally and nationally on major carbon reduction efforts, including the multi-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and Transportation Climate Initiative. She served as vice chair of RGGI, chair of the regional Ozone Transport Commission, and was a leading member of the State Voice group, a bipartisan national coalition of state environmental officials supporting federal and state clean energy policies.

Ms. Burt has practiced law for over 25 years, at Foley Hoag, LLP, where she started the firm’s environmental practice group, and previously as a Massachusetts assistant attorney general. She served as vice president of the Boston Bar Foundation and chair of the Appalachian Mountain Club and the New England Legal Foundation. Ms. Burt is currently a member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and serves on the boards of the Environmental Law Institute and the Union of Concerned Scientists’ National Advisory Board.

Scott Meakin

Manager, Corporate Responsibility, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

To his position of Manager for Corporate Responsibility at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Scott Meakin brings over two decades of industry experience to addressing critical issues. He provides oversight and strategy in supporting industry’s drive to responsibly develop Canada’s energy resources.

Most of his petroleum industry experience has been focused on the environment, health, safety, security and corporate responsibility as applied to conventional upstream oil and gas, oil sands, offshore and international operations, as well as refining and marketing. During his career, he has been involved in many initiatives, from the genesis of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to participating in working groups with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. His involvement today includes active participation with the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) and sitting on the boards of two not-for-profit organizations. Meakin has an MBA, BSc., is a designated Environmental Professional (EP) and has been an ISO 9000/14001 lead auditor.

Jason Switzer

Director
Corporate Consulting, Pembina Institute

Jason Switzer leads Pembina’s consulting team of six staff. He joined Pembina in April 2011, after nearly a decade in international development and corporate environmental management. His goal at Pembina is to work with a wide range of companies and help them find competitive advantage in more-sustainable practices.

Prior to joining Pembina, Jason was environmental excellence advisor at Cenovus Energy Inc., and senior greenhouse-gas engineer at Shell Canada Oil Sands. His areas of expertise are in business-ENGO partnering, environmental standards and certification/assurance, climate change and adaptation/disaster risk reduction, offset design and deal-making, multi-stakeholder consensus building process design and facilitation, and community development/social performance management.

He holds master’s degrees in environmental engineering and in public policy from MIT and is a Harvard-trained environmental mediator.

Irasema Coronado

CEC Executive Director

Irasema Coronado was appointed Executive Director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), effective 1 December 2012.

Irasema Coronado, PhD, was a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso, and was also an affiliated faculty member in the Environmental Science and Engineering PhD program. At the university, she served as an associate provost (2008-2012), associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts (2006-2008), chair of the Political Science Department (2005-2006), and assistant professor of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies (1999-2003). Dr. Coronado was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico (2004-2005), and a faculty member at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas (1995-1999).

Dr. Coronado has held other academic and visiting scholar positions at the University of Texas at San Antonio (1998-1999), the University of Arizona (1997 and 2001), El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Sonora, Mexico (1992-1995), and Cochise College (1991). Dr. Coronado is currently a member of the boards of Frontera Women’s Foundation, the Coalition Against Violence Toward Women and Children on the Border, FEMAP (Mexican Federation of Private Associations), and the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation. Dr. Coronado holds a BA from the University of South Florida and an MA and PhD from the University of Arizona. Hispanic Business Magazine named her one of top 100 influential hispanics in the United States in October of 2010.