Presenter Biographies
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Richard Betts
Richard Betts is currently Manager, Procurement Services Canada – Imperial Oil Limited and Exxon Mobile Canada. Imperial Oil has been a major contributor to the growth of the Petroleum Industry and to Canada’s economic and social development for more than 125 years. Imperial pioneered development of the Oilsands of Alberta, both through its leadership role in the creation of Syncrude, and development of the large scale In-Situ Bitumen recovery at Cold Lake.
Richard graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelors of Applied Science (Chemical). He stated his career with Imperial Oil in 1973 in Sarnia as a Design Engineer.
Jerry Byrne
Jerry Byrne is President and CEO of the D.F. Barnes Group, an international metal fabrication, manufacturing and services contractor. A graduate of Memorial University’s Faculty of Engineering, Jerry has more than 25 years of experience building companies from the ground up, both locally and internationally. He is a recognized entrepreneur with a strong technical and management background who understands the importance of cash flow. Jerry has established several successful Newfoundland companies, including SEA Systems Limited and its affiliates, Glamox Canada Limited, Navalco Canada Limited, and Cantech Systems Limited. He launched several successful companies in the United States, where he lived for a number of years before returning to Newfoundland and Labrador in 2002. Jerry’s experience comes from years of decision making in the areas of budgeting, materials selection, sub-contracting, joint ventures and strategic alliance formation, operations and best practices.
Today, as President and CEO of the D.F. Barnes Group, Jerry plays a key role in the company’s business development. Under his leadership, the company has grown from 10 to more than 500 people and revenues have increased by more than 6,000 percent. Jerry is also a well-recognized figure in the local business community. He is the immediate Past Chair of the Newfoundland Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) and current Chair of the NOIA 2008 Conference. Jerry also sits on the Board of Directors for Canadian Imperial Venture Corporation and the Genesis Group.
Neil J. Camarta
Neil Camarta was appointed Senior Vice-President, Oil Sands in 2006. In this position, he leads Petro-Canada’s “10 Billion Barrel” Oil Sands business, which includes a 12% interest in Syncrude, extensive in situ holdings including the MacKay river project and a 60% stake in Fort Hills, a large integrated oil sands mining and upgrader project. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, Mr. Camarta also contributes to the strategic leadership of the Company. Prior to his current position, he was Vice-President, Corporate Planning and Communications.
For more than 30 years, Mr. Camarta held senior leadership positions with Shell in the energy business in Canada and internationally. Most recently, Mr. Camarta led the successful development, construction and startup of Shell's $6 billion Athabasca Oil Sands Project. Mr. Camarta retired from Shell in September 2005.
Mr. Camarta was born in Edmonton, Alberta and holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Alberta. He is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta.
Mr. Camarta sits on the Boards of the Alberta Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Muscular Dystrophy Canada.
Peter Churchill
Peter Churchill is the Manager of Procurement and Quality at Bantrel Co. Peter joined Bantrel in 2004 and has over 25 years industrial construction and EPC industry experience in Supply Management, General Management, and Project Management roles. Bantrel Co. is one of Canada’s largest Project Management, Engineering, Procurement, Construction companies, specializing in the Oil and gas Industry.
As an active supporter of the Supply Management field, Peter currently sits on the board of the Alberta Institute Purchasing Management Association, and is an instructor for the AIPMAC in their newly launched Strategic Supply Chain Management Leadership Program at the University of Calgary.
Peter earned his MBA Degree in Project Mgt. from Athabasca University in 2005, a Diploma of Technology in Operations Management from BCIT, and holds the CPP professional designation from the Purchasing Management Association of Canada.
Jim Cormier
Mr. Cormier has over 26 years of experience in procurement for industrial, petrochemical and mining projects. Of that, 10 are with major Calgary based oil firms and the remainder in senior and management capacities within the Engineering Procurement and Construction industry, primarily with SNC-Lavalin Inc's. Calgary based Chemicals and Petroleum Business Unit (CPBU). Mr. Cormier is currently serving as SNC's CPBU Manager Procurement, responsible for both business development support and the overall management of Procurement activities and quality for all of the business unit's international and domestic projects. Mr. Cormier is also a key contributor to Supplier development as it relates to SNC's global oil and gas project work.
Bob Dunbar
Bob Dunbar is President of Strategy West Inc., a Calgary-based consulting firm that helps its clients make effective energy industry strategic decisions. He has more than 40 years of Canadian and international energy industry experience including 15 years as an energy industry consultant. His consulting focus is on Canadian oil sands business and technical issues and training. Mr. Dunbar has a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta. He has completed management programs at the University of Calgary, Queen's University and the Banff Centre, and has completed the Canadian Securities Course. Bob is a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Alberta.
Chris Gall
Chris Gall is a graduate from the University of Saskatchewan (BA 1991) and has an MBA from Athabasca University (1999). For the past 15 years he has worked as a Manager and Consultant in Supply Chain Management, Contracts, Procurement and Business Integration for oil, gas and manufacturing companies worldwide. In May 2006 he joined Total E&P Canada as Manager of Contracts and Procurement.
David Harper
Dave has over 25 years of experience in construction management, cost engineering, scheduling, procurement, contracts administration and controls monitoring for mining, pulp paper and industrial projects. Dave joined Ledcor in 1999 as Project Manager and completed various oil and gas projects in Alberta , and went on to become the Senior Manager for a major client in Fort McMurray.
Jacob Irving
Jake Irving is executive director of the Athabasca Regional Issues Working Group Association (RIWG). Since joining RIWG in 2006, Jake has worked with a wide range of stakeholders and committees to build effective relationships and help manage the significant growth in the Wood Buffalo region.
Jake holds a B.Sc in Political Science from the University of Ottawa and has worked in the oil and gas industry as a government relations coordinator, manager for stakeholder relations and surface rights, and a project manager for the World Petroleum Congress. He has international experience as a project manager for the Western Cape Provincial Parliament in South Africa.
Jake lives in Fort McMurray with his wife Billie and two children.
Gary Jessel
Gary Jessel is the Procurement Manager for Natco Canada Ltd., which is the leading provider of wellhead process equipment, systems and services used in the production of oil and gas. He’s also an active member of the Purchasing Management Association of Canada and the Institute of Supply Management.
Mr. Jessel oversees supply chain management at NATCO Canada and is responsible for hiring and training new department staff, purchasing strategic critical material from qualified and approved suppliers, managing quality assurance and quality control standards for procured items, establishing alliance partnerships with suppliers and liaising with other NATCO global supply chain and procurement departments to increase purchasing power and supply sources. He’s been a member of the procurement group at NATCO Canada for over 14 years.
Mr. Jessel obtained a Management Certificate Program and has a diploma in General Management from the University of Calgary. He also has certificates from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (Supply Chain Management), John M. Fisher and Associates (Dale Carnegie Course), Institute for Supply Management (Certified Purchasing Manager), Purchasing Management Association (Certified Professional Purchaser) and Crestcom (Bullet Proof Manager). He also studied science at G.N.D. University in Punjab, India before immigrating to Canada.
Mr. Jessel actively supports Indo-Canadian culture in Calgary and is currently the Treasurer of the School of Drama & Arts Association.
Heather Kennedy
Heather grew up in Montreal and was educated as a metallurgical engineer at Queen’s University. She has worked in engineering and management roles for organizations such as Texasgulf Canada (now Kidd Creek Mines) and Fording Coal Ltd. in Ontario and British Columbia respectively.
Heather has worked at Suncor since 1996 in project management and senior operations roles in Bitumen Production and the Extraction Plant. She was appointed Vice President of Employee and Community Relations in July, 2003. She assumed the role of Vice President of Operational Excellence in March of 2007.
In August 2007, Heather was appointed to the Oil Sands Secretariat within the Government of Alberta for a two year secondment.
The Secretariat coordinates and improves planning, communications and service delivery to the oil sands region. The Secretariat collaborates with ministries, industry, communities and stakeholders to facilitate a common approach to address the social, environmental and economic impacts of oil sand development.
Ian MacGregor
Mr. Ian MacGregor is a partner of North West Capital Inc., a private investment firm involved in the energy industry. North West and other investment companies in which he has substantial interests have been founding or major shareholders in a number of Calgary based companies including: Ultima Energy Trust, Big Country Pipelines, Calfrac Well Services, Solex Energy, Taylor Gas Liquids, North West Upgrading, Shakelton Exploration, Enhance Energy, Vista Broadcasting and The Carraig Ridge Conservation Community.
Mr. MacGregor is Chairman of North West Upgrading Inc., a company that is building a $15 billion upgrading complex producing low sulfur environmental fuels for the North American market from Alberta’s tar sand feedstocks.
Mr. MacGregor is a lead director of Enhance Energy Ltd., a company engaged in carbon dioxide capture and sequestration. Enhance is implementing one of the world’s largest sequestration projects in Alberta utilizing CO2 produced by refining Alberta’s tar sands for enhanced oil recovery.
Mr. MacGregor serves on the Board of Enmax Energy, the local electrical distribution company owned by the City of Calgary, with annual revenues in excess of $2 billion and on the boards of a number of public, private and charitable organizations. He is the primary benefactor and head curator of the Canadian Museum of Making. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Mechanical Engineering).
In his spare time Mr. MacGregor is active in the operation of a large cattle ranch located between Calgary and Banff.
Robert Moore
Robert Moore is a partner of QGI Consulting, an Alberta based company with clients in both public and private sectors.
Robert was educated at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from which he obtained an undergraduate degree in Political Science and a Masters Degree in Business Administration. Prior to joining QGI, Robert worked briefly for the Government of Canada and then spent 16 years at Canadian National Railways in senior positions in Marketing and Operations management.
His consulting experience includes market forecasting as part of acquisitions related due diligence, rail transportation policy and operations, and industry cluster analysis and competitiveness.
Jayson Myers
Jayson Myers is the President of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, Canada’s largest industry and trade association. He is also the Chair of the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition, a coalition of over 30 industry associations that have come together to speak with a common voice on priority issues for Canada’s Manufacturing sector.
Mr. Myers is a well-known economic commentator, and is widely published in the fields of Canadian and international economics, technological and industrial change. As CME’s Chief Economist, he led the association’s Manufacturing 20/20 initiative, the largest cross-country consultation ever convened by Canada’s business community on the future of manufacturing in Canada. He has been recognized by consulting firm Watson Wyatt as the most accurate economic forecaster in Canada.
Mr. Myers sits on special advisory councils to the Minister for International Trade, the Minister of Industry, and the Canadian Border Services Agency. He is co-chair of the Work & Learning Knowledge Centre of the Canadian Council on Learning. He is Vice Chair of both the Ontario Manufacturing Council and the Great Lakes Manufacturing Council.
Mr. Myers studied at Queen's University, Kingston and the University of British Columbia in Canada, and at the London School of Economics and Oxford University in the United Kingdom. He has held appointments as a research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and a lecturer in international studies at Warwick University, also in the U.K. He is a consultant on Canadian and international business affairs for Oxford Analytica, an international consulting group based at Oxford University.
Rob Penny
Rob graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in 1978. Rob moved to Alberta to begin work as a Resident Transportation Engineer in the High Prairie District of the recently regionalized Alberta Transportation.
During his time in the High Prairie District, Rob was asked to relocate to McLennan to manage a construction sub-office. As well, Rob volunteered to manage highway projects in other parts of the Peace Region.
In 1981, Rob left Alberta Transportation and joined Underwood McLellan and Associates (now UMA) as a Project Engineer in their Sparwood, B.C. office. Rob was primarily involved with municipal sewer and water systems, and streets, and some heavy industrial services to the coal mines in the area.
In 1986, Rob returned to Alberta Transportation as the Municipal Services Engineer where he was responsible for all the street and road grants, improvement district allocations, and development of all agreements with municipalities.
In 1988, Rob became the Assistant District Transportation Engineer in High Level. A year later Rob became the District Transportation Engineer in High Level and, in 1990, Rob accepted a transfer to become the District Transportation Engineer in Grande Prairie.
In 1993, Rob was appointed the Regional Director in Red Deer.
In 2001, Rob became the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Transportation and Civil Engineering Division of Alberta Transportation.
Since September 2006, Rob has been the Assistant Deputy Minister of Policy and Corporate Services Division of Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation and is responsible for infrastructure and transportation policy, finance and information management.
Murray Slezak
Murray Slezak graduated from Athabasca University with a Bachelor of Administration degree in 1992 in addition to a diploma in Business Administration from Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1980. Mr. Slezak has been employed for nearly 28 years at Shell. Mr. Slezak had been involved in a variety of supply chain management and finance positions at Shell, including assignments in gas plant, unconventional oil, refinery and chemical operations, land and marine seismic and drilling operations, construction projects as well as administrative and policy roles.
In his current role, Mr. Slezak has led a team of professionals since 2005 who are responsible for quality assurance quality control aspects for critical manufactures and fabricators, contractor HSE management processes, contract management and sustainable development integration into the supply chain management process. Prior to his current role, Mr. Slezak was Shell’s Northern Benefits Coordinator on the Mackenzie Gas Project, which included the review of the socio-economic baseline study, assessment, mitigation measures and Joint Review Panel hearings as well the negotiation and review of land access and benefits agreements with Aboriginal Authorities, the socio-economic agreement with the government of Northwest Territories and the Canada Benefits Plan with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.
Brian Tyers
Mr. Brian Tyers' expertise is in the areas of energy management and electrical engineering mainly in the petroleum industry. Mr. Tyers is founder of Optimum Energy Management Incorporated (OEMI), a leading energy management-consulting firm in Western Canada. With acquisition of OEMI by Stantec Consulting in 2003, Mr. Tyers holds the position of Principal, Energy Management. During the past fourteen years of OEMI and Stantec, he performed numerous energy audits, for some of the over 100 clients, resulting in over 100 million dollars of identified energy cost savings and over 1,000,000 tonnes of CO2E reduction. He is presently working with a number of companies on the development of their energy management programs and actions for the reduction of energy and greenhouse gas emissions. He was instrumental in establishing an energy management group within Dome Petroleum and Amoco Canada between 1984 and 1991. He co-authored two workbooks on energy efficiency in the oil and gas sector and has presented and currently presenting numerous workshops on "Reducing Operating Costs through Energy management" and Natural Resources Canada's "Dollars to Sense” workshop series. Internationally, through the ARPEL Environmental Program, Mr. Tyers led the coordination, development and presentation of twenty guidelines, seven regional workshops and sixteen direct technical assistances on energy efficiency and implementation of best practices for the ARPEL member companies in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Celeste Vanrensburg
Celeste Vanrensburg was born and raised in South Africa. She started her career in the Oil and Gas Industry with Soekor (State owned company) in the Offshore Production Department, moved into Business Development. Moved to Aberdeen, Scotland where she worked for various operating companies (Shell, BP) before moving to Dubai to join Lundin Oil and Gas in a Business Development and Marketing role (2 year contract). Miss. Vanrensburg moved back to Scotland and continued her career with various drilling and exploration companies. Her roles in Business Development involved traveling to Australia, India, South America and Europe where she actively developed new business in these regions. She was approached to join a privately owned fabricating company in Aberdeen who wanted to grow and expand their market world wide but at the same time develop a sales and marketing strategy that would finally include opening basis around the world.
Celeste Vanrensburg joined E.S. Fox in 2005 and was brought on board to help expand and market the company in Alberta, Houston and Europe, focusing on the offshore/onshore oil and gas market.
Educated in South Africa, Celeste Vanrensburg holds Business Management and Marketing Degrees from University of Aberdeen.
Harold Warner
President of Dynamic Shelters Inc of Calgary and Dynamic Air Shelters Ltd of Newfoundland. He is married to his life and business partner Vicki. They have four grown children.
Harold is a long time resident of Alberta. He takes particular pride in identifying that he tended his father's cattle on lands that are now covered by Calgary's Deerfoot trail. Apart from Calgary, he spent a good portion of his life in Grande Prairie.
His knowledge of fabrics and fabric construction came largely as a result of his work in and development of hot air balloons. He assembled the world's largest fleet of custom air balloons owning flying dinosaurs, cows, shopping carts and a replica of a flying saucer among many unusual airborne forms. Over twenty two years, he flew extensively in many parts of the world and establishing a most unusual business. In 1984 he and co pilot Phil Johnson established the world record for the furthest distance flown in a hot air balloon and maintained it until the record was broken by Sir Richard Branson of England in 1989.
In 1994 he began the development of his pneumatic shelters. In the year 2000 he sold off his balloons to concentrate exclusively on the development of the air inflated shelters. Dynamic has built iconic hospitality shelters for promotional sponsors, rapid response systems for military applications and first responders, portable temporary hospitals and have developed an inflatable blast resistant shelter which has gained acceptance for use in refinery and chemical plants throughout North America. Through an affiliated company, Mega Works Structures, Dynamic is building one of the largest temporary shelters in the world, a facility which promises to remove weather as an influence in major construction.
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