Board of Directors

Don Thurston (Chair)
President, Selkirk Portfolio Management Inc.

Mary Lynne Forestell, CA (Treasurer)
Senior Director IT Finance, Bell Canada

Tristan Allan (Elected Director)
Engineering Student, University of Alberta

Jacques Gérin, P.Eng
Former Chair, International Institute for Sustainable Development

Parker Mitchell
Co-Founder and co-CEO, EWB

Patrick Pichette
Chief Financial Officer, Google Inc.

Grégoire Poirier Richer (Elected Director)
Account Manager, General Electric

George Roter
Co-Founder and co-CEO, EWB

Brian Schofield
Retired Director, McKinsey & Co.

Jane Polak Scowcroft (Elected Director)
Engineer-In-Training, Wardrop Engineering Inc.

Shayne Smith, P.Eng
CEO, Wardrop Engineering

 

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Don Thurston, P.Eng, EWB Chair - President, Selkirk Portfolio Management Inc.

Don's professional experience is broad. He has held technical, managerial, and executive positions in a variety of businesses, ranging from consulting engineering to, at present, wealth management. In between he has worked in the forest products, chemicals, technology, manufacturing, and energy sectors. He has also served on the boards of publically traded oil and gas producers and continues in this role for privately held companies.

Don graduated with a B.Sc. in chemical engineering from the University of Alberta and with an MBA from Queen's University.

After several years as a partner of a major Calgary-based investment firm, he founded Selkirk Portfolio Management in 1996, where he continues to serve as president. He is also active in a number of not-for-profit organizations. These include: The Calgary Foundation; Momentum; Engineers Without Borders, and; Honens International Piano Competition.

He is a Fellow of Engineers Canada and an Honoured Alumunus of the University of Alberta.

Don is a a member of APEGGA and the Calgary chapter of the CFA Society.

Mary Lynne Forestell, CA, Treasurer - Senior Director, Finance Operations, Bell Canada

Mary Lynne is Senior Director, Finance Operations for Bell Canada, based in Toronto. She has held several positions including External Reporting, Planning and Analysis at both Bell Canada and Bell Mobility, and Controller at Bell Sympatico. Prior to joining Bell in 1995, Mary Lynne held various finance roles in the real estate industry focusing on commercial development, construction and property management.

Mary Lynne is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario and received her CA in 1990 while working at Price Waterhouse Coopers. She holds an honours degree in business administration from Sir Wilfrid Laurier University.

Tristan Allan - Engineering Student, University of Alberta.

Tristan is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in electrical nano-engineering and has been involved in EWB since his first year of studies at the University of Alberta. Previously, he has also worked as a Technical Advisor at Hicks Intellectual Property Law.

Tristan has played a variety of roles in the University of Alberta chapter of EWB including communications representative on the chapter executive. He is a recipient of the Canadian Millennium Excellence Award and was elected to the board of directors in January 2010.

Jacques Gérin, P.Eng - Former Chair, International Institute for Sustainable Development

Jacques Gérin, a Civil Engineer with a Master's Degree in Regional Planning, is the former chair of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

An environmental and sustainable development specialist, he has been a manager and consultant in the fields of natural resource management, economic development and the environment in both the public and private sectors, domestically and internationally.

Formerly with the Government of Canada, he was Vice President of the Canadian International Development Agency, Deputy Minister of Environment Canada and Deputy Minister of Northern Development. Subsequently, he became President of Hatch & Associés Inc.

Jacques is currently the Executive Secretary of an Independent Panel established by the World Bank to oversee the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline project.

Parker Mitchell - Co-Founder and Co-CEO, EWB

Parker Mitchell's work in international development began with a simple water purification system for developing communities designed during his Bachelor's degrees in Engineering and Arts at the University of Waterloo. This progressed to a Master's in Development Studies at Cambridge University in England and, using strategic planning experience gained while a Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company, the co-founding of Engineers Without Borders.

For his work with EWB, Parker was named one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 in 2005, has won awards from the Canadian Bureau for International Education and been featured by TIME Magazine as one of Canada's next generation of social leaders. He has also been awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship and the Alumni Gold Medal from the University of Waterloo. He co-founded Canada25, an organisation which seeks to engage young Canadians in public policy, and sits on the Board of the North York Community House.

Patrick Pichette - Chief Financial Officer, Google Inc.

Patrick Pichette is Chief Financial Officer at Google Inc. in Mountain View, California. Prior to joining Google, he was President of Operations at Bell Canada. Formerly a Partner at McKinsey & Company's Montreal office, Patrick was a lead member of the company's North American Telecom Practice, as well as its Global Pulp and Paper Practice.

Patrick earned a BA in Business Administration from Université du Québec à Montréal and an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University where he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He sits on a number of boards, including EWB and The Trudeau Foundation.

Grégoire Poirier Richer, Eng - Account Manager, General Electric

Grégoire has been involved with EWB since the last year of his Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 2004. He was one of the founding members of the University of Sherbrooke chapter, as well as its first President. Greg chose to get involved with EWB because of the organization’s strong commitment to identifying lasting solutions to some of today’s most complex global challenges, such as poverty.

After graduating, Grégoire accepted a position with General Electric's industrial water treatment division on their Commercial Leadership Program. It was also at this time that Greg helped found the Montreal City Network for EWB’s professional members. As he took on the role Fundraising Director for the Montreal 2008 EWB National Conference, he developped a strong interest in communicating EWB's goals and values, especially to the corporate community. For that reason, a lot of his involvement with EWB over the last years have been related to corporate fundraising and CSR.

Grégoire has been an elected member of the Board since January 2010. He also sits on the Development Committee and the Human Resources Committee.

George Roter - Co-Founder and Co-CEO, EWB

George co-founded Engineers Without Borders (EWB) as a movement of engineers driven to create meaningful and lasting opportunities for Africans by tackling the root causes of why poverty persists. George serves as co-CEO along Parker Mitchell.

EWB focuses on enabling bottom-up innovation in African organizations, which allows these institutions to prototype, pilot and scale impactful programs. EWB has sent over 500 staff and volunteers to sub-Saharan African to work on agriculture, rural infrastructure and water and sanitation programs. EWB’s 50,000 members and 3,00 active volunteers across the country work to promote the idea that lasting change in Africa will stem not from charity, but from helping foster opportunity.

Among other awards, George has been awarded the Young Leaders Award from the Public Policy Forum (2007), an Action Canada Fellowship (2004) on public policy, in addition to being named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 (2005).

George holds a Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Waterloo (1999) and a Bachelor of Applied Studies (Honorary) from Seneca College (2009).

Brian Schofield - Retired Director, McKinsey & Company

Brian Schofield is a member of the McKinsey & Company Advisory Council, having recently retired as a Senior Director. He spent the past seven years with McKinsey in South Africa, helping build their operations. Previously, he established McKinsey's Montreal office.

Brian's engineering roots run deep. He has a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of British Columbia and worked for Alcan prior to joining McKinsey.

Brian is part owner of a citrus farm in Mozambique, which under his leadership has become a successful exporter and model for involving and improving surrounding communities. He is also Chairman of the Advisory Board of African Capital Alliance, a pan-African private equity firm, and serves on the Board of TechnoServe, an international non-governmental organisation that uses technology and management to benefit impoverished rural communities.

Jane Polak Scowcroft - Engineer-In-Training, Wardrop Engineering Inc.

Jane has been involved with EWB since she first arrived at the University of Manitoba. Drawn in by the amazing commitment and depth of knowledge of the university chapter and the national office, she began volunteering with EWB in 2005 in Tanzania, while pursuing her computer engineering degree. In Tanzania Jane worked on developing the IT capacity of local organizations through the Family Alliance of Development and Cooperation.

In university, Jane played many executive roles in both EWB and in the engineering student society. For her work, she was recognized by the Women's Executive Network as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada in 2007. In 2008, she received the YWCA Young Woman of Distinction award and the Engineers Canada Gold Medal Student award. Currently, Jane is working at Wardrop Engineering Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Shayne Smith, P.Eng - CEO, Wardrop Engineering Inc.

Shayne Smith is the CEO of Wardrop Engineering Inc., a multi-disciplinary consulting and engineering firm with operations in Canada, the United States and overseas. Wardrop has been recognized eight times as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers and received a recent award for being one of Canada’s Best Employers for New Canadians. The company employs 1,200 people. Wardrop recently established a partnership with Tetra Tech Inc., which has 10,000 employees worldwide providing water, environment, and energy services.

Shayne earned his BASc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo (1988) and is a Professional Engineer. In addition to his role as a board member for EWB, Shayne is also Chair of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.