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The AIPC Board of Directors Executive Committee
Ace Vegetation Control Services Ltd - Vice President, Sales
Paul Watson - Vice Chairperson
- Obtained a B.Sc. in Environmental Science with a
minor in Mathematics from University of Manitoba in 1994.
Alberta Agriculture Food and Rural Development Maureen graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (B.Sc. Ag.). Her Specialization was in Land Resource Science. She has been working for Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) as the Agricultural Service Board Specialist since 2007. Her role is to provide technical support to Agricultural Service Boards throughout the province on issues such as weed control, legislation, etc. She also provides extension services to ASBs, e.g. assisting ASB’s by teaching weed identification at Weed Inspector Workshops. Prior to coming to ARD, Maureen worked as a field researcher conducting efficacy trials on fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. She represents
Alberta Agriculture on the cross-ministry team for the Invasive Alien Species
Working Group (IASWG).
Alberta Invasive Plants Council aipc.programdirector@gmail.com Don graduated from the U of S College of Agriculture with a degree in Horticulture and has a Certificate in Horticulture from SIAST. He is completing a Distance Education Certificate in Sustainable Landscapes from the University of Guelph. He spent most of his working career being self-employed as a Landscape Designer/Consultant. He worked as a Park Technician with the City of Saskatoon, Parks Dept. for seven years which included being in charge of the Urban Natural Areas Program for the last three years of his employment. On moving to Calgary in 2006 he worked for two Landscape companies. In 2008 he was employed as the South Region Weed Coordinator for the South Region Association of Alberta Agricultural Fieldmen. As the South Region Weed Coordinator he learned much about invasive plants in southern Alberta and the types of programs in place to deal with the invasives threat. As well as working with the various Ag. Fieldmen, he made contact with urban municipalities and First Nations, with industry reps., various NGO's and a multitude of volunteers. Don is a licensed Commercial Pesticide Applicator (Landscape) in Alberta. He is registered with the Alberta Institute of Agrologists as an Agrologist in Training, working towards being designated as a Professional Agrologist (PAg).
Virginia Battiste - Administrative Coordinator Alberta Invasive Plants Council Virginia comes from a background that has included community activism and involvement with various non-profit sectors where she has assisted with grant writing, media relations and political lobbying. She served as a Village Councilor in her home community in Saskatchewan and was appointed to the local Hospital Board as a community representative. She has been a freelance writer for various newspapers and periodicals for more than 25 years. After living in Okotoks for 6 months, she was appointed to the Board of Sheep River Health Trust as Secretary, a position that began as a volunteer role. She admits her interest in invasive plants was pretty minimal until Don began his work with the South Region AAAF and says she was really introduced to the scope of the issue at the Weeds Across Borders Conference in Banff in 2008. She heard many of the talks, interviewed speakers, and wrote an article that appeared in the AIPC's newsletter. Later, she joined Don in attending the NAWMA Conference in Billings, MT, as well as the Canadian Weed Science Society Conference in Banff. From the CWSS Conference, she wrote an article on the new biofuel plants as potential invasives that appeared in the Western Producer. She also assisted Don in the production of the 2009 Alberta Invasive Plants Calendar by writing most of the text for the calendar. While weeds is not an issue Virginia would have imagined working on, coming from a background that carries with it a concern to protect and preserve a rural way of life, it fits quite nicely into an already established line of interest for her. Virginia grew up in southern Saskatchewan. She has a B.A. in Psychology from the U of S, and a Masters degree in Pastoral Counseling. She has divided her working career between family counseling, including working with families of children at risk, and freelance journalism.Government of Alberta Alberta Sustainable Resource Development
Andrea, who is originally from Newfoundland, recently joined the Forest Health section of Sustainable Resource Development in Edmonton as a Forest Health Officer. She is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick where she majored in Forestry and Environmental Management with a minor in Parks and Wilderness. She has also completed a 2-year course in Forest Resources Technology at the College of the North Atlantic in Newfoundland. Her main duties with Forest Health will be managing the Invasive Species program for the province of Alberta. Andrea has been involved in a range of field and laboratory work while working for the Canadian Forest Service, the Newfoundland & Labrador Department of Natural Resources, Forest Protection Ltd, and the University of New Brunswick. She has worked with a variety of insects including the yellowheaded spruce sawfly (Pikonema alaskensis), the black-headed budworm (Acleris variana), and the brown spruce longhorn beetle (Tetropium fuscum). She has also worked with the Canadian Forest Service’s insect collection in New Brunswick so has experience in curating and preserving insects. Andrea arrived back to Canada in June, 2009, after spending 2.5 years working for a Crown Research Institute called Scion (formerly known as New Zealand Forest Research Institute) in Rotorua, NZ. Employed as a senior Technical Officer in entomology, as part of the Forest Biosecurity and Protection team, her main duties involved rearing insects for various biological control programs in a quarantine facility to control invasive alien species that have been introduced to New Zealand. Others duties included supporting staff with both laboratory and field experiments.
Brad Webb - Rangeland Management Branch brad.webb@gov.ab.ca - Raised on a grain farm in Wynyard, Saskatchewan. Other Government Shane Mascarin - CFB/ASU Wainwright
Mr. Shane Mascarin has been working in the Environment
Section at Base Wainwright with the Department of National Defence since 2001.
His work now focuses mainly on training area issues as the Range Biologist.
Dwight became the Agricultural Fieldman with the MD of Bighorn in 2002. His education and work experience has been in the resource management field. Over the years he has worked with three Provincial Departments: Transportation, Alberta Agriculture as a Range Technologist, and finally as a Public Lands Officer with SRD. He grew up on a family farm south of High River, Alberta, and has ranched for more than 25 years in the Water Valley area. He has a strong background in environmental education having been involved as a youth leader with the Junior Forest Warden program for over 15 years. That included serving on the provincial executive for more than 10 years, most of the time as president. He is still actively teaching outdoor skills to youth and adults, alike, and also does some environmental consulting through his company Grassland Consulting. In his spare time Dwight likes to relax on his small farm in the foothills west of Water Valley, where he grows native plants and enjoys exploring the foothills and mountains. Industry Industrial Vegetation Management Association of Alberta
Originally from Ontario, Ron completed his B.Sc. degree in Agriculture from the University of Guelph (Crop Science major) in 1977, and moved West to start his career with Dupont Agrichemicals. He spent 5 years with Dupont promoting their line-up of industrial/forestry herbicides across Western Canada. In 1982, Ron was lured away from Dupont to start an Alberta branch for Midland Vegetation Control, a custom application firm serving customers in the railway, utility, roadside, and oilfield markets. After 17 years with Midland, it was time again for another change when TrueNorth Specialty Products, an arm of Midland, was purchased by what was then known as Van Waters & Rogers. Although now a Univar company, Ron continues to work for TrueNorth providing herbicide products and application equipment to the industrial, commercial and forestry vegetation management markets across the Prairie provinces of Western Canada. Ron is a founding member of the Industrial Vegetation Management Association of Alberta (the IVMAA) and has served 2 terms as president of that organization. Ron upholds and supports the IVMAA's mission to provide vegetation management industries, related agencies and the public with communication and educational opportunities in the area of industrial vegetation management. Ron currently resides in Chestermere, a small town on the edge of Calgary, with his wife, Sherri, of 29 years. They have three grown sons, Geoff (24), Cam (22) and Graham (18) who also reside in Chestermere. Landscape Alberta Nursery Trades Association
Brendan was born and received his schooling in the Isle of Man. He obtained his B.Sc. in Agriculture from King’s College, University of Durham (now University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne), England and a Master of Science in Horticulture from the University of Alberta. He started his career in horticulture at the Alberta Horticultural Research Center in Brooks, Alberta as the Environmental Horticulturist in 1971, where he conducted research and extension on trees, shrubs and flowers. In 1987 he transferred to the Alberta Tree Nursery and Horticulture Centre, Edmonton where he managed the Shelterbelt Program until it was privatized in 1997, when he retired. Brendan has given many talks on trees and shrubs, shelterbelts, annual and perennial flowers, landscaping and pruning throughout Alberta, and judged horticultural shows, home garden competitions and farmsteads. He has been a judge for the All-America Selections Annual Flower Trial since 1972; has been a member of the International Society of Arboriculture for over 30 years was awarded a life membership in the Landscape Alberta Nursery Trades Association (LANTA) and has been a judge for >Communities in Bloom= since 1997. He was a charter member of the Friends of the Devonian Botanic Garden of the University of Alberta and upon his retirement joined the Board of Trustees, and helps the Education Department of the Garden with lectures and tours of the Garden and the U. of A. campus. Present activities: = Treasurer of The Friends of the U. of A. Devonian Botanic Garden = Secretary of the Alberta Nursery Growers Group of LANTA. = Secretary of the Society to Prevent Dutch Elm Disease, Alberta = Member of the Alberta Invasive Plants Council (LANTA representative) NGO/Individuals/Academia
Jim Posey jpo@persona.ca Jim Posey is an amateur botanist and naturalist whose employment career has been as a construction specification writer. He developed a strong interest in vascular plants in the early ‘70s and taught himself to identify plants using floral manuals and a field microscope. He joined the Calgary Field Naturalists Society in the mid-seventies at the suggestion of C.D. Bird, and was made an Honorary Member of the Calgary Field Naturalists' Society in 1998, having served as Director, Vice President, and President of the society and, from 1980 to 1995, as botany study group leader, leading weekly field trips for people interested in learning the local flora and improving their plant ID skills. He has been a member of the Alberta Native Plant Council Education & Information Committee from the late ‘80s to the present. Jim became particularly interested in invasive species in the early ‘90s, a result of a polite but firm letter from the MD of Willow Creek, offering what turned out to be bad advice on control of Common Burdock. He prepared a display of invasive species of Alberta for ANPC as a tabletop display at the 1999 NAWMA Conference. This led to “A Rogue’s Gallery of Invasive Non-Native Plants”, posted on the ANPC website (http://www.anpc.ab.ca/assets/rogues.pdf) in 2000. He is currently working on a revision to the Rogue’s Gallery in the form of a Wiki, which he hopes can soon be released into the wild. Jim was responsible for organizing the technical program, on environmental issues in construction, of Construction Specifications Canada’s 1992 national conference “e92”.
Alec McClay - McClay Ecoscience, Sherwood Park biocontrol@mcclay-ecoscience.com
Alec attended secondary school in
Northern Ireland, received a B.A. in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University,
England, in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Zoology, also from Cambridge, in 1978.
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Ian
MacDonald - Chairperson
Maureen Vadnais - Secretary Treasurer
Don Battiste -
Program Director
Andrea
Sharpe - Forest Health
Katie Roxburgh
-
Dwight
Tannas -
Ron Standish
Brendan Casement
