Keynote Presenter
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Abigail Cabunoc Mayes (@abbycabs) is the Working Open Practice Lead at the Mozilla Foundation. Abby mobilizes leaders in the internet health movement through mentorship and training on open practices and open source. Before this, she was Lead Developer of the Mozilla Science Lab, transforming science on the web.
Prior to joining Mozilla, Abby worked as a bioinformatics software developer at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and at Michigan State University where she applied open source and to research problems. With a background in open source and community organizing, she is fueling a culture of openness in research and innovation. Named in "100 awesome women in open source" by source{d}. Editor Emeritus, the Journal of Open Source Software. |
Crisis Simulation Leaders
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Carla Taylor currently advises on initiatives to strengthen local and national emergency response capacity globally within the Red Cross. She has worked in Africa, Americas and Asia as an Operations Coordinator supporting emergency response planning, leading teams to conduct operational reviews, and to help organizations be better prepared for future risks. She has a Masters in Disaster and Emergency Management, a BAH in International Development with a focus on the environment, and a minor in rural development, with a specialization in adult learning.
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Liam Devine is an Emergency Management Coordinator with the Red Cross overseeing a team of 100+ disaster responders in the BC Interior. He supports regional response work for small scale disasters and preparedness initiatives for community partners and local authorities. He has deployed for the Red Cross as both Operations Manager and Provincial Liaison Officer for natural disasters in British Columbia and Alberta. Liam holds a Masters in Conflict Studies from the University of Ottawa and a Bachelors in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Victoria.
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Session Presenters
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Allison Markin (@allisonmmarkin) has more than twenty-five years of experience in communications, having worked in the worlds of marketing, media relations, crisis communications, and writing. She is an early adopter of social media and brings her years of skills in traditional media to the frontier of digital engagement marketing through her consultancy, All She Wrote. She is a strategic thinker and storyteller, a freelance wine/food/travel writer, loves to tell the story of how All She Wrote began with a single tweet: “will work for wine”, and led the campaign to bring the 2013 Wine Bloggers Conference to Penticton, resulting in a whopping 31 million social media impressions.
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Chris Forster has over 26 years in the fire service, serving in Vancouver, Calgary and in 2005 he moved back to Penticton to join the ranks of the Penticton Fire Department. Chris is currently the Deputy Fire Chief with the Fire Department and fills the role of Emergency Planning Coordinator (EPC) for the City of Penticton. As EPC he coordinates the training of the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) staff and ensure the EOC is ready to activate at a moment’s notice. A dedicated EOC space was added to the Fire Hall several years ago. This was very valuable during the 2018 flooding, when the EOC was activated and maintained it during the entire period of the flooding event.
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Larry Watkinson is the Fire Chief for the City of Penticton, located in the south central region of the province known as the Okanagan Valley. Just a 4-hr drive from Vancouver, the region enjoys a semi-arid climate providing more than 2,000 hours of sunshine and a landscape surrounded by mountains. With a population of approximately 34,000, Penticton is just one of two cities in the world that sits between two lakes.
Larry has held a Chief Officer rank in the fire service for over 18 years. Currently a Board member and Director for the Fire Chiefs’ Association of BC, Career Chief Sector, Larry is also a member of the Provincial Command Staff for Emergency Management BC. As a Fire Service Leader, he has earned professional designations of Professional Manager (P.Mgr), and Chartered Manager (C.Mgr) from the Canadian Institute of Management, and Executive Chief Fire Officer (ECFO) designation from the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. Larry, along with his Disaster dog Sam, is a volunteer with Burnaby’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team and has deployed to events both domestically and internationally for search and rescue efforts. A very active member of the community, you will find Larry volunteering at numerous events throughout the year. He enjoys spending time with wife Christina and attending lacrosse tournaments with eldest son, Spencer, and dirt biking with his youngest son, Kodie, and APEX Mt is home come winter. |
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Garland Sharratt was Security Architect and GRC Specialist at Hootsuite in Vancouver until he (very happily) moved in 2018 to Kelowna, where he is now an information security consultant and contractor. Garland's career has spanned multiple business and technical roles in the fields of telecommunications, voice and video over ATM and IP, SaaS-based services, software, and information security. He has lived and worked in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. and holds a BASc in Electrical Engineering and an MBA.
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Greg Perkins is a former member of the London City Police Department and since 1995 has been the principal owner of Liahona Security Consortium Inc. Liahona Security is a licensed and insured security consulting firm specializing in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design as well as Threat and Risk Assessment, Security Risk Assessment, Security System Design, A&E Specification and Project Management.
Greg has been consulting and lecturing on CPTED for over 24 years in Canada and the United States. For the past 19 years Liahona Security has been the sole source provider of CPTED training to “E” Division RCMP and has provided Level 1 Basic and Level 2 Advanced CPTED Certificate Courses in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and California (USA). Liahona’s CPTED Certificate Courses are recognized by the PIBC, BCSLA, AIBC and ASIS as Continuing Education Credit learning for their members. Mr. Perkins is one of the foremost experts on CPTED in Canada. Liahona Security has consulted for Federal, Provincial and Municipal agencies, private sector companies and various business / downtown improvement associations. |
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Nicole Clark, Training Manager and Business Advisor at Community Futures Okanagan Similkameen and founder of KISStrategies for Business Inc., is a small business trainer and consultant whose passion is working with entrepreneurs to launch, expand and run a successful small business.
Nicole has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the past 30+ years. In the past 5 years, she has guided over 300 entrepreneurs in the small communities of British Columbia’s South Okanagan through a successful launch of their business plan. It thrills her to participate in the ‘aha’ moments as her clients embark on their entrepreneurial journey. Over 90% of her clients are still in business. Her successful results with her clients led to nominations in four different categories for the Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards in 2016, 2017 and 2018. In October 2019 she was nominated for a Small Business BC Award in the Best Community Impact category. Nicole lives in Penticton, BC with her husband Don. Transplants from the Vancouver area, they thoroughly enjoy the beautiful Okanagan Valley and its fantastic climate. Nicole is President of the Penticton & Wine Country Chamber of Commerce, Past President of Penticton Women in Business, an inaugural member of South Okanagan 100 Women Who Care, and an honorary member of JCI Penticton. |
