Electric Vehicle & Infrastructure | List of Speakers

CARA CLAIRMAN is President and CEO of Plug’nDrive Ontario, a nonprofit that is accelerating the deployment of EVs to maximize their environmental and economic benefits. Before taking on this role, Cara was Vice President - Sustainable Development at Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG). Her responsibilities included the oversight of environmental performance across the business as well as the development and implementation of OPG’s sustainable development policies and programs. Prior to joining OPG, Cara spent five years practicing environmental law with the Torys law firm. She holds a Bachelor of Laws from Osgoode Hall and a Masters in Environmental Studies from York University, as well as an Honours Bachelor of Science degree from Queen’s University. Cara is currently driving a 100% electric Nissan Leaf as her personal car and the Mitsubishi i-Miev for business.

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Charlotte leads the green transportation and fleet programs for the Fraser Basin Council, a unique organization dedicated to advancing sustainability. She works with fleet managers across the country, helping them meet green standards and best practices through E3 Fleet, a first-of-its-kind fleet rating program, based in Vancouver, BC. For the past three years, Charlotte has been highly involved in electric vehicle initiatives in British Columbia to help catalyze EV uptake, through the provincially-led Plug In BC working group. In 2011 she chaired the Plug In BC electric vehicle "Fleet Buyers Group", helping to place first-release electric vehicles in BC fleets. She currently administers the Community Charging Infrastructure Fund, a $2.7 million provincial incentive to support a network of 570 public charging stations across the province.

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Dale Friesen is the Division Manager for the Industrial & Commercial Solutions Division of the Customer Care & Marketing Business Unit at Manitoba Hydro. A Mechanical Engineering graduate from the University of Manitoba, Dale worked as a plant engineer in the manufacturing sector prior to joining Manitoba Hydro in the fall of 1991. His current responsibilities include oversight for the Key and Major Account Management function for Manitoba Hydro’s largest industrial and commercial customers, along with provision of customer-focused energy utilization services through the Division’s Customer Engineering Services Department. The scope of work within these areas includes the development and implementation of industrial conservation programs, provision of corporate-wide energy utilization expertise, customer-focused power quality and reliability specification, monitoring and mitigation, contractual agreements for supply of power and operation of utility interconnections with industrial and commercial customers, along with many other facets of the Corporation’s relationship with its customers, regulators, and various levels of government, particularly in the field of energy efficiency and industrial rates.

Dale has previously worked to support the Corporation’s industrial Power-Smart initiatives, using his industrial expertise to assist industrial and commercial customers in implementing energy efficient technologies to the benefit of both the Corporation and its customers. Dale is currently playing a lead role in Manitoba Hydro’s involvement with the development of an all-electric transit bus, working closely with New Flyer Industries, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Red River College and the Province of Manitoba to bring this exciting project to fruition.

Dale presently sits on the National Steering Committee for Performance, Energy Efficiency and Renewables at the Canadian Standards Association, where he serves as the chairperson for the Technical Committee responsible for the development of energy performance standards for industrial equipment. This work has led Dale to develop relationships with standards organizations from across the globe, including the IEEE and IEC, as well as regulatory authorities at the international, national and provincial level.

In his personal space, Dale and his wife, Sandra, are the proud parents of three children, ranging in age from 17 to 22. Dale is an avid soccer fan and passionate Formula One enthusiast. He is an active volunteer within the community, having coached both hockey and soccer for the past 18 years. He is presently serving as the Vice-President for the Winnipeg South-End United Soccer Club, an organization dedicated to the development of soccer programs for youth at all levels.

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Jim Burpee was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA) in February 2012. As President of CEA, Mr. Burpee acts as spokesperson on issues of national concern to the electric utility industry.

Jim Burpee has a long history with the electricity industry both in Canada and globally. He worked for Ontario Hydro and its successor company, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) for over 31 years. He worked in a senior executive capacity for over half that time in a number of roles, including having responsibility for all of OPG's non-nuclear generation fleet, Energy Markets, and Corporate Development. He also has three years of senior executive experience in Ontario Hydro/OPG's nuclear generation business at both Bruce and Pickering Generating Stations. His prior industry experience also includes having served on the Board of the Canadian Electricity Association as a Director from 1993 to 2008, including one year as Chairman.

Most recently, Jim served as Chief Executive Officer at Bridge Renewable Energy Technologies Inc., a company which marketed Biomass Gasification Electricity Systems primarily in the developing world.

Jim graduated from the University of Toronto with a BASc in Mechanical Engineering. He is a member of Professional Engineers Ontario and the Institute for Corporate Directors.

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Karen M. Schkolnick joined the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in August 2006 as an Air Quality Program Manager. She currently manages incentive programs that distribute approximately $30 million annually in local, state and federal funds to projects that reduce emissions from on-road mobile sources. As part of her portfolio, she oversees the BAAQMD's Plug-In Electric Vehicle (PEV) Program and currently serves as a co-chair for the California PEV Collaborative, Multi-Unit Dwelling working group. Prior to working at the BAAQMD, she was employed by the Monterey County Health Department, Environmental Health Division and the City & County of San Francisco. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies with a Minor in Political Science from Oberlin College and a Certification as a Registered Environmental Health Specialist with the State of California's Department of Health Services.

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Leonardo Ambrosi is the Head of Operation & Technology Innovation of Siemens Italy in the Infrastructure and Cities Sector. His focus responsibility is in the business segment of Energy Automation Applications within the Smart Grid division. His core responsibilities lie in the development of new solutions in the smart grid area to satisfy the upcoming needs for the new management paradigms of Power Grids, Electro-Mobility, Demand Response, Distributed Energy Management, Micro Grids and Quality of Service for distribution grids.

Leonardo holds a Masters Engineering degree in Automation and has spent much of his career in the electricity sector. He as complemented this with recent work in the Financial Sector providing him with experience in modern IT, customer data management, settlement processes, and secure communications between international institutions. These experiences are core contributions in Leonardo's current engagements deploying cutting edge applications such as EV platforms in grid modernization activities.

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Lorne Hedges currently manages Schneider Electric Canada’s Final Distribution portfolio. He focuses on developing business strategies and solutions in areas such as electric vehicle charging, residential energy management, and lighting controls to support smart building, smart grid and sustainability.

Over the past 15 years, Mr. Hedges has been involved in sales, marketing and business development aspects of Schneider Electric’s energy management solutions. He advocates taking a holistic approach to energy management.

Residing in Toronto, Canada, Mr. Hedges holds a diploma of Electro-Mechanical Technology from Fleming College and a certificate of marketing from the York University.

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Malcolm Shield completed his Masters of Engineering (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering in 2003 at Imperial College, London, England. Prior to this, and throughout his schooling, he worked for the UK Ministry of Defence on projects related to the three major services, ranging from nuclear power and advanced composites to strategic business and emergency planning. He moved to Canada in 2004 and in 2011 completed his PhD in natural gas engine design. Working in collaboration with Westport Innovations Malcolm investigated a novel approach to increased efficiency and pollutant reduction for mobile and stationary natural gas engines. Malcolm has worked for the City of Vancouver on electric vehicle planning and infrastructure; air quality planning; and carbon accounting since 2010, and is currently the Climate Policy Engineer leading development of EV and carbon management policy for City operations and the wider community.

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Marianne is a Human Geographer from the University of Oslo. She has also done studies in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

She has been working for the Agency for Urban Environment in the City of Oslo for the past four years, where she successfully reached the City's goal of establishing 400 public on-street charging points during 2008-2011. For 2013 a new goal has been set by the politicians for 200 more charging points during 2013 alone.

Additionally, Marianne is a Project Partner from Oslo in the URBACT "Electric Vehicles in Urban Europe" project.

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Martin Rovers is a Senior Advisor in Smart Grid for PowerStream Inc., the second largest municipally-owned electricity distribution company in Ontario. At Power Stream, Martin works with cross-departmental teams in identifying and developing new smart grid opportunities.

Before joining PowerStream, Martin was with Better Place, an electric vehicle infrastructure and services company, where he led business development programs. Prior to Better Place, Martin was a project leader at the Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm. Martin earned his M.Sc. in Physics at McMaster University and his MBA at the University of Toronto.

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Matt is CEO and co-founder of CrossChasm, the company that created FleetCarma and MyCarma. He has been involved in the design of over 15 hybrid and electric vehicles, ranging from cars to lunar rovers and now works actively with fleets and individuals looking to pick the best green vehicle for them. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, is a Julie Payette-NSERC award recipient, was named to Waterloo Region’s Top 40 under 40, and sits on the board of Electric Mobility Canada. He’s also a very bad rock climber.

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Ray has held numerous leadership positions in the public and private sectors, and as a volunteer in his community and profession. Since 1986, he has specialized in "The Business of Science™", and in June 2004, was appointed Director, (AR&C) at Red River College where he has led the development and growth of the College's applied research enterprise (including the demonstration, evaluation and cold weather performance of ground vehicles utilizing renewable fuels and hybrid technologies). Recently, Ray's leadership was recognized by the Association of Canadian Community College's Leadership Excellence Gold Award (http://redblog.typepad.com/blog/2011/06/rrc-director-wins-national-award.html).

Prior to joining the College, Ray served as the Director of the University of Manitoba's Industry Liaison Office, as well as the Vice-President/Director of Operations for the University's Smart Park Development Corporation. As President of NEXUS Manitoba – a management consulting firm specializing in technology-driven economic development – he has focused upon innovation, technology transfer and commercialization, incubators and research parks, as well as Canada's Scientific Research and Experimental Development program. Ray's assignments have concerned the development of research parks, university-based incubators and spinoff companies, a college Applied Research Office, an energy research cluster, early-stage intellectual property management and commercialization of paediatric research, business and partnership development for a pre-competitive research consortium, strategic planning for start-up technology firms, venture capitalists and academic institutions. In 2007, Ray completed a 17-month half-time secondment as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council's (NSERC's) Visiting Executive/Manager of NSERC-Prairies, and led the establishment of the regional office in Winnipeg.

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Ricardo Borba is a Software Engineer at IBM Canada where he is focused on developing performance and scalability features for IBM Business Analytics products. He is also the owner of the first Nissan LEAF delivered to a consumer in Canada, and an active member of the Electric Vehicle Council of Ottawa.

Ricardo holds an MSc degree in Electrical Engineering from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil. Before joining IBM in 2008, he spent over 20 years developing software and solutions for telecommunications and Voice over IP systems at Philips, Telebras, Mitel, Nokia, Marconi and Natural Convergence.

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Sean has a BA in Politics and MSc in Transport Planning.

Currently he is the Senior Stakeholder and Partnerships Manager in the Congestion Charging and Traffic Enforcement Directorate at Transport for London.

He joined Transport for London in 2001 and was involved in the implementation and operation of the Congestion Charging Scheme.

He has been part of Transport for London's Electric Vehicle Delivery Team since 2010 and has been responsible for forming pubic-private partnerships to deliver electric vehicle charging infrastructure in Greater London. London currently has the biggest network of charge points in the UK and Europe with more than 880 publically accessible charge points throughout Greater London.

His team also has responsibility for the stakeholder management of London's Low Emission Zone- one of the largest such zones in the world.

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Stephen Johnson is currently a Product Line Manager for Itron, focusing on consumer energy management applications in smart grid systems, including demand response, dynamic pricing, PEVs, and customer engagement. Stephen currently serves as the ZigBee Alliance Marketing Chair for Smart Energy. Stephen has been with Itron since 2002, and currently resides in Spokane, WA. Throughout his tenure at Itron, Stephen has focused on advanced electricity metering applications and data collection systems. Prior to joining Itron, Stephen spent seven years working in precision agriculture, designing and marketing solutions that leverage site-specific data to provide operational efficiency and increased quality to agriculture cooperatives and crop consultants. Stephen obtained a B.S. and M.S. from Oklahoma State University.

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Todd Hall is Senior Manager - Sustainable Development at Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG). His current responsibilities include the oversight of environmental management across the business as well as the development and implementation of OPG’s sustainable development initiatives including the electric vehicle program and climate change. Todd has 30 years of work experience in the Electrical Utility Sector, a Bachelor of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo, certification by Canadian Environmental Certification Approvals Board as an Environmental Professional in the areas of Certified Environmental Auditor and Environmental Management Systems Lead Auditor, and auditing and consulting experience nationally and internationally.

He currently serves as the President of the Auditing Association of Canada (AAC). Prior directorships have included the Board of the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance (CEEA), where he chaired their Governance Committee. He is active as OPG’s representative on the Canadian Electricity Association’s Sustainable Electricity Steering Committee, he also chairs the CEA’s energy efficiency and climate change adaptation working groups. He represents the electrical generation sector with the Durham Strategic Energy Alliance, is an industry representative with the Durham Region Roundtable on climate change, and works with Weather Wise Toronto on issues of extreme weather resiliency.

In addition, Todd actively promotes sustainable management through delivering presentations at conferences and universities, and organizing and participating in professional events such as ISO Colloquiums.

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