Andrew Thalheimer has 22 years of experience working in environmental consulting, focusing in phased environmental site assessments, risk assessments, remedial design, remediation and construction management. Currently, he is an Associate and project manager at Dillon Consulting. Prior to join Dillon, Mr. Thalheimer worked in the mid-Atlantic region of the US with a number of environmental consulting firms where he worked on large-scale CERCLA (Superfund) and RCRA remedial projects as well as numerous projects under voluntary state remediation programs.

Mr. Thalheimer is a licensed/certified professional engineer in Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania and LEED Accredited Professional. He earned a Bachelor's of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Bucknell University in 1988 and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Delaware in 1997. During the course of his professional career, he has taken numerous continuing education courses including courses on professional practice, leadership, and various remedial technologies. In addition, he has co-authored two professional papers.

As president, Andrew serves to ensure the significant wealth of multi-faceted director resources are coordinated and applied at highest potential to achieve and maintain ESANS position as Nova Scotia's premiere resource for the environmental sector.

Russell Dmytriw graduated with a BSc. in geology from the University of Manitoba in 1984 and worked as exploration geologist until the early 1990s. He obtained a Masters degree in soil and water chemistry from McGill University in 1994. Russell worked for a local environmental firm in Montreal until starting his own company with two colleagues in 1998.

This company, called Strate Environment was acquired by Gartner Lee Limited in 2003, and Russell managed their Montreal office from 2006 to 2008. Upon the merger of Gartner Lee, EarthTech, UMA and TSH into AECOM 2008, Russell was transferred to Halifax where he currently manages the company's Halifax office.

As a newcomer to the Maritimes, Russell is keen to contribute to and learn from ESANS' business and social activities. He is looking forward to working with ESANS in your mandate to encourage and support development of the environmental industry in Nova Scotia.

Marc Dunning, has been involved in Nova Scotia's environmental services industry since 1997. He spent over 7 years working for a national environmental consulting firm where his work focused on the assessment and clean-up of contaminated sites and hazardous materials.

He is currently an associate with the Halifax law firm of Wickwire Holm.His practice is litigation focused, with particular emphasis on environmental, construction, professional liability, occupational health & safety and labour & employment law.

Actively involved in the local environmental community, Marc lecturers in the Business & Environmental Law course at Dalhousie Law School and co-authors articles for the Environmental Policy & Law (EPAL) journal.

Nancy MacDonald has considerable professional experience in technology transfer and industry liaison, transferring the results of academic research into the business world for the benefit of society and economic development. Experience includes project management, accounting and financial reporting, relationship management, workshop and focus group development and facilitation, market research and validation, and specific in-depth knowledge of intellectual property ownership, management and contractual issues for academic/industry research project collaborations to create new products and processes.

As a Director of ESANS, Nancy will contribute with activities that promote students and young people in the pursuit of careers and opportunities in this sector; and increasing exposure of member companies to opportunities for research and development to create and refine products/processes, and subsequently investment attraction and job creation, through interaction with academia, government and federal research funding agencies.

Nancy possesses a diverse network of contacts including:

• ACOA (both locally and in Ottawa),
• Innovacorp
• NRC-IRAP
• DFAIT (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade)
• Nova Scotia Department of Economic and Rural Development
• Springboard (Atlantic Canada network of university and college technology transfer and industry liaison professionals)
• ACCT (Alliance for the Commercialization of Canadian Technologies)
• Many Nova Scotia engineering firms and manufacturing businesses
• NSCC Deans, Academic Chairs, Faculty and students
• NSERC Atlantic and Ottawa offices
• Many colleagues at universities and colleges regionally and across Canada
• Industry associations and economic development agencies

Nancy enjoys working between the world of business and academia to increase economic development through the commercialization of research results.

As a professional engineer registered in several provinces, Adam Cooney stays informed of trends and developments in the environmental industry both locally and throughout Canada. Pertaining to Brownfield Development, he has conducted investigations and analysis of chemical compositions to support litigation by evaluating causes of contamination, and has generated site-specific cleanup criteria for complex large-scale sites to ensure human health safety and achieve regulatory compliance.  Mr. Cooney is actively involved with the renewable energy and sustainable building industries within Nova Scotia.

John Wanczycki has lived and worked in Halifax since 1998. Over the course of a 25 year career, he has worked across Canada, the U.S. and in 12 other countries, as an environmental executive, consultant and entrepreneur. Since moving to Halifax, he has been engaged primarily in planning and directing multi-year international capacity-building projects in environmental management, capacity-building and environmental technology performance verification. He has also been acting as a consultant to CIDA, the World Bank and the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation in the environmental assessment of projects involving the development of infrastructure, clean technology transfer and the transfer of expertise developed in Nova Scotia in the environmental management of industrial parks. He also retains an association with Canada's Centers for Environment Technology Advancement, notably OCETA.

From 1998-2002, he worked as V.P. for Vaughan International Consultants of Halifax, where he managed the Confederation Indian Industry-CIDA Environmental Management Project and also secured business in Atlantic Canada. In the early nineties, Mr. Wanczycki was based in Washington D.C., where he worked as a consultant to U.S. Government and private interests in public-private partnerships for environmental infrastructure, risk analysis and the design of environmental capacity-building projects in Asia. He also represented Canada's Wastewater Technology Centre in Washington D.C. In the mid-to-late nineties, he served as Vice President with Philip Utilities Management Corporation and founded a design-build company in Poland which installs industrial wastewater treatment systems in privatized industrial operations. For Industry Canada, CIDA and others he has carried out policy studies related to green industry, the management of publicly-funded R&D, environmental regulations, and marketing Canadian environmental technology and know-how in emerging markets. For funding agencies like the World Bank and CIDA, he has led training programs in negotiating strategic alliances and in various facets of environmental management.

Mr. Wanczycki is fluent in English and French. He is a past graduate of Yale University's Corporate Environmental Leadership Seminar. He is currently a member of ESANS and Climate Canada Atlantic.

Al Ramsay is General Manager of AGAT Laboratories Ltd. located in the Burnside Industrial Park, Dartmouth. AGAT's Environmental Division works with Environmental Consultants, Industry and Governments to deliver a wide variety of environmental related analyses in support of remediation, environmental monitoring and drinking water projects and is accredited by CALA (formerly known as CAEAL) to ISO 17025.

Prior to joining AGAT to expand their environmental operations into Atlantic Canada in 2006, he was a Project Manager with an advertising agency focusing on the consumer packaged goods and retail sectors to deliver non-traditional marketing programs in Northeastern US markets and later as Field Operations Rep for an international brand during their expansion into Atlantic Canada.

Al holds Bachelor of Science and Business Administration degrees from St. Francis Xavier University and is also an NFPA certified Firefighter and Medical First Responder with HRM Fire, Station 50 Hammonds Plains.

Andrew Kendall has worked at various off and on-shore oil and gas drilling exploration sites throughout the world as a well-site geologist. Other placements have been with the Province of Nova Scotia Departments of Mines and Energy, Environment, and the Petroleum Directorate (now Department of Energy). Much of his time with NS Environment was spent as the Environmental Assessment Administrator where he was responsible for coordinating the environmental assessments of numerous large scale industrial developments. A move back to the oil and gas industry followed with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers where Andrew worked as a policy analyst for offshore environmental and safety regulatory issues facing the developing oil and gas industry.

Andrew has been in his current position heading up the Industry Liaison Office for St. Francis Xavier University since 2004, thus completing a career circle with experience in large industry, government, small business and now, academia. Here he has wide-ranging responsibilities focused on applied research - research that has a goal of seeking innovative, new technological solutions to industry problems. These responsibilities include managing intellectual property protection of research results that have commercial applications, seeking funding opportunities for applied, industry sponsored research, and managing the commercialization chain that includes collaborative research with industry, licensing university inventions, and encouraging more applied university research with local Nova Scotia industries and businesses.

Meinhard Pfanner is President and CEO of IMI Investment Management Inc., a Land-Project-Development/Management Company. IMI has interests in a Photo-Voltaic-Solar Park (10MW) investment with a German Investor Group into Canada.

IMI is investing in a Net Zero Plus House Project called SolSpa House (awarded 2007 Solar Decathlon) and will be built in 2010. IMI has additional interests in renewable energy and integration with sustainable building.

Meinhard is founder, CEO, and Patron of ACI - Art Connection International. International Service Company, which consults, supports and connects artists, museums, galleries, companies and collectors. In 1999 Meinhard sold his companies owned in Germany and Luxembourg and retired at the Eastern Shore in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Meinhard has more than 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur in the Marketing-Management Sector. His main area was the field of Marketing Communication Consulting, Training, Recruiting/Placement, Project-/ Interims-Management and Start-up Event Organizer and Promoter.

Carys Burgess has focused a career on both freshwater and marine environments and on the application of environmental assessment (EA) and policy to these components. With a strong field background in both marine and freshwater biology, ecology and planning and 13 years of experience with EA pursuant to regulations on federal, provincial and municipal levels addressing projects related to marine terminals, natural resource projects, site remediation, and wind farm initiatives, she is also knowledgeable in coastal issues including regional approaches to oceans and coastal management.

Carys currently works as a senior consultant with Strum Environmental and also provides consulting services to the World Wildlife Fund including research, government liaison, and policy application with regards to selection of marine areas of interest and designation of MPAs off the coast of Nova Scotia.