Having spent most of his life in BC, Jeff Ardron is currently working in Washington DC as Director of the High Seas Program for the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, and co-lead on its Surveillance and Enforcement of Remote Maritime Areas project. He has also consulted widely, recently for marine planning projects in West Africa, Canada, and Europe.

Michele Patterson works within Vancouver Island University’s Institute for Coastal Research, as Program Lead, Aquatic Foods Initiative. Previously, she was Manager of Environment and Sustainability program for Vancouver Island University. Michele also worked with WWF-Canada leading a diverse BC conservation team in developing broadly supported, science-based conservation solutions that would support sustainable coastal communities in BC. At the time she left WWF-Canada she was also WWF’s Acting Vice-President, Pacific Region.

Ed Gregr is the Principal of SciTech Environmental Consulting. His consulting work focuses on the development of species‐habitat relationships in marine environments, and the classification of both shelf and oceanic habitats, in collaboration with provincial and federal agencies.

Andrew Lewin is a Marine Spatial Ecologist, and the President of Spatial-Conserve Inc. He specializes in the conservation of coastal habitats. Andrew has worked in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico participating in various projects such as water quality studies, sediment quality studies, fishery and benthic invertebrate studies, and marine mammal surveys.

Dave Nicolson is a geographic consultant who specializes in the use of geospatial data to support land and marine planning. Over the past 20 years, he has worked on projects for the Federal government, BC Provincial government, municipal governments, industry, First Nations, ENGOs and academia.

Evert Kenk’s experience includes providing strategic provincial direction, advising legislation, setting policy and standards, leading organizational change, establishing needed governance, and delivering and operating land-related information systems.

Henry Kucera is a recognized expert in designing spatial and temporal intelligence and decision support systems, and an advocate for collaboration between academia and industry.

Mark Zacharias is an Assistant Deputy Minister with the Province of BC, and he is responsible for Provincial mapping and geographic information programs as well as its ecosystem-based management programs. Dr. Zacharias is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Victoria.

Tom Tomascik studies the community ecology of BC’s coastal ecosystem, currently focusing on the establishment of Marine Protected Areas as tools for marine biodiversity conservation. He has extensive international experience, having worked on marine conservation and coastal zone management in Indonesia, as well IUCN marine protected areas projects in Pakistan and Bangladesh.