The Trust for Sustainable Development's Board of Advisors is an international pool of experts whose combined expertise assists the Trust in obtaining the highest practical standards of sustainable development. The guidance and information provided by these distinguished, practicing professionals is considered one of the most valuable resources available to the Trust.
Kris Obrigewitsch
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Kris Obrigewitsch has led the Spirit Bay Development team through a myriad of organizational and legal efforts to establish the framework necessary to build this visionary new town near Victoria, BC. Working with the Scianew First Nations Chief, Council and membership, Kris brought together a variety of cultural, legal and governmental interests and requirements to take the idea of a new town in 2013, to the commencement of construction in 2014.Similar to the regulatory framework governing a modern municipality, typically assembled over many decades, Spirit Bay required a framework to enable it to move forward in a logical, planned, and sound manner. Ensuring the foundation existed in the form of agreements and documents to cover everything from land tenure through partnership agreements, development financial modelling, through to future buyer documentation, Kris oversaw the creation of a framework and governing documents, financing, and planning.
Kris is a Director of Hummingbird Energy LLC, a renewable energy company based in Arizona whose business is the development, sale and management of turn-key facilities that converts source separated organics waste into green fuel, and gasify that fuel to produce combed heat and power.
Kris is also the former Vice President of ICC (International Composting Corporation) Group. As part of the pioneering team of innovators at ICC, Kris was instrumental in the build out of ICC’s first organic recycling facility in Nanaimo, British Columbia; a plant that began operation in 2003 and remains operational today.
While at ICC Kris worked with the City of Ladysmith, Oak Bay and View Royal, along with the Regional District of Nanaimo to implement curbside collection of urban biomass (kitchen scraps). The ICC Nanaimo plant now receives 20,000 tonnes per year of urbanbiomass from the Regional District of Nanaimo and Cowichan Valley Regional District.
Kris played a critical role in the development and commercialization of the ICC technology. In his role with ICC, Kris directed Investor Relations, helping raise over $3,000,000 in seed capital to help expand the company’s business into the UK, and develop the company’s first facility in Scotland.
Kris’ expertise in the field of sustainability has lead to his inclusion on Working Groups with the BC Provincial Government dealing with waste and climate action initiatives.
Ed Tait
President; CD & CSL
Ed began his development and construction career in 1971 in northern British Columbia, building single-family homes. While he is known for his meticulous attention to detail and results oriented style, he is also known for his ability to sensibly integrate emerging social and environmental technologies into the projects he works on.Currently, Ed is working with the Scianew First Nation as they prepare their lands for the new sustainable town plan for Spirit Bay. He serves with Chief and Council on the Policy Committee to ensure the development satisfies the needs and requirements of each of the partners. He has been instrumental in working with the Scianew as they transformed a derelict campground into a stunning, seaside property where construction has begun on the new, mixed-use village.
Prior to his work at Spirit Bay, Ed managed the construction of Dockside Green in Victoria, BC – the worlds highest accredited LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – a program run by the US and Canadian Green Building Councils) development. Integrating numerous sustainable and leading edge technologies including its own tertiary treated waste and storm water plant, allowing it to operate without connection to City services and a bio-mass fuelled district heating system. Dockside Green is one of the most awarded and talked about green development projects in the world.
Prior to Dockside Green, Ed was charged with the set-up and launch of The Villages of Loreto Bay project in Baja California, Mexico. As the first company person to arrive in Loreto, a small fishing village of 10,000 people with limited services, Ed and the fledgling team he built there were required to establish construction operations, administration support and strong government, community and media relations in preparation for the sale and development of approximately 500 homes per year in this remote location.
Prior to Loreto Bay, Ed was the project and construction manager for the Shoal Point project on Victoria’s Inner Harbour. Ed was responsible for the construction of this multi-use complex which incorporated energy efficient building materials and technology, including passive solar orientation, energy-efficient envelope and low E glazing to name but a few.
Ed began shaping Victoria’s Inner Harbour area over twenty years ago by building Harbourside. This condominium (two residential towers), hotel and marina development, built on reclaimed industrial land won every conceivable development, construction and sales award offered in the region. Today it stands as beautiful as the day it was completed; a testament to superb construction.
Ed was a founding member of the Vancouver Island Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and remains a member of PMI Canada and the Urban Development Institute.
John (Jack) R Basey Q.C.
Barrister & Solicitor
Jack Basey QC is one of the foremost leaders in community governance matters today, having served over 35 years as counsel for local governments in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Jack’s focus is on First Nations capacity development with respect to land use planning and development, as well as local community governance.As City Solicitor for Victoria, B.C. and Edmonton, Alberta, Jack developed a reputation as a practical problem solver. He has a broad background in community governance as well as extensive expertise in the legal and regulatory aspects of real estate development.
Jack was the Director of Planning for the City of Victoria during a period of unprecedented development, 1999 - 2006. During this time, he was responsible for a wide variety of planning matters including the negotiation of complex agreements for many large-scale projects. Mr. Basey oversaw the review and development of community plans, studies, zoning, land use bylaws, and regulatory bylaws.
He was the City's overall project leader for the multiple awards winning Dockside Green Brownfield redevelopment project. Jack has also taught Administrative Law in the Masters of Public Administration program at the University of Victoria. He has a law degree from Queen's University and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Alberta. Jack is a member of the Law Societies of BC, Alberta and Ontario .He is a member of the Municipal Law and Aboriginal Law Sections of the Canadian Bar Association. He is also formally trained in mediation and dispute resolution. Jack is also a member of the Planning Institute of B.C.
Jack is an active community volunteer at both the YM-YWCA, and with CESO as a volunteer advisor on First nations capacity building projects.
William Ross
William Ross has a solid reputation in government and amongst First Nations throughout BC for energy efficient and environmentally sensitive design, analysis, and building construction. Recently, William has built and renovated over 21 houses on the Esquimalt reserve including the “Little Big Houses” designed by Paul Merrick, Architect, which won design awards from CMHC. William acted as Development Consultant for the Administration Building ($1.5 million) on the Esquimalt First Nation. William also negotiated a contract between the Esquimalt First Nation and the Esquimalt municipality for services such as lift station maintenance, building inspections and road maintenance.
William founded a firm, Sundog™ in 1982, specializing in environmental design and construction and the firm has been at the forefront of professional knowledge and practice. Through Sundog™, William has completed projects throughout British Columbia, for public and private sector clients including: the Provincial Government and affiliated agencies, regional hospital boards, municipalities, colleges and universities, financial institutions, and home owners. Work has ranged from relatively modest residential construction projects, on First Nation lands, to the supply of energy conservation products to the $100M 48-storey Wall Centre hotel in Vancouver, B.C. and the Fairmount Hotel at the international airport in Richmond, B.C.. Sundog™ has also retrofitted such major commercial facilities as the Royal Centre and the H.A. Simons Engineering building in Vancouver.
Darlene Tait
Darlene currently oversees Marketing, Communications and Sales efforts for Spirit Bay. In that capacity she works with Scianew membership and future homebuyers to assist in the creation an inclusive town where all cultures are respected and where the First Nations heritage is cherished, celebrated and supported.Darlene was part of the team that created one of the first recognized, sustainable development plans for a new town of 12,000 people at Bamberton on Vancouver Island. As the person responsible for leading key participatory community/public planning sessions, she worked with the established community to ensure their input factored into the final plan and helped the project gain public acceptance. The Bamberton Planning Process and Master Plan were ultimately heralded by people such as Prince Charles and Al Gore and were prominently featured at the World Mayors Conference in Curitiba, Brazil and at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Traveling the world as an advocate for healthier development practices, Darlene addressed the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, governments, universities and professional associations in Europe, South America, the US and Canada; she has influenced leading practitioners in planning for better communities.
She later developed and led an innovative sales program for The Villages of Loreto Bay in Baja, Mexico that strived to broaden and expand the sales process by incorporating community-building initiatives into it. These initiatives were key to its record-breaking success; Loreto Bay continues to grow today and remains one of Mexico’s best selling new developments.
Darlene subsequently launched the new 6,000 home community of Westhills in Langford, BC where she designed and executed a Marketing and Communications Plan that utilized traditional and social media marketing as key mechanisms in building a strong, healthy community. She established a vibrant virtual community well before the first residents were in place. Her past experience secured her a place on the design team, where she worked to ensure the physical elements were supportive of community building and she also drafted the original Westhills Architectural Guidelines. Westhills is today, one of Victoria’s most successful and currently best-selling developments.
Andres Duany
Mr. Duany is America's best known town planner, and has completed over three hundred town plans including plans for the New Towns of Seaside, FL which was referred to by TIME magazine as “the most astounding design achievement of its era”, Kentlands, Bamberton and Civano, as well as developing new master plans for existing city centers in Trenton, Providence and Los Angeles among others.
Mr. Duany is one of the founders of the Duany Plater-Zyberk firm which he founded along with wife Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. He also founded the Congress for the New Urbanism, where he continues to serve on the Board of Directors. Established in 1993 with the mission of reforming urban growth patterns, the Congress has been characterized by The New York Times as “the most important collective architectural movement in the United States in the past fifty years.” As well, he is the author of model legislation, development ordinances and urban codes for both new and existing towns throughout North America including The Urban Transect Theory.
Andrés Duany has delivered hundreds of lectures and seminars, addressing architects, planning groups, university students, and the general public. His recent publications include The New Civic Art and Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. Andrés received his undergraduate degree in architecture and urban planning from Princeton University, and after a year of study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, he received a master’s degree in architecture from the Yale School of Architecture. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates, the Brandeis Award for Architecture, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Medal of Architecture from the University of Virginia, the Vincent J. Scully Prize for exemplary practice and scholarship in architecture and urban design from the National Building Museum, and the Seaside Prize for contributions to community planning and design from the Seaside Institute.
Andres was the lead architect/planner for Bamberton and participated in the plans for Civano and The Villages of Loreto Bay.
Jeff Speck
Mr. Speck is the director of design, overseeing grant-making in that field, at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington. He graduated magna cum laude from Williams College. He has two master's degrees, one in art history from Syracuse University and another in architecture from Harvard.
Jeff Speck was one of the chief planners for Bamberton, Civano and The Villages of Loreto Bay.
Donna Morton
Donna Morton is the founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Integral Economics. She has extensive experience in building relationships between business and non-profits, strategic policy development, communications and government relations. She was recently recognized by Ashoka Foundation as a leader in social change innovation.
William G. Reed, AIA, LEED
An internationally recognized proponent and practitioner in sustainability and an architect, Bill is president of the Integrative Design Collaborative — a consulting organization working to lift green building design practice into one that is fully integrated with living systems. He is an ally of the regenerative planning firm Regenesis and the strategic environmental planning firm Natural Logic. His work centers on creating the framework for and managing the integrative, whole-systems design process by embedding the laws of nature at the heart of enterprise. He emphasizes building evolutionary capability in design, construction, and engagement with our environment. The objective is to improve the overall quality of the physical, social and spiritual life of our living places.
Bill serves on the US Green Building Council LEED Development Committee as well as the AIA’s Executive Committee and has been a key consultant for the green strategies at Loreto Bay.
Tom Horton
Tom Horton founded Canopy Development in 2004 and brings more than 25 years of community-focused real estate development and project finance experience to the company. Canopy is a new kind of land development company that creates vibrant destination villages in pristine natural environments with a focus on healthy living and environmental sustainability.
For the ten years prior to founding Canopy, Tom served as US Managing Director of The Trust for Sustainable Development (TSD) and VP Corporate Development of the Loreto Bay Company, a TSD affiliate company. The Villages of Loreto Bay, a series of seaside villages planned for 6,000 homes and an 5,000 acre natural preserve in Baja California, Mexico, is the largest sustainable resort community under development in North America. Tom secured the initial financing for the 2.6 billion dollar project and also served as the first Sustainability Officer for Loreto Bay, helping establish the Loreto Bay Foundation and drafting the aggressive sustainability standards for that project.
Prior to his work for TSD and Loreto Bay, Tom worked as a Program Director for the Rodale Institute, a non-profit organization that works with people worldwide to achieve a regenerative food system that renews and improves environmental and human health. Tom also formed and continues to run Sustainable Resources, a company that develops and finances alternative energy initiatives in developing economies.
Tom lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with his wife, Sarah and their three children.
Jason Mogus
Jason Mogus is the President and CEO of Communicopia, an internet marketing and communications company that helps socially responsible and non-profit companies find their voice on-line. A serial entrepreneur, Jason has held senior roles in technology start-ups since 1995. At Communicopia he provides strategic guidance to a variety of socially conscious firms.
Jason is a partner and board member with BC Technology Social Venture Partners. He is the founder and convener of the Web of Change conference at Hollyhock Retreat Centre, and is an executive member of the Mobile MUSE wireless research project. A certified “ePhilanthropy Master Trainer” by the Washington DC based ePhilanthropy Foundation, in 2001 he was awarded Business in Vancouver's "Top 40 Under 40" and led Communicopia to receiving the BC Technology Industry Association's first "Leadership in Social Responsibility" Award.
Jason is passionate about supporting social change through communications, technology, and philanthropy. A popular presenter and speaker, he has been featured in international media such as the New York Times, National Post, CBC Newsworld, The Guardian, CNN.com, and CBC's The National.
Michael Ogden, P.E.
NSI is a Santa Fe firm founded in 1989 with the goal of applying low cost, energy efficient natural systems to the problems of wastewater and stormwater. Michael Ogden is the founding director and principal engineer, leading a team of professionals that provide comprehensive specialized engineering services in the area of biological wastewater treatment systems using the natural ecologies of ponds (wastewater lagoons), marshes (constructed wetlands), prairies, grasslands (land application/irrigation), and woodlands and forests (irrigation).
Under Michael’s direction, NSI has worked on more than 500 projects in over 40 states, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, China, Afghanistan, and Australia. Placing extra emphasis on both creativity and economics, NSI specializes in the implementation of natural treatment system designs using native plant species to treat municipal, commercial, residential, industrial, mine tailings, landfill leachate and agricultural wastewater as well as storm run-off. Together with other experts, this leading edge team is quite literally "writing the book" for the foundation of a new environmental remediation industry. Their work has been featured on a PBS documentary, in the New York Times and on ABC World News Tonight’s “American Agenda”. Two of the founders, Campbell and Ogden have written a textbook, published by John Wiley and Sons entitled “Constructed Wetlands in the Sustainable Landscape”.
Active Associations and Memberships
Social Ventures Network (SVN)
SVN is a community of leaders — company founders, private investors, social entrepreneurs and key influencers — who share a commitment to building a just and sustainable world through business.”
According to David Butterfield, “The people I’ve met through Social Venture Network have become great friends and valuable advisers. This community of committed business leaders is proving that sustainable development can be good for people, good for the environment and good for business.”