The purpose for our organization is to provide stable and meaningful work for our members.
Yuill Herbert
Principal
MA
Yuill has been an SSG Principal for over 17 years. He pioneered land-use and GHG emission planning in Canada, helped introduce the LEED for Homes rating system in Canada and co-developed the Integrated Design Process course used throughout Canada and the US. Yuill has worked on and led more than forty community energy and GHG plans and models across Canada. He has leading expertise on climate change mitigation and adaptation systems modelling that incorporates energy, GHG emissions and co-benefits. Yuill serves as a director on the boards of the Canada Research Chair on Sustainable Community Development, the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation and Tatamagouche Community Land Trust.
Contact Yuill:
Jeremy Murphy
Principal
MPlan | MSc | NCI certificate
Jeremy is an urban planner, project manager and sustainability specialist who continues to generate cutting-edge community solutions. He is an ambitious community leader and communicator. Creative public engagement and facilitation, urban growth planning, community energy and emissions planning, sustainable community design and innovative policy creation are among Jeremy’s greatest skills. His experience with community planning, sustainability expertise, facilitation and sustainable building design allow Jeremy to make useful contributions to any project. Jeremy combines big idea sustainability thinking with on the ground application, ensuring his projects are on target, enjoyable and effective. Jeremy is an instructor in the Simon Fraser University Community Economic Development program. He is also one of the two Co-founders of The HiVE - Vancouver’s social impact co-working space.
Contact Jeremy:
Mel de Jager
Principal
P.Eng | MPlan | PMP | LEED AP BD+C
Mel is a planner, urban designer, engineer and project manager. She focuses on the planning, design and implementation of sustainable urban infrastructure and complete communities. Mel’s background includes a unique combination of experience in community planning, land development, urban design, civil engineering, research, modelling and analysis. She has provided support and expertise to clients in both the public (municipal/provincial) and private sectors. Her projects have been diverse, ranging from watershed management plans and municipal infrastructure design, to urban growth strategies and GHG modelling. Mel has extensive experience in project management and project delivery, with strong communication skills and integrated team facilitation.
Contact Mel:
Julia Meyer-MacLeod
Principal
BSc | BEnvD | LEED AP BD+C
Julia brings a breadth of experience to sustainability initiatives, having worked with commercial consultancies, research firms, government, universities, and non-profit organizations. With degrees in environmental science and design, she switches comfortably between methodological and creative problem solving approaches, offering insights that are not often otherwise considered. Julia has technical modelling, GIS and visualization skills, bringing rigour and dynamism to SSG’s outputs. Grateful for an upbringing in Canada’s outdoors, she also has a professional background and personal interest in wilderness leadership and outdoor education, which gave her an aptitude for program management, public speaking, communications, as well as an overall enthusiasm to the work that she does.
Contact Julia:
Rebecca Foon
Principal
MUP | LEED AP
Rebecca is a versatile urban planner who is dedicated to integrating a holistic understanding of sustainability in growing healthy communities. She has worked closely with municipalities, higher education institutions and school boards across the country on leading sustainability plans and strategies including Western, McGill, Algonquin College, Vancouver School Board, Oxford County, Halton Hills and the City of Kingston. Working closely with our academic partners, she has organized numerous e-Dialogues with Dr. Ann Dale involving thinkers, mayors, planners, academics and activists. Foon is also an internationally acclaimed (and Juno award-winning) cellist and composer.
Contact Rebecca:
Colin MacDougall
Director of Finance
BIB (Bachelor of International Business) | MBA
Colin has spent most of his career in and dedicated most of his passion to the co-operative sector. He was one of the first members of La Siembra Co-operative, creators of Camino fair trade and organic products. From sales to logistics to board President, Colin played a number of roles at La Siembra; however, he ultimately found his calling in the back-office functions of finance and administration. From La Siembra, Colin moved to the Agency for Co-operative Housing to serve as Director, Corporate Services.
Colin currently shares his time between SSG and the Agency.
Contact Colin:
Emily McQuarrie
Coordinator, Finance & Administration
HBA
Emily is an experienced administrator with a passion for innovative data management solutions using open source tools. She has spent much of her career dedicated to organizing the disorganized world of the arts, and has worked closely with many community-run nonprofits. Emily has a strong background in gender studies, and integrates equity-based ethics and methodology into her work everyday.
Contact Emily:
Terry Sidhu
Consultant
M.URB | C. SCD | B. Comm
Terry is a practising Urban Planner with experience in sustainable neighbourhood development, urban design, and housing. Prior to joining SSG, Terry worked in local government, non-profit, and advocacy groups where he developed skills in research, data analysis, policy development, and project management. Terry’s wide and ranging experience includes neighbourhood planning efforts in Metro Vancouver, advocacy for complete streets and better cycling infrastructure, neighbourhood intensification and design, affordable housing policies, and working with private and public sector housing developers. Through his experience with SSG and his education, he has researched and evaluated models for sustainable development such as LEED-ND, S.T.A.R communities, and Smart Growth and understands the nuanced approach needed to fit the unique context of different communities. In his work with SSG, Terry hopes to help cities discover and utilize their unique advantages in order to become more sustainable.
Contact Terry:
Camilla Melrose
Consultant
MSc | BSc
Camilla is a versatile environmental scientist, with a background in biology, earth sciences, and GIS. Her experience working for the private sector, non-governmental organizations, government and universities gives her a unique ability to approach a problem from multiple viewpoints and to work with the strengths and challenges of each sector to solve problems collectively. Her experience in GIS and water management are essential pieces of her work in municipal climate adaptation and blend with her passion for conserving and managing natural spaces
Contact Camilla:
Lauren Malo
Consultant
MSc | BSc
Lauren is a researcher and analyst focusing on renewable energy and climate policy. She has experience in both academia, consulting and in politics, and has produced and published multiple works on policy for renewable energy deployment in North America. With a background in geography, Lauren incorporates the importance of people and places in her work.
Contact Lauren:
Ralph Torrie
Senior Consultant
Ralph is an internationally recognized expert in the field of sustainable energy and climate change response strategies, for governments and business.
He pioneered many of the conventions now used throughout the world for local government GHG emissions planning, and he was the principal author of Canada’s first low carbon scenario analysis - the first such analysis done anywhere. He served as the Assistant Coordinator of the Energy Research
Group of the United Nations University and the International Development Research Centre, Vice President of ICF International, Managing Director of Navigant Consulting and Managing Director of the Trottier Energy Futures Project.
He is a senior associate of the University of Calgary’s Canadian Energy Systems Analysis Research (CESAR) initiative. Ralph works with SSG on numerous projects related to energy and climate change response planning.
Contact Ralph:
Rodrigo Dittborn
Consultant
B.Sc.Eng
Rodrigo is an analyst with experience in public policy design and evaluation regarding air pollution, heating, and district energy. He has worked in environmental consultancy in one of Chile’s most prestigious universities and in the Division of Air Quality at Ministry of the Environment of Chile.
Contact Rodrigo:
Naomi Devine
Communications Director + Senior Consultant
BA | Post-Grad Cert. Environmental Visual Communications
Naomi is a sustainability policy and communications expert. She has built a career at the leading edge of sustainability and climate policy advising governments and working with universities, local governments, and civil society organizations. Naomi has created groundbreaking sustainability policy at the University of Victoria and served on BC’s pioneering Premier’s Climate Action Team. She stewarded the award-winning community sustainability plan, Whistler2020, through the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, and facilitated the action planning work of 17 task forces focused on creating the town’s sustainable future. Afterward, she turned to strategic communications and led the creation of the strategy used to elect Dr. Andrew Weaver as the first Green Party Member of the Legislative Assembly in the province’s history. Visual communications and storytelling are what she now employs to assist communities and organizations in crafting effective and long-lasting moves toward a sustainable future.
Contact Naomi:
Donna Vakalis
Senior Consultant
M.Arch | PhD Candidate | LEED AP BD+C
Donna completed a professional Masters of Architecture and then worked in the architecture industry before returning to pursue a PhD in Engineering. She is skilled in building science, life cycle assessment, and assessing the ways that buildings impact occupant health. Her area of expertise is evaluating how green designs can impact the indoor environment quality of a building. She combines strong design skills with rigorous quantitative skills to help clients select and assess building strategies that will benefit both the environment and the occupants.
Contact Donna:
Ann Dale
Senior Advisor
PHD | Canada Research Chair
Ann Dale is a professor with the School of Environment and Sustainability, Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences at Royal Roads University. She held her university’s first Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Community Development (2004-2014), is a Trudeau Fellow Alumna (2004) and a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her award-winning research focuses on sustainable community development, social capital and agency, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and governance. She is deeply committed to building novel research dissemination and on-line media tools, and leads one of the most current content research websites in the country. Professor Dale chairs the Canadian Consortium for Sustainable Development Research (CCSDR), a consortium of all the heads of research across the Canada. In collaboration with SSG, she has recently published Community Vitality: From Adaptation to Transformation.
Contact Ann:
Peter Hough
Board Member
MBA
Peter is the principal of Affinity Consulting, a practice engaged in co-operative development, research, training, and management. Peter recently retired from his long-term position of Financial Officer of the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation. He is also the Fund Manager of “Tenacity Works”, the CWCF’s revolving loan fund. Peter has 25 years of experience as a member, manager and director of worker and consumer co-operatives. In addition, he has assisted with many co-operative start-ups, developing bylaws, conducting training programs, completing feasibility studies and business plans, and providing post start-up mentoring.
Contact Peter:
Brett Korterling
Resources Planner
Emilie Moorhouse
Communications Specialist
Gabor Sass
Ecosystem science; remote sensing
Ian Picketts
Climate Change Adaptation Researcher
Kate Kennedy
Editor and copywriter
Melanie Jellett
Climate change adaptation; risk assessment
Melissa Garcia Lamarca
Ecological economics; sustainability researcher
Penny Beames
GIS, Rivers and Dams
Richard Eberhardt
Raphael Shay
Energy Management Systems and Community Planning
Sharaj Sundararaman
City Planning and Urban Development
Stefan Tylak
Energy & Renewables
Virgil Martin
Population, Employment and Land Needs Modelling, and Forecasting.
Will McDowall
Policy, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Interested in becoming an Associate of SSG?
Associates and prospective Associates approach SSG from time to time with projects that require additional support or capacity.
Contact us for application instructions. Applying to be an Associate and applying for a job with SSG are very different things. Please bear this in mind when expressing your interest in working with us.
We fundamentally differ from other types of businesses in three key ways:
Advocacy and representation
We are actively engaged in Coops and Mutuals Canada, Canadian Worker Co-op Federation (CWCF), Cooperatives UK, and participate in UN negotiations and engagement.
