Keynote Speakers
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Kathryn Ivany
Kathryn was appointed to the position of City Archivist at the City of Edmonton Archives in 2010. She has extensive experience as a contract archivist in a variety of settings delivering archival services and products as well as overseeing the work of volunteers and staff. Her other duties with the City include supervision of the Artifact Centre and the John Walter Museum, acting as liaison to the Fort Edmonton Park for research and curatorial services, the Edmonton Historical Board, and the Edmonton Heritage Council. She is, as well, supervisor for the Northgate Lions and Central Lions Seniors Centres and the Mill Woods Seniors and Multicultural Centre facilities and acts as liaison with their partner Seniors’ Associations.
Kathryn has held positions with Alberta Historic Sites and the Provincial Museum of Alberta (now the Royal Alberta Museum) as docent (interpreter), interpretive program designer and trainer, as well as guest curator for the Alberta Centennial Exhibit in 2005. She has experience as a public historian, as a volunteer with the Edmonton and District Historical Society and as a private contractor; researching, writing and delivering historical presentations, walking tours and publications. Her latest publication (in 2016) was an essay on armouries and other infrastructure built in Edmonton found in Frontier of Patriotism: Alberta and the First World War.
Kathryn holds a Masters degree in Canadian History from the University of Alberta and a Professional Certificate in Historic Resource Management from the University of Victoria. She has served on a variety of community boards including the Historical Society of Alberta and its Edmonton chapter, the Gray House Guild, and the Edmonton Regional Heritage Fairs Society.
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Freddy Coronado
Freddy Coronado lives and works for the zero waste driven city of San Francisco at the Department of the Environment. His love for the earth and the environment led him to pursue a degree in Geography from San Francisco State University graduating in 2014. During his final semester he interned with the San Francisco Department of the Environment, which allowed him to discover his passion for Zero Waste. His professional work experience includes working with the city’s local hauler, Recology and consulting firms conducting zero waste outreach and technical assistance.
Freddy is also a founding member of Zero Waste Youth USA, a youth organization empowering students and young professionals to lead their communities to a zero waste future. As the Residential Zero Waste Associate at the San Francisco Department of the Environment, Freddy ensures all residents in San Francisco have access to city’s mandatory recycling and composting programs and manages the enforcement of the ordinance for apartment buildings. His keynote will address San Francisco’s Zero Waste programs and visions for the Next Generation. -
Ben Weinlick
Ben is driven by the desire to help people, organizations and community get better at navigating complex challenges together. He is the founder of Think Jar Collective, co-founder of MyCompass Planning and is a senior leader stewarding Social Innovation research and development through the Skills Society Action Lab in Edmonton. Ben regularly works with the public sector, corporate clients and community to help tackle complex challenges and find solutions that work. For his work striving to lead systems change in human service organizations over the last 15 years he has received some awards including the MacEwan University distinguished alumni award, the Government of Alberta Community Disability Service Sector Leadership Award and the Avenue magazine Top 40 under 40 award.
Speakers
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Al Lynch
Al was the Manager of the North Shore Recycling Program in North Vancouver from 1990 to 2013 and was responsible for planning and administering all waste reduction and recycling programs for the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and the District of West Vancouver. He also administered the weekly garbage and yard trimmings collection program for West Vancouver.
Al represented the municipalities on various regional government committees and producer responsibility groups and made many presentations on a variety of subjects at national and regional conferences, including SWANA WASTECON. In addition he sat on the Board of Directors for the National Zero Waste Council.
Al has been a member of SWANA since 1990 and has served all of the roles on the Executive of the Pacific Chapter. He was International President of SWANA in 2004, served on the SWANA International Board (IB) from 1995 to 2005, was the Region 2 representative to the Executive Committee (EC) from 1997 to 2000 and was also the Canadian Representative to the IB and EC from 2011-2014. In August 2017 he was reelected to the position of Canadian Representative.
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Anderson Assuah
Anderson Assuah is a PhD Candidate at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba. He holds a master’s degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Management from this same university, and a Bachelor of Arts (Social Sciences) degree in Sociology and Geography from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. Anderson’s PhD research focuses on solid waste governance, management, and learning in First Nations communities. His research examines the role of, and potential for, Aboriginal and social learning through community-based solid waste management in Canadian First Nations communities. Anderson’s general research interests include: community-based natural resources and environmental governance, rural community development, waste management and sanitation, community forestry, and Aboriginal and social learning. Anderson is very passionate about his research and likes to interact and share knowledge with others. You can contact him – assuaha@myumanitoba.ca – if you have any interests in his research.
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Anne Auriat
Anne Auriat is currently the Regional Waste Reduction Co-ordinator/Manager for the West Yellowhead Landfill Authority, which encompasses the municipalities of Edson, Jasper, Hinton and Yellowhead County. She has been directly involved with the recycling programs in these communities for the past 25 years. In the early years of raising four children she found time to be serve as an elected official for six years on the Yellowhead County Council. During this time, she sat on a number of regional committees and boards as both a Chairperson and board member. In addition to her management duties Anne is co-owner of an environmental consulting/managing business, Silkstone Environmental Ltd. Anne also volunteers with numerous local non-profit groups.
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Brad McIntosh
Cpl. Brad McIntosh is the Team Leader for the RCMP K Division Clandestine Lab Enforcement and Response (CLEAR) Team. He has been a member of the RCMP for 18 years and has been involved in Clandestine Lab investigations for the past 12 years. The CLEAR Team consists of specialty trained police officers who investigate illegal synthetic drug operations and dump sites, as well as incidents of chemical diversion. Currently, the CLEAR Team has been involved in a number of Fentanyl and other toxic opioid responses in Alberta, BC and the Northern Territory.
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Christine Seidel
Christina holds a PhD in Engineering Management, a Masters degree in Environmental Design (Environmental Science), as well as a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering. She operates sonnevera international corp., a waste reduction consulting firm, and is the current Executive Director of the Recycling Council of Alberta. Christina loves rural life, choosing to live on a farm near Bluffton, Alberta, where her and her family raise Warmblood horses, and enjoy many other outdoor activities.
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Darcy Hansen
Darcy Hansen CD, RN, COHN(C)
President
HD Occupational Health Services Corporation
Director – HealthyWorker
https://healthyworker.ca/
hd@healthyworker.ca
Director – Impairment Test
https://impairmenttest.ca/#/home
director@impairmenttest.caRegistered Nurse – 1998 College of Nurses of Ontario
Registered Nurse – 2006 College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta
Certified Occupational Health Nurse (Canada) – 2013 Canadian Nurses Association
Purchased HealthyWorker in 2013:
Providing Occupational Health and Occupational Hygiene Services to 600+ Employers and other Clients in Alberta.
Founded Impairment Test in 2017:
Providing Workplace Cognitive Function Screening tools for Canadian Employers. -
Daryl McCartney
Dr. Daryl McCartney is a Professor of Solid Waste Engineering at the University of Alberta. His research program is focused on organic waste utilization, e.g. source separation of ICI organics; pre-processing of MSW; contaminant mitigation in organic waste; integrating anaerobic digestion processes into existing composting facilities; and optimization of full-scale composting facilities. During his career, he has authored or co-authored over 190 journal manuscripts, conference papers, and technical report publications. Dr. McCartney currently sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Compost Science & Utilization and the University of Alberta’s Waste Diversion Working Group.
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Dave Bakken
Dave, with SUEZ works in supporting the City of Edmonton’s waste management operations and objectives. Dave manages a variety of Operation and Maintenance (O+M) Contracts as well as specific Maintenance (M) Contracts held with the City of Edmonton, Edmonton Waste Management Center (EWMC). These facilities include the Edmonton Compost Facility, Edmonton Material Recovery Facility, Integrated Process and Transfer Facility, Refuse Derived Fuel Facility, Construction and Demolition Site, and the newly constructed Anaerobic Digestion Facility. Dave oversees the operation of many different technologies utilized within the EWMC to achieve such goals as landfill diversion, municipal solid waste processing, maturing compost, recovering and marketing blue bag materials, recovering and utilizing dewatered biosolids, and methane gas extraction for energy production. Dave has worked with SUEZ on behalf of the City of Edmonton in these facilities focusing on O+M management, facility performance and sustainability.
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Jim Lapp
Jim has been working in waste for nearly 40 years. He first became interested in disaster debris when Edmonton was struck by the Tornado in 1987 and he was able to view first hand the widespread damage in the Sherwood Park Industrial area and in the Evergreen Trailer Park. In 2011, a wildfire burned 1/3 of the Town of Slave Lake. Jim was in Lancaster, Pensylvania that week and followed the events on the internet. When he returned, Alberta Environment called him to go up to Slave Lake to help them decide how the fire debris should be disposed. Jim gathered informaton through SWANA contacts across North America, and in particular from California experience. When the Floods hit Southern Alberta in 2011, Jim was called to help out at the Foothills Regional Landfill and attended daily emergency operation meetings while he was there. He also was able to see first hand the issues and challenges around clearing debris from the streets and public land. When the wildfire burned through Fort McMurray, Jim and Tom Moore went to the Wood Buffalo landfill to give advice on dealing with the debris at the landfill based on the experience at Slave Lake. Jim returned to the landfill for a couple of weeks to provide support to site managers. Jim has given presentations at SWANA events and webinars on pre-disaster debris planning and hopes to encourage waste managers and municipalities to prepare.
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Kristin Arnot
Kristin has a passion for environmental consciousness and completed a degree in Conservation Biology. As Director of Wildlife Services for WildNorth for eight years, she developed a deeper understanding of how humans can have an impact on the wildlife around them. In 2012, Kristin moved from the impacts on wildlife to the impacts of waste on the environment. As an Environmental Program Specialist with the City of Edmonton, she taught adults and youth about waste reduction initiatives in Edmonton. This led to her current role as Reuse Centre Operations Coordinator, where she sees firsthand the importance of reuse.
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Laura Zapotichny
Laura Zapotichny began her career with the Regional District when she was a university student, working at our main Landfill facility. With the District for 17 years, Laura has worked in solid waste and waste diversion through the many changes the Regional District has implemented.
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Leanne Olson
Olson is a photo-based artist born in Toronto and raised in Edmonton. In 2002, she received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Film & Media Studies from the University of Alberta. Olson has a history of working and engaging with the community, with experience as a lead artist in the print studio at the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts and as an ongoing community art project facilitator with the Bissell Centre in Edmonton.
For the last few years, Olson has been exhibiting work with a water-life theme. Her practice has centered on documenting impermanence and adaptation to changing environmental conditions. In 2017, she completed residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Artscape on Toronto Island, and her solo show, Last Resort, opened at SNAP Gallery in Edmonton. In 2018, Olson will be the first artist in residence at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre. -
Lisa Skumatz
Lisa Skumatz is an economist with 36 years in solid waste research. She has conducted solid waste program and policy research around the nation, and published more than 100 articles on trash, recycling, organics, and reduction strategies. Lisa is known for her quantitative analysis expertise and she focuses on research that helps inform program decision-making by communities, states, and haulers. Lisa has spoken at more than 100 conferences and keynoted at conferences in both the US and internationally. Lisa holds a Ph.D. and MA in Economics from The Johns Hopkins University. Lisa has the unique distinction of winning national lifetime achievement awards from both the US’s National Recycling Coalition (NRC), and the International Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) – as well as state-level awards.
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Michael Cant
Michael is a Principal at GHD with over 25 years of waste industry experience working out of Whitby, Ontario Canada. His main focus has been assisting municipalities and private industry with the planning, approvals and design of waste facilities. Over his 25 year career, he has successfully completed approvals for landfills, transfer stations, composting, recycling and energy from waste facilities. He is currently working on the feasibility study and business case for the mixed waste processing and AD study for the Region of Durham. He has conducted a number of feasibility studies on waste technologies including business planning analysis. He has been an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto lecturing on waste management planning and approvals and currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Waste Management Association and SWANA, Ontario Chapter.
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Michel Lefebvre
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Monica Lewcki
the leader of 12 dedicated sales professionals across Western Canada for the leading provider of integrated environmental solutions, Monica and her team partner with customers to manage and reduce waste while recovering valuable resources and creating clean, renewable energy. Monica has enjoyed a rewarding career in the health and environmental sciences that has taken her across the country in a variety of capacities. She’s built top-performing sales teams, coached and developed sales managers, and led massive diverse teams to world-class results. From a knowledge curation perspective, Monica has developed over 30 core training programs, delivered 100 training workshops, and coached over 625 sales professionals in a single year.
Monica has a natural ability to elevate accounts, teams and partnerships to achieve their highest potential. With accolades that include many sales achievement awards and leadership awards, Monica is an extremely resilient individual that thrills in the face of new challenges. The movement to build a sustainable future for her team, clients, the community and the world, is just that challenge!
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Olivia Kwok
Olivia Kwok is the Supervisor of Waste & Diversion Programs with the City of St. Albert. She holds a degree in Geography and Environmental Management from the University of Waterloo and has worked in the municipal waste industry for seven years, spending time in Ontario, Saskatchewan and now Alberta. Outside of work, she loves going to concerts, watching live sports and eating popcorn.
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Paul Dewaele
Paul Dewaele, P.Eng., has 28 years of experience in waste management for municipal, industrial and hazardous waste projects. He is geo-environmental engineer, licenced in Ontario, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. His experience includes over 50 waste management projects in Ontario, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and northern USA, including natural attenuation landfills and fully engineered sites with geosynthetic liners. He has designed remedial leachate and landfill gas collection systems, completed operation and management plans, closure plans, waste planning and audits and environmental assessments. He has developed tender specifications and directed construction oversight and quality analysis/quality control programs for landfill construction including liners, waste mining, landfill gas, leachate and groundwater collection projects ranging from $10,000 to over $40 million. He has experience in the evaluation and design of landfills in a northern Canadian context, including municipal solid waste landfills and containment cells in both the high Arctic and southern portions of the Northwest Territories, as well as evaluation of DEW line site landfills in the Baffin Region, Nunavut. He regularly presents technical waste topics at conferences, presents lectures to universities and colleges and is a published author in technical journals related to landfill assessment, monitoring, solid waste mining and geochemistry.
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Petra Wildauer
Petra Wildauer received her chemical engineering degree in Germany and a Master’s of Science at the University of Northern British Columbia. Petra provides many years of practical, hands on experience in residual waste management and waste diversion. Her special interest is contributing to environmentally and economically sound waste management. Petra is a member of SWANA Pacific Chapter BC & Yukon and Northern Lights and the Recycling Council of British Columbia.
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Philippa Wagner
Philippa has been in the field of municipal solid waste for over 20 years including just over 15 years with The City of Calgary. She was involved in the implementation of Calgary’s blue cart program in 2009 and also led the stakeholder engagement process that led to Calgary’s multifamily recycling strategy. Leading the implementation of the Green Cart program in 2017 provided a new challenge and she’s happy to see that residents now have access to an easy and convenient way to divert food and yard waste from the landfill. Outside of work, she enjoys camping and doing home improvements with her husband.
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Rob Rennie
In 1989, following a seven year stint as a Floor Trader at the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), Rob joined Laidlaw Waste as a loader on a curbside collection vehicle in what he envisioned as a temporary career transition. Throughout the next thirteen years, Laidlaw became Waste Management of Canada and Rob advanced to direct supervision of route managers, dispatchers and collection vehicle operators throughout the Greater Toronto Area (GTA); responsibilities included curbside, front-end and roll-off services within the residential division and the Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (ICI) sectors.
In 2002 Rob accepted a position at the Region of Peel where his primary responsibilities were related to multi-million dollar service agreements that pertain primarily to the processing and marketing of recyclable materials. Through secondment to the Ontario Recycling Program Enhancement and Best Practices Project and involvement with the Municipal Waste Association, Rob was able to garner a broad-based understanding of the industry from both a public and private company perspective.
In 2015 Rob moved back into the private sector when he joined the SUEZ team. Initially his primary responsibilities related to the marketing of the City of Edmonton’s recyclable commodities with a focus on identifying opportunities through waste characterization studies. Rob also benefited from the opportunity to take an acting role as the operations manager at the MRF. He has taken on an ever-expanding role in Business Development related to the full service offerings available through SUEZ, including recycling and waste recovery, organics management and water/wastewater services.
With revenue over $20 Billion, SUEZ’s 90,000 employees are active in 70 countries across five continents bringing real world solutions to local authorities, industry, consumers and agriculture for the efficient and sustainable management of their resources.
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Rocky Strong
Rocky Strong studied Mechanical Engineering at MUN. After his studies Rocky accepted a Job with Statoil in Norway as a completion and subsea engineer. During his 4 year career there he was involved with several large projects which included managing multiple service companies. He is continuously looking for new technologies to improve the areas he works with. He was the driving force for using two new technologies. In the past two years he has been the General Manager for Strong, leading a team to develop new data automation techniques for the waste and construction industries. Rocky is a young professional with SWANA and is seeking to lead a change in the waste industry with respect to how Data Automation is used.
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Rich Allan
Rich has worked in the solid waste field for over 26 years. He has worked for the Salt River Landfill for the last 23.5 years. The Salt River Landfill is an integrated solid waste facility that includes 144 acres of lined landfill cells, a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) that handles approximately 70,000 tons of recyclables a year, a green waste recovery area that diverts approximately 40,000 tons of green waste from the landfill for composting and/or biomass fuel, a White Goods/Scrap Metal area that diverts approximately 300 tons of metal from the landfill annually and an ewaste dropoff area that diverts electronics from the landfill. The landfill is also working with a landfill gas developer on a high BTU project to replace a previous landfill gas to energy project that was discontinued two years ago because of economics.
Rich has been a SWANA member since 1994 and has served on the Arizona Chapter’s Board of Directors from 1996-2013 including as the International Board Representative and Region I Director from 2006-2013. He served as SWANA’s International Secretary from 2013-2014, Treasurer from 2014-2015, Vice-President 2015-2016, Past President 2016-2017 and is currently serving as Past President. He has been heavily involved in the preparation of educational materials for SWANA and is certified in both the Manager of Landfill Operations and Bioreactor courses. He has been an instructor for MOLO and various other SWANA training courses. He has been consistently involved in SWANA’s Road-E-O having served as the Chairman of the International Road-E-O Committee for numerous years.
Rich is a Registered Professional Engineer in Civil Engineering for the State of Arizona. Rich has BS degree in Civil Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
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Scott Theede
Scott Theede is currently the Operations Engineer for the City of Saskatoon’s Water & Waste Stream Division, providing support to solid waste operations. Scott has a degree in Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan. Through 7 years of experience with the City he has implemented projects from a liner expansion to IT infrastructure upgrades. While with the City, he has been the City’s project lead on implementing a number of software and hardware upgrades related to the operations of the landfill’s scales and business practices. Scott is also currently a Saskatchewan Director on the Northern Lights Chapter Board.
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Steve Johnson
Steve graduated from the University of Alberta with an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters of Engineering in Environmental Engineering. He has worked for Hydrogeological Consultants, Alberta Environment, Waste Management of Canada Corporation, and AECOM throughout his career specializing in waste management over the past 15 years. At Hydrogeological Consultants he conducted landfill groundwater monitoring programs and surface water availability evaluations. While at Alberta Environment he was and approval writer for landfills, water, and waste water treatment facilities and then the Provinces Landfill Specialist instrumental in the development of the Standards for Landfills in Alberta, the Guidelines for Landfills in Alberta, and initiating the Standards for Composting in Alberta. He also was the chair of the Alberta Landfill and Compost Operator Certification Committee, a member of the Technical Guidance for the Quantification of Specified Gas Emissions from Landfills, the Technical group for the Management of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials in Waste, and a variety of dead animal disposal committees. While at Waste Management of Canada Corporation Steve was the Site Engineer responsible for landfill capping, developing and operating a leachate treatment plant, waste acceptance approvals, regulatory reporting, gull control, and the upgrade to a landfill gas collection and flaring system. At AECOM he has completed projects in regulatory approval applications, airspace assessments, transfer station design, and landfill designs. Steve is a SWANA instructor for the landfill basics course and the leachate management course.
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Tej Gidda
Tej is a Principal with GHD with more than 14 years of industry experience. His main focus is the investigation of alternative waste processing technologies, including aerobic treatment of source-separated organics (SSO) and anaerobic digestion, energy-from-waste including gasification, mixed waste processing and mechanical biological treatment, and biosolids management. Tej is also an expert in chemical and biological odour abatement systems as related to waste processing facilities, and has been involved for a significant period of time with biogas to energy facilities. Tej’s work includes the design, construction, and commissioning of municipal and private waste management facilities, as well as work in greenhouse gas management and emission reduction trading. Tej is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Waterloo Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
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Tom Moore
Tom Moore is the Commission Manager for the Westlock Regional Waste Management Commission in Westlock Alberta and owner of Tom Moore Consulting. Tom has over 14 years of experience in Policy and Bylaw Development, and H&S program development and management. Tom has 10 years of experience in the waste management field.
Tom was the landfill manager during the 2011 wildfire that burned up one third of the residences in the Town of Slave Lake and Municipal District of Lesser Slave River. During the cleanup Tom’s initiative was to recycle as much material as possible as well as be as environmentally responsible as possible. Tom received the Alberta Emerald Award for his efforts in this challenge.
Tom, along with Jim Lapp, has helped in a few of disasters since 2011, mostly in the advisory level, including High River floods, Fort McMurray fire. Tom has given presentations on the Slave Lake Wildfire all over Canada as well as worked with Jim Lapp on a webinar on pre-disaster planning.
Tom is active in Alberta Coordinated Action for Recycling Enterprises (CARE) as chairman and a board member with the Northern Lights Chapter of Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA). Tom has been a SWANA Landfill Operator and Transfer Station instructor since 2013 and is currently the chairman for the SWANA-NLC Chapters Crisis Committee team.