Staff & Board Members
Thank you to all those who have expressed an interest in joining our Board of Directors. Our posting is now closed.
Executive Director & Co-Founder
Stan Gibson
Stan worked for many years in integrated community development in urban and rural communities globally.
In 1998, he co-founded the Ecologos Environmental Organization, a registered environmental charity which creates transformative learning experiences that stir citizens into real action for a sustainable future. He is passionate about protecting Ontario’s water, and has been instrumental in programs such as Water Hour, Stop the Mega Quarry, the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, the Water Journey, and the Water Docs suite of programs.
Stan and his family own a 500-acre farm near Algonquin Park which they are developing as an example of sustainable agriculture.
Staff
Melanie Howe
Lead Programmer & Project Manager
Partnerships Co-ordinator
Melanie has been leading the Water Docs Film Festival since its inception in 2012. She holds a B.A. in Theatre and Film from York University and High Honours Diploma in Radio & Television Broadcasting from Seneca College. Melanie is an avid cinéphile and has been attending film festivals in Toronto since the 1980s.
Suzanne Christie
Special Water Docs Initiatives Lead
Suzanne has a long career in event management and communications and has assisted the management of the Water Docs Film Festival and other Water Docs programming since 2018. Suzanne is currently lead of special initiatives.
Patricia Garcia
Public Relations Manager
Patricia has been working as a PR professional for many years and has been the publicist for the Water Docs Film Festival since 2015. She has a wide variety of experience working with such organizations as the NFB, TIFF, WIFT and most recently and currently with Bell Media.
Ben Hargreaves
Digital Content and Social Media Manager
Ben graduated with distinction from Ryerson University’s renowned journalism program and as a freelance Multimedia Journalist his writing and photojournalism has appeared in publications like the Toronto Star, Global News, Peterborough This Week, Peterborough Examiner, The Torch GTA, My Kawartha, as well as Ryerson affiliated publications. He has also written, directed and produced three documentary shorts which involved his skills of research, writing, cinematography and editing.
Raymond Soussa
Fundraising & Research Assistant
Ray has been working in fundraising in the Canadian non-profit sector for over 7 years after "stumbling" on this beautiful path while studying industrial engineering. His job is to get community members excited about projects and to bring them to fruit. He is passionate about helping people and bringing love, joy and faith to their lives. He is specifically passionate about international development, namely helping his home country, Lebanon. Ray is passionate about Ecologos' mission and is very excited to create impact on the environmental awareness front. It's an honour for him to serve this organization.
Ryan O’Dowd
Marketing & Communications Assistant
Ryan comes from a journalistic and public relations background. In his journalism career, he has covered stories of all kinds from elections to protests. His public relations work receives coverage by major news outlets across Canada and the United States. Ryan joined Ecologos because the organization exists at the intersection of meaningful environmental work and creative artistic expression. As someone with a lifelong passion for storytelling in all of its forms, seeing storytelling used in documentary film making to change the world was an inspiration.
Board of Directors
Allenna Leonard
Chair
A respected consultant in organizational cybernetics, she is a Director of the Cwarel Isaf Institute and a licensee of the Team Syntegrity Process. She is past president of the American Society for Cybernetics and the International Society of Systems Sciences. She has written extensively on the application of systems sciences to ecology and social justice.
Nanette Sanson
Director
Currently enjoying semi-retirement, Nanette brings 30 years of business management and entrepreneurial experience and has held numerous positions over the course of her working life, such as Fundraising Manager – Corporations and Foundations at Outward Bound Canada and Fundraising Manager – The Development Office at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto. She also worked with Executive Search and consulting on marketing and business development for the private and not-for-profit sectors. Nanette serves on the Advisory Board of the LGBT Giving Network and the Fund Development Committee for MCC Toronto. She was recently a board member for Workman Arts and The Toronto Friendship Centre and on the marketing committee of the Toronto Foundation.
Jean Ann Ledwell, OSU Director
Proud of her Newfoundland heritage, Jean Ann has been an adult educator in the ecumenical social justice movement and a tireless advocate for the rights of women and people living with poverty and differing abilities, both at home and abroad. A long time interest in ecology and spirituality led to her facilitation of the Elderberry Connection. She is a member of the Ursulines of Chatham and has served on its General Leadership Team. She currently serves as a board member of the Canadian Alternative Investment Foundation and as an ESL volunteer.
Ronnie Seagren
Secretary
Ronnie is an editor and indexer of popular and scholarly books and articles, with a special interest in findability. She had an extensive career as an advisory technical editor and information architect for content and user interfaces in the collaborative software sector. Her experience with nonprofits, international work and communications includes education and community development in several Asian countries, Jamaica, and the United States. Her love of nature is rooted in early childhood experiences, and her passion for textile arts has been influenced by many cultures.
Marcelene Anderson Director
Managing director of Raven Strategic Consulting, Marcelene specializes in strategic management, assisting organizations to develop and successfully implement their strategy, align their organization at all levels, and build high-performance organizations that achieve results day-to-day. She works with private, not-for-profit, and Indigenous organizations.
Sergei Petrov
Director
Sergei is the Executive Director of the York Region Arts Council. In the past, he was the Executive Director for Scarborough Arts and he founded and led the Scarborough Worldwide Film Festival in 2012, with the aim to enhance the cultural landscape of the region by celebrating the diversity and multiculturalism of our world, building it as the biggest cultural event in Scarborough. Passionate about social issues, Sergei has been involved with various organizations in the human rights, environmental and educational sectors, as a Board Member, advisor and volunteer. He now sits on the Board of Directors and enthusiastically brings his knowledge and experience of the arts in Toronto and the GTA to the organization.
Jyotsana Naik
Director
Jyotsana is a retired professor of Microbiology who taught at several universities in India and at the University of Chicago. She has done extensive volunteer work with schools, hospitals, earthquake relief, and teaching underprivileged children. She moved to Canada in 2009 and is qualified to teach English as a Second Language.
Marguerita V. Pattison
Director
Marguerita is a senior financial professional who has held numerous positions in all aspects of finance over the past 30 years, including audit, risk management and controllership functions. More recently she has cut back on full-time work and concentrates on contract work for companies undertaking financial transformations.
Contact the Board of Directors
Founding Advisor
Marjorie J. Sharpe
For 50 years Marjorie was an inspiration and an example for women, blazing many a trail. She played the decisive role in creating the Toronto Community Foundation, and the amazing Pathways to Education program. As former president and CEO of Altruvest Charitable Services, she introduced the Board Match program, one of the most successful methods to recruit and train new board members. She is the author of the highly acclaimed Governing with Soul.
After many years of tireless service to her community, Marjorie passed from this world in June 2016.
Founding Advisor
Thomas Berry
Ecologos was born and guided in a series of conversations with Thomas Berry.
Thomas was one of the most influential thinkers of our time, eminent both as a cultural historian and as a profoundly insightful advocate and inspiring guide of the ecological movement. His writings include The Religions of India, The Dream of the Earth, The Universe Story (with Brian Swimme), and The Great Work.
From his start as a cultural historian Berry moved in the last twenty years of his life to become a historian of Earth – in his words, a geologian. His shift from human history to cosmological history was a necessary progression for Berry. He witnessed in his own lifetime the scientific revolution of the 20th century and the emergence of a planetary civilization as cultures came in contact with one another around the globe. At the same time, the very resources for sustaining such a planetary civilization are being undermined by massive environmental destruction.
Thomas began his academic career as a historian of western intellectual history, but was also strongly influenced by his studies of Asian thought and religions, indigenous religious traditions, and as a student of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.