Oakville Hydro Corporation
Oakville Hydro Corporation’s Board of Directors is responsible for supervising the management of the corporation’s business and affairs. This includes assuming responsibility for the stewardship of the corporation in areas such as: strategic planning, risk identification and risk management, succession planning, communications policies and integration of the internal control and management information systems. The Board’s nine members are selected to provide the corporation with a breadth of knowledge in business (finance, legal, accounting, marketing), public policy and government relations, board operations, electricity services, risk management, labour relations, environmental issues and occupational health and safety.
Gary Burkett David Brennan Mayor Rob Burton Ray Green Don McCreesh John Mitchell Marie Oswald Mike Russill Robert Wickham
Gary Burkett is a senior Human Resources executive with over thirty eight years experience with three blue chip corporations: Molson Breweries, Bell Canada and Federal Express Canada. Gary's HR subject matter expertise is anchored in business acumen with having been President Molson Saskatchewan Breweries together with having served on six commercial Boards and four volunteer Boards.
Gary is presently Managing Director Human Resources with Federal Express Canada and serves on the Oakville Hydro Board and the George Brown College School of Business Advisory Board.
Gary has lived and worked in western, central and eastern Canada and moved to Oakville in 1986. He and his wife have four children.
David Brennan is a proven senior executive with extensive background in legal and general management. As General Counsel or General Manager, he has been successful in combining legal and business knowledge with superior team building skills to generate significant bottom-line contribution and results. David is known as a strategic, pragmatic thinker with deep corporate and commercial acumen and an ability to drive profitable growth and stakeholder satisfaction. He is recognized for strong leadership and the vision to implement long and short term strategies, meeting both current and evolving business needs.
Over the last twenty years, David has held the executive General Counsel position at General Electric Canada and Ontario Power Generation where he led legal teams in excess of 40 people. Under his leadership, these teams have successfully dealt with all legal and compliance matters and completed transactions and projects with values in excess of a billion dollars. As well, during this period, he held General Manager/COO positions at GE Capital Canada and Miller Thomson where he had P&L responsibility including marketing, HR, IT, finance, operations, customer service and collections.
David’s areas of legal expertise include financial services, energy, first nations/metis, infrastructure, employment, and mergers and acquisitions.
In addition to professional development at Harvard and Wharton business schools, David holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University. David is also admitted to the Ontario and Alberta Bars.
Mayor Rob Burton has been a Board member of Oakville Hydro Corporation since 2006.
Mayor Burton won re-election to a second term as Oakville's Mayor in 2010 in a landslide win that gave him a strong mandate to continue to control growth, debt and taxes, protect green space and the environment, catch up on Oakville's needs for community facilities, and create in Oakville Canada's most livable town.
Prior to running for public office, Mayor Burton had a successful career as a businessman, director and producer in journalism, film and television. He is best known for starting YTV.
During his time as Mayor, several ground breaking initiatives that protect Halton and Oakville's ability to control the built and natural environment and the health, safety and finances of the community have been implemented. These include the Oakville and Halton Natural Heritage Systems (2007/10), performance-based program budgeting or PB2 (2007), the Private Tree Protection By-law (2008), the Town Energy Management Plan (2009), the Health Protection Air Quality By-law (2010), and the new official plans Livable Oakville (2009) and Sustainable Halton (2010).
Mayor Burton co-founded and co-chairs the Municipal Leaders for the Greenbelt. Environmental Defence Canada calls him the greenest mayor in Canada. His 1971 Masters of Science degree thesis at Columbia University statistically linked the effects of air pollution on illness and pre-mature death.
Mayor Burton also serves on the boards of Halton Healthcare Services, Halton Children's Aid Society, Halton Community Housing Corporation, Halton Regional Police Services, and Tree Canada. He avidly supports Oakville's sports, arts and culture groups and charities.
Ray Green is the Chief Administrative Officer of the Town of Oakville. A 30-year veteran with the Town, Mr. Green has held a number of senior positions prior to his role as CAO, including Commissioner of Infrastructure and Transportation Services, Commissioner of Community Services, Director of Public Works and Assistant Director, Operations. Mr.Green is a Professional Engineer with a B.A.Sc., (Civil Engineering), from the University of Toronto.
Don McCreesh is an experienced Board Director and Management consultant with 30 years of experience as a Board Chair, Lead Director, Committee Chair and Director of a number of corporate non-profit and charitable organizations. He is a leader in the professional development of other directors - faculty member of the Directors College – and experienced member of Independent Review Committees. He had a business oriented HR career – culminating in 11 years as the corporate officer responsible for Human Resources and the global head of HR at three of Canada’s major corporations – Celestica, CIBC and Nortel Networks. He also has business expertise in a number of sectors, including: technology, financial services, manufacturing, natural resources, logistics and not for profit; throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
John K. Mitchell received a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Canada, England and Wales and South Africa.
His work experience includes many years as Senior Vice President Finance and Chief Accountant of Scotiabank and Board member of several of their various operating subsidiaries in Canada, Nassau and Barbados. He remains on the Board of the Scotiabank subsidiary company in Barbados where he was previously Managing Director of their world wide reinsurance operations for several years.
Prior to coming to Canada he was General Manager of the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa where he oversaw international capital projects throughout the world. In 2001 he was awarded a fellowship of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ontario.
Marie C. Oswald is a senior lawyer and securities industry executive, with significant legal, regulatory and governance experience. Her most recent role was Director of Compliance and Field Supervision (Canada) for the international brokerage firm Edward Jones.
Marie entered the securities industry in 1985, when she left the private practice of law to join the Ontario Securities Commission. In 1994, she joined the brokerage firm Midland Walwyn, acquired in 1998 by Merrill Lynch Canada, as the leader of the firm's compliance division. In 2000, Marie joined the Toronto Stock Exchange as the Vice President of Investigations and Enforcement, and was instrumental in the creation of Market Regulation Services Inc (now IIROC), Canada's first independent Self Regulatory Organization responsible for the application of the Universal Market Integrity Rules for equity trading. Marie joined Edward Jones in 2007, where her accomplishments included the creation of the Branch Audit and Trade Desk Review departments, and the Compliance Information Leader programme.
Marie graduated from the University of Waterloo in 1978 and from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1981. She was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1983. Active in her community, she has chaired the Service Committee of her local Zonta Club (for the advancement of women) and during her career in Toronto was an active member of Women in Capital Markets.
Mike Russill joined WWF-Canada as President and CEO in 2004. Under his leadership WWF Canada increased its revenues by nearly 90% and has broadened its conservation reach into Climate Change and Freshwater.
Mike spent thirty-years in the private energy sector, with Shell Canada Inc., Petro-Canada Inc. and Suncor Inc. At Suncor he held several Vice-President assignments; Strategic Integration, Business Services (finance, HR and administration), and Retail.
Mike served as Executive Chairman of Aadco Automotive, an environmentally focused automotive recycling company, and the first to receive Canada's Eco logo.
He has served as a Director on a number of Boards including Nature Conservancy of Canada, CS Able Ltd. USA, Pioneer Petroleum Limited, UPI Petroleum. Mike is past Chairman of the Atlantic Petroleum Association, and the Ontario Region of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute.
He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the School Of Management at Dalhousie University, Green living Enterprises and Sustainable Prosperity. Mike is a frequent speaker on Business and Sustainability. He graduated from Ryerson in Business Administration and completed the Western Executive Program and the University of Michigan Human Resources Executive Program. Mike is married to Karen and they have three grown children. His interests include spending time at the family cottage, hiking, kayaking, canoeing and golfing.
Robert Wickham is a senior finance executive with over 30 years of experience with several Canadian public and private companies. He holds a B.Comm degree from McMaster University, has been a Chartered Accountant since 1982 and became a Chartered Director in 2005. Throughout his career, he has worked primarily as a senior finance executive in the mining and real estate industries dealing extensively in both Canadian and International capital markets. More recently, Mr. Wickham has been involved with several Public Private Partnership transactions in Ontario.
