Supported by:

Ali Asgary, Assistant Professor, Emergency Management, York University

Karen Belaire, Vice President, Administration, McMaster University

Dave Bradley, Hall Monitor, Earl Haig Secondary School Toronto

William Byrd, Safe Schools Administrator, Toronto District School Board

Naomi Drew, President, Learning Peace

Chuck Gose, Director, Business Development, Corporate Communications and Education, The MediaTile Company

Eric Jacksch, VP, National Capital Area Crime Stoppers; Principal, CSC Global Security Solutions

Virginia Jones,Senior Associate, STANTON Associates, Consultants in Training and Media,Ontario Association of Emergency Managers (OAEM)

Kathryn Karcz, Coordinator Investigations Program, Sheridan College

William F. MacKay, MacKay Emergency Management Consulting Inc.

Barbara Mackey, School Infectious Disease Response Nurse, State Of Massachusetts

Ron Meyers, Project Manager, Occupational Health & Safety Program, Canadian Standards Association

Scott Mills, Constable, Toronto Police Services

Glenn W. Muschert, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Gerontology, Miami University

Craig Peddle, Past President, Ontario Gang Investigators Association (ONGIA)

Scot Phelps, Associate Professor of Emergency Management, Southern Connecticut State University

Gerald Robert Harkins, Associate Vice-President, Security, University of Texas at Austin

Eric Roher, Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais, LLP

Jane Shapiro, Senior Vice-President, Hill and Knowlton Canada

Adrian Smith, Director of Student Services, Eastern School District, PE

Ali Asgary,
Assistant Professor, Emergency Management,
York University

Dr. Asgary received his Ph.D. from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England in 1996. He was among the faculty members who started the first emergency management degree program in Canada at Brandon University and he was also the lead proponent of the Master Degree Program in Disaster and Emergency Management at York University in 2005 where he works as an associate professor. He is teaching “Business Continuity Planning” and “Emergency Management Courses” at both undergraduate and graduate levels and has more than 50 published papers and significant number of presentations at disaster and emergency management scholarly journals and conferences. Dr. Asgary is the principle investigator and co-investigator of several emergency management related national research projects funded by NSERC, SSHRC, GEOIDE, and Precarn. He is a researcher in a recently funded project by SSHRC on "Crisis Management: Case of School Shootings". He is a member of the global board of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and the current president of the IAEM-Canada.

Karen Belaire,
Vice President, Administration,
McMaster University

Karen Belaire BA, MBA, CGA, C.Dir., has been the Chief Operating Officer for London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph's Health Care, London since August 2009. Previously, the Vice President, Administration for McMaster University (2000-2009) and Chair of the Crisis Management Team for the University.  Karen has extensive background in administration and management of large public sector organizations. Her board experience includes Theatre Aquarius, St. Peters Hospital, McMaster Innovation Park, Gore District Land Trust, McMaster Museum of Art, and CAA Southwestern Ontario.

William Byrd,
Safe Schools Administrator,
Toronto District School Board

Bill Byrd currently works with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) as the Administrator of Safe Schools, a position he has held since the creation of the department in 1999. Bill is a graduate of Memorial University in St. John’s, Guelph University (B.A.), McGill University in Montreal (B.Ed., Teaching certificate); OISE (M.ED, Ed.D.) and the University of Toronto (Ph.D. – ABT).

Currently Bill is the System Inclusion Administrator at the TDSB where he ensures the smooth transition of expulsion cases between school administrators and the legal services department. Bill has previously held the position of Leadership and Staff Development Coordinator for the Safe Schools Department and prior to that he was the administrator in the SW part of the TDSB. Bill was the Social Skills Project Leader and Psychology Consultant with the former City of York Board of Education (Toronto). Bill is a former secondary and elementary school teacher. Before joining the school system he was Head of Treatment for 6 years at the Earlscourt Child and Family Center (now the Child Development Institute), a children’s mental health centre in Toronto. In addition to his work at the TDSB, Bill does training in the area of safe schools for the Canadian Safe Schools Network. Bill also teachers a university course in “Dealing with At-Risk Youth”.

Bill has been a board member of Macaulay Child Development Centre for over 15 years and also sits as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Camp EKON a Jesuit-run camp for disadvantaged children located in Northern Ontario. Bill recently joined the Board of Directors of Central Toronto Youth Services in downtown Toronto. He has considerable experience with children who exhibit serious emotional and behavioural problems. He has led numerous workshops for students, parents, teachers, administrators and school support staff as well as business leaders.

In 2005 Bill was awarded the Galen Weston Safe Schools Award. This prestigious honour is given to either an individual or organization by the Weston family in recognition of outstanding service for at-risk youth and for the promotion of safe schools throughout Canada.

Naomi Drew,
President,
Learning Peace

Naomi Drew is recognized around the world for her work in conflict resolution and peacemaking.   She is the author of six widely used books.   Her landmark book, Learning the Skills of Peacemaking was one of the first to introduce conflict resolution and peacemaking into public education.   Hailed as visionary, Ms. Drew's work has enabled people of all ages to live these skills on a daily basis.    

Harvard Medical School's, Dr. Robert Brooks, has praised Ms. Drew's latest book, The Kids' Guide to Working Out Conflicts, as “an invaluable resource,” and people to durable changes in their relationships after applying the principles Drew outlines. Her work has been featured in magazines and newspapers across the United States, including Time, Parents, and The New York Times.   She has been a guest on syndicated radio and national TV, and has served as a parenting expert for “Classroom Close-ups,” an Emmy-winning public television show.

Naomi Drew is a dynamic speaker who has inspired a diverse range of audiences.   She consults to school districts, parent groups, civic organizations, and businesses, and headed the New Jersey State Bar Foundation's Conflict Resolution Advisory panel for eight years. Susan Skog, author of Peace in Our Lifetime, says, “Naomi Drew is a master teacher and a pathfinder in our culture.”     

“Peaceful Parents,” Drew's on-line newsletter, has a broad international readership, and her website, LearningPeace.com is a valuable resource to families and educators worldwide. The Kids' Guide to Working Out Conflicts, the latest of her six books, was honored with four national awards including the National Parenting Publications Gold Award for Children's Resources.    Ms. Drew is a former educator. She has two grown sons who were raised in accordance with the principles she writes about. Her seventh book will be released in January.

Chuck Gose,
Director, Business Development, Corporate Communications and Education,
The MediaTile Company

Chuck Gose, Director, Business Development, Corporate Communications and Education, The MediaTile Company.  Mr. Gose is an enthusiast in devising creative ways to engage employees with relevant, detailed and deadline-oriented messaging.  He was among the first to promote digital signage for its key benefits and advantages for communication while at Rolls-Royce.  In his current role at MediaTile, Mr. Gose works closely with customers to assess their digital signage network needs and recommend effective deployment scenarios, and impactful, influential content for corporate communication and educational customers.   He is also an expert in social networking methodologies and is currently serving on the Alumni Board of Directors at Butler University and as the Director of Finance for the Hoosier Chapter of PRSA.  

Eric Jacksch,
VP, National Capital Area Crime Stoppers;
Principal, CSC Global Security Solutions

Eric Jacksch is a Principal with CSC Global Security Solutions and Vice President of the National Capital Area Crime Stoppers.  He studied Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University in Ottawa and began his career in the corrections and social service fields.  Fifteen years ago he transitioned to the private sector and specialized in information security. Eric holds the Certified Protection Professional (CPP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) designations and possesses a unique combination of business, technical, project management, writing and teaching experience. As part of his volunteer activities, Eric designed and implemented the anonymity layer of the text messaging system that allows Crime Stoppers programs worldwide to engage in two-way anonymous communication with mobile phone users.

Kathryn Karcz,
Coordinator Investigations Program,
Sheridan College

On February 8, 2008, Sheridan College’s Trafalgar Campus went into lockdown because faculty and students believed they saw a person carrying a gun. For two and a half hours students and staff, and their family and friends, waited while the dedicated resources of three police departments searched and secured the campus. Fortunately, Sheridan was prepared. This session will explore what Sheridan did to get ready and how safety and security continues to be a priority for the entire Sheridan community.

Kathryn Karcz brings a wealth of knowledge and experience gained through positions held in several emergency service organizations to her current role as Coordinator of Sheridan’s Investigations Program and full-time instructor in their Graduate Certificate in Emergency Management. Her areas of expertise include response plan development, interagency coordination, policy development, and emergency service organization and administration. Ms. Karcz holds a Masters degree of Public Administration from the University of Western Ontario. She is also a provincially certified Community Emergency Management Coordinator.

William F. MacKay,
President,
MacKay Emergency Management Consulting Inc.

Bill is president of MacKay Emergency Management Consulting Inc. which provides emergency management consulting to public and private sector clients in Canada.

He was a member of the Technical Committee which developed the Z-1600 standard.

Bill has considerable experience in developing and evaluating a wide range of emergency management and business continuity programs. Throughout a 34 year career with Imperial oil Limited he was involved in developing, providing training, exercising and evaluating oil and chemical emergency response programs and corporate crisis management teams within the Imperial and Exxon Mobil organizations. He was also involved in developing, managing and evaluating industry, mutual aid response programs within the oil, chemical and propane industries and provided liaison with government regarding these programs.

Since establishing MacKay Emergency Management Consulting Inc. in 2002 Bill has assisted federal, provincial, and municipal governments, industry, health care, insurance and financial organizations develop and evaluate emergency management and business continuity programs. Bill is a member of Emergency Management Ontario's Doctrine and Standards Committee, which sets standards for provincial and community emergency management programs and he also has experience in the field of emergency public notification.

Bill has considerable experience in evaluating emergency management programs. He was an accredited safety auditor under the International Safety Rating Council, Exxon Mobil operations integrity program, EMAP - Emergency Management Accreditation Program and he has conducted assessments to the NFPA 1600 standard. Bill has also been involved in evaluating emergency response teams under the Canadian Chemical Producers Association Transportation Emergency Assistance Plan and the Canadian Emergency Response Contractors Alliance.

Barbara Mackey,
School Infectious Disease Response Nurse,
State Of Massachusetts

Barbara Mackey, BSN, MS, APRN-BC the School Infectious Disease Response Nurse for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health coordinates and provides training set up in modules to assist schools in cities and towns develop their emergency plans.  Topics include Emergency Preparedness, Emergency Dispensing Sites, Rash Surveillance, Behavioral Health, Smallpox vaccination and administration certification, Bioterrorism Agents and Flu Pandemic.  Training is provided to school nurses in public, nonpublic, private and parochial schools, in addition to public health nurses, community emergency personnel and school physicians across the Commonwealth.  In addition to training, she participates at exercise/drills for emergency preparedness and also assists at clinics for infectious disease outbreaks.

Ron Meyers,
Project Manager, Occupational Health & Safety Program,
Canadian Standards Association

Ron Meyers is employed as a Project Manager, Occupational Health & Safety Program with the Canadian Standards Association.  Ron’s current responsibility includes the development of Canadian National Standards and information products in the areas of emergency management, risk management and protective equipment and systems.  Currently, Ron is the Project Manager responsible for the development of a new Canadian National Standard on Emergency Management & Business Continuity Programs, Z1600.  For more then 12 years, Ron has managed a range of complex multi-stakeholder CSA National Technical Committees and has been responsible for the development and production of CSA National Occupational / Public Health & Safety Standards.

Ron’s work at CSA provides him the opportunity to work very closely with stakeholder groups including federal and provincial regulators, manufactures, industry groups, safety associations and labour in developing CSA consensus standards.  Ron continues to represent CSA interests in activities involving federal and provincial governments, committees, councils, investigations and professional organizations.

Scott Mills,
Constable,
Toronto Police Services

Constable Scott Mills has been employed as a police officer from 1990-2002 with the Peel Regional Police (Brampton/Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) and from 2002-Present with the Toronto Police Service. 

Scott’s current assignment is the school officer for the Toronto Crime Stoppers program.  His mandate is to build healthy relationships between youth, the community and police.  He promotes the anonymous reporting of tips relating to a crime through the Crime Stopper Tip Line 1-800-222-TIPS and online at www.222tips.com to students at schools, and other venues across the city of Toronto.  Crime Stopper programs worldwide assist to solve a major crime every 14 minutes. 

Scott’s message is focused on a multi-disciplinary approach, heavily based on the threat assessment theories advocated by Kevin Cameron of the Canadian Centre of Threat Assessment and Trauma Response. He lectures on Using the Internet as a Violence Prevention Tool to youth, parents, educators, law enforcement officers, members of the justice community, and interested members of the public on a regular basis.   

Prior to his current assignment, Scott was a school police officer for 7000 students in 9 high schools in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.   During this assignment he authored and actively worked on a project aimed at youth violence prevention called Project Internet-Truancy.  The program implemented high visibility uniform bicycle police patrols in areas where students routinely congregated while being truant.  A focus was placed on returning the youth to their schools when found being truant.  During the interaction, officers were encouraged to ask the youth their e-mail, address and their website.  The online sites were checked by officers for content that would put the youth, school or community in an at risk situation.  Essentially, officers were trying to find any postings online about a negative situation, and engage the proper services to deal with the issue in a prevention atmosphere.  School officials, parents and the youth themselves were encouraged to check the online activity of students, and report any matters of concern to a trusted adult who could take appropriate action.  Many issues surfaced, including talk of suicide, talk of guns, gang issues, sexual issues, and racial issues.  The online checks often led to positive interventions for the youth that assisted them in their lives.

Scott volunteers as an executive board member of the Ontario Gang Investigators Association.  ONGIA is a not for profit organization formed in year 2000 dedicated to the prevention, intervention and suppression of criminal street gangs.  The public education face of this organization is NOTOGANGS.ORG.  He operates two websites relating to this organization – www.ongia.org and www.notogangs.org .

Scott has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Law from Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and has studied at Laval University, Quebec City, Quebec in the Civil Law program.  He speaks English and French.

In his policing career, Scott has worked in both uniform and undercover capacities, including community programs, uniform patrol, homicide, intelligence and street gang units.  Since 2003, Scott has a keen interest in using the Internet as a prevention tool for societal violence.  He advocates that all persons having a relationship with a youth or person at risk can utilize technology and the Internet as a tool to prevent violent acts such as school shootings, assaults, suicides, gang involvement and terrorism.

Scott works tirelessly to engage the creative talents of young people, some of whom come in negative contact with the law, in a restorative justice/community building model using street art as a theme in the downtown Toronto core.  He is also very involved with the Argos Foundation-Stop the Violence, a registered charitable organization using a football theme as a vehicle to engage all citizens in violence prevention in our communities.

In summary, Scott can present on a number of topics.  The theme of any message that Scott presents is creating healthy relationships between youth, the police and their communities.  Scott advocates for an understanding of modern technology like the Internet and cell phones for youth and adults alike, and advocates strongly on any topic being presented that technology can be used for positive initiatives, including societal violence prevention strategies.

Glenn W. Muschert,
PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Gerontology,
Miami University

Glenn Muschert is Associate Professor of Sociology at Miami University. He received his B.S. in International Area Studies from Drexel University in 1992 and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2002. After serving a one-year appointment on the Law and Society Faculty at Purdue University, in 2003 he joined Miami University's faculty as an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology. In 2009, Dr. Muschert was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor.

Glenn's areas of scholarly interst lie in the sociological study of crime and social problems, including the mass media framing of high profile crimes, school shootings, missing persons, and social control through surveillance technologies. His publications have appeared in American Behavioral Scientist, Critical Sociology, Sociological Inquiry, Justice Policy Journal, Sociological Imagination, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Annual Review of Law & Social Science, Sociology Compass, Social Science Journal, and Youth Violence & Juvenile Justice.

Scot Phelps,
Associate Professor of Emergency Management,
Southern Connecticut State University

Scot Phelps is an Associate Professor of Emergency Management at Southern Connecticut State University and has over two decades of emergency response  experience working as a paramedic and paramedic instructor.  He previously developed and led the Master's of Public Administration in Emergency & Disaster Management at Metropolitan College in New York City, served as Assistant Commissioner for Emergency Management at the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, as a hospital emergency manager, and as a professor of emergency medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

Professor Phelps holds a Juris Doctor degree from Brooklyn Law School, holds a Master's in Public Health with concentrations in both Health Policy and Health Administration from Yale Medical School where he was a Farr Scholar and a Schlesinger Fellow, and holds a Bachelors of Arts with honors from Columbia University.  He is a licensed attorney, a certified paramedic,  a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), and a FEMA Master Exercise Practitioner. He serves on the IAEM CEM Commission, serves as the Vice Chair of the IAEM Healthcare Caucus, and formerly served on the DRII Education Commission.

Gerald Robert Harkins,
Associate Vice-President, Security,
University of Texas at Austin

Bob Harkins became the associate vice president for Campus Safety and Security on September 1, 2005. He coordinates the activities of Emergency Preparedness, Environmental Health and Safety, Fire Prevention Services, Parking and Transportation Services, and The University of Texas at Austin Police Department. Bob enriches our community with over 12 years of extensive knowledge in leading the campus safety and security programs of two major universities.

Prior to assuming his current position, Bob spent 27 years in the Army, retiring as a colonel. Over the course of his military career he was awarded two Silver Stars for valor and two Purple Hearts. Throughout his career he has had a variety of assignments focusing on campus safety and security. Bob earned his doctorate in education from Pittsburgh University in 1998. He continuously plans the steps toward making The University of Texas at Austin the safest campus in the nation by leading the Safety and Security Committee and reaching out to students, faculty and staff to create a safety-minded community.

Eric Roher,
Partner,
Borden Ladner Gervais, LLP

Eric M. Roher is a partner and National Leader of the Education Law Group with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.  He practices in the areas of education law, labour relations and employment law. Mr. Roher advises school boards, independent schools, community colleges and universities on a range of education law issues, including student discipline, human rights, freedom of information and special education. 

Mr. Roher is co-author (with Simon Wormwell) of An Educator’s Guide to the Role of the Principal, Second Edition, to be released in May 2008, co-author (with Robert Weir) of An Educator’s Guide to Safe Schools, released in 2004, and author of An Educator’s Guide to Violence in Schools, released in 1997 all published by Canada Law Book.  He is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he teaches a course in Education Law.  Mr. Roher received his Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, Masters of Arts from Brown University and Bachelor of Laws from McGill University. He was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1987.

Jane Shapiro,
Senior Vice-President,
Hill and Knowlton Canada

Jane brings 30 years experience in corporate, consulting and government environments to the Corporate Communications Practice at Hill & Knowlton. She leads the Canadian crisis communications practice, ensuring a consistent, best in class, team approach to crisis planning and management.  Clients include a leading Canadian university and two private schools for whom she provides crisis counsel, reputation management and training.

Jane also leads the corporate communications team in Toronto, delivering reputation management counsel and media relations programs to a variety of clients, including large multifaceted corporations, and human resource consulting, legal and architectural firms. She provides multifaceted programs to raise corporate and program visibility and establish thought leadership.
Jane has developed crisis manuals for a diverse range of clients and led crisis simulation exercises to test the performance of crisis teams. She has helped manage crisis situations for clients in the education, energy, food, agribusiness, biotechnology and financial services sectors, including product recalls, plant closures and legal actions. 

She is a frequent speaker on issues and crisis management and an experienced media and presentation trainer.

Jane has a Master’s Degree in Political Economy from the University of Toronto.  She serves as a Mentor in the Rotman Business School’s Mentorship Program.