Gwen Boyle
Artist

Gwen Boyle grew up in Vancouver, and after many years of living and working in the Yukon, returned to the West Coast and began to study art while raising a family. She received a diploma from the Vancouver School of Art – now Emily Carr University of Art + Design – in the early 1970s, and after further sculpture studies under Jack Harman, graduated with honours in bronze casting in 1975.

While she has made smaller works, her interest has always been in large scale, interactive sculptures and has explored this most extensively in public art commissions. Gwen enjoys the challenge of making public art – from the historic research of site, to engineering problem solving, to the knowledgeable and enthusiastic specialists she works alongside during the long creative process. In 1989 she was fortunate to spend time again in the North, this time travelling to Resolute in Canada’s high arctic to make art. This was a significant experience in her life and career, and the memory of that landscape and human relation to it has stayed with her ever since. Gwen currently lives and works in Vancouver, near to the ocean and a different kind of inspiring natural and urban expanse.

Larry Frank
Professor and Bombardier Chair, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia

Dr. Frank is the Bombardier Chairholder in Sustainable Transportation at the University of British Columbia and Senior Non-resident Fellow of the Brookings Institution. He specializes in the interaction between land use, travel behavior, air quality, and health. He has been studying the effects of neighborhood walkability on travel patterns and sustainability for nearly 20 years. He has lead or co-authored dozens of papers and two books Health and Community Design, The Impacts of The Built Environment on Physical Activity and Urban Sprawl and Public Health on these topics. He and his colleagues have also been conducting detailed assessments of fuel consumption and climate change impacts of urban form policies. Over the past decade Dr. Frank has been working directly with local governments to help translate results from research into practice based tools that can provide direct feedback on the health and environmental impacts of alternative transportation and land development proposals.

Dr. Penny Ballem
City Manager, City of Vancouver

With more than 30 years of experience in senior management positions in the Canadian public sector, City Manager Dr. Penny Ballem has extensive experience in managing large organizations, building relationships across private and public sectors, and collaborating with civic, provincial, and federal levels of government.

Dr. Ballem is trained as a clinical hematologist and has served as the deputy minister of Health for British Columbia, as well as the vice-president of Women’s and Family Health at the Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of BC. She also served as a corporate director for Bentall Capital G.P. Ltd., as well as a senior advisor to RPO Management Consultants.

Christopher Vollan
Vice President, Development, Rize Alliance Properties, Vancouver, BC

Chris Vollan is Vice President, Development for Rize Alliance Properties, working primarily on urban infill projects in walkable neighbourhoods within Metro Vancouver. Chris has also worked in the resort development world with Intrawest in the US, focused on master plans and developments designed to entice people out of their vehicles.

Claire Gram
Population Health Policy Consultant, Vancouver Coastal Health

Claire Gram is a Planning professional with over 15 years expereince in Public Health. For the past 4 years she has been working on the Population Health Team of Vancouver Coastal Health addressing the social determinants of health through policy, partnership, leadership and advocacy. Her current portfolios include food security and Healthy Built Environments.

As the interest has grown for health authorties to re-engage in the field of the built environment, Claire has been part of National, Provincial, Regional and local initiatives to promote and explore the role that Health Authorities can play to ensure that our communities promote optimum health for ALL residents. It is essential that if we want people to chose healthy lifestyles (and we know that they do want to) that we create the environments that make that possible, and address the underlying inequities that make it more possible for some than for others.

Sandy James
City Planner, City of Vancouver

Sandy is a City Planner with the City of Vancouver who champions best practices in the walking environment. She has a master's degree in City Planning, is a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners, an international member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and a LEED approved professional. Sandra also works as a mediator and holds a conflict resolution certificate from the Justice Institute of British Columbia. She is a conference committee member for the international Walk21 organization which promotes excellence in the walking environment and has worked with Walk21 in New York City and in the Hague, Holland. Sandy's specialty is working with various levels of government and community in creating demonstration projects that are innovative examples of best practice, which are then adopted as policy. Sandy developed the Blooming Boulevards policy, has worked with the Country Lane concept, and continues to explore with residents how to make communities greener, healthier, and more walkable.

Cynthia Melosky
VP Development, Polygon Homes Ltd.

Cynthia Melosky is a VP Development at Polygon Homes Ltd., a leading multi-family residential building and development company. Polygon has built over 20,000 homes over the past 30 years in the Vancouver area and Cynthia has been with Polygon for over 10 years. She graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Master's Degree in Architecture in 1981.

Neal Carley, M.A.Sc.,P.Eng.
Director, Streets
City of Vancouver

Neal Carley is the Director of Streets with the City of Vancouver's Engineering Department.  In his position, he has responsibility over the built environment on City streets, which includes public realm, street trees, accessibility, as well as the traditional street pavement, sidewalks, and street lights.   Neal has a passion for improving the built environment and public realm to foster a culture of walking.  He is member of the Walk21 Vancouver steering committee and plans to continue the to develop the walking culture in the region.

Daryl Rock
Chair, Rick Hansen Global Accessibility Map

Daryl Rock is the Chair of the Rick Hansen Institute, an applied research organization accelerating discoveries and best practices into treatments and quality of life for people with spinal cord injury. He is also a board member of the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, addressing Spinal Cord Injury, acquired brain injury health and quality of life issues and Freedom at Depth Canada, a scuba training organization. Daryl's expertise is in disability rights, social and policy development and research funding. He is the author of Making a Difference, highlighting Canadians who had made a significant contribution to their communities.

Helena Swinkels
Medical Health Officer, Fraser Health Authority

Dr. Helena Swinkels is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine Specialist who has a keen interest in creating physical and social environments that make it easier to live a healthy life. Since starting work with Fraser Health in 2008, she has partnered with internal stakeholders, municipalities and the region to ensure health is prioritized in planning processes. In addition to her work at the health authority level, she works with the Health and Community Design Collaborative to promote knowledge exchange in the region between planners, researchers and health authorities; the Health Officers Council to advocate for healthy public policy in British Columbia; and Healthy Canada by Design, which links Medical Health Officers from Canada’s Urban Public Health Network with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Institute of Planners and others to promote the knowledge base to create healthy built environments in Canada. She gets around by transit, walking or bicycling whenever she possibly can.