EAC Board of Directors: Biographies 

Karen Hollett, Co-Chair

Karen Hollett has been involved with the EAC since the early 1990's.  
She came home one day from work to find an EAC canvasser chatting up her partner on the back deck in the sun.  From this inauspicious start, Karen became a member and a volunteer; chairing, co-chairing and sitting as a Board member on the Board of Directors and even doing a brief stint as EAC's Executive Director.  A Newfoundlander by birth, Karen has called Halifax home for the past 25 + years.  She loves it here but her heart is in Cape Breton where she looks forward to living a low-footprint existence with her honey, Fred.  Karen sees organic honey, maple syrup, vegetables and free range chickens in her future.

Her broad range of interests has resulted in a career that's followed a meandering path from biology through film and yoga to law.  Even though Karen is at present a legal consultant, she's still a biologist at heart with a keen love of the outdoors, wild spaces and wildlife.

She's a member of many environmental organizations, including NS Nature Trust, Friends of Hemlock Ravine, CPAWS, Nature Conservancy of Canada and EcoJustice but feels a deep connection to the great work and values of EAC.

Chelsea Boaler, Board Rep: Marine

Chelsea Boaler is currently a student at Dalhousie University studying Marine Biology and Environment, Sustainability and Society. Originally from Winnipeg, Chelsea has been living in Halifax since August, 2007. She joined the EAC shortly thereafter for hands on experience in her field of study while being able to learn and network within her new community. She dedicates most of her time to the Marine Issues Committee. Chelsea is involved in other environmental initiatives such as volunteering abroad with International Student Volunteers, participating in the 2009 Impact! Co-operators Youth Conference for Sustainability Leadership and being an active member of The Dalhousie Helping Group of The Nova Scotia Nature Trust; a new society on campus.

Louise Hanavan, Board Rep: Transportation

Louise joined the Food Action and Transportation Issues Committees in 2006. She fell in love with food and farming when she spent time working as a goatherd after university. Since then, she's worked on other farms and gardens, and raised vegetables, herbs and chickens at her Halifax home. Louise loves practical and leisurely cycling, and dreams of a farmers market train. She is currently working with the Rural Research Centre at the Nova Scotia Agricultural and the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University, conducting her graduate research in socio-agricultural transition and the role of cooperatives.

Jamie Thomson, Board Rep: Energy

Jamie Thomson landed in Nova Scotia in 2000 to work for a local power inverter manufacturer. Prior to moving east he worked as a mechanical engineer and consultant designing space science instrumentation in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where he learned that a good planet is hard to find. While volunteering with the EAC, Jamie has built a mobile bed, a walking drafty house and hosts the longest running unregistered street side garbage can in central Halifax.

Jamie continues to work in the local manufacturing sector and on the energy issues committee where he asks William McDonough's three questions: What do we take, what do we waste and what do we make?

Anne Pryde

Anne Pryde is a full time mom and part time potter, working from her home tucked away in the forest in Hatchet Lake Nova Scotia. Anne has a food obsession, so in her spare time, she is studying to be a holistic nutritional consultant.

Anne's first stint with the EAC board of directors was as the representative of the food action committee in 2005. In the past she has acted as content editor for Between the Issues, and was the first Administrative Assistant at the Centre.

Besides food Anne also loves her family, swimming in lakes, clay, music trivia, the colour brown, and cylinders.

Katrina Ross, Board Rep: Food Action 

Katrina has always been a creative cook and loves to learn all there is about food, gardening and nutrition. She moved back to the Maritimes in 2008 after working in marketing in Sydney Australia, New York, London and Toronto. Upon her return, she decided to follower her passions and looked for ways where she could put her marketing and food skills to good use, which lead her to volunteer for the Food Action Committee. She has been an active volunteer heading up the sales of the local cookbook "Eating by the Seasons", writing for and coordinating  "The Seasonal Gourmet" article in the BTI, organising the food education group and helping to promote events at the EAC and FAC.

Her focus is to provide people with enough information and resources, to enable them to make conscious choices about the food they buy.

Anne Marie Ryan   

Anne Marie originally hails from Ireland and came to Canada to do graduate studies in Geology quite a number of years ago... and stayed. 

Following a number of different part-time educational and geologic paths while raising her three daughters with her husband here in Halifax, she now teaches in the Earth Sciences Department at Dalhousie.  In addition to a number of first year courses, she also teaches Environmental Geology, and Forensic and Medical Geology. A great fan of the outdoors and nature, her particular interest in water-related issues and her love of all things coastal, drew her to the Ecology Action Centre.

Nayana Hejmadi, Board Rep: Diversity Committee 

I have been working as a volunteer member on the EAC Diversity Committee and have found this to be a personally rewarding and educational experience. It has made me keenly aware of the environmental challenges that face our region. More importantly, I recognize the environment as a global resource - one that should be protected as such. Having lived overseas and been fortunate enough to have been exposed to various people, cultures, and philosophies, I believe that I have the ability to understand the challenges that face some diverse groups. I also understand that the solution to many of the challenges that face our environment today, requires people from different backgrounds to work together to make a difference. I look forward to another great year and the chance to find more ways to get people involved and excited about the many programs and events EAC has planned.

Tom Welch, Board Rep: Wilderness Issues Committee 

Tom Welch lives in Chester, Nova Scotia, having moved there from Ontario in 1996.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics, Economics and Geology from Queens University and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Windsor. In his early working life Tom was involved in geological exploration in northern Canada and later in finance and accounting both in Canada and overseas.  He worked for over ten years as a fresh fish broker.

In 2007 Tom founded, with his wife Anne Lambert, the International Conservation Fund of Canada (ICFC), a registered Canadian charity. ICFC currently has programs in seven tropical countries.  Tom has been involved with EAC's Wilderness Issues Committee since 2009 and took part in the most recent Maritimes Breeding Bird Atlas.

Rodrigo Hernandez- Gomez Board Rep: Built Environment Committee

I am interested in becoming part of the EAC’s board of directors for diverse reasons.  I have become more familiar with the various committees at the EAC, through my involvement in the 2011 Art Installation Project for EAC's building facade.  The Built Environment Committee is of particular interest to me because in my work as an artist I am beginning to research the reuse of urban spaces and how these are used for an exercise of public space, public life and cultural creation. I feel that my involvement will be a very positive way to contribute to the EAC and, as a newcomer to Nova Scotia, learn a lot from the experience.

Jessi Metter, Secretary 

Jessi and her partner Steve returned to Halifax from B.C. in 2009 after a 22 year absence in order to be closer to their children who all live in the East. The beauties and solace of the ocean, forest, mountains, flora have nurtured her throughout life and form a backdrop to her environmental awareness.

She joins the EAC in 2011 as Secretary following two years volunteering with us in Membership, Transportation Issues, the library and the archives.  While in B.C. she served with the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation as board member and doing volunteer administrative work. Jess was active in her community from 1997-2009 with a community vision planning committee and its subsequent implementation.  She also chaired a transportation subcommittee of the Dunbar Vision Implementation Committee.

Jessi worked in Halifax as a speech-language pathologist and has also worked for a rural newspaper, as librarian, piano teacher.  She is now retired, enjoying her volunteer life with the EAC and Hospice Society.  Her leisure time is enriched by gardening, knitting and she is now discovering the multi-faceted joys of basketry with the N.S. Basketry Guild.

Pat Kipping – Member-at-Large 

Pat has been active in the local community since arriving here in 1970 and is interested in playing a role helping EAC to endure and thrive. She has started and served on a number of boards including Oxfam Canada, and is fascinated by EAC’s unique committee-based governance and operational structure. She brings skills in fundraising, membership development, campaigning, media relations, research and community education to the board, developed over many years as an arts,  peace, environment and social justice activist.

Sam Fraser, Member at Large

Sam is a happy Haligonian. Through his job as assistant manager at HolistiClean Cleaning Services, he has come to know the city and many of its outstanding citizens, including the swell folks at the EAC. Previously, he studied numbers and letters at Mount Allison University, broadcast the news on CKEC Radio (now East Coast FM), and sold used books and records at a nice shop in Montreal. While there, he volunteered for the NDG Food Depot and participated in that group's Board of Directors, and also helped start the Montreal Free School. Currently, in addition to taking care of the finances and communications at HolistiClean, he is learning about complex adaptive systems, designing nerdy card games, and discovering Halifax's improvised music scene. He hopes to one day win the Spiel des Jahres award or be the mayor.