Richard W. Prokopanko
Our Board Chair, Richard has over three decades of natural resource experience in the public sector at the provincial, federal level and the private sector. He has extensive experience in policy development, strategic planning, operations, and communications with a focus on environmental sustainability, regulatory affairs, crisis management and stakeholder engagement.
Along with Richards's extensive work with different governments, he has held numerous board positions with different associations. Some of those positions include the Chair the Mining Association of BC, executive position at the Business Council and the BC Chamber of Commerce. He also held community positions as the Chair of Arts Umbrella, board member at the Audain Art Museum and Alpine Canada.
Ian Anderson
Ian Anderson recently retired from Trans Mountain Corporation where he was the President and Chief Executive Officer for the past 4 years. Prior to his position with Trans Mountain, he was the President of Kinder Morgan Canada for over 13 years. He has over 44 years of executive leadership experience with predecessor companies such as Terasen, BC Gas, Centra Gas, and Westcoast Energy.
Ian was responsible for the strategic direction, growth, operations and sustainability of Trans Mountain. Ian was successful in creating and delivering on the vision, governance and strategy of Trans Mountain through changing market condition, ownership changes, and a constant state of regulatory and legal evolution. Ian developed a strong, transparent and trusted philosophy for government interactions and community relations.
His experience and reputation among the country's Indigenous nations were developed over decades of hands-on involvement and open communications. His efforts to reconcile linear infrastructure impacts with Indigenous communities’ values and history resulted in near unanimous support from affected Communities for the pipeline’s ongoing expansion. In addition to successfully operating the only pipeline delivering product to Canada’s west coast, the Trans Mountain Expansion Project has been a 12-year journey for Ian. The Project has already delivered significant economic and environmental benefits to Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and will contribute significant economic value to the nation once complete.
Lori Ackerman
Lori was first elected to Fort St. John City Council in 2005 and then mayor in 2011. After serving three terms as mayor, she joined Blueberry River First Nations as the first CEO of Blue Berry River Resources Ltd. in 2022.
During her tenure as mayor, Lori was an advocate for energy literacy, bringing a common sense, fact-based approach to provincial and national discussions about natural resource development. BC Business Magazine named Lori one of the Top 35 Most Influential Women in BC in 2016, while the Energy Council of Canada named her the 2019 Canadian Energy Person of the Year. Her knowledge of the resource sector was drawn from her work in northern BC and also four years spent working in small communities in Peru with the Sustainable and Inclusive Communities in Latin America Program.
A regular volunteer with Scouts Canada and other organizations, she received the Queen’s Jubilee Medal in 2002 and 2012 for her service to her community.
Susan Downie-Gagnon
Susan Downie-Gagnon has dedicated over 20 years to developing and leading strategies, special initiatives, and programs across a wide range of industries, including collaborations with the private sector, government, academia, and non-profit organizations.
Her passion for natural resources has driven her to provide strategic guidance and lead public relations efforts for significant natural resource entities and flagship projects. Recently, she was instrumental in orchestrating one of Canada’s largest equity ownership transactions involving Indigenous communities and provided strategic planning consulting services in the forestry, bioenergy, mining, and clean technology sectors. Previous to this, as Assistant Dean of Communications at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry, she led a pivotal provincial summit that set industry benchmarks. During her tenure as Vice President of Communications and Research at the Coast Forest Products Association, Susan established a comprehensive public relations framework and played a key role in signing a ground-breaking MOU within the industry.
Her expertise is widely recognized, resulting in numerous invitations to participate in think-tanks and focus groups aimed at shaping the future of Canada’s natural resource sector. Beyond her professional pursuits, Susan actively serves on various boards, including a charitable organization dedicated to supporting children affected by poverty.
Malcolm Macpherson
Malcolm Macpherson is the National Chair of the Indigenous Practice at Whitelaw Twining. He has over 20 years of varied legal and negotiation experience since he graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. Having built up one of Canada’s leading practices in the Indigenous space, he is often contacted by the media to comment on new and emerging developments in this area, and has become an integral and trusted advisor to many Indigenous nations throughout Canada who rely on his counsel on a near daily basis.
Malcolm has a keen interest in the Canadian energy sector and serves as a governor of the Canadian Energy Executive Association. He is of the view that Canada's Indigenous nations are by virtue of the rights they hold, co-resource rulers of Canada's vast wealth of natural resources, and very much enjoys being at the centre of dialogue in this legal and political arena.
When not at work, Malcolm enjoys family time with his wife Savanagh and children Magnus and Magdalena.
Stewart Muir
Resource Works founder and executive director, Muir is a historian and award-winning journalist with a passion for the natural legacies of British Columbia. A graduate of Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia, he was a director of The Nature Trust of British Columbia from 2006 until 2014. During a fellowship at the renowned Centre for the Study of European Expansion at Leiden University in The Netherlands, he studied economic botany and the long-term consequences of deforestation and climate change.
Muir was a contributing author to The Sea Among Us: Life and History of The Strait of Georgia edited by Richard Beamish and Sandy McFarlane. As lead writer of a civic-provincial review of Vancouver's 2011 Stanley Cup riot, Muir helped to frame recommendations to prevent such incidents in future. In his work as a public historian, Stewart has shed light on incidents of racism and censorship from British Columbia's past.
While business editor and later deputy managing editor of The Vancouver Sun, Muir sought to make economic coverage compelling for a general audience. In the role of managing director, he launched Pagemasters North America, a Toronto-based enterprise producing editorial print sections of The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star newspapers.