PacificSport Northern BC Board of Directors

Jim Burbee
Jim is an outdoor enthusiast; he traveled from Fort St John to Montreal by canoe to attend EXPO 67 and this summer (2009) he completed a two week traverse of Ellesmere Island. Between the years, he has been part of many other adventures including boy scouts and off season excursions for Cross-country ski racers. He also worked with community members at the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club to start up the jackrabbit ski league in Prince George and administered the program for the club for several years while participation grew from 13 members to approximately 200 under the “new” lighted tracks at the Otway Ski Centre. He then moved on to coaching the junior racing program.
Jim currently competes provincially as a master’s curler. His primary interest in being part of PacificSport Northern BC is to understand the potential of an organization to contribute to sport development in the region and the ability to support cross-country ski programs locally and provincially.

Jim graduated from UBC with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry. He is a self-employed and President of Venture Forestry Consulting Inc.

Ben Berland
Ben has always been actively involved in sports as a player, coach, administrator or fan, from recreational to competitive levels. His biggest involvement has been in hockey where he attained the second highest level of coaching certification in the world through Hockey Canada. Ben has also been involved with Hockey BC as a Course Conductor teaching such courses as Speak Out and development levels. You can tell he definitely enjoys hockey but baseball, and football (soccer) are close behind.

During the day, Ben is an Education Technical Advisor for the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council.
As a volunteer, Ben is the coordinator for Rediscovery International (a program that helps youth reconnect with themselves through outdoor activities). He also volunteers his time as a director of the Prince George Urban Aboriginal Justice Society, and on the Aboriginal advisory boards for both UNBC and CNC.

Ken Edzerza (President)
Ken has been a youth consultant for 28 years. He develops programs for high risk street youth and serious young offenders.

Ken has been involved in the sport world in numerous capacities. He has been the Chair of Aboriginal Sports & Recreation Association of BC for the past 12 years and been the chair of PacificSport Northern BC for 3 years now. He is also a current board member of the Aboriginal Sport Circle (national organization) and of the NAIG (North American Ingenious Games) council. He has coached many select, house league, and school soccer teams over the past 30 years in the North and is a NCCP Level 3 certified coach.
When he isn’t volunteering, he spends time with is wife and 4 children and is also working on a Masters in Leadership through Royal Roads University.

Ann Holmes
Ann is a Faculty member at the College of New Caledonia. She teaches in the Department of Human Kinetics and is currently a Doctoral candidate in Education through Simon Fraser University.

Ann is also a NCCP certified coach and facilitator, a YMCA volunteer fitness leader, a mental trainer with PacificSport Northern BC, and part-time golf professional (CPGA ‘Class A’ designation). She sits as a volunteer on the ProMOTION Plus Board as well as the PacificSport Northern BC Board. Ann has a young son and enjoys spending her spare time being active with her family.

Deb Meyer (Secretary)
Deb received her Honours Bachelor of Commerce in Sport Administration from Laurentian University in Sudbury, ON. She is currently the Arenas Coordinator for the City of Prince George for CN Centre & Community Arenas. Throughout University Deb worked as a lifeguard, aquatics coordinator and fitness instructor.

Enjoying an active lifestyle, Deb likes cross-country skiing, playing soccer, biking, running and swimming. She volunteers on the PacificSport Northern BC board because she believes in the power of sport be it for competition, athlete development, long term health benefits and the social and economic benefits it contributes to our country.

Tom Muirhead
Tom has been a board member since 2001. He coaches trampoline levels I, II, & III regularly, and occasionally artistic gymnastics. Tom is also involved in Alpine skiing through his participation in the Canadian Ski Patrol. A graduate of the University of Victoria, he spends his work day with Water Stewardship Ministry of Environment

Corey Naphtali
Corey was born and raised in Vancouver and graduated from the University of Victoria in 2001 with an honours degree in psychology. He started his training in accouming in 2003 obtaining a diploma in accounting from the University of British Columbia. Corey articled with an international firm of Chartered Accountants in Vancouver and currently works as a manager at Chan Foucher LeFebvre LLP. Corey has always been involved in sports most notably soccer and hockey. As a youth Corey played soccer for Team B.C. and traveled to Wales to play in a soccer tournament.

Geoff Paynton
Geoff has been involved in PacificSport since the first day it came into existence as the Regional Multisport Network Centre in 1995. He was a staff member for the first 3.5 years and as a board member at the provincial and regional level since that time. It’s an organization he is passionate about. He has seen huge strides taken since the organization was developed and wants to ensure that we continue to move forward for the benefit of our athletes.

Geoff volunteer’s in many capacities as a coach, administrator or mentor mostly within the sport and recreation field. His greatest volunteer passion at the moment is coaching both of his son’s hockey teams. Ice Hockey is Geoff’s favorite sport. He also enjoys golf, soccer and whitewater kayaking.

Geoff is currently the Director of Community Services for the City of Williams Lake and is responsible for the provision of all Recreation, Sport, Arts, Culture and Heritage programs, services and facilities for Williams Lake and the Central Cariboo Regional District.

Anne Pousette (Vice-President)
Anne Pousette has been a board member since 2005. Growing up, Anne competed in Alpine Ski racing through high school and university (UBC Ski Team 1974 to 1977). As a sport for life participant now she enjoys skating, cross-country skiing and mountain biking. She has been involved at the Club, provincial and NSO level in Speed Skating in a variety of capacities from including development, safety and risk management, administration and event hosting.
Anne is a self employed Physician with an interest in Occupational Medicine, Population Health, Physical Activity and Preventive Health, Sport Medicine and Injury Prevention.

Anne enjoys volunteering with PacificSport Northern BC because it is closing the gaps for athletes in BC, removing barriers of geography and lack of access to development and high performance services and is contributing at the community level to increasing the opportunities for all children and youth to experience sport and the life long health benefit of physical activity.

Steve Raper (ex-officio, Canadian Sport Centre Pacific Board member)
Steve enjoys being a participant, coach and referee in multiple sports. His two favourite sports are soccer and hockey. He is the Director of Communications for Northern Health.

Steve believes that high performance sport athletes can be positive role models and have a significant affect on youth. Steve represents northern BC on the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific board because he feels that the ability to be part of the development of local athletes who want to pursue dreams at the highest level is a privilege and an opportunity.

Wendy Rockafellow
Wendy Rockafellow has participated in competitive, recreation and professional sport throughout her life. Much of her sport development occurred in Banff/Canmore (Alberta) where she witnessed the rise of athletic performance in winter sport in Canada during the 1988 Winter Olympics. As an elite athlete herself, she was involved in swimming, sport climbing and biathlon. As passion for climbing as a recreation led her to eventually become a professional mountain and ski guide, and she owned/operated a mountain guiding company for 25 years. During that time, she volunteereed in local school programs and coached athletes that achieved world cup rankings.

More recently, she plays an athlete support role so her own three busy teenage athletes. A graduate of NAIT (Environmental Sciences Management) and Royal Roads University (MBA), Wendy lives in Smithers and is the General Manager of Gitxsan Forest Enterprises based in Hazelton, BC.

Matt Thomson
Matt’s favourite sport is Road Cycling. Growing up he competed in the BC Cup Road and Mountain bike series for 4 seasons. He was the President of the PG Cycling Club from 2006-2008 and is currently the VP in Road Cycling.

Matt graduated from the University of Northern British Columbia with a Bachelor of Science and minor in Biochemistry. He completed his Bachelor of Education at UBC and a M.A. in Leadership & Administration at Gonzaga. During the day, Matt is a Chemistry / Computer Science Teacher and the Computer Science Department Head with SD57.

Matt has joined the board of PacificSport Northern BC to help ensure that high level training, mentoring and coaching continues to be accessible for northern athletes. He has been actively involved in school sports. He has been the President of the North Central District Schools Sport Association since 1994, a member of the BC School Sport Board of Directors since 1995 and has won 4 Zone championships as the coach of the Prince George Secondary School Sr Boys Soccer since 2005.

2010 PODIUM PERFORMANCES

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