Board of Directors

Donna Phillips has over thirty years of professional experience in business with particular focus in the areas of finance, corporate planning, land negotiations, business development, government relations, stakeholder/community relations and Indigenous negotiations in the energy industry.

Ms. Phillips is the Executive Vice President, Corporate Development of Pacific Canbriam Energy Limited a company with an organic growth story now producing >40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Prior to joining Canbriam in 2007, Donna held the position of Director and Vice President, Land at Direct Energy/Centrica Canada Ltd. She began her oil and gas career in Finance at SaskOil, following which she worked in Corporate Planning, Asset Management and Land at Wascana Energy/CanOxy (now Nexen).

Donna is actively engaged as a member of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers British Columbia Executive Policy Group and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Landmen. She is President of the Petroleum Acquisition and Divestiture Association where she has been a board member since 2006 and a board member of the Canadian Society for Evolving Energy.

Ms. Phillips holds a Bachelor of Administration from the University of Regina and a CPA CMA certification. She also holds her ICD.D from the Institute of Corporate Directors and the Rotman School of Management.

Lana Eagle is an Indigenous relations strategist and a social innovator. She guides companies to better engage and work with Indigenous communities, and to find a pathway forward through a reconciliation framework. She also works with clients to develop Indigenous engagement protocols.

Lana’s background is in banking, economic development, wealth management and mineral exploration. She was one of the first Indigenous women to chair a junior mineral exploration company.

Lana joined AME’s Aboriginal Relations Committee in 2012, where she served as Chair for six years.  In 2017 she became the first Indigenous woman to be elected to the AME Board of Directors in its over 100-year history. In addition, she is a member of the Program Advisory Committee for Mining and Mineral Exploration at the BC Institute of Technology.

Lana is Co-chair of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Diversity and Inclusion Program Advisory Committee.

Lana serves on advisory boards of B.C. Centre for Training Excellence in Mining, PDAC, DPI Mining and SEF Canada, and on the Council Board for the Indigenous Business and Investment Council. Lana is a Board Co-Chair of the Central City Foundation, a non-profit that focuses its work in Vancouver’s inner city.

Lana is a sought-after speaker and lecturer on Indigenous engagement and reconciliation in Canada and on diversity and inclusion. Lana is a member of the Whitecap Dakota First Nation in Saskatchewan.

John Milne, CPA, CA, is an audit partner at KPMG LLP. Originally from Vancouver, John attended the University of British Columbia and obtained his chartered accountant designation in 2000. He is a member of KPMG’s Energy and Natural Resources practice providing audit and audit-related services to a variety of clients, comprising mainly companies in the mining industry, junior oil and gas companies, and large forestry clients. John has extensive experience with public companies operating in the resource sector and has worked at various client operations throughout BC as well as internationally. He assists companies with the accounting for complex organizational structures, financing arrangements, joint arrangements and business acquisitions, and with their Canadian and US securities filings. Since 2011, John has also acted as a mentor to UBC Sauder School of Business MBA students.

Gavin C. Dirom has over 25 years of experience in the Canadian mineral exploration and mining industry, with a focus on government and stakeholder relations, industry advocacy, not-for-profit association management and governance, public policy development, corporate affairs and project permitting, safety, environmental management and sustainability.

As President and CEO of the Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) from 2008 to 2017, Gavin managed a number of professional staff and volunteer-based committees, provided executive leadership to AME’s Board of Directors and represented over 400 corporate and 4,000 individual members with interests in mineral exploration and development. Gavin led AME through some challenging times and was honoured with the Gold Pick award from the Kamloops Exploration Group in April 2017.

Before AME, Gavin held the role of Vice President, Environment, Health and Safety at the Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC). On behalf of MABC members, his work focus was on project permitting, health & safety, environmental management and sustainable development, including supporting the successful effort to build major infrastructure in B.C. such as the Northwest Transmission Line. Prior to MABC, Gavin served as Senior Policy Advisor with Natural Resources Canada on permitting, environmental assessment and federal regulatory process issues facing mineral exploration and mining projects in western Canada, such as Galore Creek, Red Chris and Kemess.

Gavin holds a M.Sc. degree in Environmental Management from Royal Roads University, a B.Sc. in Physical Geography and Environmental Science from the University of Victoria and he is also a registered Professional Agrologist (P.Ag.) in the Province of British Columbia. His M.Sc. thesis and hydrogeology-related research of the Lynx underground mine on Vancouver Island was undertaken with the Geological Survey of Canada. For this work, he was awarded the Jake McDonald Memorial Scholarship by the BC Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation.

Jeff Christian, Partner at the firm Lawson Lundell LLP, practicing exclusively in the energy and natural resource sectors. He represents clients before regulatory tribunals such as the BC Oil and Gas Commission, National Energy Board, and Alberta Utilities Commission. He also advises clients in regard to regulatory and legislative reform initiatives, and in regard to cross-border energy and natural resource development and litigation. He is recognized for his expertise in those sectors by Chambers Global, Lexpert, and Martindale-Hubbell, among others. He is called to the bar in BC, Alberta and Northwest Territories, and has a background in geotechnical engineering and earth sciences.

Doug Donaldson served as an elected 3-term Member of the BC Legislative Assembly (MLA) representing the remote-rural constituency of Stikine, home of BC’s mining Golden Triangle, for 11 years. As the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (2017-2020) he oversaw major reforms in forestry legislation, revitalized land use planning, renewed old forest management, and the rebuilding efforts for ecosystems and communities after record-breaking wildfire seasons. His Official Opposition portfolio’s included mining, energy, indigenous relations, and for 3 years he was the vice-chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.  He has also held public office at the municipal government level serving as a Village of Hazelton councillor from 1999-2009.

Doug lives on the territories of the Gitxsan First Nation in northwest British Columbia. He worked supporting the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs on the successful Delgamuukw-Gisdaywa aboriginal title case to the Supreme Court of Canada as communications director with the Gitxsan Chiefs Office. He was a co-founder of Storytellers’ Foundation, a Hazelton-based NGO focused on community economic development and reconciliation.

Doug is an associate fellow with the University of Victoria’s Centre for Global Studies and holds a MA in journalism and a BSc in wildlife biology. He and his wife Anne live on Wilp Nikate’en territory in the Regional District of Kitimat Stikine, in Two Mile, just outside of Hazelton.

Michael Gatens is semi-retired and living in Victoria, BC. He is a Director of non-profit private oil and gas producer Primavera Resources in Calgary, and private consultant Mosaic Petroleum Analytics in Calgary and Bryan, TX. Mr. Gatens co-founded Unconventional Gas Resources Canada in 2007 and served as CEO until it was sold to Painted Pony in 2017. Mr. Gatens previously founded MGV Energy in 1997, which became the Canadian subsidiary of Quicksilver Resources in 2000.

Mr. Gatens was a Director of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers from 2004-2006 and 2013-2017, serving as Vice Chair and Chair in 2015-2017. He was the founding Chairman of the Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas (now Canadian Society for Evolving Energy) from 2002-2005 and was named Honorary Member in 2006. He was awarded the Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005 and received the Sproule Achievement Award for Unconventional Gas in 2006. He served on the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) International Board in 1995-1997, the Canada Region Board in 2013-2015 and was named Distinguished Member in 2000. He served on the Boards of the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada from 2006-2013 and the U.S. Petroleum Technology Transfer Council from 1994-2003.

From 1982 to 1997, Mr. Gatens was with the consulting firm, S.A. Holditch & Associates, Inc. in College Station, TX & Pittsburgh, PA, leaving as VP Eastern Division and Director. From 1980 to 1982 he was with Bass Enterprises Production Co. of Ft. Worth. Mr. Gatens received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University and was named a Distinguished Graduate in 2013.

Christine Ogryzlo taps into her experience as a communicator to help bridge the gap between the minerals industry and the communities near which they operate. Christine has decades of experience as a journalist, business researcher and communications manager.

She was a producer with CBC radio for 12 years. In 1994 she established her own business research and communications company. Over the next 10 years, she chaired two committees of the Vancouver Board of Trade and served on its board of directors in 2001 and 2002. In 2004 she was on the founding committee for the Northwest Community College School of Exploration & Mining in Smithers. Christine is a director with Smithers Exploration Group, which represents the minerals industry in northern BC.

Christine is a previous director with the Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) and has served on several AME committees.

Stephanie Killam has lived in Mackenzie since 1972. She and her husband Donald have raised their two children in the community. Stephanie was the senior secretary at Mackenzie Secondary School from 1979 to her retirement in 2006.

Stephanie is committed to the community, the region and beyond, promoting initiatives which improve economic, health and educational opportunities. She is well-versed in environmental issues and the balance that is required between those concerns and the economic development and diversification of the country’s future. She continues to increase her knowledge and skills in order to ensure that as a leader and mentor she provides a balanced view for all organizations that she is associated with.

The depth of her involvement in the community, region and province is exemplified by the many Boards and Associations of which she has been or is currently a member. Politically, she was a municipal councillor for nine years and served as Mayor of Mackenzie from 2005 to 2014.

Mike Cathro is a retired geoscientist based in Kamloops, BC. He holds a B.Sc. (Honours, Geological Sciences) from Queen’s University and an M.Sc. (Geology) from the Colorado School of Mines. Mr. Cathro currently serves as director of Happy Creek Minerals Ltd. and previously held technical leadership roles with several junior explorers including Skeena Resources Ltd., Colorado Resources Ltd. and Virginia Energy Resources Inc.

Mr. Cathro’s career has also included 17 years in technical and managerial positions with the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

Over the years, Mike has volunteered in youth sports, and as Director of the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia (AME BC), Director and Past-President of the Kamloops Exploration Group (KEG), and as a member of the BC Geological Survey Technical Liaison Committee.

Since 2012, John has partnered in a consulting business based in Vancouver, BC, focused on exploration, mining, innovation and sustainability. He is the Honorary Professor of Responsible Resources at the University Bristol, UK, and previously, was the Wold Professor of Environmental Balance for Human Sustainability at Cornell University.  John has over 35 years in the mining industry and related research, and has held diverse leadership roles in many organizations – Teck Resources, Genome BC, the World Economic Forum, Resources for Future Generations 2018, Society of Economic Geologists, Geoscience BC, Canada Mining Innovation Council, and MDRU-UBC.  He is a director of KoBold Metals and MineSense, a founder of Regeneration, and has advisory roles for several exploration, technology, venture capital and research organizations.