Award Programs
The CRHNet Awards Program is a national awards program established to recognize and honour exemplary individuals participating in and contributing to the study and practice of disaster risk management. The program is run by a standing committee of CRHNet members which reports to the CRHNet Board. CRHNet Awards are presented annually at the CRHNet Symposium held in the fall of each year. Details of individual awards can be found below.
Lifetime Achievement Award
WINNER: Larry Pearce
Larry Pearce Education Award
The “Pearce Education Award” is offered by CRHNet members to deserving post-secondary students undertaking studies in any discipline related to Canadian disaster risk and/or emergency management. The award is intended to defray the post-secondary education costs of recipients in the year the award is granted. Accordingly, recipients must be enrolled in full-time studies in the year in which the award is given.
FIRST Place: Kari Lentowicz – Kari currently resides in Northern Saskatchewan in the Village of Denare Beach. With an undergrad in Environmental Toxicology, she worked diligently in the mining industry for 12 years on sustainability. Her opportunities within the mining industry led her to a passion for disaster and emergency management. In 2015, Kari took a leap to pursue further education through a Master of Arts in Disaster and Emergency Management (DEM) at Royal Roads University. A number of her research projects focused on aspects of climate change impacts and adaptive strategies to mitigate impacts within Canada. Kari graduates from the program this winter. As she completes her graduate education, she has gained employment in Manitoba’s health sector as a Disaster Management Coordinator. In this role, Kari works collaboratively within the region to increase preparedness levels for both the health authority and the communities in which the clients reside. In addition to this, Kari is diligently working on documented emergency and contingency plans in an effort to ensure knowledge retention, increased resilience, and continuity of health services. Kari is also currently a member of her local volunteer Fire Department and continues to be involved in mine rescue events in western Canada and internationally as well. Kari hopes to increase her knowledge in the field of DEM and apply that knowledge with hands on experience in international aid with Humanity First after completing training with the organization this September.
SECOND Place: Sarah Greenberg – Sarah attended the University of Manitoba and earned a Bachelor of Science in physical geography in the geomatics stream with a minor in psychology. Upon graduating she accepted a position at KGS Group Professional Consulting Engineers as a GIS specialist. With her experience in working with GIS and remote sensing, she took on additional roles within her department writing proposals, reports, as well as doing project management. She was on the quality assurance team to maintain and create company policy in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and also ran and lead the company’s social committee where she planned and organized company events throughout the year. In February 2015 she joined the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) Disaster Management team as a volunteer, and with the emergency response team and the personal disaster assistance team she completed over 60 hours of national-level training. Sarah moved up to a supervisory position and responded to five large-scale disasters and numerous small scale responses with the CRC. Additionally, she worked for the CRC as a project coordinator for a smoke hazard study and this work drove her passion for disaster and emergency management. In September 2017 I began my masters of disaster and emergency management at York University and I am very interested in how GIS and remote sensing can be used in this field to help coordinate logistics, response, mitigation, planning and recovery.
THIRD Place: Denise Blinn – Denise Blinn is currently student in York University’s Masters of Disaster & Emergency Management Program where she has maintained a consistently high GPA while giving back to her fellow students and her profession. In May, she was awarded the DRIE 2017 Todd Bardes Memorial Scholarship. Previously, Denise worked in film, television and theatre as an award-winning screenwriter and director. In the creative world, she excelled at crisis management which led, in part, to her current passion for emergency management. Since joining the program, Denise has worked as an intern for the City of Toronto’s Office of Emergency Management. She currently volunteers with the OAEM where she recently worked as an editor for the Do1Thing campaign materials. She also volunteers as an active executive board member of DEMSA (York’s Graduate Disaster & Emergency Management Student’s Association). Denise has a passion for evidence-based risk communication which grows out of her professional work in film, television and advertising.
The CRHNet “Lifetime Achievement Award” is the organization’s highest honour. Presented annually, this award is offered to recognize the lifetime achievements and contributions of exemplary individuals to the enhancement of Canadian disaster safety. This award is open to all Canadians, and recognizes individual service to public safety through disaster management practice, research, education and leadership.
Symposium Travel Bursary
Emily Gray – Emily completed her Master’s in Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia in April, 2017. Her research focused on improving the resilience of Canadian communities to coastal hazards and climate change, resulting in recommendations for local governments considering retreat as an adaptation strategy. Emily was awarded a Social Science and Humanities Research Council Canada Graduate Scholarship-Master’s and a Canadian Institute of Planners’ Trust Fund award for research significance. She was also selected as an international Climate Scholar by the Nippon Foundation-Partnership for the Observation of the Global Oceans, receiving training at the National University of Ireland. Emily gained additional research experience with Resilient Coasts Canada through the Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network Centre of Excellence. Most recently, she worked as Co-Investigator with the Justice Institute of B.C., researching youth involvement in community resilience for Public Safety Canada. Currently, she is employed as a Science Policy Fellow with the B.C. Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing / Office of the Deputy Minister, Emergency Management, researching land use regulations to improve disaster resilience.
Diamir De Scally – Born and raised in Kelowna, British Columbia, Diamir received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of British Columbia Okanagan where she completed a major in geography and a minor in political science. In 2016 Diamir began the Master of Environmental Studies program at the University of Waterloo. For her thesis, Diamir is investigating the role of local and traditional knowledge in adaptation to climate related hazards in the small Pacific island country of the Cook Islands. She completed a three-month field season in the Cook Islands this year where she had the opportunity to both conduct her thesis research and collaborate with Climate Change Cook Islands, the lead government entity for climate change adaptation in the country, and Te Ipukarea Society, the oldest environmental organization in the country. Her research interests include natural hazards, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, resilience, human vulnerability, government agencies, policy making, traditional indigenous knowledge and gender.
Kari Lentowicz – Kari currently resides in Northern Saskatchewan in the Village of Denare Beach. With an undergrad in Environmental Toxicology, she worked diligently in the mining industry for 12 years on sustainability. Her opportunities within the mining industry led her to a passion for disaster and emergency management. In 2015, Kari took a leap to pursue further education through a Master of Arts in Disaster and Emergency Management (DEM) at Royal Roads University. A number of her research projects focused on aspects of climate change impacts and adaptive strategies to mitigate impacts within Canada. Kari graduates from the program this winter. As she completes her graduate education, she has gained employment in Manitoba’s health sector as a Disaster Management Coordinator. In this role, Kari works collaboratively within the region to increase preparedness levels for both the health authority and the communities in which the clients reside. In addition to this, Kari is diligently working on documented emergency and contingency plans in an effort to ensure knowledge retention, increased resilience, and continuity of health services. Kari is also currently a member of her local volunteer Fire Department and continues to be involved in mine rescue events in western Canada and internationally as well. Kari hopes to increase her knowledge in the field of DEM and apply that knowledge with hands on experience in international aid with Humanity First after completing training with the organization this September.
Arielle Dalley – Arielle is a recent graduate of the Master of Community and Regional Planning program at the University of British Columbia. She graduated with a specialization in hazard and disaster planning, and focused her studies specifically on hazard mitigation, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation. For her master’s capstone project, she examined various alternatives for potable water storage, transportation, and distribution which could be implemented by the University of British Columbia in the event of a loss of municipal water supply to campus. For the Spring 2017 edition of HazNet, she wrote an article summarizing research she conducted in Indonesia last year about how to prevent post-disaster resettlement in high-risk areas. The research she will be presenting at this year’s annual symposium focuses on engaging youth in emergency management through high school community service hours in order to increase community resilience. This research was conducted in partnership with Emily Gray and Laurie Pearce from the Justice Institute of British Columbia.
Brennan Vogel – Brennan Vogel has a PhD in Geography from the University of Western Ontario (2016), a Masters degree in International Development Studies from Saint Mary’s University (2010) and a Bachelors of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo (2003). In 2017, Vogel served as a Post Doctoral Research Fellow and ‘Response Coordinator’, affiliated with the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning and the national Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE-MEOPAR), chaired at Dalhousie University. Vogel’s PhD and post-doctoral research focused on the barriers and opportunities for governance structures to support capacity-building initiatives for the planning and implementation of local adaptation actions to reduce vulnerabilities to climate risks and hazards, while supporting resilience in First Nations communities and municipalities of Canada.
The Symposium Travel Bursary, or “STuBby”, is a travel bursary offered by the CRHNet membership to defray the costs of students and young professionals interested in attending the annual CRHNet Symposium.
Canadian DRM Volunteer Award
Nicholas Chebroux
The “Canadian Disaster Risk Management Volunteer Award” is the newest of CRHNet’s awards and will be offered for the first time in 2017. It honours exemplary volunteers, volunteer initiatives and volunteer programs related to Canadian disaster risk management. Up to three nominees will be recognized each year with a certificate as well as exposure on CRHNet’s website and its magazine, HazNet.
Nicolas Chebroux, CEM, CGU – Since completing a Masters degree in Emergency Management in 2001, Nicolas has been working in this field for various international, Canadian, public and private organizations in Europe and the Americas. He currently is an Emergency Management Specialist at the National Energy Board (Government of Canada) and has been volunteering within the Red Cross Movement for emergency planning projects. Additionally, Nicolas has volunteered in a number of disasters in Canada and around the world, including New-Orleans, LA (Hurricane Katrina), the Philippines (Super-Typhoon), Fort McMurray, AB (Wildfires), and in Quebec (Major floods). He also volunteers at the Quebec Emergency Management Association as the Certification Committee President and contributes voluntarily as a Member of the Canadian Red Cross governance committee. Over the years Nicolas has consistently promoted the value of the volunteerism to emergency management activities (e.g. conferences, chapter of an EM reference book to be released next winter, promotion of humanitarian organization like the ROHCMUM for an IAEM-Canada Public Awareness Award) and continues to do so. Mr. Chebroux is a certified Emergency Manager with International Association of Emergency Managers (CEM) and in Quebec (CGU).
