2023 Speakers
Much More Information on the 2023 Speakers will be coming soon.
Terry Swain
Terry has over 40 years in occupational and traffic safety fields, Terry entered the occupational safety field in 1982, as the BC Safety Council’s Industrial Safety Division manager. His role took him across BC and Canada conducting various workplace safety courses and speaking at various occupational safety conferences for literally thousands of workers, safety committee members, supervisors and managers in industries as diverse as logging, chemical production, manufacturing, IT, accounting and more. In 1994 he founded the Pacific Safety Center Ltd, now one of Western Canada’s best known occupational health and safety organizations. He is one of only 3 safety professionals to ever be awarded the Robert Wright Lifetime Achievement Award for Occupational Safety and Health. He was a founding member of the Trade Safety Coordinator and Construction Safety Officer Development Committees and has sat on numerous other occupational health and safety advisory committees.
Gary McDougall
Gary is a retired police officer who served with the Calgary Police Service for 25 years; the last 9 years of his career, Gary was a member of the Hostage/Crisis Negotiation Team.
He served as both a Team Leader and Training coordinator for the Calgary Hostage Negotiation team and upon retiring in 2006, Gary formed a company called Conflict Solutions. He is currently on the speaking circuit, delivering training in a number of disciplines which include effective negotiation skills, conflict management, dealing with difficult clients, ethics in the workplace and workplace violence issues.
Gary is also a member of the Canadian Speakers Bureau as well as a Lead Instructor for the National Tactical Officer’s Association and in that capacity, he travels around North America teaching crisis intervention and hostage negotiation skills to law enforcement agencies. Gary served as an Instructor at the Canadian National Police College in Ottawa teaching negotiation skills to National as well as International students.
Gary is both a graduate of the FBI Crisis Negotiators Training School and has also served as an Instructor at the FBI Training Academy in Virginia, assisting in the training of new FBI Hostage and Crisis Negotiators.
Allan James Moore
Allan (Al) is a storyteller who has travelled to over fifty countries and worked on 4 continents. He holds a Master of Arts in Leadership Degree and has been a CRSP since 2010 serving on the Board of Canadian Safety Professionals (BCRSP) Professional Conduct Committee since 2017. In addition to his travels, he has over 16 years’ experience in environment, health and safety; 10 of those years working for Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions (formerly known as Amec). Al began his speaking career doing stand-up comedy at Yuk Yuks, The Comic Strip and the Laugh Shop comedy clubs. He then moved onto a position in Taiwan working as a mandarin translator and HSE Manager with Stanley Tools. In this position he was tasked with presenting Stanley’s corporate programs to the various Stanley offices and key suppliers around Taiwan and China through speeches and workshops in Mandarin (which Al learned living in Taiwan a few years prior). Ten years ago, Al moved back to Calgary to begin working for Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions in their OHS department. In this position he frequently delivered safety speeches to project personnel on major projects for a variety of clients such as Enbridge, Imperial Oil, Suncor, TransCanada, Nalcor and many others.
Sunny Jhaj – Thinking Driver
Sunny Jhaj is a road safety professional and Chief Instructor with Thinking Driver. He brings a wealth of experience from the transportation industry as a class 1 licensed driver, from administration and licensing as a former ICBC driving examiner, and as an expert instructor who started and ran his own driving school before joining Thinking Driver.
Sunny leads the Academy division at Thinking Driver and supports the Fleet Safety and School Bus divisions, developing and delivering corporate Defensive Driving, Hazard Avoidance, Driver Evaluations, Trailer Towing, and many more programs.
Sunny lives in Surrey now but was born and raised in the Okanagan and when not teaching driving, he does his driving on the golf course, unfortunately, with significantly less success than he has on the highway.
Norm Ralph – Emcee
Norm has over 40 years’ experience in Occupational Health & safety. He is currently semi-retired after working with several industry groups over his career. Norm got his start in Occupational Health & Safety in the early 80’s working for Western Canada Steel, a local steel manufacturing plant. When the plant closed and moved to Alberta, he found new employment in Safety & Quality Assurance Toyota. He remained in that role for over 10 years before moving on to his next challenge as a Safety Consultant with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Recognizing his desire to work in a more hands-on approach with workers, Norm moved on to a new role as a Senior Safety Analyst with the SkyTrain Operation and in 2013 he was promoted to Manager of Occupational Health.
Norm is a graduate of BCIT’s OH&S program & has his CHSC designations (Canadian Health & Safety Consultant). As well Norm is also a Certification Disability Management Professional CDMP.
Arunjit (Aaron) Gill Ph.D, CRSP, CPHR- Employers’ Advisers Office
Aaron works for the Employers’ Advisers Office (EAO) in Ministry of Labour. The EAO provides advice, assistance, and representation to the employer community on WorkSafeBC claims, assessments and occupational health and safety matters. Aaron has over 30 years of experience in Occupational Health and Safety. He holds two graduate degrees and numerous certifications in the health and safety field. Aaron will be presenting and advising on the delicate issues of bullying and harassment, workplace mental stress, and upcoming legislative changes to an employers’ duty to accommodate.
