The Yukon Wildlife Preserve Operating Society is run by a volunteer Board of Directors elected each year at an Annual General Meeting.
Executive
Kimberley Porter, President
Kimberley is a stay at home mother of two young children. She has lived in Whitehorse since 2004 and in Yukon since 2000. She has a BSc in biology and geography from Simon Fraser University, where she also worked in the forest entomology lab. She has a BEd from Malaspina University-College and has worked as a teacher and education assistant in Dawson City. Previously, she worked as a volunteer with the Stanley Park Zoological Society running preschool nature and zoo programs and worked at Science World designing and implementing school programs. As a parent and educator, her personal mandate is to encourage in children an appreciation and understanding of our natural environment. She sees the Yukon Wildlife Preserve as an excellent opportunity for education for all ages and looks forward to being a part of its growth.
Linda Casson, Vice-President
Linda Casson moved to the Yukon in 1979, living first in Haines Junction, then moving to Whitehorse in 1981. She has a Biological Sciences diploma from NAIT, Environmental Studies Degree from U of Waterloo and for a number of years was certified as an Civil Engineering Technologist. She has worked as park interpreter in 3 western National Parks, done contract work with Canadian Wildlife Service, worked as geotechnical and materials tech on highway construction, and most recently, coordinating a funding program for Public Safety Canada that supports crime prevention work in communities. As a consultant, she has worked as a trainer and facilitator in the areas of job search techniques, workplace communications, planning and evaluation and self-employment and served as City Councillor for the city of Whitehorse.
Luigi Zanasi, Treasurer
Luigi has a Master's degree in economics from McGill University. After working for private consulting firms and governments in Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Fredericton and St. John's, he came to the Yukon in 1989 to work as Director of Policy and Planning for the Yukon Housing Corporation. In 1993, he started his private consulting firm and has been providing economic research, business plans and feasibility and forecasting studies to government, private sector and non-profit clients. He also taught economics at Yukon College for 12 years and is the Treasurer of the YWPOS.
Dave Mossop, Past President
Dave is a biologist currently instructing at Yukon College. He has carried out research and management generally in the area of Conservation Biology in the Yukon for the last 30 years – initially as thesis research, later with the Yukon Government and now through a partnership between the College and the Yukon Government. A long associate of the Yukon Game Farm, now Yukon Wildlife Preserve, he partnered at the facility in, among other things, education, a management project raising Peregrine Falcons for wild release, an experimental gyrfalcon breeding project and wild bird rehabilitation work.
Directors
Martin Crill
Martin has lived in the Yukon for ten years. He holds masters degrees in Environmental Management and Rural Social Development, and a diploma in Renewable Resource Management. Before coming to the Yukon, Martin was a programme director for a major British humanitarian and human rights organization for over 20 years, working in Africa and Latina America. For part of the year he continues to act as a management consultant to humanitarian agencies, and during the Yukon field season undertakes aquatic ecology field work on contract to a local environmental consulting company. Martin brings to the board a combination of management experience and a long-standing interest in environmental conservation.
Richard Farnell
Rick worked as a wildlife biologist for the Yukon Department of Environment since 1978. He was responsible for the Yukon’s caribou management program and has taken the lead on several very successful caribou recovery programs since the early 1980’s. Most notably among these projects and respecting the YWP needs, Rick was the project manager of the international Chisana herd caribou recovery program dealing with caribou held in captivity for release in the wild to bolster numbers in this threatened herd. Now retired, and along with all other directors, Rick is mutually dedicated to the well-being of the animals on the YWP. As such, Rick serves and takes the responsibility as chair of the Animal Care Committee. With a primary goal of soon seeking accreditation of the YWP with the Canadian Aquarium and Zoos Association, Rick works closely with staff to insure the best of care for the animals. His primary interest at this time is to explore the possibility of bringing in a small number of free-ranging Yukon species to insure healthy genetic diversity for the YWP’s population. In doing so, there could eventually be a reservoir of healthy & genetically fit representative wildlife species from our area available to other certified wildlife parks & zoos for the world's appreciation of our indigenous species.
Richard Gorczyca
Richard brings to the YWPOS a combined 25 years of public/private experience in the areas of both environmental/planning and real estate development. He has extensive exposure in various provincial and territorial jurisdictions of Ontario, BC and the Yukon and currently works as a consultant/Managing Director working with various Yukon First Nations in the areas of economic development and land settlement planning matters. Richard has also spent several years in the areas of sales and marketing. His strong interest in environmental studies along with his professional background provides a natural fit and commonality in working with the YWPOS organization concerning infrastructure development, planning, sales and marketing.
W.J. (Bill) Klassen
Bill has lived and worked in the Yukon and Northwest Territories and Alaska for the past 40 years as a peace officer (RCMP), conservation officer, wildlife technician, environmental protection biologist, and senior administrator in the Yukon government. Bill was deputy minister of Health and Human Resources for three years and deputy minister of Renewable Resources for five years for the Yukon Government. Since November 1990, he has consulted to government, First Nations, and the private sector on a wide range of projects. Mr. Klassen holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Management from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and obtained a Master of Forestry degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Amanda Leslie
Amanda first arrived in the territory in 1990 to join the cast of the Frantic Follies and permanently made the Yukon her home in 1994. Today, she is a Communications Consultant and Event Manager with her own business in Whitehorse - Mosaic Communications - and her client list includes among others the Council of Yukon First Nations, Tourism Yukon, the Alaska-Canada Rail Link, INAC and the Yukon Hospital Foundation. Serving in her first term as a Director on the Board, Amanda looks forward to bringing her communications planning, marketing and fund raising experience to the YWPOS.
Joy Waters
Joy is the Yukon Government’s main liaison with the Yukon Wildlife Preserve and has witnessed the growth and development of the facility under the careful guidance of the non-profit board. Joy is proud of the Yukon Wildlife Preserve Operating Society’s accomplishments of the past four years to fulfill its vision of becoming a world class wildlife conservation education, research and rehabilitation facility in the Yukon. She is currently the Yukon Department of Environment’s Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Planning and helped facilitate the Yukon government’s purchase of the property from Danny and Uli Nowlan in 2004. The department has the territorial mandate for fish and wildlife; parks and protected areas; conservation, protection and public education; environmental protection and assessment, and water resource management.
Pierre Germain
Richard Gorczyca
Chandelle King
Rick Nielson
Harold Roche
George Stetkiewicz