Executive

The true commitment of extraordinary people follows the belief that they have answered a call, that the purpose of their cause is greater than their lives.

 

Nathan Davis, Co-Chair

Nathaniel Davis was born in Spruce Grove, Alberta, just West of Edmonton. He has had a life-long interest in sailing and was racing sailboats and yachts at various regattas around Canada and the States while growing up. He was also a sailing instructor. In 2007, Nathan graduated with an engineering degree in Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering at Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland. He is currently working as a naval architectural engineer specializing in concept designs for future naval vessels. Currently, Nathan lives in Lower Town and became involved with the King Edward Avenue Task Force early in 2010.

 

Michel Vallée, Co-Chair

Michel Vallée is a graduate of the University of Montréal in Criminology and Business Administration. He worked for the federal government in two departments for more than 33 years, i.e., Public Safety and Justice Canada where he occupied numerous positions a number of them at the senior management level. After his retirement in 2003, he accepted an appointment as Associate Professor at Carleton University and teaches criminology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Finally, he has been extensively involved in his community volunteering for more than 15 years in both the Lowertown Community Association and the King Edward Avenue Task Force where, over the years, he had occupied respectively the positions of Vice-President and Vice-Chair. [français]

 

Bruce Baker, Executive Member

Bruce joined the Task Force in 2005 out of his interest in making positive changes in Lowertown and King Edward Avenue in particular. He has lived in Lowertown east for the past 15 years. He retired from high school teaching (Geography) and from teaching at the University of Ottawa. He has been involved in the King Edward forum and in the NCC Bridge Study. Presently, he is the president of the Galleria condominium on Besserer Street.

 

Liz MacKenzie, Executive Member

Liz MacKenzie has been involved in community building for more than 15 years: as President of the Centretown Citizens' Community Association; and as Membership Coordinator for the Centretown Citizens' Ottawa Corporation, the largest private non-profit housing organization in Canada. She began her work in Lowertown as President of the Centretown Affordable Housing Development Corporation (CAHDO), developing 30 town homes at Clarence and King Edward Avenue, Ontario's first affordable home ownership project. As a resident of one of these homes, she is committed to the work of the Task Force. She is a graduate of University of Ottawa in Visual Arts and has considerable local, national and international experience in developing communication campaigns in a variety of formats.

 

Ex-Officio Members

Marc Aubin, Ex-Officio Executive Member and Chair

Marc first joined the Task Force back in June of 1998 at the age of 18. His roots in Lowertown go back six generations. He has bachelors degrees in Commerce and Education and has a strong background in transportation policy analysis. His early successes included the publication of a letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen in 1998 regarding King Edward and a report of recommendations to improve the street in 2000. Marc played a lead role in the management of the Task Force and its agenda and was responsible for a considerable number of its initiatives. He served as the president during one of the Task Force's busiest periods from 2010 to 2012. He stepped away from the board to take over as President of the Lowertown Community Association.

 

Bill Campbell, Ex-Officio Executive Member

Bill had lived in Sandy Hill and Lowertown for 22 years. He was involvement because of his desire to see the heavy trucks removed from King Edward Avenue and his frustration with politics preventing a rational solution to the problem. His paper, “It’s Not the Same Problem”, resulted in the next phase of the NCC Interprovincial Crossings study being broadened to include truck traffic and pedestrian safety in the downtown corridor as a baseline. After serving 12 years in the Canadian Army, Bill spent 25 years with Xerox Corporation in positions in the USA, UK, and Canada. He held senior management positions in two Ottawa high-tech companies and was a consultant in Quality Management. Bill is a graduate of RMC, the University of Toronto and the University of Rochester (MBA).

 

Barbara Myers, Ex-Officio Executive Member

Barbara Myers was an Ottawa writer and grandmother who moved to a new condo on King Edward Avenue in 2003. She became actively involved in community issues through the way STO buses from Gatineau used to park and keep their engines running all along the street, and she helped bring an end to that practice. She believed that King Edward Avenue could be restored as a main street rather than an urban highway, to the benefit not only of the community, but the whole city. She wrote "All it takes is a vision for what this city, Canada's capital, should be like." Barbara made a tremendous contribution to the organization by way of her enthusiasm, strong belief in community, and professional life experiences. She still owns her condo on King Edward, but moved to the Golden Triangle in Centretown in late 2010.

 

Angie Todesco, Ex-Officio President

Angie Todesco was the president of the Task Force between 1986 and 2000 and a resident of King Edward Avenue. She was a fighter who cared very much about her community. She was responsible for numerous achievements including: bringing together a large number of businesses and the community to build a community garden at King Edward and Clarence, helping plant daffodils in King Edward Avenue Park, cleaning up garbage on the avenue, going to the Ontario Municipal board on three separate occasions, and many other initiatives. She kept the group together over those years through her passionate and action-oriented approach to the problems that faced King Edward Avenue. Among Angie’s great successes was the long-lasting impression she left upon the city’s people in terms of the gravity of the problem of truck traffic through downtown Ottawa. Even in 2010, councillors and civil servants remembered her. Click here for a message from Angie.