ERA Staff Bios
Robert Falls, PhD, RPBio, Chairman of the Board. Robert Falls, Ph.D., R.P.Bio., is the co-founder and Chairman of ERA Carbon Offsets Ltd. Robert has an academic history in photosynthesis and carbon sequestration, and a business background in the energy and environment industries. He has developed renewable energy and clean tech projects in Canada, the US, and in China. During his career, Robert has served as an Adjunct Professor for UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, and acted as a Senior Advisor to the GLOBE Foundation of Canada.
Duncan J. Manson BA, LLB, CEO and Director. Called to the Bar in 1980, Duncan has been practicing law in the areas of Employment and Labour, Environmental, Litigation, Restructuring and Insolvency, Wills and Estates, Professional Negligence and Family Law. Mr. Manson currently resides at Owen Bird Law Corporation in the Vancouver office.
Bart Simmons, B.AP Sc, MEng, Chief Operating Officer. Bart Simmons, C.O.O. for ERA, brings over 30 years of experience in restoring temperate forest ecosystems in British Columbia. He has become a recognized expert in forest regeneration, restoration of riparian ecosystems, urban watershed restoration, biodiversity enhancement, wetland creation and bioengineering in BC. Bart has implemented riparian restoration projects on 15 watersheds within coastal BC as well as prescriptions on over 40 watersheds throughout BC. Mr. Simmons has been involved in over 50 ecosystem restoration projects in urban watersheds, mostly in the Lower Mainland, and has overseen the planting of over 100 million trees.
Jeff Calvert, P.Eng., MBA, CFO. Jeff Calvert is the Chief Financial Officer and the Director of Human Resources for ERA Ecosystem Restoration Associates. Jeff joined ERA from Borealis Carbon Offsets, where he was founder and managing director. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Western Ontario and an MBA with specialisation in management consulting from Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. Jeff is a regular expert panellist in the forestry carbon space and a professional engineer licensed in Ontario.
John Block, BSc, Director of Operations. Prior to starting with ERA in 2008, most of John's working career was with the BC provincial government. Positions he held during that time included Manager of Operations and Facility Development and Director, BC Parks and Protected Areas Branch; Senior Policy Advisor with the Green Economy Secretariat; and, Director, Strategic Initiatives with the Ministry of Environment. John has a BSc in Biology from the University of Victoria and did graduate level studies in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia.
David Rokoss, Director, Compliance Markets. David follows international carbon policy development while exploring project origination and development opportunities for both voluntary and compliance markets. David is focused on existing markets under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as the developing regional markets such as AB-32 in California and the Western Climate Initiative jurisdictions of British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario. Additional attention is given to African and Southeast Asian markets which ERA monitors as policy and infrastructure is developed within these regions. Prior to ERA, David worked with Kyoto Planet Capital Partners which focused on early stage investments in clean tech and sustainable industries, including biofuels, water, carbon and hydrogen. David received his B.A. in Economics/Politics from McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario.
John Kendall, RPF, Senior Forester, International. John is ERA's Company Forester providing project/program planning, prescription and operational support/coordination, as well as offset methodological development. John has worked extensively with First Nation communities in Canada on a wide spectrum of resource management issues and has pioneered afforestation, reforestation and avoided deforestation projects in Central Africa and South America.
Rob Friberg, MA, RPF - Senior Forester, the Americas. Rob has 20 years of forest management experience in Canada and Latin America. He has worked extensively with the development of forest resource plans to meet a wide range of ecological challenges and local stakeholder interests. Rob has provided leadership to forest certification programs, supervised reforestation projects of more than two million trees annually, and from 2006 - 2009 supported participatory forest governance projects in Chile and Cuba. He has a bachelor's degree in Forest Resources Management from the University of British Columbia, a master's degree in Environment and Management from Royal Roads University, and certificates in tropical forest management from CATIE in Costa Rica. Rob has well developed communication skills in Spanish.
Jean Robert Bwangoy-Bankanza, PhD (cand), Senior Forester, Congo. Basin. Bwangoy is a leading expert in vegetation and land cover analysis in the Congo Basin. He holds a PhD from the Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence and South Dakota State University, and has worked extensively in forestry and spatial analysis in the Democratic Republic of Congo for over 20 years. Bwangoy works as a senior adviser on ERA's Mai Ndombe REDD+ project in the DRC, as well as on other Congo Basin and international initiatives.
Bryan Foster, PhD, Senior Carbon Forester. Bryan has over 5 years of professional expertise in forest carbon project development and auditing. He developed an ISO 14001 environmental management system for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, worked as a technical specialist auditing forest carbon projects for Rainforest Alliance, and continues to work for EcoLogic's CarbonPlus program developing forest carbon projects in Mexico and Central America. He is a recognized VCS AFOLU specialist and an accredited CAR verifier. He earned a master's degree in forest science from Yale University and a Ph.D. in natural resources with a certificate in ecological economics from the University of Vermont. Bryan is proficient in Spanish.
Rosita Morandin, Senior Manager - Finance. Rosita is the Senior Manager of Finance at ERA. She manages the accounting, finance and human resources functions. Rosita fell in love with accounting while working on her Bachelor of Business Administration at Capilano College. She continued her studies through UBC and the Certified General Accountants Association of BC. She first gained experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers and then moved into the private sector helping various small businesses develop their accounting and human resource departments as they grew. She has become an expert in setting up control and reporting systems for small fast-growing companies.
Alexis Doyle, Bsc, Manager, Project Operations. As a Project Manager, Alexis is responsible for the Community Ecosystem Restoration Program (CERP). She got her start with ERA in the field, maintaining previously planted sites throughout the Maple Ridge Project. Since then, Alexis has been involved in the implementation of both the City of Langley and Township of Langley CERP Projects. In 2007, she worked with the Nisga'a Nation, to complete an ecosystem restoration pilot project in the Nass Valley. In addition to her work with ERA, Alexis has experience as both an educator and Project Leader with several non-governmental organizations. Alexis graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in Life Sciences.
Jane Boles, BA, REDD Manager, International Projects. Jane works with ERA's partners and project stakeholders in Africa to develop projects that enhance not only climate stability, but whole ecosystem health, as well as rural livelihoods, forest governance capacity, and biodiversity. Prior to starting with ERA, Jane worked in the governmental and non-profit sectors as a research analyst and educator on several forest governance and climate change initiatives in Central Africa and Canada. Jane holds a degree in political Science and Environmental Geography from Concordia University in Montreal, speaks French and English and has personally planted over 1 million trees.
Jennifer Holland, Associate, Operations. Jennifer's lifelong passion for the environment and travel first drew her to ERA in 2009 and she has since become Project Manager for the sourcing and development of Canadian projects. In 2010 Jennifer oversaw the validation of the project plan for ERA's CERP project to the Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard, where ERA received the first CCB Gold Level standard in Canada. She is currently coordinating and writing components of the Denman Island project plan and serves as the stakeholder and public input coordinator for this project. Jennifer also coordinates the collection and dissemination of all CERP data in the ERA database. Jennifer has travelled extensively, both for work and pleasure, and in 2008 she volunteered overseas on a reforestation and community development project in Madagascar. She has a BA in Environmental Geography from Simon Fraser University.