Ted Gruetzner
PAST CHAIR
Ted Gruetzner is Vice-President, Corporate Relations and Communications at Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Ontario’s publicly-owned electricity generating company.
OPG has operations and staff on all but one of the Great Lakes and has been maintaining stewardship on these waterways for more than 100 years. OPG recently ceased using coal in its operations and close to 100 per cent of the electricity it creates is free of carbon and smog causing agents. The company also has successful partnerships with First Nations who own equity in two facilities.
Lieutenant Colonel Donald P. Lauzon
Director Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Donald P. Lauzon, USA has joined the Board of the Council of the Great Lakes Region and will serve as the Director and main point of contact for Army Corps of Engineers matters.
Rakesh Naidu
Director
Rakesh Naidu is the Chief Operating Officer at the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation.
In this role he oversees operations at the regional economic development corporation. He is responsible for initiating and executing the strategy and activities to attract and retain new investment in to the region.
Stephen J. Petras Jr.
CHAIR
Stephen J. Petras Jr. is an international business lawyer involved in international business transactions, corporate structuring and commercial agreements.
He has served as the head of Baker Hostetler’s International Industry Team from 1998 to 2012. Mr. Petras currently serves on the Board of the World Affairs Councils of America and the Cleveland Council on World Affairs.
Blair Severn
Director
Blair Severn is Co-founder and Chairman of the enabling ideas® Community of experts, a membership Community of best-in-class specialty professional service providers from Canada and the United States.
Blair is also President and Managing Partner of the Toronto based strategy consultancy Azure Corporation. Equally experienced with start-ups and multi-nationals, you may find Blair re-tooling a company for growth or you may find him infusing entrepreneurial creativity into a stagnant organization. With an ability to fuse design thinking with financial rigour, what Blair does best is build profit growth for client companies through designing and implementing sustainable strategic advantage.
Christopher Smillie
Director
Christopher Smillie’s current role is Senior Advisor – Government Relations and Public Affairs for the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office, also known as the Canada’s Building Trades Unions.
CBTU represents more than 550,000 skilled tradespeople in fifteen trades in every province and territory.
Geoffrey Wilson
Director
Geoffrey Wilson is an international business leader with more than 25 years in the multimodal transportation, shipping, infrastructure and aviation businesses.
Having held senior executive roles throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific, with companies such as Triton Container International Inc., Budget Car and Truck Rental, and Kerr Steamship Agency Inc.
Patrick Whalen
Director
Patrick Whalen is Director of the Niagara Global Tourism Institute (NGTI). He has been a serial entrepreneur who has started over 20 businesses in a variety of industries.
Before joining the NGTI, Pat served as the COO of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc. (BNMC) for 8 years. In addition to managing the BNMC day-to-day operations Pat was the BNMC’s unofficial “entrepreneur–in-residence.” As such, Pat worked to foster collaboration and job creation on campus and throughout the bi-national region.