Diane Radymski
Director

After acquiring a degree in commerce, Diane thought she would follow a traditional career trajectory into business, but a contract with Emergency Management and Climate Readiness supporting planning for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics changed all that. The opportunity opened her eyes to the immense benefits emergency management and continuity planning could bring to communities and critical infrastructure, and she was hooked.

While there, Diane worked with subject matter experts from local governments, first responders, security services, and infrastructure operators, like Christine Trefanenko, who at the time was responsible for emergency management at the province’s natural gas utility. After the Olympics, Diane joined Christine at FortisBC as an emergency manager, staying four years before leaving to travel. When she returned, she and Christine decided to join forces and in 2015, CCEM Strategies was born.

Having expertise in multiple sectors, Diane understands the interdependencies among government and industry and the need to be coordinated in response to emergencies. As a result, she has unique insights into how both sides can effectively work together to integrate plans and procedures. 

Now with expanded service offerings including legislative analysis and compliance, research, management system design and analysis, risk assessments, and information design, Diane emphasizes that CCEM’s values of customer focus, care, excellence, and enhancement underpin the team’s commitment to delivering a high level of services and products to their clients. She adds that they always ensure their plans are tailored to meet their client’s unique operations and cultures. It’s this hands-on approach and CCEM’s ability to customize their services to meet each client’s needs that’s positioned them as a trusted firm that continually delivers exceptional and customer-focused results.

From her years of experience, Diane knows how critical it is for communities and organizations to have well thought out approaches on managing risk, delivering training, ensuring regulatory compliance and responding to emergencies. She emphasizes that her team will go above and beyond to deliver the best work for their clients so if an emergency arises, the impacts can be minimized.  

Diane is an accredited Associate Business Continuity Professional and holds certificates in emergency management and exercise design from the Justice Institute of BC. She’s also a regional recipient of the Premier’s Award for Integrated Public Safety for her work during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Christine Trefanenko
Director

After 15 years working as a respiratory therapist, Christine was ready for a change. When a friend told her about the emergency management program at the Justice Institute of BC (JIBC), Christine read the course descriptions and literally had a light bulb moment! She says she couldn’t believe that people could be paid to prepare for emergencies such as earthquakes, as she’d already been doing that because she lived in Richmond, a low-lying area at risk for liquefaction in the event of an earthquake.

Christine was all in, signing up for her first course and completing the rest in record time. After a practicum with the City of Abbotsford, she was hired by BC’s largest energy provider, FortisBC, as Manager of Emergency Management and Business Continuity. 

Christine spent eight years at FortisBC where she managed the emergency management programs for the natural gas and electric utilities, hydro-electric generation, and Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). She represented the utility for the Province of BC’s 2010 Winter Olympics emergency planning group (where she met Diane Radymski), prepared plans for new LNG and hydroelectric generation facilities, and solidified business continuity plans in preparation of labour action.

In 2015, after Christine and Diane had both left FortisBC, they came together to create CCEM Strategies. Working from their respective kitchen tables, they landed two key clients very quickly. Now in its ninth year of operation with a dozen employees, CCEM has broadened its professional services to include not only emergency management and business continuity planning, but also strategic engagement and consultation, crisis management, regulatory analysis and compliance, training development and delivery, and more.

With the company’s steady growth, Christine says they’ve become known for their detailed and professional proposals, customized plans, excellent customer service, collaborative approach, and client and community care. She adds that the diversity of their team and their willingness to meet their clients where they’re at is what sets them apart from larger companies.

Christine can’t stress enough the importance for communities, businesses, and organizations, to have emergency management and business continuity plans in place. Not only for regulatory and insurance requirements, but also for their personnel, clients, and the safety of the public. Christine says that during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic followed by the extreme weather events in 2021 in BC (the heat dome and atmospheric river), the goodwill of the public forgave organizations for not being initially prepared. But, as she says, when the next emergency happens, much of that goodwill will have been spent. Lessons have been identified and now need to be implemented, as it will be expected that businesses, organizations and governments will be ready.

As well as a Respiratory Therapy Diploma, and a Bachelor of Science Degree (Health Science), Christine has an Emergency Management Certificate from the JIBC, is certified by the Disaster Recovery Institute as a Business Continuity Professional and has multiple applied project management and emergency management certificates. Christine is the chair of the Technical Committee for the Canadian Standard Association’s (CSA) Business Continuity and Emergency Planning Standard CSA Z1600 and the vice-chair for the Emergency Preparedness and Response for Petroleum and Natural Gas Industry Systems Standard CSA 246.2.

Alexis Smith
Manager, Emergency & Continuity Management

Growing up Alexis dreamed of becoming a first responder, but she ended up taking another direction—marketing and event management, initially for non-profit organizations and then in the private sector. After working in this field for 15 years, Alexis was looking for a new challenge and discovered that her skills in logistics, planning, project management, writing and communications were transferable to the field of emergency management.

In addition to her Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing Management and Diploma in Public Relations, Alexis’ Diploma in Security and Emergency Management and Certificate in Critical Incident Stress Management has her well-positioned for her job as Manager, Emergency and Continuity Management.

Alexis’ work includes designing and delivering emergency exercises with a wide range of clients and stakeholders. When facilitating emergency exercises, Alexis says she loves seeing how all the different players work together and cooperate under pressure. Even though the scenarios aren’t real, she says there’s always a certain level of stress and loves coaching the players in their roles. She also plays a key role facilitating interactive engagement sessions and workshops for a variety of clients.

Alexis believes that having strong working relationships in place are key for effective emergency management, and exercises and workshops help create opportunities for engagement between the key players. In the event of real emergency, those relationships are already in place and help ensure effective communications.  

As CCEM Strategies is not a ‘one size fits all’ type of company, Alexis ensures the work she develops for her clients is customized to work specifically for them. She always ensures the message is going to work and that the communications she develops are specific.

Alexis says she wish she started working in critical continuity and emergency management sooner! As now, her job combines the best of both worlds - her expertise in communications and logistics and passion for emergency response.

Claire Wooton
Manager, Information Design & Process Improvement

Claire brings a unique and valuable combination of analytical and creative design skills to her role as Manager, Information Design and Process Improvement at CCEM, where she leads the transformation of complex and text-heavy information into effective visual content designed specifically for use during an emergency incident.

After receiving a Master’s in Physical Geography, a certificate in Multimedia and Web Development, and spending more than five years producing graphics and data visualizations for the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, Claire found the perfect fit for her next career move with CCEM. Claire was excited to join CCEM when she saw how her skills in information design could advance their mission to improve community resiliency and prepare organizations and communities for emergencies.

While graphic design is intended to create an emotional response, Claire says the primary purpose of information design is clarity. Information design aims to present information and instructions in a way that makes them accessible and easily understood by users. Claire is a board-elected member of the Design Network for Emergency Management, a multidisciplinary, international team of professionals dedicated to using design for emergency management and disaster risk reduction.

When creating emergency management materials such as flood evacuation maps and checklists, Claire ensures the materials provide clear and digestible information. She accomplishes this by carefully assessing her client’s needs and using her analytical skills to evaluate the data at hand and determine the best way to present it. As a result, the emergency management materials she produces enable her clients to effectively process information and instructions, even when in the throes of a crisis or emergency situation.

One of her notable successes was working with a First Nations community to help them with their flood warning messaging. Previously, the provincial government provided the messaging, but the content didn’t align with how flooding would actually impact their community. Claire worked with community members to understand their local situation and crafted messaging and supporting signage about escalating flood warnings using a bottom-up, customized approach.

David Munroe
Senior Specialist, Emergency & Continuity Management

Dave comes to CCEM from the UK, bringing with him a solid academic foundation - a Master of Science in environmental hazards and risk and a Bachelor of Science in Geography, both from the University of Durham, - and more than 10 years of emergency planning, resilience and crisis management experience.

Dave says he’s had a keen interest in natural hazards since he was young, so working in the field of emergency management to help people live and work safely when at risk of hazards was a natural transition for him. After starting out as a first responder with the London Fire Brigade, Dave’s career trajectory in emergency management took him to a variety of roles with local, regional and national governments.

Highlights include working as an advisor to the UK Prime Minister during a period of national crisis with the concurrent pandemic, exit from the EU and a climate emergency. And, with his vast experience in both operational and strategic roles, Dave also coordinated the security and resilience aspects of several major events in the UK, including the G7 World Leaders Summit, EURO 2020 Football Championships and UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). He also led teams through several complex emergencies, including London’s Grenfell Tower fire, the Westminster Bridge attack and the UK evacuation from Afghanistan.

In his role at CCEM Strategies, Dave leads the design, development, training and exercising of customized contingency plans that address the risk needs of individual clients. He believes that having the ability to communicate risk to people who don’t work in the field of emergency management is vital. Dave says emergency plans can often be very technical, but it’s critical that such plans are able to effectively inform the public, so they know how and why to take action in the event of an emergency or disaster.

Dave’s excited about bringing his emergency management expertise to Canada, leveraging his skillset to develop plans for events such as large wildfires, and applying his expertise to emergency management for earthquakes and avalanches, natural disasters not seen in the UK.

Alex Mielke
Emergency & Project Management Specialist

While pursuing his Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Alberta, Alex took on a cooperative education option where he spent 12 months in a discipline-related work experience. While Alex says he wasn’t planning on pursuing the field of emergency management, two of his placements were in municipal recovery with the Alberta Emergency Management Agency (AEMA). During a placement in May 2016, Alex got a front-and-centre view of a major emergency response in action when one of Canada’s largest disasters, the Fort McMurray wildfire, broke out.

Alex stayed on with AEMA for five years before joining CCEM in 2021. In his role as Emergency and Project Management Specialist, he provides strategic and tactical advice and guidance to clients planning for large-scale emergency events, researches industry-accepted practices, regulations and statutory requirements, and provides project management advice to the rest of the CCEM team.

Alex advocates for ongoing collaboration, forward planning and evidence-based decision-making. One of his notable successes at CCEM was supporting a client with an after-action review (AAR) and report for a large marine incident. The comprehensive report was very well received by the client, allowing them to make immediate and meaningful changes to mitigate future events.

Alex believes that emergency management should be a constantly evolving field so to adapt to social and legal evolutions. Coming to emergency management from an atypical background, Alex says he’s better able to customize solutions to clients’ specific operating environments. He adds that having an open mind allows for new ideas and alternative solutions.

With more than five years experience as an emergency management professional under his belt, Alex has discovered that when some organizations plan for emergencies, they often believe the worst-case scenario is beyond the bounds of possibility, but in fact can often become true. He says that having a creative mindset and planning for all possibilities results in a much better outcome in an emergency event.

Judith Pelletier
Emergency Management Specialist

After several years working as a wilderness guide in the adventure tourism industry and seeing a lack of safety standards, Judith became interested in creating safety systems to help the industry better prepare for safety and risk management. When she started looking at risk and emergency management in other sectors, Judith was hooked, and she quickly transitioned her career to focus exclusively in the field. 

Before joining CCEM, Judith completed her Master’s degree in Crisis, Emergency and Disaster Management from Royal Roads University. In her role as Emergency Management Specialist, she develops emergency response and crisis guidelines and supports both corporate and municipal clients with stakeholder engagement. Judith says that meeting directly with clients to better understand their needs and goals helps to increase the efficiency of response and recovery activities.

Judith believes in the importance of building relationships with her clients based on mutual respect and understanding. Putting this into practice with one of her clients, a First Nations community she’s been developing a flood preparedness plan for, has enabled Judith to create a culturally relevant emergency response plan that supports the needs of a population not only vulnerable to flooding, but one that historically has had limited access to resources and critical services.

Judith has a strong grasp of the natural environment and natural hazards and their impacts on people, land and infrastructure. This understanding, fostered by her experience working with diverse populations in the adventure tourism industry, and her innate ability to foster and maintain strong relationships with clients, positions her well for modern-day emergency management. 

Judith says that in her experience, effective emergency management planning is achieved with a bottom-up approach that utilizes the resources and skills available within a community or organization. She adds that even the most robust plans can fail if they don’t align with the resources and skills available within a community or consider the cultural differences that motivate people to take action.

Holly Stones
Communications and Engagement Advisor

Holly’s innate ability to connect with people has been pivotal in her career thus far and as Engagement Advisor at CCEM. With experience in diverse roles in emergency services, corrections, and youth services, Holly understands the importance of developing meaningful, and effective outreach, engagement, and communications programs.  

Prior to joining CCEM, Holly was based in New Zealand where she spent six years creating and sustaining respectful relationships with government agencies, social service organizations, Indigenous groups, and clients, having held progressive bail support roles with the Department of Corrections. One of the initiatives Holly is most proud of is her contribution to the development and implementation of a new nationwide (New Zealand) social support program. As a senior advisor on the project, Holly provided strategic engagement, operational, and relationship management advice to the team, and served as the lead liaison with Māori iwi (Indigenous Peoples), Māori service providers, senior judicial officials, government agencies, and various other stakeholder groups.  

Having experienced multiple natural disasters, including severe flooding and an earthquake, Holly understands how the unique values, interests, needs, and perspectives of Indigenous and stakeholder groups contribute to community resiliency. Holly says that she believes in the importance of developing impactful engagement strategies that are inclusive, tailored to each audience, ensure meaningful information exchange, and have a positive impact.

Holly leverages her professional foundation building and maintaining relationships in her role at CCEM, where she supports innovative engagement and consultation program design, identifies opportunities that encourage participation and information sharing, develops strategic communications tools, and assists with stakeholder identification and mapping.

Jenna-Leigh Dow
Emergency & Continuity Advisor

Jenna-Leigh's bachelor's degree in Conflict Resolution, alongside two years working as a research policy assistant with the Government of Manitoba Department of Family Violence and Prevention, created a strong foundation for her interest in working in the Emergency Management field.

In 2018, Jenna transitioned from her role with the Manitoba Government to the non-profit sector and joined the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) Emergency Management Department. Throughout her five years at the CRC, Jenna focused primarily on supporting projects related to Emergency Preparedness, Emergency Response Planning, and Disaster Risk Reduction. She worked across geographies, including Manitoba, Nunavut, British Columbia, and the Yukon. She had the opportunity to collaborate with a range of partners, including municipal, provincial, and federal government and First Nations Community Leadership. This experience has shaped her ability to collaborate efficiently and build meaningful partnerships.

Jenna-Leigh has held several roles supporting emergency response operations in Manitoba and British Columbia, including multiple small- and large-scale community evacuations due to forest fires, floods, and power outages. Additionally, Jenna supported several COVID operations, including Alternate Isolation Accommodation (AIA) sites and vaccination support to First Nations Communities. Her roles ranged from working in Operations, Planning, and Psychosocial Support.

Her most recent role with CRC as a Community Advisor in BC and the Yukon gave her insight into how to better support communities with unique needs. In this role, a key achievement was working with the Operations teams for OKIB (Okanagan Indian Band) during flooding responses in the region. Upon request, Jenna-Leigh supported the local First Nations by providing surge support and capacity building within their Emergency Operation Centers. Throughout these experiences, Jenna-Leigh strives to advocate for a community-led approach when implementing all programming, tools, and initiatives.

Jenna-Leigh's hands-on experience supporting mitigation, preparedness, and response efforts has shaped how she approaches her role as an Emergency Advisor. In her role with CCEM, Jenna-Leigh's goal is to continue to build capacity and forward change for people and communities.