Board of Directors

The Nova Scotia Sea School is governed by a dynamic group of community and business leaders. They include past-participants, parents, donors, sailors. They all have in common a commitment to providing youth in Nova Scotia with life-changing learning experiences.

Sea School Board Members

Maggy Burns
Board Chair

Maggy is the Internal Director of the Ecology Action Centre. Before becoming a professional environmentalist she worked for many years in the field of community economic development as a business counsellor, manager, facilitator and entrepreneur. Maggy has a BA (Philosophy) and BSc (Biology) and has spent time chasing strawberry poison-dart frogs in the Costa Rican rainforest, and teaching English on rooftops in China. Her passion for the NS Sea School emerged while on a Sea School professional enrichment trip and has only deepened as she has gotten to know the organization.

Sydney Dumaresq
Past Chair

Syd is a sailor, a habit he supports by practicing Architecture. Syd and Sandy’s involvement with the Sea School began when their youngest son Dean, enrolled in a winter boat building session in Lunenburg.

Syd joined the board in 2000 becoming Chair in 2004. His fascination with the Sea School stems from a love of the Nova Scotia traditions of building and sailing small boats. Syd’s commitment to the Sea School comes from observing the incredible personal development of each participant.

Wilson Fitt
Treasurer

Wilson Fitt has been a member of the Board of the Nova Scotia Sea School since 2004 and the Treasurer since 2006. In his professional life, Wilson provides project management for large construction projects to public and private sector clients as well consulting services relating to project feasibility and development. During the past several years Wilson has managed new construction and redevelopment projects that total in excess of $100 million. His qualifications include a Master of Public Administration from Dalhousie University, 1984; Bachelor of Law from Dalhousie University, 1979; and Bachelor of Science from University of Kings College, 1975. He is a member (non-practicing) of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society.

In addition to the Nova Scotia Sea School, Wilson has volunteered services for non-profit organizations with interests in mental health and housing. He has a lifetime of sailing experience including coastal passages and offshore voyaging, some of it single-handed. Wilson has built several traditional wooden boats including his current one, a thirty eight foot cutter.

Liesel Carlsson
Board Secretary

Liesel Carlsson is not originally from Nova Scotia, now calls Gaspereau home. She is currently focusing her energy on graduate studies in nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University where she spends a lot of time studying food security and food system issues; that is when she is not at the local elementary school playing with kids in the garden. The school garden is not only her pet project, but fodder for her research interests. She is a Nordic ski instructor and a First Responder.

Though her current work, study and play are all keenly connected with food (eating it, growing it or talking food politics) she sometimes diverges to play in the pottery or capoeira studio to satisfy my creative side, or head outside with whatever the season calls for -- be it a kayak, skis, skates, or just plain old bare feet.  Liesel was introduced to sailing through the Sea School on the professional enrichment course in 2006 and is honoured to give back to such a rich organization.

Ella McQuinn
Board Member

Ella McQuinn is a business coach and management consultant with a special interest in working with organizations focused on sustainable and people- focused strategies. She has extensive experience in tourism planning and marketing across Canada and Eastern US and more recently has been working in a variety of sectors with business leaders committed to change. She is Chair of the St. Margaret's Bay Stewardship Association focused on building a strong quality of life, sustainable community development and coastal management, including protecting islands in the bay. She has been on the Sea School board since 2004 having previously consulted with the organization. She has also seen the remarkable impact the Sea School has first hand as the parent of a participant. Ella can attest to the profound and positive impact life at sea aboard the Dorothea with trusted instructors and crew can have on the life of a young person. Her own passion extends to the sea having grown up in a sailing family in Nova Scotia.

Elizabeth MacDonald
Board Member
Samuel S. Rogers
Board Member

Sam spent his summers sailing and racing small boats on Cape Cod. He was influenced by Outward Bound because of his family's connections to it. Kids camping out on small sailboats seemed a natural way to live life and learn what was needed to grow up!

After traveling on land to third world countries and sailing around the Atlantic ocean, supported by working in the art business for the past 30 years with his wife Suezan Aikins, Sam is back to the small boats and sits on the Board because he truly believes Sea School is the best thing for a young person to experience at least once in their life.

Laureen van Lierop
Board Member
John Swain
CEO and Owner Survival Systems Training

John has been with Survival Systems since 1991 following a teaching career and employment from 1972 – 1980 in the community college and secondary levels of education, and employment in the offshore industry on the Sable Island and Newfoundland oil fields on semi-submersibles.

Formerly Chief Instructor in offshore training, with progression to Training Manager, President and CEO, John has a detailed knowledge base concerning Marine and Offshore Survival training complemented by a graduate degree in Learning Theories and Curriculum Development. He has worked with operators and training organizations in United States, South America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and South East Asia from consultation to project implementation.

John completed undergraduate degrees from St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, the University of New Brunswick, and a graduate degree from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia.

Dale Robertson
Board Member

Educated at RMC and Dalhousie University and having been awarded the designation Certified Management Consultant, Mr. Robertson is a Professional Engineer with qualifications in other fields, including Management Consulting.

Mr. Robertson's career includes a variety of business management positions and consulting in addition to having started, owned and operated many businesses of his own in the fields of plumbing and heating, real estate development, manufacturing of hardware for electric utilities and energy management consulting. His energy management consulting has been international in scope and includes work on 5 continents since 1981 and led to hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced energy consumption. His utility pole line hardware business (Enerscan Engineering Inc) has grown consistently and rapidly since 1998, with sales throughout North America and a presence in South America, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe. Dale is a member of several boards and committees, including the Greater Halifax Partnership, the Mayor's Economic Strategy Committee, Kings View Academy and he is Vice President of Engineers Nova Scotia.

Dale sailed briefly in university but then purchased a J24 sailboat in about 2002 and has never looked back, participating in hundreds of races in Canada, USA and Bermuda. This new love of sailing, plus the impact the Sea School has on the development and enrichment of teenagers in their pursuit of finding themselves are what has inspired him to participate on the Sea School Board.

Andrew Murphy
Board Member
Crane Stookey
Founder and Captain

Crane grew up by the water in New York and Massachusetts, sailing and rowing small wooden boats. Being near water always makes him happy. He discovered as an adult that being around teenagers makes him happy too. So in 1994 he combined these joys with the aspiration to do something useful and founded the Nova Scotia Sea School.

Crane has a Masters of Architecture degree from Harvard University and practiced architecture in Boston for 8 years. In 1990 he took time off to pursue his interest in the study and practice of meditation, intending to return to his practice and a list of waiting clients.

However Crane returned, not to his architectural practice, but to his childhood love of wooden boats and sailing. He served as deck officer and seamanship instructor on tall ships in the US and Canada, including HMS ROSE, PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II, CORWITH CRAMER and others, and earned his US Master¹s license as captain of sailing vessels up to 200 gross tons.

In 1994 he settled in Halifax, the best move of his life. He says that Nova Scotia is a sane and decent place, and that his life has really blossomed since moving here, and that the Sea School is the fruit of it.

In 2003 Crane was awarded the Queen's Jubilee Medal for the Sea School's contribution to the Canadian community.

Zoë Nudell
Captain

Zoë has been sailing with the Nova Scotia Sea School since its first year. She was part of the crew that built Dorothea, the Sea School's first expedition boat, and sailed as a student on the Dorothea's maiden voyage out of Halifax. Eight years later Zoë guided the second expedition boat - Elizabeth Hall - through her maiden voyage, this time as an assistant instructor. This past summer was Zoë's fifth season as expedition captain. A lifetime of working with young people and the sea has instilled in Zoë confidence, enthusiasm, respect and admiration for other people and the elements. The most valuable learning - the one she most wants to share - is an awareness of one's own abilities, interests, and the satisfaction of being engaged.

Zoë's passion for leading sailing expeditions is matched by a love of art and encouraging creativity. Currently, she is very excited about working with the Sea School to explore the transformative power of creativity with community groups. Zoë has shown her art internationally; she completed her BSc. in Environmental Studies and Philosphy at the University of Toronto; and her Master of Arts in Atlantic Canada Studies at St. Mary's University.

Tarah Wright
Board Member

Tarah Wright is Associate Director in the College of Sustainability and a Professor of Environmental Science at Dalhousie University. Her research focuses on education for sustainable development and experiential learning theory. She thinks that the Nova Scotia Sea School is a fantastic enterprise for teaching people about our phenomenal planet. Tarah and her family decided 10 years ago to go car-free and buy a sailboat instead! They've never regretted it!