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General Walt Natynczyk - Chief of the Defence Staff

On July 2, General Walt Natynczyk officially became the new Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian Forces. General Natynczyk was given the top command in a ceremony presided over by Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as well as the Minister of National Defence, Peter MacKay, attended the ceremony.

General Natynczyk took over as Chief of the Defence Staff from General Rick Hillier, who assumed leadership in February 2005. General Hillier retired from the Canadian Forces after 35 years of dedicated service.

Cospas-Sarsat pioneer retires

In July 2008, one of Canada’s foremost champions and contributors to the Cospas-Sarsat System retired after almost 38 years with the Public Service. Jim King was Director at Industry Canada’s Communications Research Centre in Ottawa, where he managed a team of specialists who work on various Canadian and international satellite programs. He has almost 30 years of experience in Cospas- Sarsat, including 10 years as Deputy Head of the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat in London, England.

Jim participated in the development, launch and testing of the first Sarsat LEOSAR satellites in the early 1980s, then the GEOSAR satellite enhancements in the 1980s and 1990s, and now the new MEOSAR enhancements to fly on future navigation satellites. He has made several presentations about Cospas- Sarsat at annual SARSCENE workshops and written many papers on Cospas-Sarsat and other satellite systems, including several articles in SARSCENE magazine over the years.

Appointment at RCMP

D/Comm Darrell Madill, former Commanding Officer of “D” Division (Manitoba RCMP) is now the new Deputy Commissioner in charge of Contract and Aboriginal Policing (which is also known as Provincial/ Territorial Policing).

Elections at BCSARA and NBSARA

In May, the British Columbia SAR Association (BCSARA) held elections with the following results: Don Bindon as President, Graham Knox as Vice President and Graig Gutwald as Treasurer; all for one year terms. In New Brunswick, Curtis Baxter is the new President of NBSARA.

NSS Staff

Left to right : (back row) Ron Kroeker – Senior Policy Analyst, lead for the Northern Search and Rescue (SAR) Strategy project; Major Graham Newbold – Senior Analyst; Anne-Marie Choquette – Senior Officer, New Initiatives Fund (NIF), Jae-Sang Park – Policy Analyst - Renewal of SAR NIF for 2010 and Interoperabiliy - Radio communications (second row) Christine Hogan – Canadian Emergency 406 MHz Beacon Registrar, responsible for data maintenance and the registration of Canadian ELTs, EPIRBs and PLBs; Paul Langelier – Comptroller, team leader for NSS, human resources and administration; Géraldine Underdown – Executive Director; Stephane Bachand – Communications Officer (third row) Courtney May – Communications Assistant; Josée Marengère – Manager, SAR NIF; Kim Fauteux – Communications Officer, editor of SARSCENE magazine and responsible for media relations; Stacey Janota – Senior Programs Officer, SAR NIF (fourth row) Lucie Levesque – Chief Administration; Carole Smith – Ground SAR programs and Switch to 406 outreach (fifth row) Jocelyne Giroux – Program Officer, SAR NIF, responsible for the development and maintenance of financial monitoring and project reporting systems; Jim Buchan – Financial Officer, assistant to the Comptroller (sixth row) Ed Hitchcock – Federal and International Programs Officer; Line Duke – Administrative Assistant; Diane Miller – Executive Assistant to the Executive Director and Security Officer, responsible for records management and Administrative Procedures Manual.

In order from above: Jacqui Bannach – Senior Analyst, National Prevention Strategy; Anne-Marie Pelletier – Director, Policy and Programs, Paul Dunn – Senior Communications Advisor; Elizabeth Noël – Administrative Assistant to Director of Policy and Programs (DPP) personnel; Isabelle Lefebvre – Administrative Assistant to the Director of Policy and Programs, responsible for providing administrative support to director and coordinating all DPP conferences; Ruben Vroegop – Policy Officer.

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