The membership of the Salt Spring Island Community Economic Development Commission (SSI-CEDC) consists of the CRD Regional Director and eight appointed Volunteer Commissioners.
The CEDCCommissioners
Francine Carlin
Francine is a highly energetic and proactive volunteer and a strong supporter of teamwork as the means for realizing strategic initiatives. She has extensive executive level business experience in marketing, government relations, and organizational leadership. In particular, her service as a trusted advisor for family-owned businesses across Canada and the US has provided her with first-hand understanding of the importance of honest, open communication for achieving shared goals.
As CEDC Chair, Francine has been instrumental in establishing– opportunitysaltspring.ca . She co-lead efforts to establish a Destination Management - Marketing Organization for the Southern Gulf Islands Region, is Co-founder of the Rural Islands Economic Forum and the Rural Islands Economic Partnership Society. Francine is a passionate advocate for designating SSI rural. She believes CEDC can be a means for supporting Salt Spring as a creative, collaborative community where all sectors of our community can thrive, sustainably within a protected rural environment.
Jason Griffin
Jason and his wife Yael moved to Salt Spring Island because they feel it is an ideal community to raise their daughters. Before moving to the Island, Jason was employed as Economic Development Officer for a tourism and arts driven municipality. His volunteer work includes serving as director of numerous organizations, including marketing, arts, tourism, and economic boards. He has also been instrumental in the formation of several non-profit organizations.
As owner and operator of Tour Salt Spring, he has unique insights into the daily front-line workings of the Island’s tourism industry, cultivating close connections with other tourism businesses, artists and farmers. Moreover, Tour Salt Spring is committed to operating as a green business and has already achieved Green Tourism Canada’s ‘Gold’ rating. The business collects and uses waste vegetable oil as fuel, and utilizes home-based solar generation to power EV tours. Together Jason and Yael own Avivamay Farm using organic and permaculture techniques to make their farm environmentally sustainable.
Holly MacDonald
Holly is a modern-day dynamo who runs a custom training company Spark + Co, which provides management and training solutions to clients around North America. Holly embodies a balance between savvy-business person and grounded community member. Most recently she is the architect of CEDC’s Rural Business Accelerator program and now the Vice-Chair of the Commission. Additionally, Holly also volunteers with Connecting Generations and Salt Spring Digital.
She moved to Salt Spring in 2008 from Vancouver for the “slower pace of life” and since then the entire family has found themselves involved in many community organizations. Holly also tweets about the island economy as @sparkandco and manages the social media presence for CEDC. Holly loves to kayak, sail and hike and can be found walking her dog on local trails, rain or shine.
Inga Michaelsen
With a knack for finding unique and beautiful places to live, Inga, who immigrated to Canada from Germany in 2000, first lived in Whistler, then moved to Salt Spring in 2012. Drawn by its natural beauty and charm, Inga came to the island to raise her kids in a rural setting. In her work, Inga coaches, and trains leaders of organizations on innovation and changing systems. She also consults small companies on business strategy.
Inga holds a BComm in Entrepreneurship and has a particular interest in using business as a force for good. She is the vice president for Transition Salt Spring Enterprise Co-Op, which supports green initiatives and businesses with low-interest microloans. Inga helped the Wagon Wheel Society draft a business plan for the Laundromat and supported the Island Comeback Campaign with administration tasks. In her Commissioner role, Inga plans to contribute to a sustainable economic strategy that creates opportunities for locals to make a right livelihood while respecting the environment.
Dr. Daniel Muzyka
Dr. Daniel Muzyka is Dean and Professor Emeritus at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. He has also been President and Chief Executive Officer of The Conference Board of Canada and Vice-President and Chair of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Previously, he served as the IAF Professor of Entrepreneurship and Associate Dean at INSEAD and taught at other institutions.
Dr. Muzyka has experience in academia, business, and the public sector and has participated on a number of corporate boards, venture capital funds, as well as not-for-profit, regulatory and government organizations, committees and commissions. He worked in industry with General Electric in finance and strategy and was a strategy consultant. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration (Harvard), an MBA (Wharton), and a BA in Physics and Astronomy (Williams College). He was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite by the Government of France.
Daniel Wood
Daniel moved to Salt Spring Island from Toronto when he was a small child. Wanting to raise their children in a more idyllic location, his parents started a small business, and six years later opened the Salt Spring Island Cheese Company. Leaving the island to continue his education, Daniel received a BA from the University of Victoria and a MA from the University of Saint Andrews. But there’s no place like home, so he moved back to Salt Spring in 2010, and is now the General Manager of his family owned business.
Being passionate about business and how it shapes communities, Daniel hopes to be a small part in a wider effort to support businesses on Salt Spring. Harnessing the opportunities and overcoming the challenges of living on an island, he looks forward to contributing to building and to maintaining the beautiful place where we live, work and call home.
Bryan Young
Bryan has 25 years’ experience in energy conservation program design and renewable energy development. He founded and managed an incubator fund providing $12 million annually to support the develop of innovate electricity conservation programs at Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator. Currently, he is the Chair of Transition Salt Spring -- a catalyst for the implementation of the Salt Spring Island Climate Action Plan for which he was a lead author. He’s passionate to see how much food he can grow on 1.89 acres on the south end where he lives with his partner, poet Brian Day.
Bryan is passionate about bridging divides, finding synergies, and building a more equitable and diverse Salt Spring economy. He believes that one of the paths to economic prosperity for Salt Spring will be found in the restoration, stewardship, and cultivation of diversified forest and marine ecosystems for the benefit of our communities and the natural world around us.
