Board Members

 

Stephen J. Mills |Chair of the Board/ Executive Committee Member/Board Member

Stephen Mills served as an Executive Committee member on YESAB for six years prior to his appointment as Chair in June 2010.   

Stephen served as the Chief Negotiator for the Council of Yukon First Nations in the development of the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act. He has also served as Chair of the Yukon Surface Rights Board, Chair of the Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat in Copenhagen, and is a past member of the Yukon Territory Water Board, Yukon Utilities Board and the Mackenzie River Basin Board.

Since 1992, Stephen Mills has been negotiating and implementing financial, implementation, and other agreements related to First Nation Land Claim and Self Government Agreements in Yukon.  He continues in this capacity in the Northwest Territories. Stephen’s educational background is in business administration, as well as mediation and dispute resolution.

In the area of business, Stephen is Vice-President of Air North, Yukon’s Airline and past-President of the Vuntut Development Corporation.

Stephen is a member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation based in Old Crow, Yukon. He is an active hunter and trapper.

 

Ken Mckinnon| Executive Committee Member/Board Member

Ken McKinnon brings a lifetime of public and private sector experience to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board, and has held many positions of leadership in Yukon.  Throughout his career he has made substantial and significant contributions to the development of Yukon.

A graduate in Political Science from the University of Manitoba, he was first elected to the Yukon Legislative Assembly in 1961, and served an additional three terms (1967, 1970, and 1974) where he was actively involved in the transfer of federal responsibilities to the territorial government, while holding many varied ministerial portfolios.

He was appointed as one of the first Honorary Chiefs of the Yukon Native Brotherhood for his support of the original land claim on behalf of the Yukon First Nations, and was the president of the first Arctic Winter Games held in 1970 in Yellowknife, NWT. 

Ken was appointed as Commissioner of the Yukon in 1986 and continued in that position to 1995.  He was also Yukon Administrator of the Northern Pipeline Agency (1979 – 1984), Co-Chair of the Review Pan on the Environmental and Socio-economic Terms and Conditions for the Alaska Highway Pipeline, a Director of the Arctic Institute of North America (1987 – 1994), Chancellor of Yukon College (2000 – 2004), and a member of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (2007 – 2010).

Ken is the recipient of the Governor General’s Centennial Medal (1967), the Silver Jubilee Medal (1977), and the Canada 125 Medal (1992).

 

Dave Keenan | Executive Committee Member/Board Member

Dave was born and raised in Yukon.

In 1984 on behalf of the Teslin Indian Band he negotiated a specific claim with the federal government of Canada.

In 1988 he became the Chief of the Teslin Tlingit Council and was a principal negotiator during the Land claim and Self Government negotiation process.

In 1996 along with the Clan Leaders he was a signatory to the Land Claim and Self Government agreements between the governments of Canada and the Yukon Territory on behalf of the Teslin Tlingit Council.

In 1996 he was elected to represent the riding of Southern Lakes as MLA and served as a cabinet minister.

In 2004 he was a principal in “Tundra Environmental Solutions” providing winter trail construction and expediting services to the mining sector.  In 2005 he formed his own company providing excavation and trenching services in the construction sector.

In 2010 Dave and his wife, Marianne Keenan, formed “Timberline Mining & Resource Developments Inc.” with an interest in providing services to First Nations and the resource sector to enable both to move forward in partnership.

He served two terms on the Yukon Mine Training Association and currently sits as a board member on the Yukon Environmental and Socio- economic Assessment Board and the Yukon Water Board.

                               

Tara Christie | Board Member

Tara Christie is a partner and active participant in GImlex Gold Mines, a placer mining business based in Dawson City. She has been active working and living in Yukon for more than 25 years.

Tara has served as the President of the KPMA, a Board Member of the Yukon Chamber of Mines and a Board Member of the BC and Yukon Chamber of Mines. She currently sits as the Chair of the Yukon Salmon Committee, is a Director of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and is a Director of two public companies.

She attended the University of British Columbia (UBC) and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Geological Engineering, with a specialty in geo-technics and a Master’s Degree in Geological Engineering, with a specialty in environmental geochemistry.

 

KHE’KA YETTH (CARL SIDNEY) | BOARD MEMBER

Carl Sidney is a member of the Kukk Hi Taan Clan of the Teslin Tlingit Council and was born and raised in Teslin, Yukon.  Carl worked with the Teslin Tlingit Council from 1991 until 2003, serving on the Executive Council for eight years and as Deputy Chief for six years. He was a member of the Yukon Heritage Resources Board, the Salmon Sub-committee, the National Chiefs Committee on Fisheries for the Assembly of First Nations and the Yukon River Panel. 

Carl currently sits as Co-Chair of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council and is a Technician on the National Chiefs Committee on Fisheries. He is in his third term as a YESAB member.

Carl spent a number of years working in the hard rock mining industry and in diamond drilling, both in surface and underground projects. Carl also has a background in business, establishing a cedar/canvas freighter canoe factory in his home town of Teslin, where he trained local citizens to operate machinery and build canoes.

Carl served five years with the Canadian Armed Forces in the Royal Canadian Engineers, voluntarily resigning with Honours. He also holds a Heavy Duty Mechanics certificate from Vancouver Community College and worked for the Yukon Highways Department.  Carl was raised traditionally by his grandmother Olive Sidney.

Ross Leef | Board Member

Ross Leef has worked in natural resource management for 32 years in both Yukon and Ontario.

Born in Toronto, Ross first moved to the Yukon in 1983 to take a position with the Yukon Department of Renewable Resources. He worked in that department until 1991, and then again from 1997 until his retirement from government in 2003. During that period he held a variety of positions including Regional Resource Manager, Director of Field Services and Acting Deputy Minister.

Most recently, Ross was Executive Director of the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board for a period of 11 months, leaving that position in June 2005. Ross also served with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources between 1971 and 1983, and then again between 1991 and 1997. Ross graduated from Sir Sandford Fleming College in Lindsay, Ontario, with a Forest Technician Diploma.