Virtual Event
Women in Forestry 2023
March 7, 2023 at 11:00am EST

Haleigh Callison
Haleigh Callison is a member of the Hwlitsum First Nation and a lumber trader with Olympic Industries. She works on the Cedar team in the manufacturing division. Haleigh grew up in Smithers, B.C., with her three older brothers and completed her human kinetics degree while playing varsity ice hockey for the UBC Thunderbirds. Prior to making the career change into lumber and forestry, she was the GM and a strength and conditioning coach for a high-performance training centre for 14 years, Twist Conditioning in North Vancouver.

Haleigh was fortunate to continue her hockey career playing professionally around the globe. Having stepped on the ice in more than 15 countries, she considers herself very fortunate to have been able to see the world while playing the sport she loves. Her life motto is to “make a positive impact on people’s lives every chance she gets,” which can be seen with her work in the community organizing charity events or her continued work with the Canucks for Kids Foundation.

What she loves most about her career in lumber is the people she gets to work with, both coworkers and customers. She is very passionate about helping more women, First Nations people, and other minorities to see what an amazing industry this is, and to open their eyes to the incredible opportunities there are at every level.

Haleigh’s eagerness to learn is seen both in her day-to-day as she continues to grow in her role, in her recent completion of her dual MBA through Cornell and Queens universities. Outside of work and studying, you will find her spending time with her nephews or playing every sport under the sun.

Lana Love
Lana Love is a field operator with Arbios Biotech since January of this year. Previously, Lana worked for Canfor where she got her start on the production floor. She then completed a millwright apprenticeship and was later promoted to maintenance supervisor. She was the first woman to complete a millwright apprenticeship and work in the role of maintenance supervisor with Canfor on the solid wood side. After 11 years with Canfor, she decided to move to a new role with Arbios, a joint venture between Licella and Canfor. With a vision to provide low-carbon circular economy solutions around the world using Licella’s breakthrough Cat-HTR technology, Arbios will create high-value, sustainable carbon-based products, including advanced biofuels, from post-consumer biomass and residues.

When Lana is not working she loves to spend time with her daughter and her husband. Her favourite hobbies are gardening, knitting and spending time in nature.

Cynthia Larose
Cynthia Larose is passionate about advancing women in leadership roles, influenced positively by many strong women figures in her life, both personal and professional. She holds a bachelor’s in business management from University of Sherbrooke and has been evolving in operations, supply chain and logistics roles since 2006, mostly in male-dominated industries, often being the only woman at the table. Cynthia joined Cascades Recovery + in 2021 as a Plant Manager, transitioning quickly to regional operations manager for Eastern Canada. She has 15 years of previous experience in aerospace, where she was trained on lean manufacturing concepts and led cross functional teams, hourly, unionized, and salaried to deliver top quality products in a safe environment.

She believes in her team’s potential to bring the business to new heights, confident her role is as much to provide a vision and guidance to them, as it is to help them grow and foster in a positive workplace. She develops and nurtures relationships with support organizations and brings down barriers to increase collaboration. She comes from a big family and giving back is something she was exposed to at a young age. Mother of three, she continues to be involved in her community, on different boards of directors, at daycare, at school and in other non-profit organizations.

Ann-Marie Baron
With 10 years in special education behind her, Ann-Marie Baron, joined Lemare, a privately owned harvesting, road building, log brokerage and civil works company in 2005 as a dedicated safety administrator.  Now as the manager of occupational health and safety and labour relations, Ann-Marie manages compliance, injury management and education and training.  She recently was re-elected for a second term as a councillor for the municipal council of Port McNeill, B.C.

Hanen Abd
I left Sheridan college in 2012 with an advanced diploma in chemical engineering technology and a goal to take a bachelor degree in manufacturing engineering in the future from McMaster University. After graduation I started exploring my opportunities as a chemical technologist in the manufacturing industry and environmental labs as technologist and a manager until I got the opportunity to work for Stella-Jones as a plant manager for the Guelph Facility in 2021. Working for Stella Jones has been a game changer in my career because of its amazing leadership team and the great team I get to work with on a daily basis that has been giving me the freedom to express and implement ideas and navigate the world of pressure treated wood.