STAFF AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS
BLCF staff manage the day-to-day business and carry out the forest management functions.
Frank Varga, RPF General Manager
Leroy Carr, RFT Area Supervisor
Donna Brochez, RFT Silviculture Specialist
Michaella Foster, GIS/Forestry Specialist
Colleen Piper, Executive Assistant/Accounting
Reg Blackwell, Road Supervisor
Board of Directors
Burns Lake Community Forest Ltd. is a subsidiary of Comfor Management Services Ltd. (CMSL). It is governed by a six-member Board of Directors, including three members of the public at large and three First Nations representatives from the Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation, Wet’suwet’en First Nation, and the Office of the Hereditary Chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en. CMSL provides accounting and administrative support to Burns Lake Community Forest Ltd.
The CMSL Board of Directors includes three reserved seats (one each): Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation, Wet’suwet’en First Nation, and the Office of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs. The other three board members are chosen from the community-at-large and appointed by the Village of Burns Lake.
Employment
Burns Lake Community Forest Ltd. works closely with local forest professionals who support many aspects of our technical and professional needs. We’re committed to developing local employment opportunities, as outlined in our policies and directive for contract procurement.
The Community Forest continues to maintain approximately 60 full-time equivalent positions of employment in areas such as forest development, forest estate planning, cutblock harvesting, road maintenance and road building, silviculture survey and planting, seedling growing, brushing, and site preparation opportunities.
We provide opportunities for First Nations companies; training and capacity building are key objectives within our operations. BLCF works closely with First Nations companies such as Yinka Dene Limited Partnership (YLP), and annually explores opportunities to work directly on annual and seasonal operational goals. The BLCF directly and indirectly supports local logging, road maintenance and trucking contractors in the forest industry. Indirectly, our local agreements support Hampton Lumber- Babine and Decker Forest Products, Thatsa Timber and subsidiaries, and Pinnacle Pellet, now know as DRAX.