University Hospitals Kingston Foundation
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Our Board

On June 22, 2022, the 2022-2023 University Hospitals Kingston Foundation (UHKF) Board of Directors slate was confirmed. The Board of UHKF is responsible for fundraising, investment and granting for the Kingston Health Sciences Centre and Providence Care.

The Board also includes Dr. David Pichora, President & CEO, Kingston Health Sciences Centre and Cathy Szabo, President & CEO, Providence Care.

For more information contact Debbie.Broome@uhkf.ca or telephone 613-549-6666, ext. 8138.

Members of the 2022-2023
UHKF Board of Directors

Evelyn Maizen headshot

Board Chair: Evelyn Maizen

Evelyn is an accountant specializing in personal tax and has extensive involvement with the charitable sector through her clients and volunteer work. Evelyn has been a member of the Women’s Giving Circle Executive Committee since 2011 and is also on the UHKF Campaign Cabinet and has been a consistent supporter of our foundation (and KGHF) since 1995. Evelyn is also currently on the board of Independent Living Centre Kingston and has been for many years.

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John S. Leverette headshot

Vice-Chair: John S. Leverette

John is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Queen's University and a 45-year member of our hospitals' medical staff. He retired in 2018 as Vice President, Medical and Academic Programs, at Providence Care, previously serving as Director, Medical Affairs, at both Kingston General and Hotel Dieu Hospitals. In 2014 he was appointed Interim Chief of Medical and Academic Affairs/Chief of Staff at Hotel Dieu. As inaugural Chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Specialty Committee in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, he was awarded a Founder's designation in that specialty. He is a Distinguished Fellow and Life Member of the Canadian Psychiatric Association and a Life Member and Past-President of both the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Ontario Psychiatric Association.

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Wayne Owens headshot

Past-Chair: Wayne Owens

Wayne has held a variety of management positions with professional, IT and investment firms. Wayne started in Toronto in accounting with Peat Marwick, holding progressive positions with accounting and law firms before joining IBM. Here, he was involved in contracts, system design and marketing, holding management roles including National Marketing Manager for Canada. He travelled around the world, leading an international team of US Global Offering Manager and US Regional Offering Executive. Following IBM, Wayne consulted as CEO, COO, CFO and Sales Executive. He then joined BMO Nesbitt Burns as an Investment Advisor, Chartered Investment Manager, Options Licensed and Life Insurance, moving his practice to Manulife Securities before retiring. Wayne's volunteer positions have included Chair of York University Business and Professional Alliance, Chair Canadian Cancer Society East York, Director Canadian Cancer Society GTA, Director Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Chair of the North York Chamber of Commerce, Director North York General Hospital Community Relations Committee. Wayne joined the UHKF Board in 2016 and is currently the UHKF Board Chair.
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Michelle Chatten Fiedorec headshot

Treasurer/Secretary: Michelle Chatten Fiedorec

Michelle moved to Kingston in 2007 and found a welcoming and vibrant community. She is currently Corporate Treasurer at Homestead Land Holdings Limited. Michelle has been a Rotarian for 15 years, volunteering extensively with the International Youth Exchange program, and has served in several leadership roles—President of the Rotary Club of Cataraqui-Kingston. Michelle has also volunteered with Melos Choir & Period Instruments, Community Foundation of Kingston & Area, United Way KFL&A and Quinte Ballet School of Canada.
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Brent Atkinson headshot

Brent Atkinson

Inspired by his grandfather and father all his life, Brent has chased his entrepreneurial spirit into a variety of industries. His true passion is centred at the crossroad of consumer behaviour and world-class customer experiences.  

After graduating with his Diploma in Business and Advertising, a fortunate opportunity presented itself. A career was born within the marketing laboratory that Loblaws had a reputation for. It was the era of Walmart's entrance into Canada, and Loblaws had the resource to evolve strategically and continue to grow market share. Brent was assigned to the General Merchandise category and worked with retails best to add 20,000 sq. feet of seasonal, housewares, photo labs, apparel and general merchandise across the multiple brand banners.

With an appetite for bigger cities and a love for great advertising, Brent changed gears, moved to a career based out of Manhattan and began to work in a business-to-business capacity with ad agencies around the world, to feature each years best of the best creative campaigns in a high end, well established publication called The Black Book. Before Google changed our world, innovative technologies were developed and launched by his team to bring searchable creative portfolios online, an industry first.

A young and aggressive group of British gentlemen then inspired Brent to join their team to turn around and rebrand a failing 120 location retail finance company called RTO Enterprises, now GOEASY. As part of the executive team, Brent contributed to the growth of the company, to 350 locations, in Canada and the United States, with diversified business units, achieving a compounded annual growth rate of 10.6% during his 13-year tenure.

After engaging with a global charity organization called The ManKind Project, Brent became committed to supporting men in the community with Emotional Intelligence support groups in Toronto, then Kingston as well as Southern Ontario. This rewarding work led Brent and a group of past colleagues to develop a self-help Social Network called FantasticYou. Still, in Beta, Brent and his co-founders continue to pursue the opportune time to launch their platform. 

Brent relocated to Kingston in 2015 to participate in his Family Business Succession Plan at Atkinson Home Hardware Building Centres. As one of Eastern Ontario’s Largest Building Supply Retailers, Brent holds the capacity of Managing Partner and Financial Controller. With a genuine love for the intimate community spirit that is alive and well in Kingston, Brent supports the community where opportunities present themselves, including the UHKF Strategic Planning Committee, St. Lawrence II Tall Ship community engagement, and the Kingston West End Craft & Trade District group of locally owned companies.

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Brian Devlin headshot

Providence Care Cross-Representative: Brian Devlin

Brian Devlin joined the Providence Care Board in 2014 and is returning to a Director role after serving as Board Chair from June 2017 to June 2020. Brian is a retired principal whose professional career spanned 27 years with the Limestone District School Board. Brian served as a member and then President of the Frontenac Children’s Aid Society Board of Directors for seven years, and has volunteer experience with several other organizations including the Community Food Sharing Project, Meals on Wheels and the Poverty Challenge. Brian also serves on the KFL&A Addiction & Mental Health Services Board of Directors.
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John Drover headshot

John Drover

Dr. Drover is a Professor in the Departments of Critical Care Medicine and Surgery at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. After growing up in Nova Scotia, he attended Acadia University (’80) to study science and then went to Dalhousie University (’84) for medical school. After a rotating internship, he practised as a family physician for three years in Tamworth, Ontario. After completing a residency in General Surgery (’92) he continued to complete training in Critical Care Medicine (’94) at Queen’s University. Dr. Drover then went on to do further training in Critical Care, working as a Senior Registrar at Guy’s Hospital, London, UK returning to join Queen’s University as a faculty member in 1994. In 2012, he achieved the designation of Canadian Certified Physician Executive. In 2020, he became a Certified Executive Coach.

Dr. Drover has held other leadership positions. He was the Chair and Program Medical Director for Critical Care at Queen’s University and Kingston General Hospital from 2002 to 2014. During that time, he led the formation of the academic Department of Critical Care Medicine and was Interim Head of the new department while a new Head was selected. He has been the Director of Accreditation and Quality Improvement for the School of Medicine at Queen’s University and as Medical Coordinator of the Bariatric Regional Assessment and Treatment Centre led the creation of the unit and the transition to a Bariatric Center of Excellence. He also served for six years as Chair of the Specialty Committee for Critical Care Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Dr. Drover practises as an intensivist at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, and his surgical practice focuses on trauma. He is the physician lead for Critical Care in South Eastern Ontario. He is an Instructor and Course Director with the ATLS program and has been elevated to Provincial Faculty by the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Drover is a member of the Specialty Committee for Critical Care Medicine at the Royal College. He is active as a teacher at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research has focused on nutrition with an emphasis on critically ill patients.

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Karen Humphreys Blake headshot

Karen Humphreys Blake

Karen held senior roles in health care and government, with a particular focus on communications and consultation and fund development. In her role as VP, Public Affairs and Development, at KGH, she worked with colleagues at the partner hospitals to establish what became UHKF. Karen served as interim CEO of UHKF in 2019. She also has considerable governance experience in the health care, social and cultural sectors.
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Colleen Lawrie headshot

Colleen Lawrie

Colleen is a Brock University alumna with a Bachelor of Business Economics. She completed the requirements for her Certified Financial Planners designation in 1999. She joined Wilkinson & Company LLP, Kingston in 2003, and in 2007, she completed the CICA Uniform Final Exam and obtained her Chartered Accountant designation. On January 1st, 2014, Colleen became a partner with Wilkinson & Company.

Colleen has many years of personal experience working as a volunteer for not-for-profit organizations. She has been involved in Scouts Canada, the Cataraqui Clippers Soccer Club. She represents the Wilkinson & Company Kingston office with the United Way and participates in the United Way annual campaigns and previously served as the Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the Kingston General Hospital Foundation. Colleen and her husband, Craig, have two young adult sons.
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Emily Leslie headshot

KHSC Cross-Representative: Emily Leslie

Emily Leslie is a Registered Nurse with 30 years of experience in health care. She has experience in emergency care, endoscopy, community nursing, hospital bed utilization and quality improvement. Emily also assisted in strategic planning and the development of Operational and Business Plans for the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team.

Leading up to the integration of the Hotel Dieu and Kingston General Hospitals in 2017, as a member of the HDH Board, Emily agreed to serve on the advisory body formed to oversee the activities required to implement the integration of HDH and KGH as a new health sciences centre. As a member of its Joint Steering Committee, Emily helped to inform and guide the deliverables required to support this integration.

From integration until becoming a member of Kingston Health Sciences Centre Board of Directors, Emily served as a member of the Partnership Council - a group comprised of representatives of the Hotel Dieu and Kingston General Boards. She served as Vice-Chair of the Hotel Dieu Board and Chair of its Ethics, Mission and Values Committee. Currently, Emily serves on the Patient Care & Quality Committee and the Redevelopment sub-committee of the KHSC Board. Emily serves as a Director on UHKF Board as the cross-appointment from the KHSC Board.

Emily has served on the Research and Education Committee at Kingston General and the Board of the South East Community Care Access Centre (SECCAC). While serving on the Board of the SECCAC, Emily was Vice-Chair of the Patient Safety, Quality and Risk Committee, as well as serving on the Resources Committee.

She lives in Kingston, is married and has six children and ten grandchildren.
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Ashley Montroy headshot

Ashley Montroy

Ashley Montroy is the Director of Marketing for Tribute Technology, a position that she moved into after selling her family’s software company, FrontRunner Professional. During her time at FrontRunner, Ashley worked as the Chief Marketing Officer alongside her family and staff to grow the company from a small family business into one of the largest funeral software companies in North America before selling to a US-based private equity firm.

Ashley is currently a part-owner and shareholder in several businesses including Tribute Technology and local marketing agency, Kingston Webworks. She comes from a family of entrepreneurs, notably her father Kevin Montroy and has personally been in business and marketing for over a decade.

Throughout her career, Ashley has travelled to several parts of the world, spoke at over 50 national and international events, and managed teams of all sizes. She currently serves as the Vice-President of the Funeral Service Association of Canada and has volunteered as a Director with this organization since 2018.

Ashley is a young and energetic female with big-picture ideas and a knack for execution and is looking forward to serving as a Director with the UHKF right here in her hometown of Kingston. 
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Kate Nelson headshot

Kate Nelson

Kate completed her undergraduate studies at McGill University in Montreal and returned home to Kingston in 2007 to complete her law degree at Queen’s University. In 2010, she joined Nelson Law as an articling student and remained at the firm after being called to the bar in 2011. Since such time, she has focused primarily on civil litigation and estate matters. In September 2019, she partnered with Lulama M. Kotze and opened Nelson Kotze LLP. Kate is a member of the Law Society of Ontario and the Frontenac Law Association.
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Brett Patterson headshot

Brett Patterson

Brett is a Kingston resident and has been active in the community through participation in youth sports. He is also the lead business development for Scotiabank for the Kingston area. Through his experiences in the bank, Brett has had the opportunity to demonstrate and deliver individual and team results, business development, project management, leadership and coaching. Through his current responsibilities, he has shown the ability to communicate messaging effectively to small and medium audiences within the community through sponsorship and charitable opportunities supported by the bank. Brett has several educational accomplishments—Human Resources/Business Administration Degree, Information Technology certificate, Arts degree with a concentration in Economics and Personal Financial Planner.
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Sandy Staples headshot

Sandy Staples

A graduate of the University of Guelph and The University of Western Ontario, Dr. Staples joined Smith School of Business in 1998, after two years as a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia. His papers have appeared in such journals as Information Systems Research, Organization Science, Journal of Management Information Systems and The Journal of Strategic Information Systems. He is a regular contributor to international conferences too. Much of his research has been conducted in collaboration with colleagues in Canada, Australia and the United States. 

He is a recent recipient of a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In 2001, Dr. Staples received the Smith School of Business New Researcher Award—an annual honour to the faculty member who has made an outstanding contribution to his or her chosen research field within seven years of receiving their Ph.D. As well, he was awarded a Distinguished Faculty Research Fellowship in 2007.

Dr. Staples' research focuses on how technology enables and affects works practices in organizations. Building on previous research in virtual teams and knowledge sharing, he is currently investigating how collaborative technologies can help manage the diversity within distributed teams. Dr. Staples earned his Ph.D. from the Richard Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.
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