Board Members
Vern Hafso
Viking, AB.
Vern is an active partner in a 1600 acre grain farm, and in 1998 emu and white tail deer were added to the operation. He also has an active role in the business community, being President of both Viking and Area Chamber of Commerce and the Viking and Area Recreation Board. This is in addition to serving on the Board of the Viking Local United Grain Growers the Viking Rural Electrification Association and Rural Electric Services Ltd. Vern is currently a county councilor for Beaver County. Vern also attended the National Conference on CFO’s last fall in Saskatoon along with several SERLO Board Members.
Sherry Brock
Joffree, AB.
Sherry was appointed by Health Canada to the Veterinary Drugs Directorate Stakeholder Committee. She already has attended several meetings in Ottawa and will be attending again on May 1st and May 2nd of this year. In the fall of 2002, she attended a National Conference on CFO’s in Saskatoon with other SERLO Directors. Sherry also attended, along with Sue Pearson and Lisa Bechthold, the first Advisory Steering Committee meeting with the NRCB in Edmonton in December 2002.
Bill Purves-Smith
Carstairs, AB
Bill is currently the Secretary/Treasurer of the Custom Woolen Mills at Carstairs and primary gopher. Bill and his wife Fenn, founded the woolen mill in 1977 where they struggled in the red for 24 years. They are now in the black since November 2001. Yahoo!! Bill has worked as a teacher at Mount Royal College in social work as a parole officer at John Howard Society, as a worker for the B.C. Government on skid row, Vancouver and as a community worker for the YMCA in B.C.’s lower mainland. Bill became a SERLO board member at the Annual General Meeting in Red Deer in 2003.
Denis Sauvageau
Denis is a 4th generation farmer who got involved with the Intensive livestock Industry when the stench of hog manure began to invade the countryside back in 2002. That’s when the NRCB took over the regulation of ILO’s and shortly after Smoky Pork/Peace Pork applied for expansions to their already large hog barns.
Denis met with neighbors and they started comparing notes, doing research, and realized that they were not the only ones suffering from the impacts of Intensive Livestock Operations. As a result, FOUL (Friends Of an Unpolluted Lifestyle) was formed with links to SERLO and several other organizations across Canada.
On March 19, 2005 Denis met with Agriculture Minister Doug Horner, outlining the concerns of Albertans regarding air quality and the potential for water contamination, and presented him with a 2 inch binder of information outlining some possible solutions to these concerns.
Jack Ross
Jack along with his wife and 2 children grain farms in Central Alberta on a 4th generation farm. His parents continue to farm a portion of this same farm. Jack also works in the oil and gas industry suppling custom services such as snowplowing, grading and lease mowing.
His interests in CFO’s are due in part to a 4000 feeder-finsher hog barn built in 1998 and situated only a 1/2 mile from his home quarter. Jack has seen some of the concerns and issues that surround these CFO’s in regards to the environment and communities that they are located in.
Colleen Graham
I was born in High River, raised on a farm west of there where all of our livestock were “free range”, although I wasn’t to hear that term until years later. I moved with my family to the Joffre area in the late 40’s, married a local farmer and raised a family of 3.
Ours was a mixed farm until the 70’s when we went to grain and hay.
Always interested in natural history and the health of our environment, I’ve been a member of the Red Deer River Naturalists for about 20 yrs.
It was a presentation to RDRN by Sue Pearson with Malcolm McIlroy on behalf of concerned neighbours opposing the application for a 4,000 head hog feeder barn that focused my interest, and that of RDRN , on the many health and environmental issues surrounding such operations.
My interest continues in supporting the efforts of SERLO which saw its beginnings in the determined efforts of Sue and Malcolm and their neighbours in gathering the scientific information and in documenting errors in the application to mount a successful protest against that CFO.
