Outstanding Alumni Awards This year's Outstanding Alumni Award winners from left to right are Norman Armour (BA'87), executive director of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (arts and culture); Jim Chu (BBA'86), chief constable of the Vancouver Police Department (public service); Mae Burrows (BA'72, MA'96), former executive director of Toxic Free Canada (service to the community); and Alan Rugman (PhD'75), professor of international business at the University of Reading (U.K.) (academic achievement).
<www.sfu.ca/alumni/our_alumni/outstanding>

Helping Hand Ida Greenwood (PDP'76, BGS'84, GDED'03) and her husband are building a school in Uganda. They are working with Africa Community Technical Service, which is funded partially by the Canadian International Development Agency.

New Publishing House Louise Wallace (MPub'99) establishes the first independent book publisher in Salmon Arm. <http://www.playfortpublishing.ca>

Cool School Brad Ovenell-Carter (MALS'10) is head of school for an innovative educational institution that allows high-school students to study in three new international cities each academic year. THINK Global School combines rigorous academic life with real life in the host cities so students from around the world learn from each other and from their experiences. The year started in Stockholm last fall, spring was spent in Sydney, and summer will be spent in Beijing. <www.thinkglobalschool.org>

Flower Power Megan Branson's (BA'10) Olla Urban Flower Shop (Mezzanine, 235 Cambie St., Vancouver) combines traditional flower arranging with workshops, events, community programming, and local food. Branson is also a dancer and was a participant in the SFU Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue program. <www.ollaflowers.com>

HIV is Very, Very Old The University of Arizona's Mike Worobey (BSc'97) and Tulane University's Preston Marx discover that a precursor to HIV has been circulating for at least 32,000 years. The question now: If it was circulating in monkeys that long ago, what made it cross over to humans in the 20th century?

Adventurous For Jacqueline van Campen (MA'70) the 1950s were a time for world travel. In Medals on My Kitchen Wall she recounts her work with the Canadian Forces for the Canadian Red Cross in Japan and Korea as the Korean War was ending. van Campen is also author of Gens de Chez Nous. <www.trafford.com>

Ken Martin (left) and Joe Kelly (right) are SFU alumni helping businesses reduce their impact on climate change.

Joe Kelly (PhD'06) and Ken Martin (EMBA'99) have teamed together to help small and medium-size businesses measure and easily reduce their carbon footprint. Their company is called Gobi Carbon Management Solutions, and its new web-based tool, GobiSOFT, allows tracking with a minimum of bother. It is comprehensive, easy to use, and affordable. <www.gobinet.com>

More Margaret Margaret Trudeau's (BA'69) third memoir, Changing Her Mind, chronicles her life with mental illness. She hopes the book will serve as a "dire warning" for others suffering from mental health issues.

Rising Star Marko Vesely (BA'94) is recognized as one of Canada's Leading Lawyers Under 40, by Lexpert's Rising Star Awards. Vesely is a partner at Vancouver's Lawson Lundell LLP, practising commercial litigation.

Smallville Breaks Record Dustin Farrell (BFA'01) is art director of the made-in-Vancouver series Smallville. When they finish shooting this season, the 10th, it will be the longest running sci-fi show ever and will make it into the Guinness World Records.

Mourning a Traditional Knowledge Keeper John Jules (BA'94), noted as a cultural leader for the Shuswap Nation, has died of cancer at age 56. He was the Tk'emlups Indian Band's cultural resources manager for a number of years and was most recently director of operations for the Stk'emlupsemc Te Secwepemc Nation. He was also an acclaimed artist and dancer on the powwow circuit, and in 1999 in collaboration with the Kamloops Symphony he wrote and narrated Stories From Coyote.

Mompreneur Shaheen Hirji (BA'99, GDBUS'03) of Organically Hatched is one of Canada's Top 10 "mompreneurs" in the green products/services category for 2010, as named by Mompreneur magazine. Hirji started Organically Hatched in 2008 when she had trouble finding quality organic product for her son. Now her son and others are thriving on her product. <www.organicallyhatched.com>

Top Women Zabeen Hirji (EMBA'94), Loreen Paananen (EMBA'95), and Bev Park (EMBA'02) are named to the Women Executive Network's Top 100 Canada's Most Powerful Women list.

Environmentalist Honoured Janos Mate (BA'70, MA'72) receives the 2010 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Montreal Protocol Award in recognition of his work with Greenpeace. Mate, a psychotherapist, works with Greenpeace on ozone-layer protection. He was instrumental in the development of "Greenfreeze," an ozone- and climate-friendly refrigeration technology that replaces harmful CFCs. aq

Photograph of Outstanding Alumni by Greg Ehlers/TLC, Joe Kelly and Ken Martin by Marcel Laforce.

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