Our Experts
Chief Technical Officers
Jim Harrington
Chief Executive Officer
Jim provides technical expertise in environmental science and engineering with a focus on remediation technologies and water treatment. He has been a pioneer for in situ and biogeochemical treatment technology applications for metals, radionuclides, perchlorate, and nitrogen compounds including cyanide, explosives, ammonia and nitrate. He has provided technical expert services for mining and industrial projects in assessment and permitting phases, and expert witness for microbiology and mining litigation. Jim holds a Master of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.
Corné Pretorius
Chief Technical Officer
Corné has more than 26 years of broad technical and business leadership experience in water and waste related roles in the mining, oil & gas and power sectors. He has led and supported water treatment projects internationally including projects in Africa, Australia, South and North America. Since 2016, he has been responsible for leading the North American Mine Water divisions for both Golder Associates and Black & Veatch. Corné holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a Master of Science in Water Utilization, both from the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
Environmental Assessment and Permitting
Ryan Herbert
Environmental Assessment & Permitting
Ryan serves as Ensero’s Environmental Permitting Practice Leader. Ryan has over 16 years of direct environmental management and project management experience in the mining industry. Ryan has managed diverse teams of technical experts to develop environmental assessment project proposals, permit applications, Reclamation and Closure Plans, and comprehensive Environmental Monitoring and Management Plans. His extensive mining industry experience allows Ryan to bring a unique owner’s perspective to environmental management and permitting challenges.
Nathan Aasman
Environmental Assessment & Permitting
Nathan is Ensero’s Director of Environmental Assessment focusing on environmental and social impact assessment and permitting. He has extensive experience conducting impact assessments and supporting clients through the permitting processes in Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia, and other jurisdictions in Canada. Nathan provides strategic assessment and regulatory advice during all stages of project life cycles. This includes planning and feasibility studies, EA, and post-EA permitting and compliance. He leads the design and development of EA reports and regulatory strategies while providing direction and senior experience to multi-disciplinary teams of environmental professionals, social scientists, engagement professionals and engineers.
Kalina Malowany
Mine Permitting & Water Treatment
Kalina is a Senior Hydrogeologist with expertise in groundwater characterization, mine permitting, and water treatment. Kalina’s technical knowledge in contaminant hydrogeology and physical groundwater processes supports the identification and mitigation of potential risks associated with mining operations. A key aspect of Kalina's work is supporting remedial planning for mine operations, where she specializes in post-closure predictive assessments. Kalina has extensive knowledge of the British Columbia Contaminated Sites Regulation, Environmental Management Act, Environmental Assessment Act, and the Water Sustainability Act, and is well-versed in the regulatory and permitting challenges faced by various environmental and capital projects.
Water Management and Engineering
Hannah Chiew
Process Engineer & Water Treatment
Hannah is a Process Engineer and Water Treatment Professional with over 24 years of experience with multiple global companies, providing consulting, design, and construction services. She delivers water treatment projects in all phases of development and execution: Conceptual, Front-End Engineering Design (FEED), Detailed Design, Construction, Commissioning, and Start-up. Her process experience covers an array of water/wastewater treatment scopes within mining, energy, industrial and municipal sectors. She has managed 15+ bench-scale treatability studies for various mining clients and delivered multiple conceptual design and alternative analyses to evaluate and recommend water treatment options. A significant portion of her project portfolio in the last 10 years have been in the passive and semi-passive treatment technologies.
Robert Taylor
Water Management
Robert has more than 11 years of experience in contaminated water and land characterization and treatment in the mining, oil and gas, industrial, spill response and brownfield sectors. He has worked as a consultant and contractor in Europe and North America, specializing in contaminated water and soils. Robert has a Bachelor of Science in Geography and a Master of Science in Environmental Monitoring, Modelling and Reconstruction from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
Kristina Minchow
Water Management
As a project development lead Kristina brings her experience in water management directly to helping clients find creative solutions. She is an environmental engineer with more than 9 years of experience in industrial water treatment following several years of mine water research. She routinely works with and leads multidisciplinary design teams on projects across North America. Kristina’s emphasis in the mining industry has helped her deliver projects at every stage of the mine life from pre-feasibility through closure.
Water Treatment
Vanessa Friesen
Biological Treatment
Dr. Vanessa Friesen serves as Ensero’s technical leader for biological treatment including treatment wetlands and bioreactors, selenium biogeochemistry, and microbial genomics. She provides technical oversight for our water treatment piloting facilities and Ensero’s Microbiology and genomics testing laboratories. She has extensive experience as a scientific lead on projects for biological water treatment and industrial and environmental microbiology. She holds a double bachelor of science degree in Microbiology & Immunology and Biochemistry, and a PhD that focused in industrial microbiology and genomics.
Andrew Gault
Acid Rock Drainage & Water Quality
Dr. Andrew Gault is a technical lead for much of Ensero’s water quality and acid rock drainage/metal leaching characterization work. His experience includes the characterization of the geochemical and microbial controls on metal(loid) mobility in the environment, including mine drainage impacted settings, radionuclide and metalloid transport in the shallow subsurface, and industrially contaminated soils and sediments. He holds an MChem in Environmental Chemistry and a PhD in Aqueous Geochemistry.
Kari McCaffery
Microbiology & Piloting Facilities
Kari leads the team at Ensero’s microbiology and piloting facilities, overseeing operations and business development. She has more than twenty years of experience as an industrial microbiologist, manager, and business development professional. She holds a double bachelor of science degree in Applied Microbiology and Biology, a MSc in Applied Microbiology, and is a Project Management Professional (PMP).
Reclamation and Remediation
Billy Ray
Closure Strategies
Billy’s expertise lies in mine closure project execution including issue identification, risk management, remedy evaluation and costing, remedy selection, technology implementation, and post-closure compliance monitoring with over 21 years of experience dedicated to mine reclamation. Previous experience includes managing reclamation projects and care & maintenance operations at former mine and mill sites across North America for an international mining company.
Allan Steckelberg
Construction & Risk Management
Allan's experience includes mine reclamation, environmental remediation and heavy civil construction work including design and construction of solutions for uranium mine and mill sites, hard and soft rock mining and tailings impoundment reclamation as well as phosphate mine reclamation. His responsibilities included managing projects throughout North America. Allan also has extensive experience in financial analysis for support of bonding efforts, developing mine and mill site asset retirement strategies and the development and review of benefit and use cases.
Paul Barnes
Closure Strategies
Paul specializes in closure strategies for complex environmental sites. Paul’s experience includes leveraging multidisciplinary technical teams to solve complex problems, often with innovative technical or business strategies. Paul holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and Master of Science Degree in Environmental Science where his thesis research focused on the use of fungi in fixed-film bioreactors.
Anthony Allen
Brownfield Redevelopment
Prior to joining Ensero, Anthony was a partner at Seabord Capital Corp, a consulting company that provides investment analysis and financial services to companies operating in the mining, oil and gas, and energy sectors. Prior to joining Seabord Capital, Mr. Allen spent 21 years as a consultant/project manager to environmental remediation, brownfield redevelopment and energy related projects in North America. Mr. Allen has received a Bachelor’s Degree in Geology and a Master’s Degree in Real Estate Development from the University of Southern California.
