PEO Executive Committee 2009-2010

Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), the licensing body for professional engineers in the province, installed the 2009-2010 Council. See more details at PEO Council

CATHERINE KARAKATSANIS, P.ENG.

President

Catherine Karakatsanis is a senior vice president and board member at Morrison Hershfield Limited. She heads up the building and facilities division, which provides multi-disciplinary engineering expertise to the commercial, 

institutional, residential, industrial and public sectors. After graduating with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering science from the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Karakatsanis was a research assistant at UWO’s Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory. In 1989 she joined Morrison Hershfield, where she

has had a diversified career with extensive engineering and management experience. She has 

been a structural engineer, project manager and construction manager; conducted specialized engineering research for litigation; and held several management positions. Karakatsanis has been an active volunteer in the engineering community for over a decade, having served on the board of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) for five years and as OSPE president and chair. She has chaired and been a member of numerous PEO and OSPE committees. In addition to her role as president of PEO, she is a member of the boards of the Ontar

io Professional Engineers Foundation for Education and UWO’s faculty of engineering advisory committee. Karakatsanis is also active in her community. ckarakatsanis@peo.on.ca

DIANE L. FREEMAN, P.ENG.

President-elect

Diane Freeman graduated with a civil 

engineering degree from the University of Waterloo in 1992 and was licensed in 1994. An associate with Conestoga-Rovers & Associates Ltd., working in the area of air quality, Freeman was elected in 2006 as a City of Waterloo councillor. She served as a PEO Western Region councillor for four years and is active on the Discipline Committee, and as a professional practice exam invigilator. In 2005-2006, she was appointed vice president on the Executive Committee, and chaired the Regional Councillors Committee. In 2004, she was vice chair of the Regional Councillors Committee and chaired the Chapter Leaders Conference. A past me

mber of the Professional Engineers Awards Committee, Freeman was also active on the Grand River Chapter executive as chapter education coordinator from 1994 to 2000. Dedicated 

to science awareness and enriching learning environments for children, Freeman is president of the board of directors for the Butterfly Learning Centre. In 2007 and 2008, she was elected a director on the board of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, where she is a member of the Large Urban Caucus. She is also a director and secretary of the Air and Waste Management Association (Ontario section). dfreeman@peo.on.ca

J. DAVID ADAMS, P.ENG., MBA

Past president

Dave Adams, past president PEO 2008-2009, studied arts and science at Carleton University before earning a BEng in mechanical engineering at

McGill University, and an MBA in finance and marketing from the University of Western Ontario. Involved extensively in mechanical engineering

design and production management, and acquisition analysis and business operations, he has worked at the National Research Council, in the Alberta oil fields, CIL, Cockshutt, Abitibi and Rio Tinto (England), and held senior positions with Canadian Gypsum and Massey Ferguson before acquiring the 140-employee Canada Spool & Bobbin Company. Adams is president of Maple Leaf Engineering, a consulting firm specializing in lean design and manufacturing, wood processing machinery, and sawmill and dry kiln design. He was twice elected a regional councillor and has many years of chapter, committee and task force service. He chaired both the Governance Task Force and the Audit

Comm

ittee. A past president of the Rotary Club and elder of Lutheran Church Canada, Adams is a member of Gideon International, Canadian Who’s Who since 1989 and Marquis Who’s Who (US) since 1984. Adams was made a member of International Men of Achievement in 1986.

He is happily married to Dorothy and has three grown children. daveadams@peo.on.ca

CORNELIU E. CHISU, P.ENG.

Vice president (elected)
Major (retired) Corneliu Chisu holds a BEng from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania, and an MEng in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto. He has been a military engineer and served with the Canadian Forces in 

Bosnia Herzegovina (2004) as an engineer advisor to the NATO Multinational Task Force (NW) and in Kandahar, Afghanistan (2007), as a requirements officer of Task Force
Afghanistan’s Engineer Support Unit. Chisu has served as a public member of the Building Materials Evaluation Commission and was an application process administrator at PEO. Until 2004, he was the honorary consul of the Republic of Moldova (head of the consular post in Toronto) and secretary of the Consular Corps Association of Toronto. He served with the Italian Trade Commission in Bucharest and Toronto as technology transfer advisor. He worked as a research scientist and teaching assistant at the Energy Research Institute and Polytechnic University of Bucharest. Chisu was awarded the Canadian Forces Decoration; Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; NATO medal for Balkan Operations; Canadian Peacekeeper Medal; and General Campaign Star Medal Afghanistan.
He was inducted into PEO’s Order of Honour in 2006. cchisu@peo.on.ca