Meet Our Trustees

Marion Thomson Howell is an entrepreneur and active community contributor. After 33 years as President of ShaughnessyHowell Inc., an award-winning provider of learning and leadership development solutions, Marion now spends her semi-retirement years working with board directors in the not-for-profit sector helping them to advance the mission of their organizations and put practices in place to ensure they are effective stewards of their organizations’ resources.

She is currently the Chair of the Board of Trustees for St. Mary’s and in that capacity also sits as a Director on the Board for the St. Mary’s Foundation. Marion is also a founding director for A Better Tent City Waterloo Region, an organization that provides safe shelter and support for those who are experiencing homelessness. 

Prior to coming to St. Mary’s, Marion served on the Board of St. Jerome’s University was elected as a trustee for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board in both the 2003 and 2006 elections.

Tim is the EY Waterloo Region Office Managing Partner and Tax Partner for a number of public and privately held technology and advanced manufacturing and mobility companies located in the Toronto-Waterloo Innovation corridor.

Prior to re-joining EY in 2015, Tim held senior tax and finance leadership roles at Sandvine (2014-2015) and BlackBerry (2001-2014), including VP, Tax and VP, CFO Transformation and Governance roles at BlackBerry.

Tim is a CPA, CA who graduated from the University of Waterloo in 1996 with a BA, Honours Chartered Accountancy Studies and Master of Accounting. In addition to serving on the St. Mary’s General Hospital Board of Trustees, Tim is a Board member of Capacity Canada, an active mentor with the University of Waterloo’s School of Accounting and Finance, and past Board member of the Junior Achievement of Waterloo Region Inc.  Tim lives in Woolwich Township with his wife Leanne and two sons.

Jenny is a risk management and a process and control advisor. She has directed the corporate audit functions for companies in the manufacturing, technology. financial services and education sectors. Jenny holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA, CA), a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). Jenny has served on the Board of Directors of the Volunteer Action Centre KW, Crime Stoppers and as a finance committee member of the Grand River Hospital Foundation. Jenny is married with three children.

Nick is currently the Senior Director of Operations for ATS Automation Life Sciences Systems division. In this role Nick is responsible for the execution and delivery of custom automation solutions (assembly lines) for a wide variety of customers in the medical field.

He has a strong background in Operations with a passion for Continuous Improvement, previously having held various leadership positions at BlackBerry, Toyota and Aeryon Labs. (acquired by Teledyne Dalsa)

Nick has degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Waterloo and has previous volunteer experience as a Continuous Improvement advisor for several start-ups in the region. He has also been long time member of several consortium of companies including AFEE and CIA.

Nick lives in New Hamburg, Ontario with his wife and three children.

Janine currently heads up the Digital and Payments team for Manulife Bank. In this role she looks at digital solutions for the entire customer journey and champions new ways of working with an Agile/Lean mindset to deliver enhancements for customers. Janine has a degree in Psychology from the University of Waterloo and a diploma in Internet and Electronic Commerce from Seneca College. She worked for several years in an administrative role with the Community Care Access Centre with placements at both Grand River and Freeport Hospital. She also volunteers her time as part of the Send ‘em off Smiling Board of Directors. Janine lives in Waterloo with her husband and three children.

Greg is a Partner in an international Consulting Engineering firm, GHD Limited, that was formerly known as Conestoga-Rovers & Associates.  Greg is a graduate of the University of Waterloo and practices as a Professional Engineer in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  Greg has been a member of the St Mary’s General Hospital Foundation Board since 2018.  In the past Greg has been actively involved in Waterloo Minor hockey and was a member of the Rotary Club of Kitchener Grand River for many years. Greg and his wife Linda live in Waterloo with their two boys, Daniel and Michael.  

Linda is the retired Director of Education and CEO of the Waterloo Region District School Board. She holds a B.A. and M.A. from Wilfrid Laurier University in addition to teacher, principal and supervisory officer qualifications, and certification in the areas of Violence Threat Risk Assessment and Emotional Intelligence. The recipient of numerous awards in the community, nationally and internationally, Linda currently serves on a number of non-profit boards in Waterloo Region including St. Mary’s General Hospital, THEMUSEUM, Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada, K-W Symphony and she is the past-president of the International Women’ Forum, Waterloo Chapter. Linda also contributes as an advisor to the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Education at WLU. 

Melinda leads global service development in facility management for Sodexo Group across 80 countries.  She works closely with strategy and marketing to improve the consumer experience and strengthen Sodexo’s market position.

 Prior to joining Sodexo, she held key positions at Halton Healthcare and the Vaughan Health Campus of Care (VHCC) in the development of two state-of-the-art, fully integrated healthcare facilities to coordinate health services across the continuum of care. 

 Melinda is a change agent, uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ long-term success, with a powerful vision to promote positive outcomes. She holds a Masters of Health Sciences degree from the University of Toronto and a Civil Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. She is a licensed professional engineer and a Certified Healthcare Executive. She recently moved back to the KW area with her husband and two grown children.

Prior to retiring in 2017, Dave was Vice-President and Associate General Counsel with Sun Life.  Dave worked with Sun Life and its predecessors - Mutual LIfe of Canada and Clarica - for 34 years as a lawyer and senior executive. Dave has been on the board of directors of Ray of Hope Inc. ( a multi-faceted social services agency in Kitchener) for many years. He served as the Board Chair at Ray of Hope from 2019 to 2022.

Dave has been a member of the board of directors of Lutheran Homes Kitchener Waterloo (operator of the Trinity Village seniors community in Kitchener) since 2016. He currently serves as Board Chair there. Prior to joining the Board of Trustees at St Mary's, Dave served for three years on St. Mary's Mission and Governance Committee.

Dave and his wife Carol live in Kitchener. They are blessed with three sons, two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren.

Rick is a Professor Emeritus at the Ivey School of Business (Ivey), The University of Western Ontario. He has a MBA and PhD from Ivey and is a CPA (CA).  He has also been elected a fellow FCPA (FCA) of the Ontario Institute of Chartered Accountants. During his career, Rick taught accounting, finance and tax in the undergrad, MBA and EMBA programs.  He also frequently led a group of MBA students on international study trips to both South America and South-East Asia.   He has frequently been acknowledged for his outstanding teaching and contribution to student learning.  Rick has published more than 50 articles in the accounting, tax and pension areas. 

Rick currently serves on the Board of Community Support Connections (CSC) and represents the CSC as a joint board member on the Cambridge North Dumfries Ontario Health Team.  He has served on the Board of St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital and as a member of council with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario.  He was also a public representative on the audit committee of the Thames Valley District School Board.  Rick has been a board member and audit committee chair with two public companies.

In 2021, Rick moved from Port Stanley, Ontario to New Hamburg and he is honoured to be able to contribute to this community.

Elizabeth Witmer brings a deep knowledge of the healthcare system, having served from 1990-2012 as a Member of Provincial Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo and holding posts such as Minister of Health, Long-Term Care, Labour, Environment and Education, and notably the Deputy Premier of Ontario. As a strong community champion, she was instrumental in her role as MPP to introducing Telehealth Ontario and bringing the Regional Cardiac Care Centre to St. Mary’s Hospital, and the Regional Cancer Centre to Grand River Hospital. Most recently, Witmer served as Chair of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)—a post she held until retirement.

With deep roots in the community both professionally and personally, Elizabeth continues to be a tireless volunteer and leader in Waterloo Region. Over the years, she has been recognized for this work receiving awards such as the Paul Harris Fellowship Award from Rotary, the Social Work Doctors Award for her strong commitment to a just and caring society, the 2013 Kitchener-Waterloo Citizen of the Year Award and in 2014, was the first recipient of the Asthma Society of Canada Innovation in Public Policy Award for her role in beginning Ontario’s coal phase-out.

Elizabeth also sits as a member of The Global Health Advisory Board, overseeing the partnership of universities that participate in the MSc Global Health and provides the program’s strategic direction through McMaster University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Witmer is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Althouse College of Education, and the ICD Rotman Program.