Optilog Forum
June 8, 2022
Kelowna, BC

Dale Ewers is incredibly passionate about the logging industry and its his mission in life to make it safer and more productive for everyone involved.

Having been a logger since the age of 14, Dale along with his wife Christine, currently own or manage 12 logging crews throughout New Zealand. They also own the mechanical services and manufacturing company DC Equipment.

In 2012, Dale and his logging crew managers made the decision to fully mechanize their crews.  Unable to find existing equipment to fulfil their needs they developed their own motorized Grapple Carriage, Grapple Camera System and Winch Assist Machine. Under the Falcon Forestry Equipment brand, these products are now sold in New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Canada and the U.S.

Dale has a vision of Zero Harm industry which fuels his innovative ideas and solutions that has ultimately made the industry a safer more productive sector.

Jussi Jurvanen holds a bachelor of engineering, forestry. He started his carrier as logging contractor in Eastern Finland in 1988. In 2001 he began work as forest operations manager for a large forest contractor in Europe. In 2007, Jussi started to teach how to operate forest machines in Finnish Vocational School. He joined Ponsse in 2015 and has been working as operator trainer and simulator training specialist. Jussi has worked in many countries including eastern Canada.

Michael Wilcox is the co-founder and president of FYBR Solutions, a cloud-based drone data analysis engine focussed specifically on forestry applications. Mike holds a business degree from Western University and has been helping forestry companies and governments adopt drone technology since 2014. He is a regular speaker at forestry conferences in North America.

Mihai Pavel works as a researcher with FPInnovations and has more than 25 years of experience. Over the years, he conducted studies on various harvesting systems and machinery, developed new inventory systems based on traditional methods and/or LiDAR-based tree and stand attributes, and more recently focuses on application of commercial thinnings (CT) in B.C. His work on CT application follows two main directions: (i) identification of stands, characterized by species composition, age, Site Index, and Biogeoclimatic Zone, where CT will increase their dollar value; (ii) quantification of the long-term impact of CT at the forest estate level. Mihai collaborates with specialists from industry, government, and academia to address these questions at the provincial level.

Nathan Enge is a senior technical solutions specialist at Esri Canada. He specializes in forestry, mining, and oil and gas. Nathan is passionate about solving strategic, tactical and operational problems for clients using Esri’s ArcGIS platform. He works with industry leaders in the renewal and extractives resources sectors including the Province of BC to leverage location intelligence. Nathan has been involved in GIS for over 22 years, with a military background in the Canadian Armed Forces and post-graduate studies in GIS. He has worked within forestry GIS for 10 years, mining and oil and gas for another 10 years in locations from B.C., the territories, Latin America and West Africa.

Olle Gelin is very passionate about the forest. Not only did he grow up in the forest, but he has also worked with forest all his life. Olle has deep domain knowledge in forestry and in mechanical engineering, mechatronics and automation. He has worked with product development of hybrid trucks at Scania and with new concepts and machines for forestry at the Forest Research Institute of Sweden. Among others he initiated and led one of the world’s largest projects in forestry automation, AUTO2. In March 2020, Olle co-founded AirForestry – the Swedish company behind the world’s first harvesting drone.

Paul Fantin, RPF has 35 years of experience working within both government and the forest industry and First Nations. He has authored four forest management plans and sat on multiple forest advisory committees including Ontario’s Provincial Forest Technical Advisory Committee, the Provincial Forest Renewal Trust Advisory Committee and other ad hoc advisory initiatives through the Ontario Forest Industries Association.

Prior to assuming his role in FRMG’s SkyForest group, Paul was the general manager of a sustainable forest license company, overseeing the forestry program including forest management planning and implementation, silviculture, operational monitoring, and reporting. Paul’s forest inventory experience started with operational timber cruising as well as the establishment of provincial growth and yield permanent sample plots and is now focussed on using SkyForest to generate improved information for forest industry clients.

In addition to operationalizing remote sensing products, his professional interests also include climate change and forest genetics. Paul was previously chair of Forest Genetics Ontario and is currently president of the Northeast Seed Management Association.