Our team

He continues to serve as Chairman; President and Chief Executive Officer of Powerlink Transmission Company. He was Chief Executive Officer and President of PacifiCorp from 1994 to 1998, where he transformed the company from a regional utility to a significant national and international energy company that was sold to MidAmerican Energy in 2005 for US $5.2 billion. He also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Consumers Power Company (now known as Consumers Energy), the utility subsidiary of CMS Energy, from 1988 to 1994.

Dr. Buckman continues to hold several directorships of leading energy companies, including: General Fusion Inc. (Chairman); Smart Wires, a transmission technology company; and Solomon corporation. He is also a member of the StanCorp Financial Group Board. Dr. Buckman is the Adjunct Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Michigan. He completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program in 1982. He received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Throughout his career, Dr. Hill has gained experience in all aspects of nuclear energy, domestically and internationally. He has managed major projects, including at the experimental fast reactor at INL, and led the restructuring of INL. He has been responsible for hundreds of staff, and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual budgetary research and development expenditures.

Dr. Hill received his BSc (first class) and his PhD in mathematical physics from the Imperial College, London University. He further received his Honors Masters of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and Member of the International Nuclear Academy.

During his tenure at Man, Mr. Irish was responsible for building and managing the largest and most active strategic investment and managed account business in North America. Mr. Irish was a member of the Investment Committee and responsible for corporate acquisition opportunities in North America for Man Group Plc.

Mr. Irish began his banking career at Credit Suisse in London and in 2001 moved to New York as Director of FRM, the London-based investment firm, to establish its U.S. business.

In 2010, he focused on opportunities in breakthrough energy technologies and in particular nuclear energy given its unparalleled energy density and the commercial potential of advanced reactor technologies.

Mr. Irish holds an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and an MSc in Finance from the London Business School.

He obtained long-term fellowship funding from Canadian Fusion Fuels Technology Project and later focused his interests on improving nuclear fission power.

For 11 years Dr. LeBlanc held a teaching position with the Carleton University physics department. Concurrently he worked independently in the field of Molten Salt Reactors. In 2008, he founded Ottawa Valley Research Associates Ltd. to advance this work and has filed patents relating to innovations in MSR technologies that have specific bearing on improving and broadening the commercial application of the technology.

Dr. LeBlanc has been published numerous times in academic journals in conference proceedings and is extensively cited. He is a frequent speaker at international nuclear industry conferences on Molten Salt Reactor design concepts. He has long recognized that public engagement and education are also necessary to advance MSR technologies. To meet this objective, Dr. LeBlanc has had numerous news media engagements, including interviews and media articles in Mechanical Engineering Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, CBC Radio, the Toronto Star and Nuclear Engineering Insider.

Early in his career, Mr. MacDiarmid was an Associate and then Principal with McKinsey & Company, a leading international management consulting firm. He holds an M.B.A. from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, graduating as a Miller Scholar, and an HBA from the Ivey Business School at Western University.

In 2002, Mr. Smith joined Siemens Canada rising to become the Senior Vice President of Siemens’ energy business in Canada, which included power generation and transmission, oil and gas and smart technologies across the energy sector. He was responsible for all sales and marketing, manufacturing, service delivery and project management and successfully built the business into a billion-dollar enterprise.

During Mr. Smith’s tenure in both the private and public sector, he has developed deep experience and capability in major project execution, building team capability and managing external interfaces with clients, suppliers and regulators.

Mr. Smith holds a B. Eng (with Distinction) from Carleton University and an MBA from the Schulich School at York University. He is a P. Eng registered with the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) and with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA).

Mr. Bryan was a co-founder of: NioCorp (NB: TSXV), a company developing the largest niobium deposit in North America; Uranium Energy Corp (UEC: NYSE) where he served as an officer until October 2007. UEC is a producer of ISR uranium in the U.S. Previously Mr. Bryan was senior financial analyst for Lasik Vision Corporation (LSK: CDNX), which was the world’s largest provider of laser refractive surgical services.

He is a Director of General Counsel Limited, a software services company, and a founding Trustee of the Activation Trust, an educational trust operating in Kenya. He was for six years a Director of Argo Real Estate Opportunities Fund Limited, a public company running and building retail parks in Central and Eastern Europe. Mr. Plowden-Wardlaw began his career as a banking and asset finance solicitor with Watson, Farley and Williams.

Mr. Plowden-Wardlaw graduated with an LLB (Law, First class) from the University of Birmingham and holds an MSc (Finance) from London Business School and an MSc (Conservation and Biodiversity Law) from the University of Kent. He is a Liveryman of the City of London. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1990.