Meet the Team!

 Hank Venema is the CEO and Senior Engineer for Strategic. He is strongly committed to sustainable development leadership, innovation, and implementation. Hank brings a strong focus on climate resilience planning and surface water management to municipal and regional landscapes.

Hank holds a PhD in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo with a diverse technical and management background spanning climate change, renewable energy, water resources, urban planning, agriculture, operations research, public health, and environmental economics.

Hank has extensive experience at home and abroad, having worked for and with the Inter–governmental Panel on Climate Change, The World Bank, The World Health Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations Environment Program, the Global Water Systems Project, and The Energy and Resources Institute. In Canada, Hank was Chief Scientist and Vice President for Science and Innovation at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), leading several of IISD’s signature Canadian programs including the Water Innovation Centre, saving and reviving the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) research station, and helping establish the Prairie Climate Centre. Hank also has over a decade of experience consulting to the Province of Manitoba and the Government of Canada on wind power development, Lake Winnipeg Basin management, water quality trading, ecosystem services, bio-economy development, and indigenous–led ecosystem management.

Scott Pokorny brings new knowledge for solving water resources and systems design challenges with a focus on hydrologic analysis. He is currently focusing on solving sustainable development challenges with optimization frameworks using parallel computing to overcome challenges associated with big data usage.

Scott holds a Master’s Degree in Water Resources Engineering from the U of M. He has over half a decade of combined experience in research, consulting, and government in the field of water resources and climate change analysis.

Andrew Tefs specializes in statistical analysis and hydrologic modelling with a focus on modelling and quantifying human use and movement of water. He has worked in collaboration with Manitoba Hydro, Hydro-Québec, and Ontario Power Generation to improve understanding of climate change impacts on hydropower and vice versa. Andrew holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and master’s degree in water resources engineering from the University of Manitoba and has seven years experience in water resources and research and development, focusing on climate change impact studies and environmental monitoring.

As Strategic’s Software Analyst, Patrick Lee has developed geospatial analytics tools that simulate and showcase the impact of major flooding events and has used 3D modeling technologies with geospatial data to generate analytics and 3D visuals to promote informed decision-making.

Patrick is a University of Manitoba graduate with a B.Sc. in Computer Science, and has written software in C, C++, Python, Java, and has some experience in OpenGL development, and Android application development.

Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Computer Science from the University of Winnipeg, Jeetpal brings a wealth of knowledge and proficiency to his work, with expertise in creating innovative and out of the box solutions.

Specializing in Full-Stack Development, R&D, and WebGL, Jeetpal is proficient in Node.js, Next.js, Java, JavaScript, and Python. Jeetpal’s academic achievements include receiving the Academic Proficiency Scholarship, making the Dean’s Honour List, and achieving a Gold Medal in his Applied Computer Science major.

With over a year of professional experience, Jeetpal has contributed to real-world projects and has demonstrated effective leadership as the President of the University of Winnipeg Applied Computer Science Student Association.