Combined Skills
Education + Public Speaking + Leadership + Organizing + Journalism + Teamwork + Business

In 1986, the faculty at my high school nominated me for a Service Award.

Each year, they recognized 1% of students in the graduating class for their unique and outstanding contributions. Over 700 students graduated from Harry Ainlay that year.

In addition to being on the gymnastics team, here is what led to my nomination.

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One evening in June 1986, just over 1,700 people gathered at the Edmonton Jubilee Auditorium for my high school's annual commencement ceremony.

It was my first public speaking experience, and I was center stage with 4 other students. I admit to almost forgetting my first line but at the last second, I remembered.

As class historians, we wrote the speech as a team. Together, we crafted a cherished memory using the unique talents of everyone involved.

Since Rod and Jason had theatre experience, they lead the process and wrote the final draft. I provided records of events and people from the archives of the school newspaper. Morris brought an array of sounds and clever mimicry, while Gerald and Elin came up with more funny ideas than time would allow.

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In grade 12, I became editor of my high school newspaper, the Titanic. That September, the incumbent editor was struggled to recruit members and had lost enthusiasm for the club, so I convinced a few friends to join.

In October 1985, the Edmonton Journal hosted 2 full-day workshops for students in high school newspaper clubs from the city and surrounding area. They covered the principles of good layout, introduced us to the latest technology (on original MacIntosh computers), and gave us tours of their actual newsroom.

My first edition as an editor came out at the start of November. The comic section had the first installment in a 3-part satire about the teachers and cafeteria staff. The day after it came out the Vice Principle, Mr. Zbitnew, made an announcement complementing our club for an outstanding edition of the Titanic and mentioned me by name. After that, we had no problem recruiting contributors.

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In 1984, Junior Achievement Canada had a different logo but their mission was basically the same: "To inspire and prepare young people to succeed economically."

I was in Grade 10 and thought it would be fun to learn how to start a business. So, I signed up with two of my best friends, and we formed a team with kids from 4 different schools. I was elected president of my Junior Achievement club. We sold custom stationery.

There was a competition between clubs to make the most profit. We made one and finished in the middle of the pack, but the mentorship I received has proven valuable ever since.

Combined Skills
Political Science + History + Economics + Sociology + Education + Organizing + Leadership + Governance

In 1986, I decided to take a year off after high school to explore the Canadian Rockies and work, then I went to university.

In September 1987, I began studying at the University of Alberta. My major was political science, but it took me a few years to settle on a minor. Ultimately, I chose history, but not before I took enough courses in sociology and economics to have a choice.

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Although I worked part time throughout my undergraduate degree, I also participated in several clubs and organizations.

For example, in the 1988-1989 school year, I was the event planner for the Political Science Undergraduates Association. We hosted speakers on topics ranging from Canada's role in NATO to Western Separatism. Some of our guests included Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, Stephen Lewis; former Minister of Transport, Lloyd Axeworthy; and former Prime Minister, John Turner.

In 1989, I helped organize, and participated in, a mock parliament which held debates using the rules of order from the House of Commons. In 1990 and 1991, I conceived and led two sold-out theatrical productions to raise money for a literacy charity. In 1991-1992, I was the events and accommodations manager for a Literary Society that held an international conference with special guests from 9 countries.

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In the summer of 1993, I worked in Prince George organizing festivals. After graduating in 1994, I went back to work at the Multicultural Society as a community organizer.

Combined Skills
Education + Psychology + Environmental Psychology + Literature Reviews + Research + Journalism + Writing + Surveys + Investment + Organizational Analysis

I was first convinced of anthropogenic climate change in 1987 by a biochemist at the University of Alberta. Since then, I have pondered what I would need to understand to make a positive contribution.

I met Dr. Robert Gifford one afternoon in February 2014 during his regular office hours. He would guide my studies for the next 3 years.

Dr. Gifford was chair of the psychology department, and editor of the Journal of Environmental Psychology. He had developed the Human Dimensions of Climate Change (HDCC) program a few years prior at the Dean's request.

I wanted to know why some people deny climate change while others are willing to take action, but the answers are not limited to a single field. HDCC featured speakers from multiple academic disciplines, so Dr. Gifford advised me to start there.

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During the 2014 fall semester, while I was taking HDCC 200, the UVic chapter of Divest Canada occupied the office of the University Senate to protest the university endowment fund having investments in fossil fuels.

The protesters got nowhere. The Senate dug in their heels. One was focused on demands while disregarding economics and the other was focused on economics while demanding civility.

I decided to write an op-ed for the Martlet criticizing them both for their unreasonableness. It looked at the fund's portfolio and drew attention to green investments that had yielded greater returns than the disputed companies.

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In November, HDCC 200 students were organized into groups of 5 or 6 to research and give presentations to the rest of the class. My group chose the divest movement as our topic. I suggested we use a LoNGPEST framework to organize our presentation. The objective was to explain why the Divest Club failed to sway the Senate.

We looked at the successes and failures of several divest organizations around the world, and observed that shaming tactics largely fail to get people and organizations to divest. Rather, the movement was more successful when it focused on the situational concerns of investors.

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Based on my previous education and grades in HDCC 200, the head of the program invited me to advance straight to HDCC 400. It had the densest science components and the most reading. The next sitting was in the fall of 2015.

In the meantime, I took an individually supervised course from Dr. Gifford. He wanted me to learn how to develop a testable hypothesis, conduct surveys with the approval of the ethics committee, and use SPSS to interpret data. I was wrong about my hypothesis, but I did survey 120 people and identify a cognitive disconnection between economic and environmental concerns.

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After I completed HDCC 400 in the fall of 2015, I took a second individually supervised course from Dr. Gifford. The final project was about enabling pro-environmental volition and involved an extensive literature review.

In the summer of 2016, Dr. Gifford invited me to take his graduate seminar in the fall. He was an excellent mentor. The invitation was based on his confidence in my ability to do the work. My final grade in Environmental Psychology 531 was an A.

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At the start of 2017, the money I set aside for school was running out. I explained my situation to Dr. Gifford, and he left the door open for me to come back.

Combined Skills
Leadership + Governance + Boardroom + Hiring + Elections + Education + Business

Two years after being diagnosed with life-threatening cancer in South Korea, I was finally ready to re-start my life in Canada. I was still a little weak, but I was cured.

I wanted to live closer to my father on the West coast, and to start a new business - but I felt I needed to learn a few things first. So in 1997, I registered for the business program at Camosun College and moved from Prince George to Victoria, BC.

Near the start of my first semester, I decided to get involved with the Student Society. It wasn't long until I was sitting on Student Council and running for the Board of Governors.

Part of my campaign involved organizing a beer gardens - but that isn't why I received over 84% of the votes. I won because my team did such a good job of getting people out that nobody ran against me in my second election.

"Andrew was a student at Camosun College from 1997 to 1999, and was elected as a student representative on the Board of Governors for 1997-98 and 1998-99. He served on the Board's Finance, Facility & Personnel Committee and as the Board of Governors representative on the college's Foundation Board of Directors."
- Liz Ashton, President, Camosun College, Letter to Royal Roads University

In 1998, Camosun College hired a new Vice-President. As a member of the Finance, Facility & Personnel Committee, I took part in the hiring sub-committee and participated in the interview process.

That same year, I was hired for a co-op position by the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training, and Technology. I continued to sit on the Board of Governors during that time, and completed my program at Camosun in the spring of 1999.

While I was there, I founded one of the largest and longest-running student-led fundraisers in the history of the college. I was also appointed by the Advanced Education Council of BC to their Leadership Development Group, which crafted the training given to college governors throughout the province. My time at Camosun concluded with a farewell dinner.

"This letter is to invite you to a dinner in your honour, with the Board of Governors, on Wednesday, October 20th, at Interurban Classroom Restaurant."
- Guy Whitman, Chair, Board of Governors, Invitation Letter

I finished my program with a GPA of 6.0 and went on to join the Victoria Chamber of Commerce and work a few jobs while I started a Tech Support business.

Combined Skills
Research + Writing + Presentation + Governance + Education + Literature Reviews + Political Science + Economics + History

In the summer of 1999, the British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology was located in the historic St. Anne's Academy, in beautiful downtown Victoria. I worked there for 8 months as a co-op student from Camosun College.

As a Researcher II, my assignment was to write 80 pages on the value of post-secondary education by the end of December 1999. I would present my final report to the Director of Colleges and Program Planning.

I completed an extensive literature review of the costs and benefits post-secondary education brings to the economy, public and personal health, crime rates, urban environments, earnings, happiness, birth rates, marital success, literacy, numeracy, and provincial governance.

The final document was 78 pages, not counting appendices. I presented my findings on December 7, 1998 in a meeting room on the 3rd floor of St Anne's Academy.

I returned to Camosun in September to finish the business program and pursue my dream of starting a business.

Combined Skills
Education + Business + Economics + Interpersonal Communication + Psychology + Teaching + Writing

The Great Courses has provided educational content for lifelong learners, written and presented by university-level experts and professors, since 1990.

I have completed the following courses since 2007. Most were selected for the utility of their content at the time. Some were just for fun.

This list will continue to grow.

Business

Critical Business Skills for Success
- Taught By Multiple Professors

Strategic Thinking Skills
- Stanley K. Ridgley, Ph.D. Professor, Drexel University

The Art of Critical Decision Making
- Michael A. Roberto, D.B.A. Professor, Bryant University

The Entrepreneur's Toolkit
- Michael G. Goldsby, Ph.D. Stoops Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship, Ball State University

Meaning from Data: Statistics Made Clear
- Michael Starbird, Ph.D. Professor, The University of Texas at Austin

Economics

Games People Play: Game Theory in Life, Business, and Beyond
- Scott P. Stevens, Ph.D. Professor, James Madison University

Behavioral Economics: When Psychology and Economics Collide
- Scott Huettel, Ph.D. Professor, Duke University

Health and Fitness

Optimizing Brain Fitness
- Richard Restak, M.D. Professor, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Scientific Secrets for a Powerful Memory
- Peter M. Vishton, Ph.D. Professor, The College of William & Mary

Physiology and Fitness
- Dean Hodgkin, B.Sc University of Portsmouth

Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology
- Anthony A. Goodman, M.D. Dr., Montana State University

Nutrition Made Clear
- Roberta H. Anding, M.S. Professor, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital

Lifelong Health: Achieving Optimum Well-Being at Any Age
- Anthony A. Goodman, M.D. Dr., Montana State University

Interpersonal Communication

How Conversation Works: 6 Lessons for Better Communication
- Anne Curzan, Ph.D. Professor, University of Michigan

How Ideas Spread
- Jonah Berger, Ph.D. Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Fighting Misinformation: Digital Media Literacy
- Taught By Multiple Professors

Philosophy

Theories of Knowledge: How to Think about What You Know
- Joseph H. Shieber, PhD Professor, Lafayette College

The Philosopher's Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room
- Patrick Grim, Ph.D. Professor, State University of New York, Stony Brook

Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning, 2nd Edition
- David Zarefsky, Ph.D. Professor, Northwestern University

Practical Philosophy: The Greco-Roman Moralists
- Luke Timothy Johnson, Ph.D. Professor, Emory University

Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions
- Robert C. Solomon, Ph.D. Professor, The University of Texas at Austin

Philosophy of Mind: Brains, Consciousness, and Thinking Machines
- Patrick Grim, Ph.D. Professor, State University of New York, Stony Brook

Philosophy of Science
- Jeffrey L. Kasser, Ph.D. Professor, Colorado State University

Psychology

Understanding Complexity
- Scott E. Page, Ph.D. Professor, University of Michigan

Influence: Mastering Life's Most Powerful Skill
- Kenneth G. Brown, Ph.D. Professor, The University of Iowa

Outsmart Yourself: Brain-Based Strategies to a Better You
- Peter M. Vishton, Ph.D. Professor, The College of William & Mary

Scientific Secrets for Self-Control
- C. Nathan DeWall, Ph.D. Professor, University of Kentucky

Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills
- Steven Novella, M.D. Professor, Yale School of Medicine

Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond
- Michael Dues, Ph.D. Professor, University of Arizona

Sciences

Nature of Earth: An Introduction to Geology
- John J. Renton, Ph.D. Professor, West Virginia University

Earth's Changing Climate
- Richard Wolfson, Ph.D. Professor, Middlebury College

Teaching

Art of Teaching: Best Practices from a Master Educator
- Patrick N. Allitt, Ph.D. Professor, Emory University

How We Learn
- Monisha Pasupathi, Ph.D. Professor, University of Utah

Writing

Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft
- Brooks Landon, Ph.D. Professor, University of Iowa

Combined Skills
Finance + Securities + Investment + Education + Blogging + Research + Psychology + Economics

My education in securities began in 1992, while I was working in Prince George and saving for the final year of my undergraduate degree.

That spring, I read The Wealthy Barber. Then I went to Montreal Trust in Prince George BC and bought units in a Total Return Fund. The capital gains were enough for me to avoid any new debt in my final year at the University of Alberta.

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In 2001, I was doing freelance tech support. One of my clients was the number one grossing financial planner with Investor's Group, Susan Nielsen.

Susan had a mentor's mindset. After I developed a computer networking solution for her office, I wrote a manual for the upgrade and we sold it to the company.

Susan encouraged my interests and suggested I take the Canadian Investment Funds Course. I passed the IFIC exam on my first attempt in April 2002.

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In 2006, I bought the complete set of textbooks for the Canadian Securities Course and spent the summer reading them.

That fall, I started a blog on financial psychology with the expressed goal of publishing 500 words on the topic every Friday for 52 consecutive weeks. For one year, I read books and articles daily, and spent two evenings a week researching and writing the blog.

Every blog post addressed a cognitive bias or a common mistake among amateur investors. The books I read included Fooled by Randomness, The Intelligent Investor, and The Tao of Warren Buffett.

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In 2012, I did a freelance php coding contract for Cathy Sweeney, a retired Executive Financial Advisor who lead a team at Morgan Stanley for 26 years in Los Angeles.

When I met Cathy, I was reading about complexity theory. Like Susan, she had a mentor's mentality. Over the next 2 years, we actively discussed how complexity theory applied to investing. Cathy not only encouraged me to read several books, such as The Black Swan, and Irrational Exuberance, she also taught me how to golf.

In November of 2013, after dozens of tests, conversations, and revisions, we produced the output that satisfied Cathy's research objectives. I wrote up a manual which described the methods used to obtain our results, and Cathy sold it to a firm owned by a group of her former colleagues in February 2014.

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Investment Philosophy (This is not advice!)
Since 2008, I have mainly invested in water-related funds and equities such as this ETF on the grounds that as the world's population urbanizes and agricultural production faces increasing strain from climate change, the demand for plumbing, desalination, and irrigation will increase significantly.

The profits from Cathy's sale enabled me to ease back on freelancing and return to academia. I registered at the University of Victoria and began taking classes on the Human Dimensions of Climate Change in September 2014.

Combined Skills
Education + Organizational Analysis + Marketing + Operations Management + Finance + Hiring + Business

In 2002, the Management School at the University of Liverpool was experimenting with their distance MBA program, and I was given an opportunity to participate.

They were trialing an "intensive" version of an existing course on Organizational Context that would be delivered using a new online user interface. It was 4 months rather than 8, and students were selected from a list of potential candidates compiled by the school.

Students were asked to report bugs and told to expect twice the workload of the school's other distance courses. A friend who worked in their alumni office thoughtfully added me to the list because I had a tech support business. Class started in September 2002.

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The course presented an 18-part model for analyzing the causal texture of a business. We read and discussed 12 case studies. There were 11 assignments and in each one, we applied a different method of analysis. Together, the assignments formed a complete picture of an enterprise's situation.

For example, one assignment involved an earlier version of the PESTLE Analysis called LoNGPEST, which was used to construct a picture of the external business environment. A Stakeholder Analysis was assigned to examine links between the internal and external environments; the human resources assignment focused on hiring processes; and the Resource Conversion Chart was assigned for part of the internal business environment.

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Although the University of Liverpool uses a different user interface now, the course was well-delivered. I completed it with a B+ while continuing to run my business part time.

Years later, I taught a group of students at the University of Victoria how to apply LoNGPEST Analysis to environmental organizations for a class presentation.

Combined Skills
Bookkeeping + Budgeting + Business + Education

From 1997 to 1999, I completed a certificate in Business Administration at Camosun College which included two courses on Accounting Fundamentals.

I continue to actively apply this knowledge. Today, I use it mainly for my freelance business activities and taxes. In the past, I have used it for my roles in business partnerships and nonprofit organizations.

Accounting 152 covered accounting principles, cash, receivables, inventory, capital assets, current liabilities and owner's equity. It walked students through each step in the accounting cycle in order. The final project was the preparation and analysis of financial statements for a sole proprietorship.

Accounting 153 went into further depth on the same topics, except it focused on the preparation of cash flow statements and analysis of financial statements. The final project was a complete accounting cycle for a sole proprietorship, a partnership, and a corporation, enabling students to understand the differences.

Combined Skills
Teaching + Cultural Sensitivity + Interpersonal Communication + Education + Travel

In the summer of 1995, I was offered a teaching position in Gumi, South Korea. YBM Schools was a major chain with an extensive screening process that took more than 3 months to complete. Despite a shortage of ESL teachers in Korea at the time, they maintained some of the highest standards (and salaries) in the industry.

My contract was for 2 years. I arrived at the start of August and began teaching almost immediately. YBM Schools carefully placed new teachers where they were best suited. Students ranged in age from 3-year olds to adults.

Since I was new, I was assigned to teach two classes to each age group. Based on detailed observations and feedback, the headmaster concluded that I resonated best with kindergartners, 14 year-olds, and housewives. Thereafter, I had a regular schedule and got to know my students very well.

My teaching philosophy emphasized practical feedback. I always tried to learn as much as I could from my students, in addition to adding value to the curriculum provided by the school. For example, I took my 14 year-olds on bi-monthly field trips.

The first was an afternoon trip to the temple at Mount Geumosan, and the famous cave near the top. It was an excellent opportunity to learn about Korean history and cuisine from my students, and to teach them words and phrases related to the natural environment.

The second field trip was to the Daejeon Expo site, which was still open despite the event having taken place two years prior. I taught my students travel and technology vocabulary, and they taught me traditional Korean games.

Although I planned to stay longer, I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma in early December and was unable to complete my contract. I will forever have a special affection for Korea due to the outpouring of kindness and support from my students and colleagues. I returned to Canada on December 20, 1995.

Combined Skills
Marketing + Education + Business Networking

In the summer of 2000, I took a 3rd-year course on marketing from Royal Roads University. I wanted to augment my knowledge of the subject, given my desire to start a business.

Because I already had an undergraduate degree from the University of Alberta, and a letter of recommendation from Camosun College, I was able to register for a 4th-year marketing class in the accelerated business program. My final grade was B+. It was one of the most enjoyable and challenging courses I had ever taken.

Although I did not directly apply the skills I acquired in that course for more than a year after completing it, I was able to make contacts who helped me get started in business. That fall, on the recommendation of the professor from that course, I joined the Victoria Chamber of Commerce. I found my first customers there, and began doing technical support for various insurance and accounting firms in Victoria, BC.