Session Chairs and Invited Speakers

Fatima Abbasi

Fatima Abbasi is an Acting Chief in Aviation Security Policy, Transport Canada. She started in Aviation Security Policy at Transport Canada in 2011 as a Senior Security Policy Analyst, with a specific focus on security risk assessments and on developing policy options to enhance non-passenger screening in Canada. Prior to joining Transport Canada, she worked with Citizenship and Immigration Canada on policy development and implementation of biometrics as part of the visa application process for foreign nationals seeking temporary residency in Canada. She has also held various positions in the human rights field, including human rights policy analysis and development.

Bill Anderson

Bill Anderson is the Ontario Research Chair in Cross-Border Transportation Policy at the University of Windsor. He was formerly on the faculties of McMaster University and Boston University. An economic geographer, his interests include the Canada-US border; economic analysis of transportation infrastructure investments; Canada-US economic integration; urban and regional economic development; transportation and border security; international trade and transportation planning. He is founding director of the Cross-Border Institute, which conducts research on the movement of goods and people across the Canada-US border and the economies of the border regions.

Phillip Banks

Phillip leads The Banks Group, Inc., a risk and organizational resilience based consulting company located in the Vancouver area. TBG serves clients located in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Laos and China and provides security leadership and advisory services which focus on effective, measurable solutions to existing and foreseeable threats and risks. The Banks Group has in-depth experience in security performance measurement, security effectiveness analysis and maturity modeling for corporate security programs. Phillip is acknowledged by ASIS International as competent to implement and internally audit against the ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard. Phillip served 25 years in federal law enforcement with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police specializing in security operations and technology and completing his career as the Officer-in-Charge, National Security Engineering and Electronic Security Programs. Since leaving the RCMP he has led the security management consulting practices for both KPMG (Toronto) and Deloitte & Touche (Chicago) prior to launching The Banks Group Inc. in 2003. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Canada and the United States and a Certified Protection Professional (CPP).Phillip is a past Chairperson and is a current serving member of the ASIS International, Physical Security Council and was a 2010 recipient of the ASIS International, Presidential Award of Merit.

Paul Benda

Paul Benda is a Partner and Chief Technology Officer at GSIS. He has held numerous positions in the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. He formerly worked in the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security as Director, Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency and Senior Counselor to the Undersecretary of Science and Technology. In these roles he oversaw and executed SAFETY Act applications and approvals, enabling security capabilities at prominent and nationally significant venues, including sports stadiums, airports, ports, commercial facilities and urban transportation centers. Mr. Benda also established research agendas and budget priorities for new technologies and capabilities for DHS.

Gloria Bender

Gloria Bender is co-founder of TransSolutions, a firm which specializes in operational excellence consulting including simulation and lean six sigma analyses. Since the events of September 11, 2001, an important focus of Ms. Bender’s consulting work has been helping aviation clients worldwide develop processes, facilities and systems that will meet security performance metrics, as well as serve to facilitate airport operations and passenger travel. She has led security-related projects that include development of automated passenger security screening and baggage handling systems, perimeter security strategies to satisfy EU requirements, evaluation of performance requirements for exit lane / breach control technology, and strategies to ensure secure screening of airport vendor deliveries. She is former Chair of the Airports Council International – North American World Business Partners Board and lectures at the UC Berkeley Airport Planning Course. She was the Principal Investigator for Airport Cooperative Research Program Report 55 Passenger Level of Service and Spatial Planning for Airports. She serves the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a division of the National Research Council, as a Committee Member for the Airport Terminals and Ground Access committee and the Aviation Security and Emergency Management committee. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers and served on the Board of Trustees. She currently serves as a Member of the Council of Industrial Engineers. Ms. Bender holds both an M.S. and B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Paul Benoit

Paul Benoit is the past President & CEO of the Ottawa Airport Authority. Prior to Ottawa Airport Paul was VP Operations & Marketing for Aeroports de Montreal with responsibility for both Trudeau and Mirabel airports. He worked for a major U.S. airline leaving as Director Canada. Paul holds a certificate in Aviation Praces from the London Business School and a Homeland Security Certificate from Tel Aviv University. He has travelled the Middle East on numerous occasions learning from the very best.

Michael Berk

Michael Berk leads CHI Security, a specialized public security consultancy. With over 17 years of experience in national and international security, field operations and policy development from Canada, Israel and Europe, he is one of the leading Canadian experts on behavioural screening and risk-based security. Between 2009 and 2012, Michael led the development and testing of CATSA's Passenger Behaviour Observation pilot program in line with Canadian regulatory, privacy and human rights expectations.

Benjamin Dachis

Benjamin Dachis is a Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute. He started with the C.D. Howe Institute in 2006 as a Research Fellow and also has experience with a major U.S. think tank. He returned to the C.D. Howe Institute as a Policy Analyst in January of 2008. Benjamin has an Hon. BA in Economics from the University of Toronto, an MSc from the London School of Economics, where he was awarded the George and Hilda Ormsby prize for his dissertation, and an MA in Economics from the University of Toronto. He has written on municipal finance, transportation, tax, energy, environmental and labour policy. He is a member of the 2012 Insight Grants Economics Committee for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Anda Djojonegoro

Anda Djojonegoro has spent 13 years at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and has occupied a variety of aviation security positions with increasing responsibility and complexity. He helped shape the organization's Universal Security Audit Programme in the aftermath of 9/11. As a certified auditor, his direct exposure to problems in the field gave him extensive knowledge of global compliance issues, as well as an understanding of regional aviation security challenges. The experience gained in international auditing has led him to seek new challenges at ICAO, where his responsibilities now involve aviation security policy development and strategic planning. Before joining ICAO, he practiced law. Anda holds master’s degrees in law from the University of Washington in Seattle, and McGill University in Montreal. His core areas of studies were air and space law.

David Gillen

David Gillen is YVR Professor of Transportation Policy in the Sauder School of Business and Director of the Centre for Transportation Studies at the University of British Columbia. He is also a Research Economist with the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. David has published over 100 books, technical reports, journal papers, conference presentations, and other articles in various areas of transportation economics, including airline competition and industry structure, airport economics and noise externalities, and transportation policy in Canada and the United States. David has served as a consultant to firms and agencies in Canada, US, New Zealand, Ghana, Hamburg, Germany, UK, Ireland and Thailand. He served as special advisor on aviation policy to Transport Minister Lloyd Axworthy in the early 1980's. From 1992 to 1994 he served as special research advisor to the Royal Commission on National Passenger Transportation. David received his PhD in Economics from the University of Toronto in 1975.

Michael Haughton

Dr. Michael A. Haughton is Professor of Operations and Decision Sciences in the School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. His main research focuses on using model-based and empirical methods to study issues of managing transportation, logistics, and supply chain operations. His research works have been published in several top tier refereed academic journals. Professor Haughton’s scholarly achievements include receiving outstanding conference paper awards and being selected as the 2008-2009 Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at Arizona State University’s Center for Transborder Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in business logistics from the Pennsylvania State University.

Brian Jackson

Brian A. Jackson, Ph.D. is Director of the Safety and Justice program and a Senior Physical Scientist at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Jackson’s research has included studies in the fields of technology adoption and use by organizations, emergency management and response, law enforcement use of information technology, and counterterrorism. His is the co-author of Efficient Aviation Security: Strengthening the Analytic Foundation for Making Air Transportation Security Decisions. Brian is also a widely published expert on terrorist organizational behavior and adaptation. On that topic, he led an NIJ-funded study on learning and technology adoption by terrorist organizations and led a DHS-funded study of terrorist efforts to circumvent or evade counterterrorism technologies. Brian has testified before Congress on three occasions and is regularly quoted in national media on these topics. Dr. Jackson’s holds a Ph.D from the California Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree in Science, Technology and Public Policy from George Washington University.

Alan (Avi) Kirschenbaum

Professor Kirschenbaum is a world renowned expert in the field of disaster management, transportation security and a popular lecturer, author and advisor to governments, public institutions and security-related companies. He has appeared as a keynote speaker at international conferences. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Neaman Institute for National Policy Research at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and the initiator and coordinator of The BEMOSA consortium, a 15 partner Europe-wide research project aimed at improving security in airports. He also is a participating partner in PsyCris focusing on contingency planning, a EU project dealing with mass disasters and its psychosocial consequences. He is affiliated with the Haifa University graduate program for Emergency Management and the founder and CEO of Kirschenbaum Consulting. He also is a member of the Advisory Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe (ACARE) Workgroup for Safety and Security. As well as authoring numerous scientific journal articles and book chapters, he has served on the editorial boards of leading international journals, on executive boards of International Research Committees, international academic associations and past director of research to the Population Behavior Section, Israel’s Home Front Command. He is now involved in a Canadian Department of Defense-funded project and heading a Israel Ministry of Science research agenda on preparing populations for earthquakes.

Tony Mattioli

Tony Mattioli is Manager of New Technology Analysis at the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and is responsible for the evaluation of new aviation security screening technologies. He has held positions in academic and applied research institutes, as well as in the private technology industry. In 1989, he became a staff scientist at the French Atomic Energy Commission, CEA Saclay. In 1998, he returned to Canada as Senior Scientist at Scintrex Trace Corp. working on stand-off laser explosives detection methods in collaboration with Transport Canada and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. In 1999, Tony created and headed a biophysics-biotechnology research laboratory at the CEA Saclay, France, where his group developed sensitive instrumentation to detect transient nitro species in oxidative stress related enzymes. He was trained as a physical chemist and holds a Ph.D.

Lloyd McCoomb

Dr. McCoomb possesses a Bachelor of Applied Science and a Doctorate in Civil Engineering from the University of Toronto as well as a Master of Science (civil-transportation) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his career in 1964 with the Canadian Armed Forces, Military Engineering Branch. He joined Transport Canada in 1973 and served in a variety of technical and managerial positions culminating in the post of Airport General Manager, Toronto - Pearson International Airport. Following creation of the private sector Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) in 1996 Dr. McCoomb served as Vice President, Airport Planning and Development in which capacity he was responsible for the planning and construction of the GTAA’s four billion dollar facility restoration and expansion program. In February 2007 he became the GTAA’s President and Chief Executive Officer, a position from which he retired in March 2012. Dr. McCoomb is presently serving as the Chairman of the Board for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto.

Kevin McGarr

VOTI is a leading-edge technology company that develops latest-generation x-ray security systems based on breakthrough 3-D perspective technology, delivering enhanced threat detection capabilities and a vastly-improved user experience.Kevin holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University and has completed his Director’s Education Program with the Institute of Corporate Directors. Prior to joining VOTI, Kevin enjoyed a 26-year career with the Montreal Urban Community Police Service, where he distinguished himself in the investigation of organized crime activities. In recognition of his efforts to combat organized crime, the Governor General awarded Mr. McGarr the Meritorious Service Medal in 1997. From 1996 to 2002, after completing his career in law enforcement, Kevin worked with a professional services firm, providing services for the detection and prevention of corporate and financial malfeasance. In January 2003, Kevin joined the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority where he held a number of senior management positions. In November 2008, CATSA’s Board of Directors announced the appointment of Mr. McGarr to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer, a position Kevin held until his retirement in December 2011. In January 2012, the Board of Directors appointed Kevin McGarr as President of the Pearson Centre, a not for profit corporation working in the peace and security domain, promoting the conditions for a more peaceful world.

John Mueller

John Mueller is Adjunct Professor of Political Science and Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. John is the author (with Mark Stewart) of the book Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Costs, and Benefits of Homeland Security. He has published articles in such journals as American Political Science Review, International Security ,American Journal of Political Science, Foreign Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Reason, National Interest, and New Republic, as well as op-ed pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Playboy, and Los Angeles Times. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and has received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award as well as several teaching awards.

William Morrison

Dr. William (Bill) Morrison is Associate Professor of Economics in the School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, and is Director of the Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis (LCERPA). He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Air Transport Management and a Research Fellow with the Centre for Transportation Research at the University of British Columbia. Bill’s research expertise includes game theory and strategy, behavioural economics and transportation economics. His research in aviation transportation economics has focused on airline competition and many aspects of airport operations and policy. His policy-related work includes a report on airport financing, costing, pricing and performance for the Canada Transportation Act Review Board and a much-cited meta-analysis of price sensitivity in air travel demand. He holds a PhD in Economics from Simon Fraser University.

Robert Poole

Robert Poole is Director of Transportation Policy and the Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow at the Reason Foundation, a public policy think tank based in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. In aviation security, Poole advised the White House and House Republican leaders on what became the Aviation & Transportation Security Act of 2001, enacted in response to the 9/11 attacks. He has authored a number of Reason policy studies on aviation security and is the author of a paper on risk-based aviation security for the OECD’s International Transport Forum. Robert was among the first to propose the commercialization of the U.S. air traffic control system, and his work in this field has helped shape proposals for a U.S. ATC corporation. He has advised the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, the White House Office of Policy Development, the National Performance Review, the National Economic Council, and the National Civil Aviation Review Commission on ATC commercialization. He is a member of the Air Traffic Control Association and of the GAO’s National Aviation Studies Advisory Panel. Robert received his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering at MIT and did graduate work in operations research at NYU.

Barry Prentice

Dr. Prentice is a Professor of Supply Chain Management, at the I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba and the former Director (1996-2005) of the Transport Institute. Dr. Prentice has authored or co-authored more than 250 research reports, journal articles and contributions to books. His scholarly work has been recognized for excellence in national paper competitions and awards. In 1999 and 2003, he received University of Manitoba Outreach Awards and in 2009, Dr. Prentice was made an Honourary Life Member of the Canadian Transportation Research Forum. Dr. Prentice is the President of ISO Polar Airships that he co-founded in 2005 as a not-for-profit research institute to promote the use of airships as sustainable transport for the northern latitudes. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Transportation Research Forum. In addition, Dr. Prentice has served on Winnipeg Airports Authority, Inc. (1998-2003), Winnipeg TransPlan 2010, the Mid-Continent International Trade Corridor Task Force, and the Rapid Transit Task Force. Dr. Prentice holds a degree in economics from University of Western Ontario (1973) and graduate degrees in agricultural economics from University of Guelph (1979) and University of Manitoba (1986).

R. Neil Raynor

Neil Raynor is an Aeronautical Engineer and Business Strategist who over the past 35 years has gained significant executive management experience in the airport, aviation, defence, aerospace manufacturing and airplane maintenance sectors. For the past 20 years he has focused on airports policy and aviation infrastructure development and operations, addressing the opportunities and challenges presented by legislation, competition, changing demographics, and the needs of stakeholders and airport communities. As well as an extensive portfolio of private sector clients, Mr. Raynor has completed projects for all levels of government, various tourism and aviation related industry associations, and international development agencies. Of particular note in terms of this symposium is his early policy work for CATSA, and prior to that, his leadership of the CAC Aviation Security Task Force post-9/11 which led to a November 2001 airport industry policy paper presented to TC’s Deputy Minister Bloodworth calling for an independent Canadian AvSec Authority.

Bryan Richter

After a brief career in the fast moving consumer goods industry, passionate about planes, Bryan decided in 1990 to make a career change towards the aviation world. He has worked for several major airlines in passenger operations and shifted to cargo operations in 1998. Since then he has been involved in air cargo security. Bryan received his Aerospace MBA in 2005 from the Toulouse Business School in France. He has held a private pilot licence since 2003 and is a certified EU aviation security validator.