Board of Directors

Melissa Clark , President

Melissa Clark is a Wealth Advisor with BMO Nesbitt Burns. She has been working with families in Ottawa to create fully integrated financial plans for more than 14 years. Melissa has a Bachelor of Commerce from Carleton University as well as holding the title of Certified Financial Planner.

Melissa is also a member of the Board of Directors of WaterCan and is Chair of the Investment Committee for the Anglican Dioces of Ottawa. She has been involved with United Way and Big Sisters in the past. Melissa joined the board of Habitat in 2006 and was Chair of the first two incredibly successful Women Build Galas.

Elizabeth Rock , Past President

While working as a teacher, vice-principal and consultant with the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic board school community, Ms Rock began volunteering with Habitat for Humanity-NCR in 1997. During her tenure on the executive of the Ontario English Teachers' Association, Ms Rock spearheaded the teachers to build the first "Catholic Teachers In Action" build (2001) and soon after served as chair of the Ed Schreyer Work Project build held here in Ottawa in2002.

Ms Rock presently serves as Past President on the Board of Directors and is responsible, along with her committees, for selecting and nurturing our Habitat for Humanity-NCR families.

Ms Rock received the 2000 "Director of Education Award " for excellence in teaching and was a 2004 nominee for the YMCA-YWCA " Women of Distinction" award.

Marc Caron, Vice President

Marc Caron is an Enterprise Account Consultant with Bell Canada providing Information & Communication Technology solutions to the Federal Government. Mr. Caron is a graduate in Civil Engineering at the University of Ottawa and is a registered Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario. For the past 24 years Mr. Caron has worked both in the Public and Private sector with the past 17 years being focused in the computer, communications technology and new media industry.
Mr. Caron grew up in Gatineau and upon graduating traveled for 12 years living and working in various locations across Canada and France eventually settling in Kanata where he and his family have resided for the past 17 years.
Mr. Caron has been a volunteer with Habitat since 2002 initially Co-Chairing the Family Selection Committee before joining the Board as a Director in 2004. He presently serves as Vice President of the Board and as Director of the Gatineau Initiative which is currently focused on partnerships, land acquisition, fundraising and builds in the Gatineau region.

George Hendry , Secretary

George Hendry is a recently retired senior executive who spent the last 26 years working in project management, product development, business development and general management with several technology and telecommunications companies. He has worked primarily in Ottawa and California but has also had assignments in France and Germany. George graduated from the Royal Military College with a Bachelor of Science degree, and, prior to working in private industry, served as a Canadian Air Force Navigator and Program Manager in several locations in Canada and the United States.

George brings an extensive background in project and business management and strategies for working with large multi cultural organizations to the Board of Directors.  

George enjoys all forms of winter sports and, when not volunteering for Habitat, goes fly fishing in the summer.

John Ebsary , Treasurer

John Ebsary has been the CEO of Your Credit Union for the past 20 years. During his tenure at Your Credit Union, John has directed and managed the successful expansion of the credit union as membership has grown from 5,000 to 15,000 and the number of locations has increased from one to nine branches.

He is a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst. He obtained a B. Comm. from Queen’s University and more recently completed the Queen’s Executive Program. John is currently a director on the board of Credential Financial Inc. (a $10 billion wealth management firm) and Chair of the Audit Committee.

Terry Anne Boyles , Director

Terry Anne is Vice-President, Member Services and Public Policy, with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC), where she is responsible for the advocacy efforts of the Association with the federal government on a wide range of policy areas. She also leads the Member Service areas of the Association ranging from leadership development programs for College Boards, Board Chairs, and Presidents through Communication Services, Symposia, and Corporate Alliance Programs to Industry Sector Council liaison networks.

Prior to joining the Association, she was President, Saskatoon Region Community College in Saskatchewan following several years on the Senior Management team at Red Deer College in central Alberta.

In addition to her work within Canada, she has worked on a number of overseas projects primarily in the areas of program design, evaluation, strategic planning, and institutional strengthening with government ministries, associations and post-secondary institutions.

Rahul Kochar, Director

Rahul Kochar works for and is Vice President of the DCR/Phoenix Group of Companies, a developer and builder that has been operating in the area since 1988. He has a B.Comm and an MBA. He is young, dynamic, interested in affordable housing, and in helping us find land. Rahul has excellent and varied contacts in the home building industry and fits in naturally on the Build committee. He happily took home the Board of Director's binder to review and has advised us to let his name stand. Since then, Rahul has been involved with the Pinecrest 2006 build, the 2007 Women Build and this year's Energy Star home and Land Acquisition committee.

David Rose, Director

Rick Hughes, Director

Lucille Levert, Director

Lucille Le Vert is a Risk Management Specialist providing integrated risk management consulting services and strategy for a variety of public and private sector clients.  Ms Le Vert is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario (BA, Psychology) and holds two professional designations in the insurance and risk management fields.  Prior to commencing her consulting practice, Ms Le Vert worked for 12 years for a variety of general and life insurance companies and brings a strong business process and strategic thinking skill-set to her work and volunteer activities.

Ms Le Vert has been involved as a volunteer on Habitat’s Family Selection Committee since the fall of 2003 and has recently served as the Co-Chair for that committee since 2005.  She has participated on several builds and is a strong proponent of community building.  She also spear-headed a Cultural Sensitivity Training Workshop for members of the Habitat Board and Family Selection Committee in order to strengthen cross-cultural awareness in the family selection process.

Anthony (Tony) Maxwell, Director

After a working career spanning 40 years in both the private and public sectors, Mr. Maxwell retired in April 2005. From 1988 to 2005 he worked for the Office of the Superindendent of Financial Institutions Canada (OFSI) as a Managing Director of the International Liaison Division and director of Policy and Research.

Prior to joining OFSI, Mr. Maxwell spent several years with Ottawa's Office of Privatization and Regulatory Affairs. He is a graduate of McGill University (B. Eng, cum laude), and did postgraduate business studies at the London School of Economics under an Athlone Fellowhsip.

Since Mr. Maxwell moved to Ottawa 1985, his volunteer work has focused on St. Matthew's Church. Over a span of nearly 20 years he has chaired and lead three fundraising campaigns, chaired the Finance Committee, Property Committee, and has been Rector's Warden. He and his wife Judith have two grown children. Mr. Maxwell is an active skier and tennis player, and also enjoys hiking, cycling, sailing and recreational kayaking.

Nancie-Anne Heaphy , Director

Nancie-Anne Heaphy is a graduate of the University of Ottawa Law School and was called to the bar in July 2004.    She has been a sole practioner and has been working extensively in the areas of Real Estate and Estate Planning.

When not working Ms. Heaphy enjoys gardening, travelling and spending time with her family.

In September Ms. Heaphy will be joining the firm of Kelly,Manthorp and Santini.

Joanne Garrah, Director

Joanne Garrah has been a member of Habitat’s Family Partnering Committee for four years and for the past three years has served as Committee Chair.  Her goals have been to work with the committee to strengthen the affiliate processes and provide better support to the families during the transition to home ownership. 

Joanne has a good sense of the challenges many of the families face and would like to see more work done to develop clear understandable processes that support the families. Joanne has an MSc and works for Health Canada in an emergency drug access programme that considers requests for emergency access to drugs that are not available in Canada for patients with a life-threatening illness.

Ken Merkley, Director

Ken Merkley, Marketing Manager of Merkley Supply, a major building supply company in Ottawa, is the Director on the Restore Committee and brings his considerable building and retail operations experience to both the Restore as well as the annual Habitat builds.

Marie-Anne Gagnier Delahunt

Anne was born and raised in Montreal Quebec and attended Loyola College, presently Concordia University. Originally in the banking industry, Anne’s life changed when her husband joined External Affairs now Forign Affairs & International Trade, and home involved living in Australia, Mexico, the former Yugoslavia and London England during the years 1970-1982.

Anne moved to Ottawa in 1982 and in 1983 as a single Mom Anne entered the real estate industry with Canada Permanent Trust Company.  1988 saw Anne move to RE/MAX where she is currently co-team leader of the Anne & Dwight Team.

Anne is married to Dwight Delahunt who is also her business partner.  Anne & Dwight have four children and two grandsons.  They enjoy golf, travel and supporting various charities.  They have both been recognized by The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) for their continued support and significant gifts to the hospital.