
actsafe news



Announcement of New Board of Directors

TED VIOLINI
Ted Violini is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Theory+Practice, a Vancouver-based SaaS scale-up. Theory+Practice deploys ML and AI solutions that enable enterprises in the retail, finance, and insurance sectors to gain a deeper dynamic understanding of their customers. By establishing AI engines that continuously learn from customer interactions and improve over time, Theory+Practice helps brands get closer to their customers, anticipate their needs, and meaningfully serve them.
Ted specializes in people enablement and actively facilitates building people up to perform their best. With his philosophy of “people are the key to an organization’s success,” Ted brings a special type of care and support to his role as Theory+Practice’s COO.
Ted has over 20 years of executive operations and project management experience across diverse industries, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), commercial construction, finance, and technology. This background has given him extensive experience in people enablement, human resources, contract management, corporate administration, security and compliance, and organizational finance. He has managed mission-critical projects with budgets ranging from $100K to $150M. He knows how to generate a return-on-effort by assembling and leading diverse teams to accomplish organizational goals with limited risk.
Ted has sat on multiple boards in the not-for-profit sector and appreciates the work he has been able to do in the NGO and charity sectors. A highlight of Ted’s career occurred during his role as General Manager at the Dalai Lama Center when he directed the effort of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Vancouver in 2014. Ted is passionate about the science of well-being and has a long experience being involved with workplace health and safety.

DR. ROSLYN KUNIN
Dr. Roslyn Kunin is one of those rare economists who can make the often-difficult subject of economics understandable and even interesting.
She was educated in Quebec and Ontario, finishing her studies with a Ph.D. in economics from the University of British Columbia (UBC). The University of Victoria has granted her the degree of Honorary Doctor of Laws. The Institute of Corporate Directors has granted her the ICD.D designation.
She has been awarded the Crystal Ball Award by the Association of Professional Economists, the Woman of Distinction Award by the YWCA and a Canada 125 medal for service to Canada and is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia.
Dr. Kunin was a director of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and is now on the council of Applied Sciences Technicians and Technologists of BC. She was Chair of the Haida Enterprise Corporation and has served the community in many positions including Chair of WorkSafeBC, Chair of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, Director of the Business Development Bank of Canada, Director of the Canada West Foundation, Governor of the University of British Columbia, Chair of the Vancouver Crisis Centre, member of the National Statistics Council and Vice-President of the YWCA. She has published numerous articles and books.
In her career, Dr. Kunin has worked in the private sector, written a weekly newspaper column, and taught at several Canadian universities including Simon Fraser University and UBC. She served twenty years as Regional Economist for the federal government in B.C. and Yukon and ten years as the Executive Director of the Laurier Institution. She is in private practice as a consulting economist.
An Obituary for Maureen “Mo” Kaake
Actsafe has lost one of its stars with the passing of Maureen “Mo” Kaake on the 19th of June 2021. Our condolences and thoughts go to her husband Dave, her son and two daughters, her grandchildren, her dog Charlie, and all her family and friends.
Mo joined Actsafe in 2005 when Actsafe was called SHAPE and had only 4 employees. Shortly afterwards, Mo became the backbone of our organization through multiple leadership changes and organizational growth and helped SHAPE Actsafe into the organization it is today.
If you have ever used or are going to use Actsafe’s STAR learning management system, you can be thankful to Mo who led the development of the system for our industry. She was so passionate about making STAR one of the most accessible systems available and, as Mo had wished, this integral contribution to worker safety in our industry will be her legacy.
If you’ve had any type of interaction with Actsafe, you will have come across Mo. Mo started with us as a receptionist and took upon various positions including office manager and finally her last role with us as operations manager. It is a rarity to have employees stay as long at an organization as Mo did and it comes with no surprise that Mo was a gem. We are glad that we had an opportunity to celebrate her 15th work anniversary with us in 2020.
We have all known Mo as a warrior and fierce adversary of cancer. Even while struggling with her health issues, she ensured she continued working to support our team and our mission. To honour her fighting spirit, we at Actsafe are starting an annual bursary in the industry in her name that will support cancer survivors looking to access safety training. We will be releasing more details soon and we welcome everyone’s contribution to that bursary.
You may all know that everyone at Actsafe was Mo’s second family. From the standing committees to the board, employer representatives to union friends, Mo would share her successes, challenges, and things she was passionate about. Our close-knit family in the office will miss the enthusiasm and energy with which she would engage everyone that walked through our door. We want to continue her legacy at Actsafe so that new team members can appreciate what she has done for us, and as such, we have re-named the committee room in our office as the ‘Maureen Kaake Room.’ A small token of love from all of us so that we all can remember her and send her our thoughts as we sit and meet in “Mo’s Room.”
For us at Actsafe, our office and team will never be the same, but we can be proud to say that Mo worked with us all through this time. We will miss a friend, colleague, mentor, role model and inspiration.
Mo’s Actsafe Family