Bob Lohn
Bob is a Montana native. He graduated from Harvard, served as an officer in the Navy, and then returned to the University of Montana for law school.
For more than a decade, Bob served as a lawyer and law professor. In 1987 Bob joined the Northwest Power and Conservation Council as General Counsel, and became fascinated with the fish and wildlife issues of the Columbia River Basin. He subsequently became Fish and Wildlife Director for the Bonneville Power Administration and, later, Fish and Wildlife Director for the Council. From 2001 through early 2009, Bob was Northwest Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries (which is part of the Department of Commerce). He and his staff were responsible for the management of ocean fisheries and the protection of marine mammals along the Oregon and Washington coasts. Since nearly 20 stocks of salmon and steelhead in the Northwest are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, solving ESA issues and helping to protect and restore salmon stocks throughout Washington, Oregon, and Idaho was a major part of the job.
Bob is now semi-retired, but continues to engage on Northwest fish and wildlife issues as a consultant.
Tom O’Flaherty
Originally from Halifax, where he received BSc, BEng and MSc degrees, Tom was with the Nova Scotia Research Foundation from 1968 to 1972, rising to Division Director. 11 years at Xerox Canada followed in which he held various positions in sales, sales management, marketing management, and operational analysis in Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver. In 1983, Tom co-founded Bedford Software to develop the product that became Simply Accounting: the company was sold to Computer Associates in 1989. His next venture was Richmond Software, the developer of Maximizer, where he was co-founder, President, CEO and Director until the company was sold to Modatech in 1993. Tom stayed on with Modatech for 2 years, initially as VP Marketing and then as President & CEO.
From 1996 to 1999 Tom was Vice President, Corporate Finance, at Ernst & Young. At E&Y, he was responsible for establishing a practice to bring consulting, financing and compliance services to technology companies in the Vancouver area. He designed the marketing program, defined deliverables and assisted with operational structures. In addition, he was also responsible for authoring a number of studies on the BC technology industry. Partly as a result of this work, Ernst & Young has become one of the leading professional services providers to the BC technology industry.
In 2000 Tom joined Voice Mobility International as President and Director. He built the company from a late start-up stage to a level where a senior stock exchange listing was secured. He rounded out the senior management team, secured independent directors, developed and implemented processes for hiring and orientation, product pricing, and contract administration; and matured the product development operation for launching a significant new product. He also participated in the raising of $24 million and secured a TSE listing.
Since 2001, Tom has resided on Vancouver Island where he is engaged as an independent consultant and advisor/mentor to emerging technology companies. He is Director or Advisor on a number of Boards, is a Fellow of the Acetech Academy for Technology CEOs, and is an occasional guest columnist for both Director and Profit magazines.