F. Michael Cleland

Michael Cleland is a private consultant with extensive experience in energy and environment policy. He is currently Nexen Executive in Residence at the Canada West Foundation, a member of the board of directors of QUEST (Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow) and co-chair of the National Advisory Committee for the Canada Science and Technology Museum’s multi-year energy awareness initiative, “Let’s Talk Energy.”

He is formerly President and CEO of the Canadian Gas Association, as well as the former Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA). Before joining CEA, he was Assistant Deputy Minister of the Energy Sector at Natural

Resources Canada (formerly Energy, Mines and Resources), and before that, Director General of the Energy Policy Branch. From 1987 to January 1990, he was also Assistant Director in the Resource Policy Division at Finance Canada.

Prior to joining the federal government in 1987, Mr. Cleland worked in Nova Scotia as a principal in the firm of Cleland, Dunsmuir Consulting Ltd. He was also a lecturer in business/government relations at the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University and an academic editor of Plan Canada, the journal of the Canadian Institute of Planners. From 1982 to 1985, he was Associate Director of the Centre for Development Projects at Dalhousie University, where he was responsible for various management training projects in Zimbabwe and the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Mr. Cleland has occupied a number of positions at the Nova Scotia Departments of Development and Municipal Affairs.

Mr. Cleland was born in Quesnel, British Columbia, and was educated at the University of British Columbia (BA, Political Science, 1972) and Queen’s University (MPL, Urban and Regional Planning, 1974).

---