Award of Distinction
Patricia Beattie-Huggan is the founder and president of The Quaich Inc., a health promotion consulting company located on Prince Edward Island. Her varied nursing career has spanned public health, mental health, medical-surgical nursing, and nursing education, including several leadership roles.
While working in health promotion, Patricia provided leadership to the development of the Circle of Health ©, which is available in six languages, and was embraced by educators, public health professionals and community workers as a practical tool for health promotion and collaboration across sectors. She currently travels internationally to train health promoters in its use.
In 1998, Patricia established The Quaich Inc. and attracted an interdisciplinary team to collaborate on national and international projects focused on health promotion and system change. She later spearheaded the Atlantic Summer Institute on Healthy and Safe Communities, and continues to coordinate this annual learning event designed to build leadership capacity in Atlantic Canada for action on the determinants of health.
Alumni Award of Honour
A Fredericton native, with a long legacy of proud UNB graduates in his family, Marc Bedard has been an outstanding supporter of UNB and the Associated Alumni. During his 30 year business career in Ontario, Marc was recognized for his professional accomplishments with the Faculty of Business Certificate of Achievement and attended many UNB alumni events in the region.
Upon retiring and moving home to New Brunswick, he became an integral member of UNB’s Associated Alumni, serving as treasurer and succeeding to the position of president from 2013-2015. A proud alumnus, he has also served on UNB’s Board of Governors, the Advisory Board for the Faculty of Business Administration (now the Faculty of Management) and has been a positive force in organizing his Class of ’74 reunions.
Marc has worked with several of his classmates to establish a class scholarship and bursary for UNB Fredericton business students, of which the first $2,000 scholarship was awarded in 2019.
Volunteer of the Year
Brian Freeman is one of the founding members of the UNB Red Bombers Football Club, helping to bring varsity football back to the Fredericton campus in 2009 after having not been played at UNB since 1980. Brian has served as chairman of the board and as a board member since the club’s formation. A former Red Bomber, he has devoted countless hours toward building relationships with UNB administration, reconnecting the alumni to Red Bombers football, rallying support in the community and supporting the work of many others who together have brought the UNB football program to great success as it prepares for its 12th season. Brian has also played an instrumental role in the organization of the annual UNB Homecoming football game, which has served to connect students and alumni, and has also served as the Tony Proudfoot Memorial Game in support of ALS. Throughout his professional career, Brian has held senior positions with large enterprise, and has worked with state and local governments in the US, UK and Canada, but locally is still best known as co-owner of the Lunar Rogue Pub in Fredericton. A community leader, Brian has been a long time volunteer with the New Brunswick Highland Games and is a children’s drumming instructor with the Fredericton Society of St. Andrew Pipe Band’s Academy of Celtic Arts.
Young Alumni Achievement Award
Caleb Grove is the founder of Mbissa Energy Systems, a New Brunswick-born company that creates sustainable electricity from local materials and labour for use in rural West Africa. While living in the north-west region of the country with his family, Caleb was led to the island of Mbissa, a small community with no possibility of grid development, but had a significant solar resource.
The company has grown from an inspiring idea into the sole source of power for several communities in rural Cameroon, Africa. Since Mbissa Energy's inception in 2015, Caleb has worked with rural Cameroonian communities to create affordable and maintainable solar installations, and has provided Mbissa with daily access to light for the first time through solar panel technology.
Over the last five years, Mbissa Energy's technicians have performed dozens of installations affecting thousands of people through light, communication, health-care, education, micro-business and many other areas of growth.
Alumni Award of Distinction
Thomas Liston is a technology investor and analyst, a CFA charterholder and founder of Water Street Corp. He currently serves on several Board of Directors for public and private technology companies, and he has a strong track record of shareholder value creation in that capacity.
Prior to his current role, he was the Chief Investment Officer of a leading technology-focused venture capital firm, where he was responsible for leading the firm’s investments in Software-as-a-Service, FinTech, and Healthcare IT fields . Throughout his professional career, Tom has been consistently ranked among the top technology analysts in several surveys and has received more StarMine stock picking awards than any other technology analyst.
In 2017, he was the proud recipient of UNB Faculty of Business Administration’s (now the Faculty of Management) Certificate of Achievement. An avid volunteer, Tom has been highly involved with UNB’s Student Investment Fund (SIF), has served as Board Chair for the Toronto Advisory Board and has raised significant funds for the MLSE Foundation and Ride to Conquer Cancer.
Alumni Award of Distinction
Anita Naidu is an international award-winning humanitarian, engineer and athlete, whose social advocacy and human rights projects have taken her to far reaching corners of the world.
Named as one of the World’s Most Adventurous Women by Men’s Journal, for her global humanitarian pursuits and athletic endeavours, Anita was part of a three-person team that won the distinguished Google Impact Challenge for an app providing services to refugees, newcomers and displaced people.
She has been nominated for multiple prestigious awards for her work in developing tech solutions, providing social impact, policy and anti racism strategies for organizations and raising awareness on modern day slavery, Climate Justice, human trafficking and women’s advancement. The first person of East Indian origin to become a professional mountain biker, Anita rides for numerous top sponsors and is the founder of the global Bike Fest Series
She has been recognized as one most of the Most Influential Women of the Outdoors and as one of the 100 most Provocative Innovators and Culture Catalysts of 2019 and her films have won numerous accolades from People's Choice award at the London Film Festival to the Banff Film Festival World Tour. Anita has been named a Protect our Winters Ambassador alongside some of the world's most celebrated mountain athletes.
Alumni Award of Distinction
Actor, director, writer, producer, mentor and founder of Calithumpians Theatre Company, Peter Pacey is one of the most recognized theatre personalities in Fredericton. For more than three decades, Peter has helped shape the lives of hundreds of young theatre students and has provided more than 450,000 Frederictonians and tourists with free, live theatre and guided tours of the city. (source: theplayhouse.ca)
A founding member of the reborn UNB rugby team, the Ironmen, Peter played a key role in the growth of the game in New Brunswick over the past 50 years. He was a builder of the Loyalists Rugby Club, which was one of the first rugby clubs in Canada to develop its own fields complex and to introduce rugby to boys and girls, thereby supporting the birth of women’s rugby.
Peter has also been committed to various other causes over this same time. He was heavily involved in editing two walking tour guides to Fredericton’s heritage buildings and has fought to preserve and promote Fredericton’s cultural history. He also sat on various boards and committees - locally, provincially and nationally to build community and grassroots participation in the Canadian dream through various initiatives all inspired in part by his UNB experience.
