Jamie Lynn Heintz, PDC Employer Partner
Dynalife, Business Partner, Human Resources
Jamie Lynn Heintz dedicated the past 13 years of her career focusing on recruitment in the healthcare industry. Jamie has spent the last 8 years working at DynaLIFE and is currently a Business Partner in the area of Talent Management and Strategic Initiatives. Jamie graduated from NAIT in 2004 from the Business Administration Program obtaining both a Management Diploma and Human Resource Management Certificate. Prior to joining DynaLIFE, Jamie worked for employers which included Alberta Health Services and The Capital Care Group.
Shauna McCallum, PDC Partnership Broker
Shauna is the Manager of Social Innovations and Enterprise at Chrysalis, An Alberta Society for Citizens with Disabilities. Chrysalis’s mission is to provide personalized services to assist individuals with disabilities achieve their employment, volunteer and recreation goals. During her seven years with Chrysalis, she has been involved with many programs and start-up efforts aimed at creating more inclusive opportunities for people with disabilities. Shauna studied Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. She made the move to Edmonton from Nova Scotia in 2009.
Jon Garland, PDC Service Provider Partner
Jon Garland’s career to date has been spent leading change, and improving employment opportunities for persons with disabilities in the public, private and not for profit sectors. Jon is acknowledged for his dedication, innovation and leadership through his 21 year career working with EmployAbilities.
Jon firmly believes that diversity is the key to any business’s success and the answer to sound hiring decisions.
Jon is committed to increasing diversity in today’s workplace and would like to encourage all Employers to consider Persons with Disabilities as a valuable source of skills labour.
Dave Reid, PDC Agency Partner 
Workforce Advisor, Prospect
In his role with Prospect Human Services, Dave consults industry leaders and decision-makers to improve their capacity to recruit, retain, and accommodate under-accessed talent, including young adults, people with disabilities and people with military backgrounds. As a Workforce Advisor, Dave helps break-down barriers to employment and support employers through information, education and by building actionable plans with them. He has over 35 years of business experience and has had roles such as Regional Manager, Sales Director, Director of Stores of mid-sized retail and financial services companies. He has lead and directed project management of acquisitions and re-branding initiatives. Dave has also worked directly with clients going through career transitions, providing support, and career coaching.
Brooks Hanewich, PDC Employer Partner
Co-Founder of MatchWork, Program Lead with the University of Alberta
Brooks is the Co-Founder of MatchWork, a web based platform that supports the identification and translation of unique attributes into marketable products and services. He has spent over 10 years working in the non-profit sector, with the last 8 focused specifically on disability related issues.
Brooks has explored broader provincial sector matters through the Alberta Council of Disability Services (ACDS), and supported organizations in business development, innovations, and social enterprise. He is the co-founder of MatchWork, a platform that helps people to discover their employable skills and talents.
Brooks’ current interest is in understanding and addressing systemic barriers to community connections for persons with disabilities, with particular focus on community economic development.
Renate Burwash, PDC Service Provider Partner
Renate Burwash is the Director of Diversity & Inclusion at Gateway Association. With over 20 years of
workplace and community inclusion experience, Renate’s passion is to promote inclusive workplaces where everyone feels like they belong, and to show businesses the endless benefits to inclusive hiring.
Through one-on-one consultation with employers, H.R. inclusivity reviews, and workshops and other training opportunities, Renate helps employers gain strategies to build or enhance their inclusion approaches and learn how they can profit by hiring inclusively.
Renate’s practice is informed by years of collaborating with community disability advocates, employers, and government in leadership roles. Renate has presented at conferences across Canada and in the United States.
Ashleigh Benson, PDC Service Provider Partner
Ashleigh Benson has been with Gateway Association for over three years, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Ashleigh is currently a Manager of Employer Relations, working with people who live with disabilities to find meaningful work, but are out of scope for government supports. Ashleigh helps connect with employers to identify roles that fit the needs of both the employer and the skill sets of the job seeker she is supporting. Ashleigh is a fantastic at networking and strives to build meaningful relationships with other people and organizations as well to innovate and drive the field of Supported Employment forward. Ashleigh has been a PDC partner for the last two years and is Chair of the PDC Job Developer Partnership, a sub-committee of the PDC.
Heath Gordon, PDC Self Advocate Partner
Heath Birkholz is a multi-disciplinary social justice advocate. The disciplines Heath is as a practitioner are: arts and grass roots advocacy.
In the discipline of grassroots social justice, Heath works as a Community Advocate Coordinator for Edmonton’s Self Advocacy Federation. We provide persons identifying with disabilities a community to voice concerns and maintain an equitable quality of life. Heath also works as an Edmonton Representative for the Albertans Advocating for Change Together which enables Self Advocates from across Alberta to collaborate and strengthen the Self Advocates ability to voice concerns and maintain an equitable quality of life. Heath also helped found Right to Love Calgary and Alberta Advocates for Change Together. Heath is a collaborative workshop facilitator. Heath has experience developing and facilitating anti-oppression, conflict-resolution and relationship workshops. Heath also identifies as an artivist with values in anti-oppression, and a person who experiences disability. Heath brings personal experience mixed with my community work and education. Within the discipline of arts Heath has been involved with CRIPSIE as performer and Community Liaison, Orchesis as a Board Member and dancer, and Inside/Out Theater Calgary as actor and co writer. Heath currently is writing and performing an independent solo political monologue for the Gravity Cabaret.
Anna-Maria LeMaistre, PDC Employer Partner
Anna-Maria is dedicated to helping workplaces build a culture that values diversity. She worked for the Canadian Human Rights Commission for five years, where part of her responsibilities included providing training and guidance to employers around domestic human rights responsibilities, such as the duty to accommodate.
In 2013, Anna-Maria took on the role of Special Projects Advisor in Diversity and Inclusion for Enbridge, one of Canada’s Top Diversity Employers for the past four consecutive years. Her current areas of responsibility revolve largely around policy review and development, employment equity and data analysis, promotion of inclusion initiatives, and employment of Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities.
Anna-Maria is one of the founding members of the Pan Disability Connection, and recently served for two years as a member of the Accessibility Advisory Committee for the City of Edmonton, including chairing the Policy Review Subcommittee.
Buddy Winder, PDC Service Provider Partner
Buddy Winder is a co-owner, and Executive Director, of Winder Inclusive Communities Service (WICS).
WICS is a smaller, private, not-for-profit organization that supports adult with intellectual disabilities to become involved in their communities in meaningful ways. Buddy is committed to inclusion, and dedicated to having people with disabilities seen as the contributing citizens that they are.
Buddy is grateful to be a part of the PDC as he feels that the best way to facilitate a meaningful systems change is with a unified voice based on collaborative approaches, rather than through proprietary actions.
Prior to starting WICS in 2010, Buddy spent 22 years in the field of Human Services, 18 of them in the disabilities sector. Buddy has diverse experience within developmental disabilities, brain injury, facilitation, and immigration.