Advisory Board


The participation of our ALL Advisory Board is very important to the success of the program. Our Advisory Board members contribute ideas for courses and events, and they help represent the interests of our membership.

If you are interested in joining the ALL Advisory Board, you are welcome to contact us.

Jill Davies

Jill has made Wolfville home for the past 32 years, where she raised two now grown children, tends an ever-expanding garden, makes music and generally enjoys life. She retired from Acadia in 2014 where she worked as a counsellor and academic advisor, the culmination of a 42-year career in education. Her 7-year membership with the ALL program is part of her commitment to the Wolfville community.

Helen Harper

After attending Guelph (B. Sc) and Western (B. Ed) Universities, Helen embarked on a 35 year career teaching high school chemistry, physics and mathematics and coaching volleyball, badminton and basketball.  After completing an MA in Counselling at Durham University (UK), she served as her school’s university and academic counsellor for the 17 years, helping students select universities that suited their academic and career aspirations as well as their personal attributes and needs. She served as the Calgary liaison between University Recruiters and Guidance Counsellors for 10 years, spearheading the planning and implementation of week-long university fairs.  She also volunteered on the University of Calgary Medical School admissions committee.  Helen’s decision to retire to Wolfville was influenced by the presence of Acadia University and its recognized positive involvement in Wolfville and surrounding communities. 

Richard Haworth

Richard was born and educated in UK.  He has a BSc in Physics (Durham) and a PhD in Marine Geophysics (Cambridge).  He conducted much of his PhD research on Canadian ships based at Bedford Institute in Dartmouth and emigrated after graduation.  He spent the next 15 years carrying out research based on marine surveys primarily conducted off the Atlantic coast, but also while circumnavigating the Americas, surveying off Europe and participating in geological fieldwork from Georgia (USA) to Scandinavia.

Concurrently he married Wilma and they built a log house and raised two sons.  The need to broaden his career took him to the UK for a few years as Chief Geophysicist of the British Geological Survey before returning home to Canada as Director General of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC).  Although based in Ottawa he had responsibility for GSC programs based in Victoria, Calgary, Ottawa, Quebec and Dartmouth so that Air Canada saw more of him than his family.  He was 'kicked upstairs' to become Assistant Deputy Minister in Natural Resources Canada, a post he held until his retirement from the Public Service in 2003, when he and Wilma moved to the house they had purchased a few years earlier in Wolfville.  Since that first retirement he taught Environmental Policy for 6 years in the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie, spent three years (including 6 weeks at sea in the Arabian Sea) working with Pakistan to define its continental shelf, and was elected in 2012 as a member of the International Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf at the United Nations in New York.

In 2014, he lost the love of his life when Wilma was diagnosed with and lost her battle with cancer.  Having completed his term at the UN in 2017, while continuing to sing with Kings Chorale and enjoying travel and time at the cottage, he is intent on becoming more of a citizen of Wolfville.  As part of that objective, he has embraced the ALL program by presenting a lunchtime learning session and a course based on his work, and is now involved in mentoring, one of ALL's 'aspirational goals'.

Ed Sulis

Ed immediately found technical work in Ottawa after graduation from Digby Regional High School. This served him well for a few years, was followed by a year at University of Toronto for teacher training and a high school teaching position in Guelph. There he met Mary Anne and part of the marriage deal was to move to Northern Ontario and continue teaching for a short spell. They both found teaching positions at Roland Michener Secondary School in South Porcupine, bought a house, where they lived with their two children, Stephen and Mary Kate for 38 years until retirement.

Ed soon left teaching for mining. For the first number of years, he worked for Noranda on mine construction and mechanical / electrical installation projects across Canada.  During the last 18 years prior to retirement, he worked for Dome Mine in South Porcupine, a gold mine that started production in 1908. It was still going strong in 2000 at this retirement. For Ed, his maintenance manager role became a dream job you as it included three production expansions, energy saving projects, much automation, major equipment purchases, design, contractor supervision and major parts there-in done in house. Mining gold was very profitable, so projects involved best equipment and good senior management support.

Retirement meant a move, after several iterations an old project house in Kentville was selected with the Annapolis Valley being an attraction, Mahone Bay provided larger water for a larger sailboat and the proximity to Acadia were factors. He purchased a larger sailboat and worked on house renovations. Both he and his wife Mary Anne are very involved volunteer work, being treasurer of the Blomidon Naturalists Society, active in stewardship of our Acadian Forest, work in Tai Chi and active in conservation and energy saving in our homes and active in helping others in the installation of solar photovoltaic panels on homes and boats.

Donald Wells, Founding Member, Member Emeritus

Don was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, and attended high school and university in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. He obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Physics from Stanford University. After 10 years teaching and doing nuclear physics research at the University of Oregon and the University of Manitoba, he became involved in university administration. He served first as an Assistant Vice President Planning (academic) before becoming Vice President (Administration) at the University of Manitoba in 1975. In 1986, he moved to Mount Allison University as its 10th President, and in 1990 he assumed the position of President of the University of Regina. He has long had a keen interest in community affairs, having served in many volunteer capacities. Among those interests have been many aspects of lifelong learning.