David Cooke joined the federal civil service as part of the post secondary recruitment for Business Administration graduates some 35 years ago. David has a Real Property Administrator and a Facilities Management Administrator designation from BOMA and a Master certificate in Project Management. David has held various supervisory and management positions in Real Property and Material Management field in Public Works and Government Services Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and Coast Guard and currently is the Regional Director of Capital Assets and Administration at Health Canada, Atlantic Region in Halifax.

David has received numerous recognitions for his contribution from each department he has work for and recently has received the Comprehensive Planning (2007) and the Outstanding Contribution Award (2008) from RPIC. David’s interests have lead him to be involved with the planning and development teams in various department that have written policy, guidelines and standards that are used today throughout the federal government. His understanding of acts, policies and guidelines has lead him to teach the mandatory courses Real Property and Material Management courses at the Canada School of Public Service. His experience combined with his determination has also established David as a person who can find money for a project or HR resources and at the same time promote the Real Property Community as a value added resource that enables the delivery of the department’s programs.

Dwayne Willmer, P.Eng., National Director, Laboratories, PWGSC, has worked over the past 35 years as a professional engineer in Canada, employed in both the private and public sectors. He is a senior director in the Real Property Branch of PWGSC with a primary focus on providing federal laboratory custodial client departments with a central and national business focus for laboratories. The objective of this role is to ensure that PWGSC provides and sustains the highest level of strategic and technical advisory services, expertise, and best practice in a consistent manner for all custodial laboratory client departments in all regions of Canada. He has more recently worked closely with the Federal Science Based Departments and Agencies and TBS in the development and implementation of the $250M Accelerated Infrastructure Program for Laboratories which is intended to address signficant deferred maintenance across Canadian Federal Laboratory Facilities.

Mr. Willmer has been associated with the Labs21 program over the past ten years and was responsible for the signing of a formal Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with Labs21 in the fall of 2008. Through the MOU, PWGSC and Labs21 will work together to meet the challenge of the Labs21 mission by sharing world-class knowledge, information, and solutions in all aspects of laboratory planning, design, engineering, and operations. The partnership will capitalize on the strong foundation of collaboration between the United States and Canada in laboratory knowledge management, helping to ensure a more sustainable future, working with the nations' laboratories. PWGSC is working to facilitate the understanding of and access to the Labs21 principles to all federal laboratory custodial departments, other levels of government, industry, and the academic community in Canada.

Sebastien Yelle started working for Public Works and Government Services Canada 11 years ago and has worked mainly on the contaminated sites and the sustainable development files since. He is currently manager in the Sustainable development team in the Real Property group. He is also the Quebec region contaminated sites coordinator for his department and he has worked on a number of site assessment and remediation projects with several federal departments. In the past years, he has also been working on national projects such as the development of project management tools, training sessions and workshops with the participation of federal custodians and the industry. He as been, most recently, involved in the development of decision supporting tools to facilitate the use of treatment technologies (GOST) and the integration of sustainable practices in the contaminated sites field.

Michael is NRCan's Real Property Policy and Information Manager. His primary responsibilities include providing the department with policy advice and managing the department's real property information systems. He has worked in federal real property for ten years and has held a number of positions including Real Property Policy Analyst at the Treasury Board Secretariat and Chief of Portfolio Management at Natural Resources Canada.

Recent projects have included: implementing an information system that allows NRCan to calculate the Facility Condition Index (FCI), an industry standard used to communicate physical condition, for its real property assets; implementing the federal government's first "green" parking policy instrument; and drafting a departmental Real Property policy instrument management framework.

Michael has a Master’s degree from the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University and his background is in urban planning, real estate and policy.

Outside of work, Michael is a husband, a proud father, actively involved in fundraising for local charities, a board game enthusiast with over 100 titles in his collection, a cycle-commuter, in the very long process of learning to play the acoustic guitar.