AGM 2026

Ataullah Khan Mohammed, PhD 

Ataullah is a process chemist by training and has been active in the residual valorization and waste recycling arena in Alberta for the past decade with multiple high impact engagements including ACETA (Alberta Clean Energy Technology Accelerator), BQNC (Biomass Quality Network Canada), Plastic Circularity Road Map, Westlock Landfill Leachate Ferti-irrigation initiative and Vegreville waste diversion committee. As a technical lead of Waste Material Engineering/Bio-Thermochemical Processing programs of InnoTech Alberta, he and his team constantly strive to devise zero-waste solutions for a wide range of residual challenges ranging from municipal organics, mixed plastics, to pulpmill, livestock, slaughterhouse, agriculture, food processing residues. Additionally, Ataullah teaches waste recycling (RC208), Biofuels (RC207), Hydrogen Energy Technology (QNRG240) courses in the SET (sustainable energy technology) program of Lake Land College. 

Towards Circularity in Alberta Plastic Waste Management: A White Paper on Current Recycling Practices, Emerging Innovations and Technology Gaps – Alberta Innovates 

Reena Sahney, P.Eng., MBA,  ALM 

Reena is the President of Jiva Consulting, a Calgary-based consulting firm focused on workforce development, industry transformation, management systems, and sustainability, including the circular economy. She is a Professional Engineer with more than 30 years of experience across the energy, infrastructure, workforce development, and related sectors, with a growing focus on sustainability and the circular economy. 

Throughout her career, she has worked both nationally and internationally through industry associations, governments, municipalities, employers, post-secondary institutions, and non-profit organizations to help build consensus and address workforce, economic, and technical challenges. Her work has included strategy development, competency systems, workforce planning, consensus building, governance support, and the delivery of multi-stakeholder initiatives. She recently completed a Master of Liberal Arts in Sustainability through Harvard Extension School, where her capstone focused on commercialization and impact measurement for Emissions Reductions Alberta. 

She is interested in serving on the RCA Board because she believes Alberta’s circular economy will only succeed if good ideas are translated into practical action. 

RCA plays an important role in bringing together industry, government, municipalities, non-profits, and innovators to advance waste reduction, recycling, and circular economy solutions. In particular, she is interested in supporting a systems-based approach that strengthens the connection between circular economy objectives, workforce readiness, government policy, regulation, industry adoption, and economic development. Her contributions will support the Board moving from ideas to implementation as her perspective aligns well with RCA’s role as a convener and catalyst for Alberta’s circular economy. 

Jiva Consulting recently became an RCA member and have been actively participating in discussions regarding potential initiatives that could create value for members and advance circular economy objectives. 

Daniel Grant 

Daniel Grant is the founder and CEO of Cochrane Bio Char Inc (website: cochranebiochar.com). In his past he served on the  Environmental Advisory Board for the City of Red Deer, and was a member and vice president of the Red Deer River Naturalists for seven years. Lately he has served on the Public Advisory Board to Spray Lake Sawmills. In Cochrane, his company is developing a site to recycle waste wood into Bio Char thru a Pyrolosis process with stationary continuous ovens and two portable batch ovens . Bio Char Inc. is also including a faculty to recycle e-waste, solar panels, glass and copper wire. The intention is to make their Cochrane facility a Centre for recycling, keeping waste out of the landfill and for Bio Char research. Daniel has a diploma from SAIT in Petroleum Technology and has worked 44 years in the Energy sector mostly in Alberta. He was born in Calgary and has spent most of his life in Alberta and currently resides in Cochrane.

Mark Emsden, BA (Hons), CFI, CAFP, CFCI, CIS 

Mark Emsden is a seasoned executive leader with over two decades of experience in regulatory compliance and high-stakes environments. Since April 2025, Mark has served as President and CEO of Beverage Container Management Board (BCMB), Alberta’s beverage container recycling system regulator.  

Throughout his tenure at BCMB, Mark has played a key role in the strategic evolution of Canada’s highest-rated beverage container recycling system. Prior to becoming President and CEO, he served as Director of Operations and Compliance, overseeing a network of more than 220 depots and leading key fraud mitigation and system innovation initiatives.  

Before joining the BCMB in 2019, Mark had a distinguished 21-year career in UK law enforcement, specializing as a Detective in homicide and organized crime and acting as a Financial Investigator for several high-profile national cases. His background includes serving as General Secretary and Treasurer for the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) (Suffolk branch). During this time, Mark gained experience in media relations, including television and radio appearances and print coverage. He is also an experienced advocate, having represented clients before equality and appeals tribunals.  

Mark is also a Royal Navy, Marine Engineer veteran, he holds a degree in Applied Investigations and is a Certified Fraud Examiner. He is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors, committed to excellence in governance, stakeholder relations, and environmental stewardship. He has also recently completed an executive financial course with the Rotman School of Management (UofT).  

As an Alberta environmental regulator, BCMB has been an active member of the Recycling Council of Alberta (RCA) for several years. Under Mark’s leadership, BCMB’s engagement with the RCA has grown, including moderating innovation sessions at the 2025 and upcoming 2026 RCA Annual Conferences. In 2027 and beyond, Mark continues to view the relationship as a strategic partnership, grounded in shared alignment with RCA’s Vision 2030 and BCMB’s mandate to steward beverage containers to minimize environmental impact and advance Canada’s circular economy. 

If chosen for this RCA Board role, Mark will bring more than 14 years of experience working within board-governed organizations, including BCMB and PFEW. His background includes public policy, regulatory oversight, and system-level risk management within a complex, multi-stakeholder environment, along with a strong understanding of proportional (“right-touch”) regulation and its impacts on systems and stakeholders.  

In closing, Mark has a strong passion and interest in supporting the RCA as a member of the Board as it addresses complex issues such as textile waste and the challenges of relying on consumer behaviour to drive change. Mark recognizes that voluntary action can only go so far and brings a clear regulatory perspective on when proportionate regulation is required to achieve meaningful, lasting outcomes. 

Michelle Frechette

Michelle is based in Edmonton, but works regionally. She is the founder and director of The Connected Kitchen Project Foundation, founder and CEO of its for-profit sister organization Connected Kitchen Management Inc., and founder and director of the Social Impact Innovation Hub. Her background is primarily in foodtrepreneurship — most of what she knows about this sector she learned by paying full price for the lessons.  

What she builds is the connective tissue between communities and small businesses through food. 

Michelle operates on collaboration over competition, exclusively. Most of what she’s built comes down to being the connector a situation needed — not the expert, and usually not the person who did the work. Other people did the work, she made sure they found each other. She believes that value retention and waste reduction are two sides of the same coin, and waste reduction is the better-known side but her work is on value retention, not waste prevention. 

Three things she wants to work on with the RCA: 

1. Enhancing the Big Shot event and program run it under the In the Loop circular economy banner, where it would sit inside an event series that already has an audience, a venue, and a network thus giving RCA a year-round pipeline into Alberta’s entrepreneurial community rather than one night in November. 

2. Prioritizing RCA to research and understand Alberta’s circularity gap and to find tools to measure circularity. 

3. Supporting the extension of the Calgary-Olds Smart Agri-Food Corridor along Highway 2 and Canada’s Premier Food Corridor along highway 3 in AB’s south. She would use her seat on the Board to deepen her own subject matter expertise in the circular food economy at a provincial scale. 

Randy Kahlon

Randy has over 13 years in the metal recycling industry, spanning both the trading and operating sides of the business. He spent the first decade based in BC as VP, Sales and Marketing at ABC Recycling in Vancouver, trading material into global markets. For the past three years he has been Director, Commercial at Inland Steel Products, where his focus has shifted to local procurement across Western Canada. Inland Steel is a family-owned scrap metal and auto recycling business operating for 60 years, with yards in Calgary, Nisku, Medicine Hat, Bonnyville, High Prairie, Saskatoon, Regina, Swift Current and a shredder operation in Lloydminster. Inland Steel is an RCA member. 

That trajectory — from global commodity trading to hands-on regional procurement and multi-site operations — gives Randy a perspective few candidates bring to the table. He’s built and led the sales and marketing function that connects recovered material to the export and domestic markets that ultimately absorb it, and he would apply that directly to the communications and marketing capacity identified as a board priority. What sits alongside that is day-to-day exposure to the operating side of the circular economy: running physical recycling infrastructure and materials logistics across several jurisdictions is a perspective that’s currently underrepresented on a board where strategic conversations are often led by policy and non-profit voices rather than by people who move the material itself. 

Inland Steel Products will be exhibiting at Catch the Wave 2026, and Randy will be there in person, giving him the chance to connect with RCA members throughout the event, not only at the Meet-and-Greet on October 21.

Deanna Chauvet 

Deanna Chauvet is the Manager of Environmental Services – Solid Waste Services with the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. She oversees municipal waste operations including landfill, recycling, compost, and transfer infrastructure within a complex and evolving regulatory environment. 

With more than 20 years of leadership experience across municipal operations, environmental services, infrastructure, and business management, Deanna brings a practical and collaborative perspective to governance and strategic planning.  She has been actively involved in Alberta’s transition to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) within the Wood Buffalo region and also brings industry experience working within a mature EPR framework in neighboring British Columbia. 

Deanna is passionate about advancing waste reduction, recycling, and circular economy solutions through collaboration, innovation, and shared responsibility.