Mark Allison is a community and regional planner who is responsible for overseeing the Centre’s professional services for communities and tourism organizations seeking to advance sustainability.  Before joining the Whistler Centre for Sustainability, Mark was the Senior Policy Planner for the City of Surrey, leading major planning processes for the City’s award-winning Sustainability Charter, the City Centre Plan Update, the Official Community Plan Update and a variety of energy studies.  Mark has also worked as the Transportation Planner for the City of New Westminster, the Regional Growth Strategy Coordinator for the Fraser Valley Regional District, and as a sustainability planning consultant, after finishing his masters degree in community and regional planning at UBC.  His thesis research focused on the relationships between land use, housing and transportation for growth management in Metro Vancouver.  Long an advocate of sustainable development, smart growth, and transit oriented development, Mark is an active board member with the Community Energy Association and served 6 years as a board member and Vice President of Smart Growth BC.

Prior to his planning career, Mark completed a masters degree in Experimental Physics at the University of Waterloo and worked for a number of years as a research scientist and senior systems engineer in Canada and abroad on the design of advanced control systems and a variety of alternative energy projects, including solar cells, electrical power generation and plasma fusion experiments.  Mark is an accomplished outdoor enthusiast and traveller, backpacking for a month each year to explore the history, culture, geography, architecture and community life in other countries.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
-- Gandhi