A former Assistant Deputy Minister of Agriculture under the NDP’s Corky Evans, Mr. Sakalauskas was instrumental in developing Canada’s first cost of production model for the chicken and hatching egg industries.

Mr. Sakalauskas has a Bachelors and Masters degree from the faculty of agricultural sciences at UBC, and started his career in the poultry industry. He then worked as a management consultant, and also in the provincial Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations reporting to the Treasury Board. Most recently, he has been with Partnerships B.C., a company created to identify and manage public-private partnership opportunities.

Mr. Sakalauskas brings to the Egg Board a wealth of experience in Board Governance, strategic leadership, program accountability and performance reporting and sound knowledge of the agriculture sector. The Egg Board is confident that his strong administrative and leadership skills will be a real asset in managing the BCEMB.

Another major change in management that occurred over the past couple of months occurred when Harley Nicholson left Westgen. No reason has been given for the change, Brad Howard, who has been the controller at Westgen since 2002 takes over on an interim basis until a new general manager is hired by the end of the year. I just returned from Saskatoon where I visited the new Westgen Suite, part of the expansion at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine. The facility which houses new labs, and equipment for storing semen and embryos was financed in part by Westgen which contributed $640 thousand toward the capital cost. The Saskatoon facility will be officially opened later this month.