Honorary Degree Recipients
UNB in Fredericton granted honorary degrees to four outstanding individuals at its 184th Encaenia:
Hilary Pearson, president and CEO of Philantrophic Foundations Canada, received an honorary doctor of letters degree at Encaenia Ceremony A, on Wednesday, May 29, at 10 a.m.
Ms. Pearson was appointed president of Philanthropic Foundations Canada, a national network of family, independent and corporate grantmakers in Canada, in 2001. In this capacity, she has led the organization to become a significant hub for the Canadian philanthropic sector. Her career has spanned the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. She spent over 12 years in the Canadian federal government as a policy analyst and senior manager in central agencies such as the Department of Finance and the Privy Council Office. In 1993, Ms Pearson became vice-president, strategic development, at Royal Bank of Canada. In 1996, she turned to management consulting with the Montreal firm Secor, and in 2000 launched a practice in the non-profit sector, with a wide range of clients, from national membership organizations and operating charities to local organizations in the health, cultural and social services field.
Ms. Pearson has been a director and member of several nonprofit boards, including Imagine Canada, the United Nations Association in Canada, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada, CARE Canada and Centraide of Greater Montreal. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Coady Institute at St Francis Xavier University. Ms. Pearson holds a BA and an MA in political economy from the University of Toronto.
Mr. David Stevenson, founding partner with Stevenson and Partners LLP, received an honorary doctor of letters degree at Encaenia Ceremony B held on Wednesday, May 29, at 2:30 p.m.
Mr. Stevenson is a founding partner with Stevenson & Partners LLP, based in Riverview, N.B. He was born and raised in Fredericton, N.B., where he enrolled in UNB's bachelor of business administration program. After completing his BBA he moved to Saint John, N.B. to work for MacDonald Currie & Co. (later Coopers & Lybrand) as a staff accountant and then account manager and trustee. He earned the designation of Chartered Accountant in 1970, and received the designation of Trustee in Bankruptcy in 1973. In 1977, he moved to Moncton, N.B., where he was account manager and trustee with Deloitte Haskins & Sells until 1983. He joined Paul Kennedy and Rick Carver to form the partnership Kennedy, Carver & Stevenson in 1983 (which is now called Stevenson & Partners LLB) to practice public accounting.
Mr. Stevenson is a member of the New Brunswick Institute of Chartered Accountants, Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, and Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals. He is past chair of UNB's board of governors and served as chair of the board's finance committee and as a member of the board's investments and executive committees. Among the honours that distinguish Mr. Stevenson's career, he was awarded the Commemorative Medal for the 125th University in of the Confederation of Canada and was elected a fellow of the New Brunswick Institute of Chartered Accountants.
The Honourable Dennis O'Connor, QC, counsel with Borden Ladner and Gervais LLP and retired associate chief justice of Ontario, received an honorary doctor of laws at Encaenia Ceremony C on Thursday, May 30, at 10 a.m.
Mr. O'Connor sat on the Court of Appeal for Ontario from 1998 to 2012. He served as the associate chief justice of Ontario from 2001 until he retired at the end of 2012. He also served as a deputy judge of the Yukon
Supreme Court. While on the bench he wrote numerous reported judgments dealing with a wide variety of issues including commercial, securities and insurance law. He also conducted two successful public
inquiries: the Walkerton Inquiry (2000-02) and the Maher Arar Inquiry (2004-06).
For the 18 years before his appointment to the Court of Appeal, Mr. O'Connor was a senior counsel with the affirm of Borden & Elliot (a predecessor firm of Borden Ladner Gervais). His practice focused on commercial and public law litigation. He appeared as lead counsel on many major cases in Ontario and elsewhere inCanada during that time.
Joseph Ng, president of The JNE Group of Companies, received an honorary doctor of science degree at Ceremony D on Thursday, May 30, at 2:30 p.m.
Joe Ng studied electrical engineering at UNB. After graduation in 1973, he began working as an electrical engineer. In 1980, Mr. Ng incorporated his own engineering consulting company as Joe Ng Engineering Ltd. Due to the recession in North America in 1982, he also began to look at markets outside of North America and subsequently developed successfully into China.
Joe Ng Engineering Ltd. provides international trade services, JNE Consulting Ltd. was established and registered as a separate consulting engineering practice in the province of Ontario in 1994. Today, JNE Consulting continues to meet local engineering needs, while also providing international consulting engineering services with projects in Mexico, Columbia, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Japan and China.
For the past 32 years, Mr. Ng has transformed his business from beginnings involving only himself, into a company currently employing a work force of close to 400 employees. Office locations include Hamilton (4 locations), Pittsburgh (USA), Shanghai and Beijing (China).
In recent years, Mr. Ng has started to contribute more of his time and effort in supporting the local community such as McMaster University, the University of Waterloo, the Hamilton Art Gallery, the Hamilton Health Science Foundation, and the local United Way. Mr. Ng is a success story and a great example of the changing character of Hamilton’s Chinese community.
