board of directors

Carl J. Bognar

Carl is the Board Chair. As an independent consultant, Carl participated in the development of Vancouver’s Four Pillar Approach for the Downtown Eastside and in the development of HIV/AIDS plans for health authorities across BC. He was the first prevention coordinator at the BC Persons with AIDS Society and for the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV, he was involved in the evaluation of Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site.

Mario Brondani

Mario is a dentist from Brazil with an MSc in Gerontology and a PhD in Oral Health. Mario is a clinical assistant professor at UBC and was an AIDS Vancouver/Gayway volunteer from 2003 to 2007. He has participated in community outreach programs within the gay community in Brazil and Canada, has a community leadership background, and is researching ways to empower gay men through their health.

Rob Gair

Rob is a pharmacist at the BC Drug & Poison Information Centre where he specializes in heavy metal poisoning and antidotes. For the last 10 years he has been involved in community HIV prevention initiatives and he has written extensively about gay men’s health. Rob is the coordinator of Frank Talk, an information campaign for poz guys about sexual transmission of Hepatitis C. He is Secretary of the board at HIM and Chair of the Communications Committee.

Michael Kwag

Mike is the Board Vice-Chair. He is the Research Coordinator for the acute HIV infection study in gay men at the BC Centre for Disease Control. Previously, Mike was the Survey Coordinator for the ManCount study, a sexual health survey for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Vancouver. Mike has also been involved in a number of sexual health research and leadership projects at the Community Based Research Centre, and at the Asian Society for the Intervention of AIDS as the Board Chair. Mike has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from UBC.

Rick Marchand

Rick is Board Treasurer. He is the Managing Director of the Community Based Research Centre Society in Vancouver. He has been working in HIV/AIDS since 1989 including nearly ten years at AIDS Vancouver, first as Education Director and then as Executive Director from 1994 to 1998. Rick served on the Ministerial Council on HIV/AIDS from 1999 to 2002, advising the federal Minister of Health on HIV/AIDS issues in Canada . He has coordinated many studies and projects focusing on gay men’s health. Rick has a PhD in Educational Theory from the University of Toronto.

Richard O’Donnell

Richard is currently working for Vancouver Coastal Health coordinating Boy'R'Us, a drop-in program for male and trans sex workers. Richard has been involved in the HIV/AIDS and gay men’s health promotion movements since the early 1990s. He was diagnosed HIV+ at 20 years old, in the spring of 1987 and was active in ACT UP and the early days of Loving Spoonful. Richard was an active volunteer at Gayway, AIDS Vancouver’s gay men’s health program, for 5 year. Richard is also on the board of directors of AIDS Vancouver since 2007.

Noah Stewart

Noah Stewart  began volunteering for political and health-promotion work in the late 1970s in Toronto. In 1983 he was one of the five founding members of AIDS Vancouver. In the late 90s he became involved in a business known as Ethisys, which did financial management work and strategic planning for the not-for-profit sector. Noah continued to give his time, expertise and money to not-for-profit organizations including Buzzcode, a drug information organization aimed at gay male users of "party drugs".

Terry Trussler

Terry is the Research Director of the Community Based Research Centre, an independent nonprofit think-tank dedicated to gay men's health development. He is the lead investigator of the Sex Now survey, a data source of knowledge about BC gay men with more than 7,000 participants since 2002. He has authored numerous publications based on his research and development initiatives, including Totally Outright for Sexual Health Leaders and the BC Gay Men's Summit.