Leaving the CEO role at CAEPLA means new opportunities to serve landowner interests

By Dave Core

The announcement at the CAEPLA website said “as any farmer knows, spring is a time for renewal.” And spring 2018 indeed is a season of change for CAEPLA, “a time for a fresh start, new projects and a time of optimism.”

It is with great optimism that I have chosen to resign as CEO of CAEPLA and turn the reins over to Annette Schinborn. She is more than capable of fulfilling the role.

Annette came highly recommended to CAEPLA in 2010. Since then she has proven her value in a number of different roles at our organization, a progression that has led naturally to the role of CEO.

This change in leadership opens the door to many opportunities. A new generation of leadership means new energy and a new breed of landowner professionals. Each will contribute to a renewal of CAEPLA’s effort to find a way forward for energy infrastructure projects built ethically on a foundation of property rights. Such a foundation is the surest way to instill confidence in society where energy industry safety and environment are concerned.

Meanwhile, I will not be disappearing into the sunset—I’m not retiring.

The restructuring of our management team means I get to look forward to focusing on CAEPLA-negotiated business settlements, regulatory/government interactions, research development, industry relations and representing CAEPLA on committees—all with a view to better serving you, the energy infrastructure landowner.

It will also free up some of my time to devote to my growing business interests outside CAEPLA.

When I reflect back on where we started, our goals and vision, and now look at where we are today … we have evolved considerably and contributed to significant change. CAEPLA has stayed well ahead of the curve and are well positioned to continue to influence future developments.

CAEPLA’s founders were all full-time farmers and ranchers. Busy people committed to agriculture: crops, animals, growing food, raising families, stewardship of our soils and environment, while also running our businesses. People who took responsibility for what was “ours” by ensuring that those who came on our land did not continue to dump their liabilities on us as they had been for the previous 40 years.

We were disgusted by energy companies and others disrespecting our property and our rights through the use of threat of expropriation and right of entry; a transfer of our hard-earned wealth to the profit margin of company shareholders.

We were frustrated by federal National Energy Board legislation that provided multibillion-dollar companies with a kind of rent control—by controlling the price of their most important input, land. Regulations that granted permission to compromise our soils, our normal farming practices, our environmental stewardship responsibilities, and left us with costs that put our families and businesses at risk.

 A better way

The article “The Book That Inspired CAEPLA” in our Summer 2016 Pipeline Observer edition explains it well. I encourage you to check it out on our website, if you haven’t already read it.

In 2000 our goal was simply to show the energy industry, regulators and governments that treating landowners with respect is a better way to get projects built, built right and on time.

Standards set through respect for property rights in negotiated business agreements set the bar on safety and environmental stewardship standards made it easier for industry regulators to approve projects while reassuring the public projects are indeed sound.

At a number of times over the past 18 years our board of directors and I have looked optimistically outside the box, listened carefully to interested individuals, and hired experts and other professionals to help us continue to move forward and to find new ways to promote our ideas.

Encouragingly, there is an interest on the part of young professionals and some entrepreneurs in the energy industry in doing things differently. Many now embrace a new approach to getting pipelines built. Some of these individuals see CAEPLA and our ideas as the vehicle for change and want to get involved.

So while it’s time for me to step aside, I will not be stepping down or out of the organization. My role now is to support the next generation of the energy landowner movement and support Annette in her new role by taking on special projects that advance landowner interests in harmony with industry.

I am excited for the future. I hope those of you who appreciate what CAEPLA has accomplished and understand the credibility we have created will give us a call and help us plan for the future of property rights and the energy industry in Canada.

Dave Core is CAEPLA’s Director of Special Projects, having served as President and CEO from 2000 to 2018. Dave is the principal at Dave Core and Associates, a firm consulting on land management, agribusiness, and property rights issues.

Published in PIPELINE OBSERVER SUMMER 2018