COG Board of Directors


COG's Board of Directors is comprised of representatives from COG's voting members – organizations whose investments in COG meets a threshold warranting additional oversight and input into organizational direction. Members of the Board are from Ontario Pow​er Generation (OPG), Bruce Power, New Brunswick Power (NB Power), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica (SNN, Romania).

The Board provides oversight and due diligence in a number of areas including business direction, mission and strategy; a number of management systems and human resource oversights as well as corporate risk, member relationships and communications.​


 

​​Gary Newman headshot
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​​Gary Newman

Bruce Power
Senior Vice President Engineering & Chief Engineer

The current chair of the COG board, Gary Newman, has continuously demonstrated leadership in fuel channel life management research and industry collaboration on engineering joint project through his career. Following the passage of the 1998 Energy Competition Act, Gary helped Ontario Hydro restructure into five separate entities. Before joining Bruce Power, where he has responsibility for major component replacement and fuel channel replacement, Gary was a key player in what is now AMEC Foster Wheeler. He is the past chair and a current participant on the Equipment Reliability Oversight Committee at INPO, Vice-chair of UNENE and past board member of AMEC Foster Wheeler.

Carla Carmichael headshot

Leslie McWilliams
Ontario Power Generation

Vice President, Advanced Inspection & Maintenance (AIM)

Leslie brings 23 years of nuclear experience in Engineering, Chemistry, Maintenance, Outage and Project Management.  As VP, AIM, Leslie is an energetic and innovative leader who is accountable for specialized inspection and maintenance across all major components on OPG’s Nuclear and Renewable Generation stations, including Darlington Refurbishment, with a workforce of over 500.  In previous roles, she was responsible for leading recovery of OPG’s nuclear generation plan in response to Covid19 and served as an expert witness for OPG at its rate-setting hearing focused on nuclear generation planning and overall performance of OPG’s nuclear fleet.  Leslie was previously accountable for OPG’s Work Management Governance and was the Nuclear Risk Management Single Point of Contact.

 

Neil Mantifel headshot

Jeffrey Griffin

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
Vice President, Science & Technology

Jeff Griffin is an accomplished senior executive with more than 30 years of experience leading multi-million dollar research and development programs, technology development initiatives, and operations support in a national laboratory environment. Griffin joined the COG board in January 2021. Prior to joining CNL in March 2020, Griffin led field operations for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) as associate principal deputy assistant secretary, where he provided strategic direction and policy leadership for the DOE-EM's 16 field sites. Prior to his DOE work, Griffin spent 15 years with Savannah River National Laboratory, where he directed 250-personnel and managed an $80+ million (U.S.) portfolio. He earned his PhD in nuclear chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology.


Neil Mantifel headshot

Jason Nouwens

New Brunswick Power
Director, External Affairs

Jason Nouwens is the Director, External Affairs based at New Brunswick Power's (NB Power) Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. He brings nearly 25 years of nuclear experience to the COG Board. Nouwens joined the board in May 2021 as NB Power's representative. 
Nouwens first joined Point Lepreau in 1997, as a member of the systems engineering team, where he served in a number of supervisory and management roles for more than a decade. In 2014, Nouwens transitioned to the regulatory affairs (RA) team as manager before being appointed director, regulatory affairs and performance improvement in 2016. He served in that role until appointment as Director, External Affairs in 2021.

Sorin Ghelbereu headshot
Dumitru Benchea

Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica, Romania
Engineering Director

Dumitru Benchea is SNN's Engineering Director with 20 years of experience in various positions at Cernavoda Nuclear. He started in his current role in December 2020 and oversees areas including systems, components and design engineering as well as capital projects and IT. Benchea also leads station committees in the areas of design modification and condition reporting, among others. Prior to his current role, Benchea served as Cernavoda's Systems Engineering Senior Superintendent and spent six years in a similar role focused on design and technical support. He also worked for nine years (2002-2011) as a design engineer at Cernavoda. Benchea studied electrical engineering at Dunarea de Jos University in Galati, Romania. He joined the COG board in January 2021.