Board of Advisors- Motorcycle Confederation of Canada
I’ve been riding since childhood, I was 11 when I first twisted the throttle of a mini trail back in 1969… Ouch… I’ve been involved with the FMQ since 2006 as a coach with Moto Pro FMQ which is the advanced training technics motorcycle school. During these years I got involved in the organisation and promotion of continuous training for the public as well, getting the provincial government involvement in many awareness campaigns aimed at our motorcyclists. When I retired 4 years ago, the FMQ board asked me if I wanted to fill the president role. Of course I said, as long as they share my vision… which is to open up the federation to our motorcyclists all over the province. And I’m glad to say I got full support from my people. Safety is our primary concern, but we also have to address the opportunities to promote moto tourism in our regions and develop a positive image of our motorcyclists.
I’m retired from a Safety and Health / Environment supervisor position which got me involved in many aspects of work safety and managing safety training programs. I was also a volunteer residential firefighter for 14 years, and first responder on Fire and Chemical response Industrial teams.
I have had the chance to travel several times in Europe, and when I retired my friend and owner of the travel agency asked me to be his moto tour guide! So I lead groups 4 to 6 weeks during spring and summer in Europe for the last 4 years except the last (Covid.) I ride with groups of maximum 10 bikes on 2 weeks trip. So riding Italian style is very sweet to me.
As the president of FMQ, I promote all continuous moto training, off road – MX – track days – emergency response training drills… etc. I to go to various moto training schools every year, adventure and or road / track training days. I still coach advanced training days when needed, so I need to be recertified every year to keep my Moto Pro FMQ Coach title. You can see some of my work on these videos from our YouTube page.
For the last 2 years, I’ve been the road chairman for the MCC and we try to develop and share best practices among our Canadian counterparts. We have a very large country with many types of structures. This itself is challenging. The opportunity to get involved with Biker Down is great, I got a positive response from our groups during our last board meeting (FMQ). We still have to see how it will get implemented.