A maven (māvən) is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass timely and relevant knowledge on to others.
Visit our LinkedIn page to learn about the the full Maven team.
Our Founder
CEO & PRINCIPAL SCIENTIST
Monique Simair | PHD, RPBIO, EP (LinkedIn and Research Gate)
I’m passionate about team building, celebration of individual skills and abilities, and figuring out what will work best in a particular situation not simply applying what is historically conventional.
Maven is my second company, founded in 2019 after the successful sale of my first company - Contango Strategies - to a publicly traded company. My academic background is in applied microbiology and biogeochemistry. Over the years, I’ve become an innovator and leader in passive and semi-passive water treatment strategies and technologies. This includes new technology development and commercialization. I’ve designed water treatment systems for applications at mines, oilsands, and industrial sites, including projects across Canada, United States, and Kyrgyzstan. The more challenging the situation, the more excited I get to solve it.
Collaborators, Sub-consultants, & Advisors
In addition to our team of “Mavens”, we collaborate with experts as sub-consultants and advisors. This adds complimentary skill sets to our services. If you would like to join us in this capacity, visit the Join Us page for more information.
John Rodgers, PhD (webpage at Clemson University and downloadable CV)
Dr. John Rodgers is an Emeritus Professor in Environmental Toxicology at Clemson University in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation where he was the Director of the Ecotoxicology Program. He held academic and administrative positions at East Tennessee State University, the University of North Texas, and the University of Mississippi from 1978 – 1998. For the past 22 years, he has been engaged in research, teaching, public and professional service and administration at Clemson University.
The research, teaching and public and professional services provided by Dr. Rodgers and his colleagues have been integrally linked throughout his career. A critical programmatic area of his focus is Putting Nature and Biogeochemistry to Work: Designing and Implementing Constructed Wetlands to Decrease Environmental and Ecological Risks - e.g. effects of potentially toxic materials on wetlands and effects of wetlands on toxic materials. In his career of more than 40 years, Dr. Rodgers has published more than 150 peer reviewed papers and several books on topics related to aquatic toxicology and water quality. For the last several years, much of Dr. Rodgers’ work has focused on accurate risk assessment and mitigation strategies for impaired waters due to a variety of stressors.
Rick Schryer, PhD (LinkedIn)
Rick Schryer is an aquatic scientist with more than 35 years of experience in mine permitting, environmental assessments, environmental baseline and monitoring studies. He still acts as the VP Environmental and Regulatory Affairs for Fortune Minerals Limited where he handles all aspects of environmental compliance and community relations. Other recent projects also include work with Rubicon at their Phoenix mine and the Domtar facility in Dryden.
In his career, he has worked with multi-disciplinary teams on several large-scale mining projects. Consultation with Indigenous groups, regulators, consultants and other stakeholders has been at the core of his duties. Prior to Fortune, he worked as an Associate with Golder for 14 years primarily on mining projects in northern and remote locations including the Musselwhite gold mine in northern Ontario, the Diavik and Snap Lake diamond mines in the Northwest territories and the Rabbit Lake and Key Lake uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan. Dr. Schryer was part of the management team for the 100 + person Golder Saskatoon office and lead the 15 person aquatics team for several years.
Jerry Vandenberg, MSc, PChem (LinkedIn and Website)
As a collaborator with Maven, Mr. Vandenberg provides specialty expertise in the areas of pit lake management and water quality modelling. He presently splits his time between consulting and teaching environmental science at UBC.
While pit lakes can be a significant liability for mining companies, they can also provide benefits upon mine closure, if properly planned and managed. Mr. Vandenberg has undertaken several industry-wide reviews to integrate lessons from the past. Best practices for pit lake management include early geochemical characterization of all materials to be present at closure, understanding the physical, chemical and biological processes that will occur in the pit lake upon re-filling, and developing a thorough adaptive management plan that can be implemented before mine closure.
In addition to pit lakes, Mr. Vandenberg specializes in mine water management though all stages of mining from permitting, operations through closure. His experience includes chemical characterization, water treatment planning, mine water discharge and dispersion, and compliance monitoring. He has managed the integration of multiple water models (hydrogeological, hydrological, dispersion, eutrophication, etc.) on many mine water discharge and mine closure projects. Mr. Vandenberg provides similar services for the power sector with regards to cooling ponds and hydroelectric reservoirs.
Notable projects related to model development, model application, water quality monitoring, pit lake management and expert witness services can be found on his CV here.