Board of Directors
Tracy Medve, Board Chair
France Hébert, President
Ralph Wegner
Mario Poirier
Marc-Olivier Sabourin
Jesse Bernhardt
Capture Team
Michael Sliva,
General Manager
Bill Ryan, General Manager
Abir Kazan, Capture Manager
Tracy Medve, Board Chair
Board Chair, SkyAlyne
President, KF Aerospace
Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Tracy previously served in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves as she pursued a law degree at the University of Saskatchewan. She started her career in aviation in 1985 as a lawyer.
An accomplished leader in Canadian aviation, Tracy has held various senior airline management positions throughout her career, with over six years in her current role as President of KF Aerospace—Canada’s largest commercial aircraft maintenance and engineering provider, a cargo carrier, an aircraft leasing company and provider of military pilot training to the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Medve has served as a member and chair on the Board of the Air Transportation Association of Canada (the first female Honorary Life Member in the Association’s history), the Northern Air Transport Association and the UBCO External Advisory Board. She is a current member of the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada and was recently appointed as the Chair of the FortisBC Board of Directors.
France Hébert, Board Chair
President, SkyAlyne
Vice-President and General Manager Defence & Security, CAE
France Hébert is Vice-President and General Manager, Defence & Security (D&S) for CAE Canada. France leads the Defence & Security business in Canada, shaping the vision and the operational and commercial strategy for the division, which includes 14 sites across the country and a team of over 650 employees, many of whom are embedded with military units across the country. As an influential leader, France is CAE’s representative for D&S Canada with the federal Government and Canadians.
France has over 30 years of experience working in defence and aerospace. Over the course of her career, France has held senior positions in strategy, business development and operations. She brings extensive leadership experience with a proven track record on complex billion-dollar programs. She successfully won business in Canada and abroad, being recognized with numerous awards. Prior to her current role, France was Head of Land C4ISR Business Area for General Dynamics Mission Systems Canada, Ottawa. She was fully accountable for the line of business including all aspects of execution, operations and finance of the Canadian division.
Through her varied career, she was an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces and worked for three companies playing major roles in Canada, namely: Bombardier, Nortel and General Dynamics Mission Systems – Canada (GDMS-C).
France is a Professional Engineer who holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Physics) from the Royal Military College of Canada. She also holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) designation. France has two children in university and lives in Ottawa with her husband. She is a second dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do and enjoys decompressing at Crossfit.
Ralph Wegner, CPA
Vice-President of Defence Programs, KF Aerospace
Ralph Wegner, C.P.A, joined KF Aerospace (then Kelowna Flightcraft) as Controller in 1990 and in 1996 he became Director of Finance for the company, taking on financial responsibility for major civil aviation customers both in operations and maintenance.
In 2003 Ralph was part of the KF team assembled to bid on the Contracted Flying Training and Support (CFTS) Contact to provide pilot training to the RCAF. KF Aerospace was successful in being awarded this contract in 2005, at which time Ralph was promoted to Contract Manager for Allied Wings – the entity created by KF to execute the CFTS contract. He continues in this role today as Vice-President of Defence Programs, in addition to participating in future procurements.
As part of the SkyAlyne team (KF and CAE) pursuing the Future Aircrew Training program of the RCAF, Ralph is the Commercial Lead for SkyAlyne and a member of the Board of Directors.
Mario Poirier
Vice-President, Finance, CAE Defense & Security
A Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) since 1992, Mario Poirier was appointed Vice-President, Finance for CAE Defense & Security division in 2011. He started his career at CAE as a Finance Director for the same division in 2006.
Mario is a senior executive with over thirty years of experience in the defence & security, IT consulting and software industries. He came to CAE from Cognicase Inc. – an IT consulting company acquired by CGI in 2002 -where he worked as Vice President and Controller for 6 years. Previously Mr. Poirier was the Controller of a very successful software company called Softimage Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft in 1997. Mr. Poirier started his career with Mallette, Benoit, Boulanger, Rondeau as an auditor.
Marc-Olivier Sabourin
Vice-President, CAE Global Defense & Security
Marc-Olivier Sabourin was appointed CAE’s Vice-President of Global Defence and Security in October 2019. In this role, Marc-Olivier Sabourin has overall Profit & Loss responsibility for all of CAE’s Defence business outside of the USA. Heading a team of more than 1500 employees around the globe, Marc-Olivier Sabourin executes CAE’s Trainings System Integration (TSI) strategy, offering best-in-class training systems to militaries from more than 50 nations.
Prior to his current nomination, Marc-Olivier Sabourin was accountable for the solid and profitable growth of CAE’s Defense & Security business as Vice President and General Manager in the Europe & Africa region. Previously, Marc-Olivier Sabourin was accountable for CAE Operations within the EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) region in the capacity of Director, Regional Operations. As such, he managed CAE’s production sites in Hungary and the United Kingdom in addition to the German office and all the activities executed in the Canadian head-quarters for customers of the EMEA region.
Marc-Olivier Sabourin has an exciting track record to support the growth plans and goals for the European region, having extensive experience in Business Development, Sales, Engineering and Project Management, both globally and domestically as well as developing CAE’s business in the region and in Germany.
In 1996, he began his career within the simulation and training industry with CAE, at the head office in Canada, where he spent over 10 years in project execution covering different roles from software development to project management. In 2006, Marc-Olivier Sabourin was promoted to Director of Engineering for CAE Elektronik GmbH in Germany where he headed the successful completion of the cornerstone initiative NH90 German PFI project.
Marc-Olivier Sabourin has a Bachelor of Engineering degree from McGill University and a Master of Business Administration degree from HEC University. Marc-Olivier Sabourin has received several prizes and recognitions for his work and published articles.
Jesse Bernhardt
General Legal Counsel, KF Aerospace
Jesse Bernhardt leads the legal functions for KF Aerospace’s worldwide operations, shaping the operational and commercial strategy for the KF Aerospace group of companies which includes interests in Ireland, the United States and fixed operating bases in Canada. KF Aerospace’s Canadian operations include the Allied Wings Military Flight Training base that supports the Royal Canadian Air Force through the Contracted Flying and Training Support (CFTS) Program.
Jesse earned a Juris Doctor (Law) from the University of Alberta in 2013 and was called to the Bar in British Columbia in 2014. He has completed both levels I and II of the Certified Financial Analyst examinations. He began his career practicing Corporate, Commercial and Banking Law working for Canadian chartered banks and credit unions across British Columbia. He began his defence and aerospace career in 2017 with KF Aerospace as associate legal counsel and was appointed General Legal Counsel in 2019.
Michael Sliva
General Manager, SkyAlyne
Michael Sliva has over 37 years of diverse management experience in the defence and aerospace, municipal government, and banking industries, and as of February 2018 is the General Manager and Capture Director for SkyAlyne Canada, on secondment from CAE Inc. Mr. Sliva joined CAE in 2011 to pursue and lead global business development campaigns for training system integration opportunities. Then for 3 years, as Head of Commercial Management, he was responsible for contractual and strategic sourcing issues for CAE’s Defence & Security Canada Region. In 2017, he was named Director, Major Campaigns and Acquisitions for the Canada Region.
Prior to joining Bombardier, Mr. Sliva worked for the City of Portage la Prairie and The Bank of Nova Scotia. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Lakehead University in 1982.
Bill Ryan
Deputy General Manager, SkyAlyne
William (Bill) Ryan has over 28 years of experience in military flying, combat operations, training development, and leadership in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), as well as 14 years of experience in the business world.
Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Bill joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) after university and spent 27 in service, accumulating over 5000 flying hours on a variety of different aircraft. He flew combat missions during the first Gulf War and served two tours during the conflict in Bosnia. Bill also served with the Snowbirds Air Demonstration Team.
Bill has considerable experience in flight training and was involved extensively with the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) program. His last assignment in the RCAF was in Air Operations and Training, where he was responsible for overseeing the ab-initio pilot training for the RCAF.
After retiring from the Canadian military in 2004, Bill worked with Bombardier Military Aviation Training in several roles in sales, marketing and international training, business development and proposal development. He worked on the UKMFTS program, the Singapore Air Force Basic Wings Course (BWC), and the Air 5428 program in Australia.
Bill is the Manager of Business Development and the Military Liaison for KF Aerospace Defence Programs. He was the Site Manager for the Contracted Flying Training and Support (CFTS) program in Southport, MB, for 5 years. Bill is also the Deputy General Manager of SkyAlyne – KF’s partnership with CAE for the Future Aircrew Training Program (FAcT).
Abir Kazan
Capture Manager, SkyAlyne
Abir Kazan has over 20 years of diverse management experience in the defence and aerospace industry. In April 2018, she was nominated as the Capture Manager for SkyAlyne Canada, on secondment from CAE Inc. Ms. Kazan joined CAE, Defence and Security in 2001 and has gained extensive proposals, program management as well as leadership experience. As part of her professional growth, she has undertaken various skills and training development covering leadership, capture and proposal management, proposal writing, price to win, project management, earned value, relationship contracting, negotiation and “Defi 100 Jours” from “L’effet A”.
Ms. Kazan started her career at CAE as a Proposal Manager. She was then promoted to lead a team of Proposal Managers and Cost Estimators. She has successfully led, managed and produced Canadian and international proposals including the Operational Training System Provider (OTSP) and the CC130J maintenance training provider as well as the UK MFTS Multi-Engine Pilot Training.
Ms. Kazan has worked on various internal continuous improvement initiatives, a key one being the cost estimating process and tool taking the initiative from options analysis through to implementation. She has led the initiative and deployed it in Montreal and the UK including change management and training to all key stakeholders.
In 2016, Ms. Kazan was nominated to become the project manager on the UK MFTS Multi-Engine Pilot Training – for the delivery of the ground-based training suite. In that role, Ms. Kazan has interfaced with the various stakeholders including Lockheed Martin RMS, the independent tester representing the UK MoD interests, Lockheed Martin UK, Babcock, Ascent and Embraer, taking the program on time and on budget ready for training in December 2017. During her assignment on the UK MFTS program, Ms. Kazan has undertaken her PMP training and obtained her certification in December 2016.
Before joining CAE, Ms. Kazan worked in the telecommunication field at Nortel Networks as a Prime Verification Engineer. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Concordia University in 2000.
