Music Niagara’s

H A Patrick Little

Senior Partner, Heelis, Little & Almas, LLP, St. Catharines, ON

Patrick began his legal career with the City of St. Catharines in 1976, and entered private practice in 1979, concentrating his efforts in the areas of administrative, municipal and criminal law, government relations, real estate development and wills and estates. Patrick has served the community as the President/Chair of several organizations, including the Lincoln County Law Association, St. Catharines Chamber of Commerce and St. Catharines Club and as Director of the St. Catharines General Hospital, St. Catharines Downtown Association, St. Catharines Museum and St. Catharines Golf Club. He is a past Chair of the United Way of St. Catharines and District, past President of Croquet Canada, Chair of several organizing committees for the Tall Ships visits to Port Dalhousie. He is currently chair of Willowbank School of Restoration Arts. He is also an Honourary Trustee of Trinity College, University of Toronto and former Governor of Trinity College School, Port Hope.

Edward Barisa

Ed has a bachelors’degree from Universite de Montreal and a Masters from McGill. He holds a CAE designation granted by the Canadian Society of Association Executives. He has also attended professional development seminars for senior executives at Harvard and M.I.T. on topics such as strategic planning, risk management, negotiation and change management.

Ed began his career as a high school geography teacher and then department head in Montreal. Six years later he was appointed Curriculum Co-ordinator for the Council of Ministers of Education,Canada,a coordinating body for education across the country. From there, as his academic background included a heavy dose of geography, he was appointed Executive Director of the Intergovernmental Committee on Urban and Regional Research, reporting to a Board of Directors consisting of deputy ministers of municipal affairs and housing from across the country and the President of CMHC.

Next came a move to Ottawa, from Toronto, following his appointment to head up the Canadian Bar Association. Four years later, Ed was hired by the consulting arm of Ernst and Young to lead the World University Service of Canada ,an International Development Agency, out of receivership. Mission accomplished, WUSC is still in business some thirty years later.

Toronto beckoned and Ed moved back to head up the Canadian Chiropractic Association. Once again,a search firm called and Ed was appointed as CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association, a position that he held for 17 years until his retirement.

Ed has served on the following boards at various times during his career:

Canada Studies Foundation-director and Chair

Canadian Bar Services Inc.-director

CBANET-director

Law for the Future Fund-director

Canadian Real Estate Association-director

Real Estate Executives Council-director and Chair

National Association of Realtors(U.S.)-director

Canadian Society of Association Executives-director,Chair-elect and Chair.

Tom Smith

After graduating from Amherst College in 1971, Tom worked in publishing for a year in New York, earned a master’s degree at the University of Leeds, and taught English at The Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey. He then earned a PhD at Rutgers University in English, which led to teaching at the University of Georgia in Athens for two years. The rest of his university career was spent at campuses of Penn State University, teaching courses ranging from developmental writing to introduction to poetry to advanced literary theory. From 2006-07 and again from 2012-15, he was Head of the Division of Arts and Humanities at Penn State Abington in suburban Philadelphia, where he supervised 100 full- and part-time professors. From 2008-10, he was the Director of the Advising Center at that campus, coordinating academic advising for 3500 undergraduates. In both positions, he managed budgets, supervised annual employee evaluations, and implemented University policies.

In addition to publishing many scholarly articles on autobiography from the 1980s through the 2010s, from 2006-12 he edited Ufewriting Annual, a serial publication of scholarly and creative essays on biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and letters. He has recently rejoined the Annual as a Consulting Editor. He has been an Editorial Board member of the journal a/b: Auto/Biography Studies since its founding in 1986 and has been a member of the Executive Committee of the International Autobiography Association (ABA) since its founding in 1999 in Beijing. He has served on executive committees of various interest groups devoted to life writing within the Modern Language Association (MLA}, the leading professional organization of university-level language professors in Canada and the US. Since retiring in 2015, he has continued to review submissions to the above two journals and attend conferences in his field.

Growing up, Tom Took piano lessons for 12 years, played bassoon and saxophone, and sang in school and church choirs and his college Glee Club. As an adult he is an avid classical music fan, having been a subscriber for years to the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, and the smaller Philadelphia­area ensembles Vax Amadeus, Tempesta di Mare, and Piffaro. This season he will be attending performances of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra., the Canadian Opera, and Tafelmusik.

Kekoo Gatta

I was born in Uganda. Our family escaped Idi Amin’s military rule and my family of five settled in Thorold and I grew up going to Thorold High School. After graduating high school, during the recession of the mid eighty’s, I spent five years in Toronto getting my mechanic’s licence. Missing the Niagara region and knowing that I had a passion for buildings and not cars, I came back to Niagara and started dismantling old homes and rebuilding them.

After 2 years of older homes, I decided to start Gatta Homes in 1989, and have been building high end, energy efficient custom homes in Niagara-on-the-Lake ever since. Award winning developments like Mariner Bay Estates, Bayberry Lane, Avalon Place, Harmony Lane, Butlers Creek, Royal Albion Place, Settlements at St. David’s etc.. all pushed us to higher and better energy efficient homes.

Having raised five kids in Niagara-on-the-Lake, I am pleased that three of them have joined the family business, with the other two pursuing equally successful careers in their own fields. This gives me more time and energy to give back to the community that embraced us decades ago.

Over the years, we have donated land to the YWCA for a shelter for abused young women, we have made a three-year commitment to provide a facility to house the first ever Canadian Centre for Men and Families of Abused Men. We have supported many local organizations  such as the Shaw Garden Tour, Niagara Falls Soup Kitchen, the Rotary Home Tour, the Santa Claus Parade, The Voices of Freedom Park and many hockey and soccer teams.

I also mentor young boys and girls from underprivileged backgrounds to encourage them to aim for post-secondary education by coaching wrestling at Eden High School and at the Brock Junior Badgers Wrestling Program.

Daniel Rafii

 Bio coming soon…….

Elaine Mayo

Elaine was born and educated in the London area of England to a musical family – both professional and amateur.

Elaine Studied Meteorology with the Air Ministry before joining British Airways as a flight attendant.

She helped with her husband’s electronics businss in the accounts offices, which eventually brought them to Canada in 1981 and eventually to the U.S. and became a Canadian citizen in 1985.

Elaine spent nearly 20 years in the UK from 1986-2005 where she ultimately returned to Toronto in 2005, after selling her company.

Since retiring, she has taken several volunteer positions mainly with the Garden Clubs, and is now a lady of leisure!