MVI | Mountain Valley Institute

About

The Mountain Valley Institute is a nonprofit Research and Advocacy organization dedicated to bringing world-class regional rail to the South Coast of BC.

Board of Directors

Alex Gaio

Travel Behaviour Expert

Alex recently defended a PhD on travel behaviour on autonomous vehicle and bicycle interaction. He is an advocate for transportation choice and is interested in how urban planning can address challenges related to transportation, sustainability, and public health. He has worked on Calgary’s Green Line LRT, Auckland’s new transport network, and in a consultant capacity in Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Lee Haber

Mobility Planner/Engineer

Lee Haber is a transportation planner and engineer for TYLin and is the Technical Lead for MVI. Lee has extensive engagement with transportation issues in the region. For his Master’s thesis, Lee studied how full-user-pay road pricing would affect users of different modes of transportation financially within Metro Vancouver. He also served as Campaign Director for GetOnBoardBC, an organization advocating for better transit in 2014.

Brock Li

Major Projects Leader

Brock Li is a people-focused commercial leader with over twelve years of experience delivering large-scale energy and industrial projects. He specializes in commercial management of complex contracts, joint ventures, claims, and risk-based forecasting. Brock has led multidisciplinary teams across engineering, construction, and commercial functions, and brings his experience in energy, petrochemical, and utility sectors to MVI.

Bob Shi

Data Scientist

Bob Shi is a transportation and data science professional with a background in civil and transportation engineering. He holds degrees from the University of British Columbia, the University of Southern California, and Northwestern University, where he specialized in analytics and modeling. Bob has experience in transportation planning and consulting across Canada and the U.S., and brings a unique blend of engineering and data science to advance smart, sustainable infrastructure solutions.

Aspen Soellig

Architectural Designer

Aspen Soellig is an Architectural Science graduate and director of research and advocacy with MVI with a background in transit policy research and infrastructure advocacy in British Columbia.

Strategic Advisory Council

In addition to our governance board, MVI retains the expert advice and counsel of a Strategic Advisory Council.

Mark Marrissen

Public Affairs Strategist
Burrard Strategy

John Haythorne

Infrastructure and Procurement Lawyer
Dentons

About the Society

MVI is a member- and donor-funded nonprofit society. The Society exists to conduct research and advocacy on public transit/transportation in the Lower Mainland.

Our Bylaws

The bylaws that govern the organisation and outline our principles.

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The Mountain Valley Institute wishes to respectfully acknowledge the unceded territory of the South Coast. These lands include (but are not limited to) the Squamish, Tsleil Waututh, Musqueam, Stó:lō, Tsawwassen, Lil’wat, Kwantlen, and Semiahmoo First Nations. We further wish to acknowledge the unfair treatment that the constitution affords to rail and the way it dispossessed many nations’ lands and starved indigenous peoples. As a society, we solemnly reflect and strive to better understand the atrocities of Canada’s railway legacy. In the spirit of reconciliation, we hope that MVX Nexus can serve as a platform for reframing rail as a tool for Nations to harness their economic development potential while building an equitable and sustainable future for connecting all South Coast Nations and all people that call the South Coast home.