Staff Profiles - Chief Executive Officer

Al Baronas - Chief Executive Officer

Al Baronas has been the Chief Executive Officer of the Island Coastal Economic Trust since its inception in 2006.  Under the direction of the Board, he helped to formulate the Trust's Strategic Plan through a bottom up process involving economic development stakeholders and the Trust's constituency members, mayors and chairs of regional districts.

To ICET, Al Baronas brings years of experience in rural and regional economic development development and urban revitialization in BC, the Prairies and Latin America.  In Canada he worked in Ottawa, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg at the federal level for 20 years in economic development programs, rural and agricultural development.

As Vice-President of The Forks Renewal Corporation in Winnipeg, Al helped to coordinate the conversion of a downtown industrial rail yard into a vibrant urban marketplace and popular recreational area for tourists and locals alike.

Subsequent  to his years at The Forks, Al was the president of Algis Consulting, a company that provided project development, heritage planning, business planning, fundraising, and marketing/communications services to public, private and non-profit organizations both on the Prairies and in Latin America.

Born in Lithuania but raised in Bogota, South America, Al moved to Vancouver, BC for high school at Vancouver College, then onto UBC for his honours degree in Political Science and Simon Fraser University for graduate studies.

Fluent in both Spanish and Lithuanian, Al worked with Canada's Sustainable Cities Initiative in San José, Costa Rica and in Valparaiso Viña del Mar, Chile, in developing joint strategies for urban revitalization, heritage, and downtown development. He also worked on local economic development strategies in Chile's Bio Bio region and in the municipalities of Lota and Coronel, near Concepcion.