Society of Internationally Trained Engineers of British Columbia
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Board of DirectorsK.C. Chau, President K. C. Chau has a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Taiwan, Post Graduate Diploma in Polymer & Fiber Science from England, MBA from Macau and LLB from England. He was born and raised in Hong Kong and brings in more than 20 years of rich experience working in Chemical industry. Before staying in Canada for good in 1997, he worked for giant Chemical companies and had the opportunity of representing Henkel (Germany) as General Manager / Director for one of their Asia Pacific operations. After arriving in British Columbia, K.C.Chau went through the struggle of extensive job search for 4 to 5 years in his related fields and finally made up his mind to work for providing help and assistance to newly landed immigrants after taking one year course training in counseling for changing his career. He currently works at S.U.C.C.E.S.S. as Job Mentoring Program Coordinator and enjoys counseling. Before becoming the President of SITE BC in February 2008, he has been involved in the programs for ITPs' initiative. He was again elected as the President of SITE BC for another two years term until March 2012.
Jairo Gallego, Vice President
Having arrived to Vancouver in 2002, Jairo faced the current challenges that immigrants find, and by 2003 after knowing that organizations grouping the skilled immigrants in their different fields were promoted by several international professionals and local advocators, he attended the first meetings that lead to the foundation of SITE BC, and since then he has been following the Society development and recently has decided to share his experience, knowledge and will to help other colleagues. Since 2007 he is working with a large Canadian Consulting Company engaged in several projects looking to expand and update the High Voltage Transmission network in BC.
Roya Rafiei, Treasurer Roya has a BSc. in Industrial Engineering from Iran. She has worked in several fields of industrial engineering like; manufacturing planning in a pharmaceutical firm, project scheduling and control for construction and industrial projects, and working on ISO 9000 procedures. She was a delegate in 71st session of International Labour Organization (ILO) conference in Geneva, Switzerland on women employment and equal opportunities in work place. Roya also has an Accounting certificate from Vancouver Community College. As the SITE BC Treasurer, she performs accounting duties, prepares monthly financial reports for SITE BC board of directors, and provides quarterly financial reports for SDISS (Surrey Delta Immigrant Services Society). She has worked on SITE BC budget for fiscal year 2005-06, and prepared income tax reports for submission to Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) for fiscal year 2004-05.
Claudia Zuge, Secretary
As a volunteer in SITE BC, Claudia is looking forward to share information with other Internationally Trained Engineers and she also wants to join forces to tackle the difficulties in this new life in Canada.
Charles Chung-Yi Lin, Director of Corporate Relations Committee
While the first degree was earned in Taiwan, the latter two were from the United States. This education background made Charles a true internationally trained engineer. Before permanently moving from Taiwan to the Greater Vancouver Area in 2009, he had accumulated more than a decade of practical engineering experience from a wide range of industrial sectors, including semiconductor, steel manufacturing, aerospace, and computer-aided engineering. Specializing in structural finite element analysis, during his career Charles also took on different engineering roles ranging from R&D, technology development, technical support, consulting service, to production. As a newcomer in Canada, Charles was determined to continue his engineering career. He started by taking advantage of the government-sponsored Skills Connect for Immigrants program and has worked closely with his career counsellor on job search and labour market research. He also put significant effort in the registration process with APEGBC before he actually arrived in B.C. As of the time he was elected to a new Director of SITE BC, Charles was still in the transition of his Canadian career endeavour. However, he wished, by volunteering himself to SITE BC, he could help more internationally trained engineers who called B.C. their new home to continue their engineering careers, as he had intended to do.
Jason Masau, Director of Carreer Development Committee Even though he had been in Canada for 8 years as an international student from Malaysia, he is facing the difficulties like all internationally trained engineers to start his career after receiving his permanent residence in spring of 2009. After graduation, he decided to move to Singapore and started his career with two large multi-national corporations. At Philips R&D, he was an Electronics Design Engineer for a year developing power modules used in all Philips brand televisions globally. He was later offered a promotion internally to be a Quality Project Leader for 2 years overseeing all the quality aspects of new product introductions. He then ventured into the semiconductor equipment manufacturing for 2 years as a Project Engineer with ASMI and later resigning to relocate back to Canada. As he now actively looks for employment, he hopes he can also help other internationally trained engineers by serving with SITE BC as a board member. He is now happily married and has a newborn son. Arthur Brociner, Director of Membership Committee
He has since worked mainly in design, but also in R&D and QA for several companies, in Romania, Israel as well as in BC, Canada. After he immigrated to Canada in 2004, Arthur has also taken a CAD Technology program at BCIT and he got his Associate Diploma in 2007. Since 2007 he is working as a Mechanical Design Engineer for Dependable Turbines Ltd., a small company which develops, designs and manufactures small hydro- electric turbines, to produce clean energy. Arthur began to attend the meetings of SITE BC in 2005 and soon became a member of this organization, having realized that only united together we might be able to improve our chances to make our potential abilities known to the public and to overcome barriers, so that we could easier gain access to employment in our professions. Having been helped to find and become employed in his present job, Arthur believes it is only fair for him to volunteer his time and resources for SITE BC, to help other new immigrant ITEs in their own quests for professional employment.
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An experienced electrical engineer, Jairo got recently his Professional Engineering designation with APEGBC. After getting extensive experience in the operation of large electrical power systems in one of the largest transmission utilities in South America, he got his MSc from the former UMIST, an academic institution merged today to the University of Manchester in the U.K.
Claudia has a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. She has 7 years of experience in development and leadership of industrial automation projects. She developed projects from initial concept (hardware and software specification) through programming, testing, commissioning, start-up and documentation. She has programming expertise in the following applications: Controllogix, SLC500, Factory Talk View SE, RSView 32, Intouch, Wizcon, iFix and Panel View Plus. She has worked in several industry sectors, such as Food, Chemical, Pharmaceutical, Oil and Gas, Utilities and Paper. 
Charles received his B.S. from National Tsing Hua University, M.S. from State University of New York at Buffalo, and Ph.D. from North Carolina State University - all degrees in Mechanical Engineering. 
A dedicated and enthusiastic electrical engineer, Jason received his Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. 