Our Team
LGen (ret'd) Guy R. Thibault, CMM, MSC, CD
Chair of the Board
Former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff
From 2011-2013 he served in as the first Canadian Chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board an entity of the Organization of American States. He concluded his military service as the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff serving three years as the second in command of the CF and was responsible and accountable to the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Deputy Minister to coordinate and direct strategic programs to ensure defence policy and strategic objectives were achieved.
VAdm (ret'd) Mark Norman, CMM, CD
Vice-Chair (Sea)
Mark Norman retired from the Royal Canadian Navy in the rank of Vice-Admiral in August of 2019 after over 39 years of service.
Norman started his naval service as a reserve diesel mechanic in 1980 and rose through the ranks to be the Vice-Chief of Defence. His military career has seen him serve at sea domestically and internationally, command a warship, the Canadian Atlantic Fleet, and ultimately the Royal Canadian Navy itself. He also has extensive experience in a variety of appointments training & educating sailors, leading operations, strategic planning and managing major procurement projects.
Since retirement, Norman has applied to energy to a variety of pursuits including as Champion for the Royal Canadian Benevolent Fund, Senior Defence Strategist at Samuel Associates, contributing to the important debate about security and defence issues in Canada as both a fellow with the Global Affairs Institute and as a member of the Conference of Defence Associations Board. In his spare time, Mark loses golf balls, skis, and continues perfecting the art of safely crashing his mountain bike.
MGen (ret'd) Michel Lalumiere, CMM, CD
Vice-Chair (Air)
MGen (ret'd) Steve Noonan, CMM, MSC, CD
Vice-Chair (Land)
Major General (Retired) Steve Noonan, CMM, MSC, CD, served 36 years as a Combat Engineer officer in the Canadian Forces. At the time of his retirement, he was serving as the Deputy Commander of the newly formed Canadian Joint Operations Command responsible for all operations conducted worldwide and within North America and Canada.
MGen (retd) Noonan has commanded at all levels, highlighted by the command of all Canadian troops in Afghanistan from August 2005 until March 2006 where he was responsible to ensure the orderly transition from stabilization operations in Kabul to combat operations in Kandahar. His command opportunities culminated as Commander Canadian Operational Support Command where he developed expertise in logistics, communications, engineering and signals support to deployed operations. In addition, he has served in senior staff positions, including the Chief Operations Officer (J3) for the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, where he was responsible to coordinate day-to-day operational level activities for all operations conducted outside of the North American perimeter.
MGen (Ret’d) Noonan gained significant expertise in defining joint and army requirements while serving as the Commanding Officer of the Canadian Forces Warfare Centre where he was responsible to ensure the delivery of joint, operational level doctrine, lessons learned, experimentation and training support. In addition, his experience as the Director General Information Management Operations allowed him significant insight into the newly emerging Cyber Warfare domain.
On retirement, MGen Noonan (retd) joined CFN Consultants where he continued to assist in defence related activities by providing strategic and tactical advice to defence industry in order to ensure the right capabilities were being procured by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Steve resides In Kars, ON where he continues to play some hockey, play a little golf, does a lot of fishing and provide fatherly and now grandfatherly advice and assistance when requested.
Cmdre. (ret’d) Andre Siew
CDA Board Member
Andrea L. Siew served 28 years in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a Naval Intelligence Officer. She is a graduate of the University of Ottawa (Bachelor of Political Science) and the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College.
Throughout her career in the CAF, she has held a wide variety of challenging positions in various operational and strategic headquarters’ staff. This included Wing Intelligence Officer, Naval Intelligence Analyst, Command Intelligence Officer, Intelligence Requirements Manager, Deputy Director of Strategic Analysis, and Intelligence Branch Advisor. As Intelligence Branch Advisor she had the privilege to meet with the men and women of the Intelligence Branch from across the CAF serving at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. In this capacity she was engaged in addressing complex intelligence issues impacting the future of the Intelligence Branch.
In 2002, she was promoted to the rank of Captain (N) and appointed Director of Quality of Life responsible for the policy and program development related to Canadian Forces families, care of the injured, quality of working life initiatives, morale and welfare programs, and living accommodations.
She retired from the Regular Force in December 2003 and re-enrolled as a Reservist in October 2005. She was promoted to Commodore and appointed Director General Military Signals Intelligence at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) until her retirement in 2008. During this appointment, she provided mission-critical advice and strategic support to CSE and Defence Intelligence focused on Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) for both conventional and special operations including SIGINT support to the Afghanistan mission.
Since 2008, she continues to be a passionate advocate for ill and injured CAF members, Veterans and their families, having led the Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command Service Bureau network, and provided policy advice to the National Association of Federal Retirees. Since 2015 she has worked worked as a senior policy advisor with the Office of the Veterans Ombud (OVO) where she led strategic research teams. Areas of work included transition to civilian life, analysis of financial benefits, support to families, and mental health. She led the joint Military to Civilian Transition project between the Ombud’s Offices of the CAF and OVO, which provided for the first time ever an end-to-end analysis and mapping of the transition process from still-serving to post release. She was also the lead author on the Mental Health Treatment Benefits for Family Members in Their Own Right report, a groundbreaking report on care for family members and assisted with the most recent Sexual Dysfunction report.
As a volunteer, she is the Chair of the Legion’s Defence and Security Committee, a Director on the Legion National Foundation, the annuitant member on the Canadian Forces Pension Advisory Committee and a member of the Women Veterans Research and Engagement Network (WREN).
She is also very proud to support and advocate on behalf of members of the defence intelligence enterprise as a Past-President of the Canadian Military Intelligence Association and is honoured to have been appointed the Intelligence Branch Colonel Commandant in June 2020.
LCol (ret'd) Murray Beare
CDA Board Member
Murray Beare CD joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a member of the 26th Field Artillery Regiment, RCA in Brandon, Manitoba. In 1980 he graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Royal Military College of Canada and was posted to the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery in Germany. The next posting was back to the prairies with the 3rd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery followed by advanced studies at the Royal Military College of Science – Shrivenham, United Kingdom. Major Beare was then posted to Ottawa, Ontario and assigned to the Directorate of Land Requirements (DLR) before taking over as Battery Commander, D Battery, 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery which was tasked with the Allied Command Europe Mobile Force (Land) (AMF(L)). He attended the Australian Staff College in Queenscliff Australia in 1992. On completion, he was posted to Director Force Structure, Chief of Force Development in National Defence Headquarters, Ottawa, Ontario, where he supported the VCDS and Acting CDS in both Program Review I and II.
LCol Beare retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 1997 and spent the next 5 years employed as an IBM Canada Consultant. In 2002 he started up his own firm, Murray Beare Consulting Ltd as a Senior SAP Consultant and then Enterprise Architect until retirement in 2018.
He is married to Leslie Horwitz Beare and has two sons Graeme and Craig. His main hobby is cycling
Major (ret'd) John B. Page
CDA Board Member
John was born a Royal Canadian Army Service Corps (RCASC) Army Brat, and has continued through Army Cadets, transferring to the Militia on 06 Jan 76 with 28 (Ottawa) Service Battalion. On completion of CEGEP, John transferred to the Regular Force in August 1979 and after training in Chilliwack and Gagetown, was posted to Supply Company, 2 Service Battalion, SSF in Petawawa on time for RV81. John received an accelerated promotion to the rank of Cpl and was selected in May 1984 for University Training Plan for Men (UTPM – Now known as UTPNCM) at Collège Militaire Royal in St-Jean.
Graduating in May 1987, concurrently commissioned into the Logistics Branch, and posted to 4 Service Battalion, Lahr, West Germany; with subsequent postings to Northern Ontario Militia District Headquarters, in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario; 1 Service Battalion, Calgary including a 7 month deployment to United Nations Protection Force in Zagreb, Croatia; Headquarters, 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group as the G4 Supply and G4 Operations; Promoted to the rank of Major in April 1999, John assumed command of Base Supply, CFB Edmonton and within six months had transformed into Supply Company,1 General Support Battalion. The battalion then formed Task Force Bosnia-Herzegovina’s National Support Element for Roto 7, where John deployed as the Deputy Commanding Officer. Following the deployment, he was posted to Headquarters 1 Area Support Group, Edmonton as the G3/Operations Officer on time for 9/11 and the deployment of 3 PPCLI Battle Group by air into Kandahar and the concurrent formation and deployment of the first ever Strategic Line of Communication (SLOC) Unit based in Doha, Qatar.
In 2003, John was selected to be the Deputy Commanding Officer of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Logistics Battalion (UNDOF LOGBATT) on the Golan Heights. John remained outside Canada as the first Canadian NATO Logistics Staff Officer, Joint Logistics and Support Command of the Hungarian Armed Forces in Budapest until August 2007. John was then posted to Canadian Operational Support Command (CANOSCOM) in Ottawa and employed on the NATO support and Force Planning portfolio of the Operational Support Transformation Directorate. In 2009 John received a late posting to CFB Wainwright as Deputy Base Commander, returning to Ottawa with ADM(Mat) in 2012 and secondary duty as National Military Co-Chair of the Defence Advisory Group for People with Disabilities.
John retired from the Regular Force in April 2016 after more than 40 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, and is now a Public Servant with DND; originally with the Vice-Chief of Defence Staff’s Carling Campus Project and currently with Assistant Deputy Minister (Policy) as Training Officer, Jamaica, Caribbean and the Americas. He is the National President of the Royal Canadian Logistics Service Association and President of the 33 Service Battalion Association.
He is married to Maryanna Hemming of Ottawa, they live in Stittsville with cats Lucy and Kitten plus “Sammy” the dog.
