Philip is a licensed professional engineer (electrical), LEED AP. In 1996, he co-founded Powersmiths International Corp. where he is VP of Technology. Powersmiths is a clean-tech company with a long history of market leadership in ultra-high efficiency low voltage dry-type transformers, internet data center power distribution systems, advanced metering and Sustainability Management.
Philip has written and presented dozens of technical papers over the past 25 years covering efficiency and power quality, and received a national award for technological leadership in energy efficiency from Natural Resources Canada. He also sits on multiple professional and community advisory committees.
He volunteers on several committees in his community including Markham Environmental Advisory Committee. He is committed to wildlife preservation and owns 87 acres of provincially significant wetlands, and has signed a conservation agreement for 400 acres with the Couchiching Conservancy. He has both solar hot water and solar PV systems on his home, and is on his second electric car. He believes in leading by example and making a difference.
This place in Maitland is the opportunity of a lifetime – to be an enabler – to lead the restoration and transformation of an important part of Canada’s early days almost 200 years ago to playing a role for the next 200 years.
In August 2016, Philip was cycling from Markham, north of Toronto to Acadia in New Brunswick, and passed the Maitland Tower site with a For Sale sign. He mused that this would be the next place history would get bulldozed to make way for some new development and history would forget about this place. Then he realized that he could be the one to buy it and do the opposite – bring it back to life, honoring the past and taking it into the future. So by the time he reached the Atlantic ocean, he had bought the Maitland Tower property….
