What is FogQuest?
FogQuest is an innovative, international, non-governmental, non-profit organization, which implements and promotes the environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable use of fog, rain and dew as sustainable water resources for people in arid regions of developing countries.
How FogQuest Started
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The frequent requests for projects to provide water in places where conventional sources such as wells, rivers and pipelines were not available, as well as the tremendous interest in the 1998 and 2001 International Conferences on Fog and Fog Collection, led to the formation of FogQuest. FogQuest was founded in the year 2000 by Sherry Bennett and Bob Schemenauer in response to these needs and has become actively engaged in projects and in fund raising since the completion of the second Fog Conference in July 2001.
FogQuest builds upon the experience gained in projects conducted since 1987, which, even with limited funding, had shown the viability and effectiveness of using fog collectors to produce clean water for people in the deserts of South America and Africa.
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How FogQuest Operates
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FogQuest is a not-for-profit corporation and must meet all requirements and standards for a business operating in the Province of Ontario, Canada. FogQuest also has the status of a registered charity with the Government of Canada. As a charity, it can issue receipts for tax purposes to Canadian donors. FogQuest is governed by a Board of Directors and has the advice of Advisors to the Board. The operations are managed by the Executive Director who reports to the Board. In turn, managers of specific sections report to the Executive Director. There are also a number of Research Officers who take on specific short-term tasks to develop core components of field projects.
FogQuest receives its operating funds from three sources: grants from institutions for projects; donations from individuals and corporations; and annual membership fees paid by individuals.
The short introductions below, to the volunteer staff of FogQuest, will not only let you know who is doing what but give you an idea of the expertise and experience we can bring to bear on solving water problems. A significant portion of the staff are based in Chile. Their language skills, intimate knowledge of Latin America and access to the region provide major benefits to the people served by our projects.
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Introducing the FogQuest Team
Board of Directors
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Tony Makepeace is a Toronto based photographer. He is a specialist in large format photography, exhibition black and white printing, custom toning, and historical processes. He has contributed articles to numerous magazines and holds part-time faculty positions at Humber College and George Brown College in Toronto. He has also served as a director of the Toronto-based Nepal Community Development Foundation since 1995. |
| Susana Sandoz has extensive experience in the development field. She is a water and sanitation specialist who was born in Peru, has worked for CIDA and is based in Ottawa, Ontario. She is strongly motivated to work on the human issues involved with educating and supporting the people who receive the benefits of the water projects. |
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Peter Schuepp is presently an emeritus professor with McGill University. He has a background in cloud physics and is an award winning scientist for his career in micrometeorology and natural resource sciences. He presently lives in Orillia, Ontario. |
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Rick Taylor is a chiropractor with a practice in Fonthill, Ontario. For the last four years he has been a tireless supporter and fund raiser for the fog collection projects in Nepal. His interests include developing technical innovations to improve different aspects of the projects. |
Advisors to the Board of Directors
| Elizabeth Dowdeswell is a former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program and Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations. She was also the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Atmospheric Environment Service in Canada and is now a consultant living in Toronto, Ontario. |
| David Phillips is perhaps Canada's most famous weather personality. He is a senior climatologist with Environment Canada and regularly appears on television and in the print media speaking on weather issues. He lives in Aurora, Ontario with his family and Winston the weather dog. |
| Ambury Stuart is the owner and principal scientist of Weather Research House Inc. in Toronto. He is an expert on analyzing large climatological data bases, is very active in the professional meteorological community and has been one of the prime promoters of private sector meteorology in Canada. |
Executive Director
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Robert Schemenauer is in charge of the operation of FogQuest. He has been working on water projects using fog collectors for fifteen years, was the Chair of the International Conferences on Fog and Fog Collection in 1998 and 2001, and has a broad background in the atmospheric sciences. He is currently lives in Toronto, Ontario and is also an emeritus research scientist with Environment Canada. Gardening, genealogy and traveling fill his spare time. |
Program Managers
| Bob Crawford is the Web Site Manager and is in charge of both the design and the updates to the site. He has many years experience in this field and works as a data manager for large field programs. He lives in Brampton, Ontario. |
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Mark Couture is the Financial Manager and looks after the in-house project accounting and inventory. He is based in Toronto. His background is in data analysis and technical support to field projects. |
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Pablo Osses is the Field Operations Manager. He is in charge of the design and construction of the fog collectors in both the evaluation and operational projects. He is also responsible for data analysis and field staff. He has worked on fog collection projects for ten years and lives in Santiago, Chile, where he is an Associate Professor in the Geography Department of the Catholic University. He is also part owner of a trekking and touring company. |
Field Operations Assistant
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Juan Luis Garcia will assist the Field Operations Manager in the analysis of data from field projects and in the preparations for field investigations. He is a geographer based in Santiago, Chile and has four years experience in fog collection projects in Chile. |
Co-op Students 2004
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Melissa Rosato is a student in Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo, which is near Toronto. She spent a four-month co-op term with FogQuest at the end of 2003 working on developing projects and partnerships in Latin America. She is back with us during the summer of 2004 working on fund raising and on the development of a new water project for Margarita Island in Venezuela. |
| Nicholas Arsenault is also a student in Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo. He came to FogQuest in the summer of 2004 to do field work on the new project in Guatemala. His six weeks in the Lake Atitlan area were very productive. He worked with the communities and individuals there and also with maintaining the small and large fog collectors that have been installed. |
Research Officers
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Pilar Cereceda is a professor in the Geography Institute of the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago and has been working on fog collection projects for over twenty years. She is an expert in the physical geography of deserts and in arid lands biogeography. She will assist in site evaluations, specifying suitable plants for projects and in water quality assessments. |
| Magdalena Edwards is a graduate student in the Geography Department of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She completed her under graduate degree in her native Chile on the community management issues associated with the fog collection project for Chungungo. Her graduate work focuses on these issues and she will assist with developing community management and support strategies for new project sites. |
| Martín Fariás is a professor in the Geography Institute of the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. His expertise is in remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems. He is presently assisting FogQuest with an examination of low cloud and fog occurrence in Haiti. This will be compared to the fog collection data on the Salagnac Plateau and used to assess potential new sites. |
| Philipp Hahn is based in Ottawa and is tasked to provide a data file on cisterns and reservoirs for use in field programs. He will also assist in the preparation of components of proposals. He is a retired foreign service officer whose career included service in Africa, Latin America and at international organizations. |
| Darrell Piekarz works in Toronto in the Environmental Conservation Branch of Environment Canada. He is developing a project proposal to use fog collectors to provide water for communities in the Lake Atitlán region of Guatemala. |
| Barbara von Igel is a student geographer in Santiago, Chile. She has participated in field projects for three years and presently is working on the planning and funding aspects of the expansion of the Padre Hurtado fog collection site in Chile. |
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Project Information
