Alastair is presently Manager of Economic Development and the Ottawa Valley Tourist Association for Renfrew County in Eastern Ontario, and has been there, first as Business Development Officer and then as Manager, for thirteen years. In this role he has been engaged in all aspects of economic, business and community development and management of Enterprise Renfrew County, the Small Business Enterprise Centre (SBEC) serving the County of Renfrew.

At Renfrew County Alastair is engaged directly in agri-business, forestry, wood processing, manufacturing, defence and security, aerospace, tourism marketing and broad-based investment attraction. As host to Canada’s single largest science and technology centre, Chalk River Laboratories (3,000 employees) of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Inc., he coordinated a major regional initiative, working with economic development partners across Ontario and Manitoba and in four US states, to ensure the retention of the nuclear-focused, but broadly based, science and technology hub at Chalk River Laboratories here in Ontario. He has worked with provincial, federal and international government representatives, is engaged in several of the Ontario East Sector initiatives and has a great appreciation for the hard, constant and creative effort required daily to deliver economic development to our communities, province and country.

He has also had fifteen years experience working in the tourism sector for Wilderness Tours, a major whitewater rafting and adventure company in Renfrew County and Mount Pakenham, a highly successful regional snowsport centre in Lanark County. And in the Ec Dev field he has also worked for eight years as Marketing Manager for the Ottawa-Carleton Economic Development Corporation in what was then the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton- now the City of Ottawa. This experience enables him to understand the economic development world from both a rural/small town and a big city perspective.