Province honours former Summerland woman
Brenda Martens, a former Summerland resident who has consulted on construction projects in Penticton, has been appointed to the Order of British Columbia for her work on sustainability in the building industry.
The order represents the highest form of recognition the province can extend to its citizens, and recognizes “those persons who have served with the greatest distinction and excelled in any field of endeavour benefiting the people of the province or elsewhere.”
Appointments to the order are made by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council (cabinet) on the recommendation of the advisory council. In its summary, the council cited Martens’ work on some of B.C.’s largest projects, such as the athletes’ villages, as well as some of the more modest, including BC Housing residences across the province. Some of the local projects that Martens and the green building company she co-founded have worked on include the renovation of the Penticton Community Centre’s aquatics facility and the Jim Pattison Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation at Okanagan College, considered to be one of the greenest buildings in North America.
Also noted by the advisory council were the “extraordinary lengths” that Martens has gone to in order to reduce her personal environmental footprint.
To participate in the 2013 World Masters Games in Italy and avoid carbon emissions associated with flying, she took six days to cross North America from Vancouver to Wilmington, South Carolina, by train, 11 days to cross the Atlantic on a freighter as the only passenger with a crew of 24, and another week to cross Europe by train (with stops) from Antwerp, Belgium, to the games in Torino.
Martens has received national recognition with the Volunteer Leadership Award from the Canada Green Building Council in 2013, and was named a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design fellow in 2012 — one of only 10 Canadians and 226 individuals worldwide to be so honoured at that time.
She graduated from Summerland Secondary School in 1983 and continued her education at Okanagan College for two years, then finished her degree at UBC (B.Sc., physics).
During university, she worked for the BC SPCA and the BC Tree Fruits Cooperative, among other summer jobs.
The other recipients of this year’s Order of B.C. were: Deborah Abbey (New Westminster), David Anderson (Victoria), Domenic Cuccione (Coquitlam), Brian Fehr (Prince George), Anne Giardini (Vancouver), Tracey Herbert (Brentwood Bay), Andrew Way Yin Joe (Vancouver), Grand Chief Percy Joe (Merritt), Mary Kitagawa (Delta), George Melville (Peachland), William Millerd (Denman Island), Brian Minter (Chilliwack) and Carey Newman (Sooke).