Rod Anderson

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Hi. I'm Rod Anderson. What do I do? Well what I try to do is spend some time as a late-beginner composing music. But just at the moment a lot of time seems to be taken up with a new endeavour which, although my role in it is small and limited to organizational things, I believe to be extremely important. That endeavour is the creation and nurturing of a federally incorporated not-for-profit environmental organization: Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (Canada) Inc. / Écologistes Pour l'Énergie Nucléaire (Canada) Inc. EFN-Canda/EPEN-Canada was incorporated in February 2006. The organization is affiliated with an international organization (EFN-International) headquartered in Paris France and having some 8,000 members and supporters, throughout the world in 56 countries, on five continents.

Why is EFN-Canada / EPEN-Canada important?

Everywhere one looks in Canada today, environmental groups have a strong but, we believe, misinformed reaction against nuclear energy (Tom Adams, David Suzuki, Maurice Strong, etc. etc.). It is surely important to have a highly visible environmentalist group (visible to the Canadian public, to the media, and to Canadian politicians) that takes the opposite viewpoint. Since EFN-International already exists, how much better for this Canadian profile to be tied to an international movement!

Adding to the timeliness of this issue is that (a) the Nuclear Waste Management Organization [NWMO] has recently issued its Final Study: "Choosing a Way Forward" (from this page one can link to the Final Study, the Summary, or various other documents in pdf format) and (b) the Ontario Power Authority [OPA] has recently issued its Dec 9/05 Supply Mix Advice and Recommendations recommending maintaining and expanding Ontario's nuclear generation capacity (from the OPA page one can link to the Summary and Five Sections of the 1100-page report).

The "objects" of EFN-Canada are:

to provide complete and straightforward information about energy and the environment
to make known the advantages of nuclear energy, and especially the environmental benefits;
to bring together persons favouring the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes with respect for the environment and with proper management of nuclear waste.
to achieve its purposes through the publication of books, pamphlets and CD-ROM's; the conduct of lectures to the public; the participation in public and written debate; the contribution of scientific, technical, and generally educational communications to the press, to the audio-visual media, and to other publics; the creation, operation and maintenance of multilingual internet sites; and appearances at public and professional fairs and exhibitions.

For more information see our EFN Links page.

OK, but what else do I do?

Hey, you came here looking for a CV? Take your pick I've got three options for you (don't believe any of them):

My CV as a chartered accountant and consultant: In this CV I'll try to appear objective, rational, organized, and experienced.
My CV as a writer: In this CV I'll try to appear subjective, creative, digressive, and novel.
My CV as a late-beginner composer: In this CV I'll try to appear well tuned, yet structured, and in inner harmony.
Now really, is any of this very credible? Sounds like advanced MPD*. Or maybe some people just can't decide what to do.: Hey, maybe you can't either?

[* multiple personality disorder]

Apart from the CV stuff

I live in the country just outside Cobourg, ON, Canada -- on top of a drumlin we call 'SwallowHill' -- with my artist wife, Merike Lugus, and a successful dog (Laijka) plus four ruling cats (Kiisu, Cleo, Diva, and Tippy), the 5 of whom actually are the owners around here. To see the home-body persona, you can explore our SwallowHill site. To see the music or writing personas, you can explore the appropriate sections of our RodMer Arts site. As to the consulting persona, what can I say? It's not really advertised here -- unless you want to read about the search for a just relationship between wages and profits in the strange country of Ocandida and that might well put you off this consultant forever.

Career changes

My colleagues were very understanding when I switched careers. Some of their comments when my book of poetry Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow appeared in 1989 were:

Well it says poetry. But I don't see any rhyme. Reason either. More like little bits of prose chopped up in a random number generator.

And that's what he's been doing for six years?

Apparently. Let's see -- 50 poems times an average of 30 lines each, times 8 words per line . . . hey, that's one hour and twenty minutes per word!

Yeah, but his hourly rate is zero.

It's a good thing.

No, seriously, my colleagues at Clarkson, Gordon (now Ernst & Young) were very supportive. 'If this is what you want to do, then good luck.' There wasn't any of 'Are you OK? This condition can be treated, you know.' On the other side, there were new writing friends who said 'You must be glad to have left accounting; so boring, adding up all those numbers'. Wrong! First of all accountants don't add up numbers (most of us don't have the math skills -- or the patience). Secondly, life in the profession and in the firm was challenging and stimulating (analyzing systemic problems, the computer revolution, applying statistical sampling, and now audit innovation). Each year was different from the one before. Working with a large number of very bright people was a great experience. But this is the era of multiple careers. And switching lanes has been stimulating as well --and much easier (for me at least) than straddling several lanes at once (though some people seem to be able to do that).