Our Team

Ken Friesen has practiced in the area of estate, trust, and corporate litigation for over 25 years. He has a proven track record of success at both the trial and appeal court levels and through mediation. In addition to cases involving capacity, undue influence, trust law, and wills variation, Ken often handles matters involving difficult family dynamics in family business succession.

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Ken has been actively involved in commercial real estate development in British Columbia and Washington state for over 20 years including resort development, restoration and repurpose developments, and residential and office building development and management. He is past president of the Pacific Centre for Discipleship Association (the Menno Simons Centre) and is the founding chair of MCC Legacy Trust and was on the board for MCC BC for over 10 years.

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Ken serves on a number of boards, primarily charitable and some political. He is the proud father of four children, is a surfer, backcountry skier, and was VanuFC soccer coach of the year in 2018.

Wayne has been the Executive Director of MCC British Columbia since 2007 and has served with MCC in various roles since 1996 including Program Director and Human Resource Director. In the late 1980s Wayne served as the Director of Development & Communications for Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) Canada. In the mid-1990s he lived with his family in Nicaragua while serving with Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) as an advisor to programs that support small farmers and small family businesses as a means to alleviate poverty.

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His work with international relief and development has taken him to over 25 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Wayne has served as a Board member of several non-profit organizations and for-profit boards with experience in strategic planning and governance. He was the founding Board Chair of Community Futures Development Corporation of South Fraser that fosters small business growth, and Positive Living Fraser Valley which provides care for those who live with HIV/AIDS.

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Wayne has a degree in Business Administration from Trinity Western University and International Development degree from the University of Toronto. His home church is Highland Community MB in Abbotsford. Wayne and his wife Diane have been married for over 40 years and have two adult children, Sara and Jonathan.

After graduating from Trinity Western University, Tim has spent his career working in the residential construction industry. Tim is the President of Redekop Kroeker Development Inc., a real estate development company based in Richmond, BC.

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Tim and his family live in Surrey, BC. Tim was a former MCC BC board member and is a member of North Langley Community Church where he and his family have attended since 2004. Tim was also a long-time volunteer at MCC's Festival for World Relief in Abbotsford and served on the Relief Sale Committee for 12 years.

Albert grew up and was educated in Germany. He graduated as an Engineer and received a M.Sc. and later a Doctoral degree from the Technical University of Aachen, Germany. After having been an Assistant Professor for six years and thereafter being employed by a large conglomerate as manager for technical applications, he immigrated with his family to Canada where he started a new life. Here he founded several technology corporations, and has been involved in many volunteer organizations as director in Vancouver and Prince George. He has been the president at Rotary, the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, as well as at the German Canadian Congress, and received many awards.

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From 2011 to 2018 Albert was a Councillor of the City of Prince George and also was for nine years the Honorary Consul of Germany responsible for all of Northern BC. Based on the many Community Contributions, Albert was named and celebrated as 2019 Citizen of the Year in Prince George.

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Albert and his wife Jutta have two children and five grandchildren. He also is the author of 30 publications and has recently written a book about his life transformation from Germany to Canada.

Phoebe is a Professional Engineer with over twenty years of project development and implementation experience from both public and private sectors. Phoebe recently joined the Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp), a provincial crown agency with a mandate to deliver major capital projects on behalf of the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Phoebe currently serves as Director of Integration for the Pattullo Bridge Replacement Project, responsible for the engagement strategies to support collaborative relationships with stakeholders and partners to ensure project success. Prior to TI Corp, Phoebe spent seven years at TransLink’s capital project department; recent experience includes the development and government funding application for the Expo and Millennium Upgrade Program (EMUP) to expand Metro Vancouver SkyTrain network over the next 10 years.

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Phoebe’s connection with the Mennonite Brethren community started when she attended the South Vancouver Pacific Grace MB Church in 1998, where she met her husband, Lawrence Cheung. Lawrence currently works as a clinical chaplain at St Paul's hospital in downtown Vancouver. Phoebe and Lawrence are members of the Killarney Park MB Church and live in North Burnaby with their two children, Erin and Wesley.

After University, Bruce began his business career as the sales manager for a construction and development firm. He moved into the property management field in 1986 and founded Baywest Management Corporation in 1988. At the time of its sale in 2012, Baywest was Canada’s leading residential property management firm with 620 buildings in its portfolio. He is currently involved in the glass industry and land development.

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Bruce has served on church and camp leadership teams and is currently on the board for International Justice Mission, the MCC Legacy Trust Board and the business advisory board at TWU.

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Bruce lives in Abbotsford BC with his wife Sylvia. They have 4 children and 7 grandsons. The Friesens love to entertain, travel, and serve God wherever they find themselves.

Chris is the President and CEO of the Hazelwood Group of Companies. Hazelwood is made up of several different operating companies which includes civil contracting, welding and fabricating contracting, natural stone production, residential construction, and various property developments. He graduated from Royal Roads University with a Bachelor of Commerce in 2005. He finished his CPA, CGA in 2009. After being the CFO of the Hazelwood Group of Companies, Chris was asked to fill in his current position as President and CEO in 2012.

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In years past Chris has been a member of the board of Elders at Saanich Baptist and was on the board for Mission San Quintin. He is currently on the board of Loaves & Fishes Food Bank.

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Chris and his wife Kelsey live in Nanaimo. They have three young children.

Gerry was a Chartered Professional Accountant and Chartered Accountant (CPA, CA) with experience in public practice as well as executive experience in the construction, transportation, and forest products industries. He had also lectured in accounting at Douglas College as well as serving on educational committees at the college and in the accounting profession. He had a BA degree in Mathematics from Fresno Pacific, a Mennonite college in California.

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Most of his career was with Interfor Corporation, a North American forest products company where he held a number of senior positions including Corporate Secretary and Chief Financial Officer. Throughout his career, Gerry had also been active in church work, serving as treasurer and board member in several Mennonite churches including two that were church plants.

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In his retirement, Gerry had kept in touch with the financial community by serving on several pension and benefit boards in the waterfront Industry.

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Gerry Friesen passed away on October 13, 2022. His grace, kindness, intellect, mischievous sense of humor and unswerving commitment to properly stewarding the gifted properties will be missed by us all.