Dr. Milton McClaren, a resident of Kelowna, is one of the youngest recipients of the Order of Canada in Canada. Dr. McClaren was for a long time an associate professor and director of field relations at the Simon Fraser University School of Education and, according to an article, “spent three decades as an honest education critic, technology advocate and internationally renowned environmentalist.” McClaren was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada “as a pioneer in environmental education and a pioneer in the technological development of distance education in British Columbia,” according to a description of his accomplishments on the Canadian Governor’s website. He was one of 85 people in all of Canada to receive the award this year. Although now retired, McClaren says it is not over yet. “There is still a lot to be done,” said McClaren, who spends the summer teaching at the Summer Institute in Environmental Education in Kelowna, as he has done every July for the past 27 years. He will then teach a course on global climate change at the Institute for Global Change in Aspen. Among his many accomplishments, McClaren is the founder and director of the Kelowna Telecommunications Center and co-designer of the Southern Interior Telecommunications Project, a forerunner of the Provincial Government Network.
