A decorated retired Canadian Forces Medical Services (now the Royal Canadian Medical Services) officer, his military and civilian careers have focused on: evacuation and emergency services including both military and civilian (public health) disaster preparedness and response, cancer prevention and care, occupational health and safety, community health services, e-health and services for the physically challenged.

He is an advocate of holistic health, health promotion and wellness in the workplace. He has a bachelor degree from St. Patrick's College of Ottawa and Carleton Universities which includes theology and philosophy credits. He has post graduate credits in hospital administration subjects from Baylor University in Texas and a Master in Health Services Administration degree from the University of Alberta. A past Fellow of the Royal Society of Health, he is a Serving Brother in the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. Active in several charitable causes at local, provincial and national levels, he has held senior management roles in government and in both institutional and non-institutional settings.

He has directed a multi-service regional children's centre and a regional cancer centre. He has been the chair of a regional board of health, the chair of or a participant on several provincial task forces. He held founding leadership roles in the creation of the assistive and mobility devices programs in Ontario. He advanced smoking prevention bylaws, health services restructuring and women's breast screening in Windsor and Essex County. He helped restructure the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation, now Cancer Care Ontario. He was the Founding Executive Director of the former Ontario Natural Resources Safety Association responsible for developing, promoting and delivering health and safety programs, products and services to the mining, forestry and pulp and paper firms and their workers in Ontario.

Until September 1998 he was the Chief Executive Officer of the Victorian Order of Nurses, Hamilton-Wentworth Branch and Foundation. The Branch operated a home care visiting nursing program with 800+ daily visits, an adult day centre and a variety of regional programs such as palliative volunteer visiting and meals-on-wheels utilizing 1,700 volunteers. Until October 1, 1997, the VON Hamilton-Wentworth also managed the regional home care and placement coordination services with a monthly caseload of about 8,000 patients and an operating budget approaching $50 million.

Before and since leaving the VON, Mr. Connors was the President of ChilCana Consulting Canada, specializing in change management and in the transfer of health services and health and safety information, and of related organizational and management skills. For nearly 20 years he was the Canadian and U.S. representative for Chile's largest health mutual, the Asociacion Chilena de Seguridad. He was the Coordinator for the former Telehealth Innovations Group (TIG), an association of independent consultants serving the telehealth services, research, development and strategic partnering needs of corporate clients in the broader telehealth/telemedicine/telenursing and "e-health" arena.

Among his many activities, he assisted firms with marketing health care and occupational health and safety products and services in South and Central American countries with an emphasis on Chile. He was a founding but no longer an active board member of the former Telehealth Association of Ontario. He was the first and only Canadian to sit on the Board of the former USA based Inter-American Safety Council, that served the occupational health and safety needs of Latin America.

Essentially retired now, he will sometimes accept particularly interesting, meaningful and rewarding assignment challenges.

(2015-12-31)