Dr. Paul Dagg, an accomplished administrator in psychiatric medicine, has been appointed chairperson of the Board of Governors for Thompson Rivers University. Jim Thomson, a Kamloops entrepreneur with 42 years experience in construction and development has been named its vice-chairman.

Dagg replaces Brian Ross as the new chair after serving as vice-chair since September 2013. He is currently Medical Director of Tertiary Mental Health at Interior Health’s Hillside Centre, a tertiary acute inpatient facility providing services throughout British Columbia. He also chairs the specialty committee in psychiatry of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and sits on the education committee which oversees all educational activities for the college.

Past roles with the Royal College have included serving as member and vice-chair of the examination board in psychiatry, and member of the accreditation committee where he became an experienced program surveyor for specialty medical programs in Canada. Dagg is also a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UBC, and was inducted as a member of the American College of Psychiatry in 2013.

Jim Thomson, CEO of Plainsman Construction Ltd., is the new vice-chair. An entrepreneurial success story, he started as an estimator with Plainsman before eventually becoming president and then buying the company in 1992. Thomson has served as president of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association, president of CHBA BC and Yukon, president of CHBA-Interior, chair and past-president of the New Home Warranty Program of BC and Yukon, and past chair of the Southern Interior Development Trust Initiative.

Each term is one year and may be renewed. The chair must be selected in September of each year.

Thomson joined the board in November 2014 and Dagg in November 2010.