Board of Directors

Our Team

President

Samuel Tam

Sam Tam has been servicing the vape industry since 2013. He holds the position of Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Pacific Smoke International. Pacific Smoke is a global distribution company with international partners and vendors in over 30 countries. He is an active participant in advocacy for the vape industry, his team lead by Sam was responsible for developing the CVA guidance document for Vaping Products Labelling and Packaging Regulations to help assist the vape industry in navigating the regulatory requirements under the Vaping Products Labelling Packaging Regulations (VPLPR). Sam’s commitment to regulatory compliance helps ensure the industry meets the regulatory standards outline by Health Canada. Sam is also a member of the standards technical panel for Underwriter’s Laboratory UL 8139 which its key responsibilities is to develop safe vaping products that meet all the electrical systems requirements for consumer safety.

Vice President

Charles Pisano

Charles Pisano, CVA’s current Vice President has been a CVA member since the organization’s founding. Charles currently runs the e-liquid production facility at VapeMeet Inc. – one of Canada’s premier vaping companies with retail locations across Ontario and a GMP/HACCP/ISO 9001:2015 lab at the forefront of the industry.

Treasurer

Shaun Casey

Shaun Casey was the founding Director and creator of the CVA in 2014. Since then he has served the CVA as their Treasurer, Vice President and 2.5 years as President and Chair to the Board. A current elected Director, he is also a chief advocate with Health Canada for the Board’s government relations committee. Shaun has again accepted the role of board treasurer. Shaun also sits on many USA and international advocacy boards. He is North American CEO and global partner in Flavourart, the largest global flavour house specializing in vape flavouring. He lives in Niagara, Ontario with his family where his N.A flavouring manufacturing site is also located.

Director

Shai Bekman

Shai Bekman is the Founder and CEO of Dash Vapes Inc. Dash Vapes is the leading online and Brick and Mortar retailer with 12 locations in Canada servicing more than 100,000 clients and processing 50,000 orders on a monthly basis.

Director

Robert Burnaccioni

Robert Burnaccioni has been a CVA member since 2015 and joined as director of the Canadian Vaping association in 2020. In 2015, Robert founded 416 Vapes Inc, one of Canada’s premier manufacturing and distribution vaping companies with the goal of ensuring that Canadians looking to quit smoking by vaping had quality eLiquid available to them. It was important to Robert that he and his team were creating safe products and built an accredited GMP/HACCP/ISO 9001:2015 lab located in Barrie, Ontario. It has always been important to him to support advocacy in Canada, and the organization’s strong position on advocating for fair and equitable vaping in regulations in Canada is something that he would 100% get behind. Robert is looking forward to working with the Communications Team and supporting them in getting that message across to regulators and Canadians. The message is clear, vaping isn’t smoking and it should never be regulated the same.

Director

Danielle Chesney

Alt Vape is an Alberta-based vape retailer founded by Danielle Chesney and partners. The company opened its first Calgary location in late 2017 and has since expanded across the province, with stores in Calgary, Cochrane, Lethbridge, and Edmonton. Alt Vape is dedicated to safe and informed distribution of vaping products and is an industry leader in age-gating best practices. Alt Vape first began testing Patronscan’s age-gating software in 2019 and has since implemented the software at all locations across Alberta, as well as altvape.ca. Rather than web users having to simply input their birthday to enter Alt Vape’s eCommerce platform, a practice easily skirted by minors, shoppers are required to scan their authentic government-issued ID using their smartphone. This provides a viable and secure form of age-gating, that helps to prevent minors from accessing age-restricted content.
“We want the government to see that our industry can be part of the solution,” says Danielle Chesney, CEO of Alt Vape. “While we can’t monitor or police anything outside of our walls and digital storefronts, and we know nothing is foolproof, there are significant steps we can take ourselves to drastically reduce exposure of our products to minors. As an industry, we should be collectively taking action to protect our businesses and our communities.”

Director

Kevin Cox

Co-Owner and Co-Founder of Cloud Haven E-liquids and Cloud Haven Labs inc. We began our journey in 2016, when we first incorporated and began wholesaling our products to vape shops. Driven purely by our passion for vaping, as it helped us quit smoking for good and we wanted to share that experience with others as well. We began our journey in Red Deer Alberta and eventually found ourselves building our facility in Saskatoon SK, where we currently reside. Dedication to quality products manufactured in a state of the art facility, we strive for excellence in everything we do and we are passionate about advocacy and supporting responsible and reasonable regulations, to ensure that consumers have access to the greatest tobacco harm reduction products available, while keeping these products out of the hands of minors.

Director

Jason Flynn

Jason Flynn is the CEO of Vape Escapes 2 locations in the Niagara Region since 2014 CEO of Refined Liquid Labs. Since 2019 but e-liquid manufacturer since 2016 Comfortable and experienced speaking to politicians, delegates and the press. Protested and demonstrated at countless events from Ottawa to Washington.

Director

Mike Smider

Mike Smider is the co-founder of Queen City Vapes in Regina, SK. In addition to being Board Member, he is also the CVA’s Regional Chair for Saskatchewan. After quitting a 20+ year smoking habit with vaping, Mike left his IT job in 2014 to open Regina’s first vape retailer, and has been a strong advocate for the success of vapour products ever since. Queen City Vapes has been voted Regina’s Best Vape Shop for 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Director

Eden Sorrell

Eden Sorrell is the CEO and co-founder of Theravape, an
ISO9001-accredited e-liquid manufacturing company that was founded by
healthcare professionals in 2013. Theravape has two retail stores and e-commerce. Eden learned the meaning of hard work in the Alberta oil sands, and then a 180 into ICU nursing, prepared Eden for a 7-year marathon of never-ending external threats to his business in the vape industry and a crash course
in politics. Now enrolled in the Asper MBA program, he is excited to
sharpen his tools for whatever challenges lay ahead.