Captain Marc-André Poisson is a part-time administrative judge (member) at the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada. He is the former Director of Marine Investigations at the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and immediate past Chairman of the Marine Accident Investigators’ International Forum.
His career spans nearly 4 decades, including responding to emergencies, disasters, and command-at sea. He has developed and taught the Canadian Coast Guard’s first on-scene commander course for major disasters. He also taught IMO model courses in Africa and at the IMO International Maritime Academy in Trieste, Italy.
From 2000 to 2008, he was involved in the response to every major disaster or catastrophic event in Canada. As senior policy advisor or director in the federal government, he was able to see the impacts and failures of government and industry. He participated in developing policy, memoranda to Cabinet and coordinating national responses, an eye-opener, he says, on the complexities of preparing, preventing, responding, and recovering from disasters, natural and human made.
Marc-André Poisson has a wide range of public speaking experience, including national spokesperson when he co-led the implementation of Canada’s first anti-terrorism and anti-gang maritime patrols. He has been called upon to provide keynote addresses, speak at international conferences and has given live and recorded interviews to most major media outlets in Canada, and abroad.
He holds a master’s degree in marine policy from the University of Wales, Cardiff, and completed undergraduate studies in natural and social sciences in Canada and France. He has done doctoral studies where he started to craft the outline to Whodunit, motivating him to finish the book in lieu of seeking another degree. He has many other publications to his credit, both fiction and non-fiction, and has received the Exemplary Service Medal, the Canadian Coast Guard’s highest award.