Management Team

John Gocek, President CEO                                                                                                                                                          John Gocek is a C-level executive offering 20+ years of hands-on experience in general management, accounting, manufacturing operations, corporate finance, investment and international banking, portfolio and treasury management, IS/IT and management consulting. Proven executive, well-rounded General Management for Manufacturing, Private Equity and International Banking. Advocate of performance-based metrics and web-based management systems. A mentor, skilled at coaching others to understand the organization’s needs and to act constructively. His education in honors economics at McGill University in Montreal (’82), Management Associate training on Wall Street (’85), and years of professional development have lead to roles of increasing responsibility in finance, business strategy, and executive management including CEO of a public company and co-founder and CFO in a multinational SOX regulated manufacturing corporation.

Ahmed Hirani, P. Eng., V-P Sales
Ahmed Hirani joins the Sofame team from Direct Energy Business Services Ltd. where he held the position of Director of Technology Solutions & Sales.  He brings strong sales leadership and energy technology expertise to the organization.  Prior to his posting at Direct Energy, Ahmed was co-owner of BASE Controls Ltd., a leading independent Canadian building automation system and energy management company, where he assisted in growing the organization to being a leader in the delivery and implementation of emerging open systems, web-based technologies.  In 2004 he and the management team of BASE Controls successfully concluded the sale of BASE Controls to Direct Energy.  Ahmed has over eighteen years of experience in helping commercial and industrial customers innovatively reduce their energy consumption and lower their operating costs.

Luc Mandeville, Eng., V.P. Technology and Research                                                                                                             Luc Mandeville is co-founder of Sofame and served as its President for over 20 years. He has been involved in every patent creation developed by Sofame. He is an owner in every one of these patents. Graduated from “École Polytechnique” of Montreal in 1973 in Industrial Engineering, he worked for 10 years in the water treatment field for Degremont before starting Sofame. Mr. Mandeville has developed markets in North America and Europe for Sofame products since the Company’s founding in 1984. He has over 25 years of experience in the energy field.

Rami Shehabi, Director and President Sofame International                                                                                               Rami Shehabi has significant experience as an international energy advisor. After graduating from York University in Oil Economy, he acted as Vice-President for Soffimat Europe, Vice-President for Environmondiale, President of Blue Mountain Investments and Advisor and International Consultant on energy for SNC-Lavalin and Hydro Quebec International. He was also a lobbyist on behalf of oil companies in the Middle-East. He acted as President-CEO of Sofame Technolgies Inc. from 2005-2007 and is now president of Sofame International.

Richard T. Groome, Chairman                                                                                                                                                 Richard T. Groome is Managing Partner of Notre-Dame Capital Inc. His expertise stems from financing small and mid-size emerging growth companies. Prior to starting this business in October 2005, he was Senior Vice-President of Strategic Capital from January 2003 through September 2005 and Senior Vice-President of Institutional Equity Sales from August 2001 to January 2003 at Desjardins Securities, a Quebec-based firm. Richard has been in the financial industry for more than 20 years at such firms as Groome Capital (his own firm), Marleau Lemire Securities, Sprott Securities and Levesque Beaubien Geoffrion. He has a BA in Economics from McGill University. Mr. Groome has actively managed or participated in over 400 financings representing some $4 billion of small cap financings. Mr. Groome is very active in numerous philanthropic projects, most notably underprivileged children in Montreal and Peru in addition to the World Wildlife Fund

Douglas C. Robertson, Director                                                                                                                                            Douglas Robertson has been a member of the Québec bar since 1963. His expertise lies in international taxation, mining and resource law, banking and financial law, securities law, mergers and acquisitions, derivative and securitized transactions. He was Counsel to the European Banking Federation at the time of the revision of the Canadian Bank Act. In 1985 he was retained by Montreal Stock Exchange to act as a special consultant on tax and regulatory issues. In 1996 he was retained by the IFC of the World Bank to draft a securitization law for the Kingdom of Morocco. This draft was enacted in 1999. He was later appointed foreign law expert to Asian Development Bank PRC economic law reform project and was invited in 2006 by the Bank to serve as a foreign law expert for the study of an asset-backed securitization law for China.

Fahim Samaha, P.Eng., Director
Mr. Samaha is the Chairman and CEO of the SOFFIMAT SA, which is a Paris-based private corporation active in energy conversion and power generation in Europe for the past 20 years.  Mr. Samaha is an electrical engineer trained at AUB and Berkeley, and co-founded Soffimat in 1988.  Soffimat has participated as either contractor, operator, owner or promoter in power projects representing over 1.4 gigawatts of installed capacity of different energy technologies, including gas turbines, gas and diesel engines, microturbines and thermal energy recovery systems. Since 1998, Mr. Samaha has been actively developing Soffimat’s strategic focus on renewable energy and innovative concepts to save energy and increase fuel efficiency.  He has personally championed the development of over one hundred megawatts of biogas and biomass power plants as well as environmental friendly public transport vehicles, including an electric car called Bi-Scot, the first electric vehicle certified roadworthy in France.  Mr. Samaha has also concluded the acquisition of over two dozen businesses and has built an extensive business network across Europe in the energy field.

Kébir Ratnani, Engineer, M.Sc, Director                                                                                                                                     Kébir Ratnani has over 30 years experience in the natural gas, electricity, windmill and energy sectors. He owns 13 patents related to natural gas, petrochemical and environment technologies and has concluded numerous cooperation agreements with different governments among Algeria, Cameroun, Gabon, Kenya, Tunisia, Senegal, Libya, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Malaysia, Vietnam as well as, Pakistan and France. In 1991 he directed the setting up of the Natural Gas Technologies Centre, a research organization associated with Gaz Métropolitain, Gaz de France, Brooklyn Union Gas, and Osaka Gas. Since 2000 he was directing Business Development at SNC-Lavalin for Africa and the Middle East and was responsible for all water, power and infrastructure projects including ports, airports and roads.