Meet Our Leadership
Co-Founder and CEO - Rich Threlfall, P.Eng
Rich is the CEO and one of the founding members of the Housing Okanagan Foundation, and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Foundation, with a keen focus on bringing new housing partnerships and opportunities to the foundation and seeing those opportunities through the development lifecycle to create affordable homes for households in our community.
Throughout his prolific real estate development career spanning over 18 years, Rich has gained significant full life cycle Land Development and Construction experience from land acquisition, conceptual analysis and design, through municipal rezoning processes and construction. Rich has an engineering degree in Aerospace Engineering, however, has his Professional Engineering License in Civil Engineering, with a focus on Land and Real Estate Development. Rich also carries a Diploma in Urban Land Economics from the Sauder School of Business at UBC. That background, coupled with extensive real estate development and construction experience, allows Rich to bring a unique lens of project delivery that is holistic and deliberate in nature.
Project asset classes include multiple large master planned communities, multifamily buildings, and commercial projects in various municipalities across Western Canada.
Driven by a passion for innovation and desire to make a difference to the broader community, Rich has generated extensive experience in land development, management, and business and is an integral member of Housing Okanagan.
Co-Founder and Past Board Chair - Sabrina Polga
As a co-founder of Housing Okanagan, Sabrina has been integral in setting up Housing Okanagan for success. With over 16 years of real estate development and construction experience, Sabrina has led projects successfully through the entire project life cycle from sourcing land through to property management. Sabrina leads the Empacta team (www.empacta.ca), providing development management services as well as valuable support and advice to Housing Okanagan throughout the project lifecycle.
Sabrina has led billions of dollars of diverse development projects through complex development, construction and close out, assessing financial viability, navigating partnerships and approvals, while balancing scope, budgets and schedules through successful project delivery.
Sabrina is a Project Management Professional, with a Diploma in Urban Land Economics from the Sauder School of Business at UBC.