Country Coordinators

Mark Brettenny

Mr. Mark Brettenny, Chairman of the GLOBE Africa Consortium represented the 22 member nations of the GLOBE Africa Consortium as representative of the GLOBE International Advisory Committee (GIAC) from 2008-2010.

Mark Brettenny was a driving force behind the GLOBE Learning Expedition in Cape Town, South Africa, in June 2008.  Formerly the Country Coordinator for South Africa and representative of the GLOBE International Advisory Committee (GIAC), Mark completed his under-graduate education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town. Having started his career in Marine Engineering in the Naval Dockyard in Simonstown, and then as a design draughtsman and project manager at a Cape Town steel construction and engineering firm, Mark began to feel pulled toward the education field and took a job designing a community uplift development program. Later he held a high school teaching post in Namibia where he was subject head for various technology subjects, computer literacy staff development and curriculum development before returning to South Africa to teach Design and Technology and Computer Literacy. He became involved with GLOBE in 1997 while working for the Ministry of Education, shortly after the signing of the GLOBE / South Africa bilateral agreement occurred between former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, and former Vice-President of the United States, Al Gore.

Mark served as a GLOBE teacher trainer in Nigeria and Uganda and represented South Africa at the first GLOBE Learning Expedition in Helsinki. His GLOBE activities continue to occupy most of his professional and leisure time. Mark has developed various models for implementation and sustainability and has presented them on various platforms throughout the world. He is currently working on the GLE Legacy project for eradication of invasive species of plants, and developing the first draft of the Invasive Alien Plant Protocol along with Dr. Rico Gazal from Glenville State University, in Glenville, West Virginia USA.

When not working, Mark enjoys spending time with his wife Rogeline, an Atmosphere Master Trainer, and his teenage son Leigh-Roy and daughter Macaila on the Garden Route, in the second mildest climate in the world.

Mark also owns a construction company and is actively working on the redesigning of cost efficient housing for the poor and needy. The designs will later be introduced to all of Africa.