Dave Beattie: Bridging community involvement & environmental compliance

January 2023 – For Dave Beattie, Environmental Specialist at the Cenovus Superior Refinery, making things better both at work and in his community comes naturally.  

Dave’s passion for doing great work has always spilled into his personal life—putting countless hours of his own time into volunteering, making huge impacts at local organizations in and around Superior.  

Through Cenovus Cares, our Employee Giving and Volunteering Program, Dave’s charities of choice have received thousands for his efforts.  

“After my son was born with a severe medical condition, our family received critical help from several organizations,” says Dave. “It’s truly amazing that there is so much support for families that need it, and it’s important to give back when you can. Cenovus’s support through the Employee Giving and Volunteering Program has been tremendous and I’ve been able to double my impact to organizations that need it most.”  

Dave and his family have organized fundraisers and community walks helping raise both awareness and funds for the National Kidney Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Northern Lights Foundation, Memorial Blood Centers and Donate Life. Dave also sits on the Northland Advisory Board for Memorial Blood Centers, which provides life-saving blood and technical expertise to those in need.  

Dave has spread his volunteer spirit to the Superior Refinery by spear-heading the refinery’s adoption of the Webster Dream Park, one of the City of Superior’s most popular outdoor spaces. Staff at the Superior Refinery now conduct regular team building at the park, doing annual maintenance so the community can continue to enjoy it.  

“I love seeing the team come together to accomplish great things, whether that’s environmental compliance work at the refinery or taking action to strengthen our community,” says Dave. 

Environmental work has always been forefront at the refinery—and continues to be a key piece of the safe restart of the facility, strengthening our commitment of further reducing our environmental impact. 

Over the past 23 years at the refinery, Dave has had a hand in all aspects of environmental compliance for the facility, including daily compliance verification, reporting, regulatory interpretations, permitting, and working with regulatory agencies at the local, state and federal level. Dave and his team’s work was instrumental in obtaining permits to rebuild the Superior Refinery.  

“Rebuild engineers, environmental consultants and our refinery staff came together to create a draft permit application, and we worked side-by-side with our legal team and regulators to ensure the application would be complete,” says Dave. “It was incredible to see the team’s monumental effort and collaboration across key work areas to help move the application forward and ultimately receive approval to allow construction to begin.”