About
Our Team
We are a group of enthusiastic Do-It-Yourselfers who take pleasure in sharing and helping spark creativity! While the idea of a tool library is not new, it is the first one in Ottawa. Below is the management team of the OTL, but there are dozens of passionate volunteers, advocates and supporters working hard to make it a success. Want to join? Click here to volunteer.
Meet the Team
Our Management Team
Bettina
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Bettina has been honing her skills as a community connector over the last years with a keen interest in sustainability, social innovation, and meaningful experience, Bettina is also the tool goddess of the library. She is an avid knitter and fibre artist who loves to create with her hands and has a particular interest in sharing skills and passing on knowledge as she believes that continuous learning makes life interesting.
Jim
Jack of All Trades
Architect, IT Guru, and sometime poet. If learning is out there, Jim wants to know it. He cannot recall when he first held a tool. It was surely before he started at school. Born of a teacher/librarian and engineer, It’s no great surprise that he wound up here. If not leading a workshop or revising this page, you might catch him performing on some local stage.
Kevin
Tool Wizard Coordinator
Kevin is a life-long maker and fixer who discovered the Ottawa Tool Library as a consequence of donating a friend’s tools at the request of his widow. One visit was all it took, and a few months later he joined the OTL as a Tool Wizard before accepting the role of Wizard Coordinator. His career is in high-tech telecom manufacturing quality – an environment of far-flung travel and long-distance email and conference-call relationships – and he loves the OTL for its fellowship and for providing the opportunity to deal face-to-face with its wonderful and enthusiastic members.
Kevin spends his spare time trying to catch up on home and property maintenance, travelling, fixing things, reading, and cooking. Stop by for a muffin.
Ben
Financial Magician
While never intending to be a jet setter, Ben is doing just that, commuting (not daily) between Ottawa and Canmore, Alberta. Ben is an avid outdoor sportsman who loves doing anything involving a bike, boards or hiking boots. Ben loves the challenge of anything new and will keep the tool library in line financially as our bookkeeper. Ben’s favourite tool is a screwdriver, just don’t ask him which is a Robertson.
Bob
WorkSpace Coordinator
Bob has been volunteering with the OTL for several years, first as a Tool Wizard and more recently as our WorkSpace Coordinator. Bob is an expert craftsman and a passionate advocate for safety. He is responsible for designing the space as well as creation and delivery of our WorkSpace safety courses.
Cliff
Chief Tool Doctor
Cliff can often be found in our Tool Hospital, fixing broken tools or assessing new donations when he’s not improving the layout or functioning of the library or providing expert advice.
Brian
Donation & Recycling Coordinator
Brian coordinates the triage of donations with our Tool Doctors, ensuring that all tools are quickly assessed for safety before being placed in our inventory. Moreover, he sets surplus tools aside for our programs or prepares them for sale. Anything that isn’t serviceable he and the team disassemble for recycling. As a passionate cycling advocate, Brian does this all on his trusty bike!
Stéphanie
Outreach & Events Coordinator
Stéphanie is merging her woodworking passion with her professional skills of training delivery and event facilitation by offering fun and judgment-free classes at the OTL. She has hosted and facilitated many meetings, training courses, and even drag shows throughout her life. Stéphanie will be using those skills to host a variety of events in the community, represent OTL at different markets in the Ottawa area, and boost our exposure in general.
Ottawa Tool Library
Our Tool Hospital
Our Tool Hospital is named after our friend, volunteer and first Tool Doctor, Phil – we called him “Dr. Phil”. He was involved almost from the outset, as we cleaned tools in a church garage in 2015. Once we had a space, he spent hundreds of hours erecting walls, building and rebuilding shelves to accommodate our growing inventory, cleaning and maintaining tools, teaching and quizzing many of us about what they were and how to use them. Phil in his ‘Canadian tuxedo’, his minivan and later his Vespa scooter were all fixtures at the OTL.
Phil passed in 2019, but not before making an indelible impression on the OTL and our community. His absence from the OTL is deeply felt, but his memory lives on in the OTL. We renamed his beloved Tool Hospital the Dr. Phil Yang Memorial Tool Hospital in his memory and affixed a plaque so that every visitor knows his incredible contribution to the OTL. We miss you, dear friend. Thanks for everything.