Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy
Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, OMM, MSM, CD
Vice-Admiral (VAdm) Angus Topshee is the 38th Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). His diverse academic background includes military and civilian institutions on three continents. He has deployed in ships around the world and has accumulated countless sea stories involving pirates, sharks, terrorists, volcanoes, whales, fires, and all the other things which make life at sea a true adventure. The highlight of his time at sea was his far too brief command of Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Algonquin in 2009-2010 and, a close second, his three years in command of Canada’s Pacific Fleet. His shore postings include two tours in the Navy’s Strategy directorate as penance for all of his sea time, three years in command of Canadian Forces Base Halifax, and two years as the Deputy Director, Strategy, Policy, and Plans at NORAD and United States Northern Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs. He also deployed to Afghanistan for all of 2011 as the director of Afghan National Police Training within the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan. Over the course of his career, he has somehow been involved in Arctic issues at every one of his shore postings (except Afghanistan). Before taking command of the RCN in May 2022, VAdm Topshee had the honour and the pleasure of commanding Maritime Forces Pacific and Joint Task Force Pacific, located in Esquimalt, B.C.
VAdm Topshee’s career is enabled by his fantastically supportive wife, Audrey, and four tremendous daughters, Amy, Zoë, Charlotte, and Iris.
Commander Maritime Forces Pacific
Rear-Admiral Christopher Robinson, OMM, CD
Rear-Admiral Robinson grew up in Hudson Québec. He began his military career in the Canadian Army Reserves as a Combat Engineer serving in the 3rd Field Engineer Regiment in Montréal. He subsequently joined the Royal Canadian Navy and underwent Naval Warfare Officer training aboard patrol craft, mine-sweepers, and destroyers before volunteering for the silent service.
He served aboard the Canadian submarines Onondaga, Ojibwa, Victoria, Corner Brook, Windsor, and the British submarine Unseen. He was privileged to command Corner Brook between 2007 and 2009. During this command tour, in addition to normal fleet duties, Corner Brook deployed to the Canadian North for Operation Nanook and the Caribbean Sea to conduct a counter-drug patrol as part of Operation Caribbe. In recognition of its outstanding contribution to Canadian sovereignty, Corner Brook was awarded the Canadian Armed Forces Unit Commendation in 2008.
Rear-Admiral Robinson was appointed as the inaugural Commander Submarine Sea Training in 2011 and served in that role until 2014. He was delighted to be appointed as Commander of the Canadian Submarine Force and Commander 4th Maritime Operations Group in 2017 and relinquished the appointment two years later. Feeling fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve as the Commander Canadian Fleet Atlantic between 2021 and 2022, he was appointed Commander Maritime Forces Pacific & Joint Task Force Pacific in May 2022.
His ashore assignments have included the Joint Command and Staff Programme at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, the Naval Command College at the United States Naval War College in Rhode Island, and serving three times on the Naval Staff, initially as the Submarine Requirements Section Head, next as the Director of Naval Requirements, and most recently as the Director General Naval Force Development.
Rear-Admiral Robinson is a graduate of the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Submarine Command Course, the United States Navy’s Submarine Command Course, and the Royal Australian Navy’s Submarine Executive Officer Course. He holds a Master of Business from the University of Ottawa, a Master of Defence Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada, a Bachelor of Commerce from Concordia University, and a Certificate in Fire Service Leadership from Dalhousie University.
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Commander Canadian Fleet Pacific
Commodore D.E. Mazur, OMM, CD
A native of Kitchener Ontario, Cmdre Mazur enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces on completion of High School, completing his Basic Officer Training in Chilliwack, BC in December 1988.
Following training ashore and at sea, Cmdre Mazur went on to specialize in Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), in HMC Ships Skeena and Gatineau.
After instructing ashore, and fulfilling various sea going positions, Cmdre Mazur was posted to the West Coast to join HMCS Regina as the Operations Officer for a deployment to the Middle East. Successfully challenging his Command Board during this period, Cmdre Mazur was employed in the Pacific Coast Fleet Staff, before returning to sea in 2006 as the Executive Officer in HMCS Vancouver.
In 2007, he was promoted to Commander, and after a short period in MARPAC HQ, he was posted to Canberra Australia to attend the Australian Command and Staff College, where he also completed a Master of Maritime Studies from the University of Wollongong. Upon graduation, he and his family were posted to Ottawa where he served as the Senior Staff Officer Maritime in the Canadian Special Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) Headquarters.
Cmdre Mazur returned to the Navy fold in January 2012 and assumed Command of HMCS Vancouver. After a short but intense 18 months of sailing, he relinquished Command of the ship and assumed Command of Sea Training Pacific. In May 2015, Cmdre Mazur assumed the duties of N3/J3 in MARPAC/JTF(P). In September 2016, Cmdre Mazur was posted to Ottawa as the Director Strategic Plans within the Strategic Joint Staff. In 2018, Cmdre Mazur was posted to Halifax, where he spent the next two years as the commander of Canada’s largest Base.
Most recently, Cmdre Mazur graduated the year-long National Security Programme designed to prepare selected military, public service, international and private-sector leaders for future leadership responsibilities.
Promoted on completion of the NSP course in June 2021, and supported by his wife and two sons, Commodore Mazur will assume Command of Canada’s Pacific Fleet based in Esquimalt.
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CFB Esquimalt Base Commander
Captain (Navy) K. Whiteside, CD
The Commander, Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt is the institutional head of the Pacific Naval Base in Esquimalt, British Columbia.
Captain(N) Kevin Whiteside was born in Scarborough, Ontario on 12 March 1979. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1998, graduating in 2002 from the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. He was first commissioned as an Infantry Officer but medically transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in 2004. He is a father of three awesome children, and married to his life partner, Lesley Whiteside, an elementary school teacher in Victoria, BC.
Since joining the Fleet in 2005, Kevin has served on many different ships in his roles as Frigate Navigator, Fleet Navigation Instructor, Deep Draft Navigator, Operations Room Officer, Operations Officer Sea Training (Pacific), and in his various Command roles. His operational experiences span the globe and many of the missions in which the Royal Canadian Navy participate, including Operations Altair, Artemis, Active Endeavour, Caribbe, Projection, Reassurance, and Neon.
Kevin’s Command level appointments have included Executive Officer (XO) HMCS Winnipeg (October 2014 – May 2016), XO Sea Training (Pacific) (June 2016 – December 2017), Executive Secretary to the 35th and 36th Commanders of the RCN (January 2019 – December 2020), and most recently, Commanding Officer, His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Vancouver (January 2021 – February 2023).
Kevin has a Masters in Military and Defence Studies from the Australian National University and is a graduate of the Australian Command and Staff College. His amazing family has been active members of the Greater Victoria community for over 15 years. They look forward to furthering their involvement and strengthening their relationships with the community as they enter this next stage of their journey.
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RCN Chief Petty Officer
Chief Petty Officer First Class T.A. Lizotte, MMM, CD
Chief Petty Officer 1st Class (CPO1) Thomas Lizotte was born and raised in Saint John, N.B. In 1983 he joined Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps Rodney where he obtained the rank of chief of the corp. He completed the summer employment program with Saint John’s Naval Reserve Division, Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Brunswicker in 1988, and remained with Brunswicker for a year. In June 1989, he enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces as a Marine Engineer. He attended St. Lawrence College in Cornwall, Ontario, where he obtained a technologist diploma in Marine Engineering with the Marine Engineering Technician Training Plan.
He has served 15 years in the following: HMC Ships Margaree, Fraser, Charlottetown (twice), Anticosti, Halifax (twice), Toronto and Montréal. His shore postings included: Canadian Forces Naval Engineering School’s damage control school as a fire field instructor, Maritime Forces Atlantic (MARLANT) with the Nuclear Emergency Response Team (twice), Fleet Maintenance Facility (FMF) Cape Scott as Technical Service Supervisor for the Mechanical Engineering Team, and Fleet Diving Faculty as Chief Engineer and Fleet Technical Authority Unit at FMF Cape Scott, where he also served as the East Coast Advisor for the Marine Engineering Occupation.
CPO1 Lizotte’s major deployments include: sailing with HMCS Fraser enforcing UN sanctions against Haiti between October 1993 and March 1994. On September 2, 1998, he sailed with HMCS Anticosti in support of Swissair flight 111. In January 2001, he sailed with HMCS Charlottetown as part of the United States Ship Harry Truman battle group with the Task Force Arabian Gulf to enforce sanctions against Iraq. Following the devastating 9/11 attacks, he sailed with HMCS Charlottetown in the fall of 2001 with the Task Force Afghanistan for Operation Apollo. In 2008, he was posted as the Chief Engineer Room Artificer aboard HMCS Halifax, and sailed to Haiti after the earthquake in January 2010.
In December of 2010 he was admitted to the Order of Military Merit. From August 2012 to July 2013, he completed second language training at Shearwater. N.S.
CPO1 Lizotte attended the Royal Military College from September 2013 to May 2014 where he completed the Non-Commissioned Member Executive Professional Development Program. In January 2015, he was appointed as the Coxswain of HMCS Montréal. In May 2016, he was appointed as Coxswain of Sea Training Atlantic where he had the privilege of working with all of the East Coast crews and two West Coast crews. From August 2018 to May 2019, he completed second language training at Shearwater.
In May 2019 he was appointed as the Fleet Chief Atlantic, and on June 5, 2020 assumed the responsibilities of Formation Chief Petty Officer for Maritime Forces Atlantic and Joint Task Force Atlantic. On June 2, 2022, CPO1 Lizotte was appointed the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) Command Chief Petty Officer, the most senior non-commissioned member position within the RCN.
CPO1 Lizotte is happily married to his wife and they have four children. His hobbies include spending time with his family, boating, snowmobiling, and travelling.
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Formation Chief Petty Officer, Maritime Forces Pacific
Chief Petty Officer First Class Arvid Lee, MMM, CD
Chief Petty Officer First Class Arvid Lee was born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1991. He has had an extremely rewarding and successful career in the Royal Canadian Navy as a Naval Combat Information Operator (NCIOP) and within his new occupation, CPO1/CWO Corps.
Starting in 1992, upon completion of his QL3 course, his first posting was to Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Restigouche for a small time prior to being posted to HMCS Yukon until decommissioning in 1993. A mariner at heart, most of his career has been at sea, conducting several operational deployments to the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, South-America, Atlantic and Indo-Asia Pacific. His missions included enforcing United Nation sanctions against Iraq, counter-terrorism operations in the Persian Gulf region, two deployments to South America to operate with the Chilean, Peruvian and Ecuadorian navies, participated in piracy disruption patrols in the Arabian Sea and Operation Projection and Operation Neon in 2018 where he participated in exercises with allied nations and United Nation sanctions against North Korea.
One of his most memorable highlights in his career include being a member of the commissioning crew of HMCS Calgary, circumnavigating the globe and taking HMCS Calgary on the first deployment overseas as a young Leading Seaman in 1995. He finally had the honour of returning to HMCS Calgary between 2017 and 2019 serving as the Coxswain.
CPO1 Lee has occupied positions ashore, including Senior Instructor at Canadian Forces Fleet School Esquimalt (CFFS(E)), a French Language student in 2013 at the Language Training Division (LTD), Personnel Coordination Center (Pacific) (PCC(P)), Honours and Recognition Coordinator for Maritime Forces Pacific and Joint Task Force Pacific (MARPAC/JTF(P)).
Away from the military, CPO1 Lee is extremely active within his community participating in local events within their community. Between 1995 and 2000, CPO1 Lee saw the need and seized the opportunity to provide sports for children within the local military community. Starting a Little League Sports program and coordinating his efforts with several outside agencies, he was able to provide Soccer, Softball and T-Ball for the military families within the western communities of Victoria. Since 2006 he volunteers as a Foster Parent and Respite provider where he and his family open their home to help families whose children and adults have developmental disabilities.
In 2018 CPO1 Lee was invested into the Order of Military Merit. He assumed his current role as Fleet CPO in April 2021. The success of CPO1 Lee’s career could not have been possible without the support of his wife Lisa and their three children Alexandria, Kaleb and Meghan where they all currently reside in Langford, BC.
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CFB Esquimalt Base Chief Petty Officer
CPO1 S. Frisby, CD
CPO1 Susan Frisby just took over the role of Base Chief of CFB Esquimalt in August of this year. Honoured to have this opportunity she looks forward to continuing her career working once again on the Base side as a member of the Base Command Team. She also recently assumed the role of military co-chair of the Addictions Free Lifestyle Working Group and looks forward to working alongside some great teammates within the group to enhance and enable everyone’s education surrounding the many ailments of addiction and supporting one another.
Throughout her 25 year career she has spent much of her time throughout the fleet and is now looking forward to this posting opportunity to continue to support the entirety of the formation and RCN, while not forgetting the individuality of our sailors.
Passionate about people she is a huge advocate of acknowledging the link between our physical health and our mental health – they go hand in hand, and everyone should continuously take the opportunity to focus on the importance of this link. We all need community and building a community of support through family, friends and peers is part of taking care of oneself and each other – it takes a village to do what we do.
Supported throughout her career by her active and equally as busy husband, they have two amazing children, Mackenzie (13) and Jaxson (10) and enjoy spending time together either at the pitch (soccer and/or rugby), the river or just chillin’ at home with the rest of her “village” finding the joy in the simple things..
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Biography