George Lessard is trained and has experience in media facility management, video production, photography, radio production, computer graphics, desktop publishing, educational audio-visuals, journalism, print production, and mass media.

His most recent full-time job was at Northern News Services Limited in Yellowknife Northwest Territories where he co-ordinated, processed and edited all the editorial photography for this publishers seven newspapers for three years.

From 1999 to 2004 he was the Media Specialist for the Nunavut Department of Education where a great percentage of the work that he did for the Department over four years was the design and page make-up of print publications for distribution to Nunavut schools and the shooting and editing of educational videos in both English and Inuktitut.

As a freelance media consultant and trainer, George's recent contracts have included advising the Photo Studio of Yudin Andrey Nikolaevich in Chelyabinsk, Russia on studio management, hardware, web presence and international marketing; a series of workshops on Photoshop and for the Conseil de développement économique des TNO / NWT Economic Development Council (CDETNO) in Yellowknife & Hay River, NWT; Youth Photographer Mentor for the 2008 Arctic Winter Games in Yellowknife NWT; programming consultant for Radio Illimani, the Bolivian national radio network in La Paz, Bolivia; Digital Journalism Trainer for Media Action International at the National University of Rwanda, Butare as part of a UNESCO journalism training project; in Orissa, India, he documented the work of a rural Indian NGO whose over 200 staff members and field workers who worked with the “tribals” of Orissa on housing, health, sanitation and income generation projects.

Prior to his work in India, he was in Beijing, China where he worked as a copy editor and polisher for the China Daily Group of publications on the 21st Century a “... semi-official...” weekly for English learners in the universities across the mainland.

In August of 1992, George completed a two year contract as a lecturer in journalism & communications teaching photojournalism, electronic news gathering, small group communications and business communications at the College of the Bahamas in Nassau, the Bahamas. While in the Bahamas, George also produced television commercials for broadcast on ZNS, the Bahamian national TV network and several documentaries on Bahamian culture for other clients.

Prior to his College of the Bahamas contract, George was in Canada's western Arctic teaching a short course in basic video production at Arctic College, Inuvik Northwest Territories and was also contracted, for 12 months to teach all aspects of television production and facility management at the Inuvialuit Communications Society. Earlier to his work in the NWT, he was also contracted to Taqramiut Nipingat Inc. of Salluit, Nunavik (Quebec) as a radio / TV production & management trainer where he taught all aspects of media production, scripting, construction and content & management at an Inuit owned and operated broadcast centre.

In 1985, George was a presenter at the Annenberg School for Communicaion, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, United States of America.

George has also produced over 2 years of weekly news and public affairs stories on the politics of aboriginal issues, senior citizen concerns, and their related topics.

From 1974 to 1976, while managing the audio - visual workshop facilities of Vanier College's Snowdon Campus (about 95 teachers & their students) in Montreal and teaching student crews (30 people) media production, George produced instructional media in consultation with the College's faculty. This body of work included a 15 hour series of plays for the drama department and an other series featuring Ashley Montague and Desmond Morris as guest lecturers.

In 1987, the narrative video RUMBLESPHINX, co-produced with fellow video artists Robert Hamilton (of Edmonton) and Dave Clark (of Calgary) won Le Prix Radio-Quebec from Quebec's educational television network at the Quebec International Festival of Young Cinema and Video and the Award of Excellence from the 10th Tokyo Video Festival.

As a professional media artist, George has been a member of Canadian Artists' Representation / Le Front des Artistes Canadiens [CARFAC]; Producteur, Realisateurs, Independante de Montreal [PRIM]; and the Association of Independent Film & Video [AIVF]. As a communications professional he has been a member of the International Association of Business Communicators [IABC].

His productions have been seen in Tokyo, Japan; Madrid, Spain; Leicester, England; Brooklyn, NY, USA; San Francisco California, USA; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Seattle, Washington, USA; New York, NY, USA; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada.

He has presented digital animation and video print workshops as a visiting artist in Vancouver, Banff, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Inuvik and Rochester N.Y., New Delhi & Orissa, India.

George was the Artist-in-Residence for the month of in February of 1988 at the Visual Studies Workshop of Rochester, New York. This residency at that post-graduate program was funded both by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Endowment for the Arts.

In 1978 / 1979, while managing the volunteer program and training the volunteer crews for what was then Canada's largest community access facility, Roger's Cable TV Metro Toronto Channel 10, originating (at that time) an average of two hours per night went live to air & another 30 minutes of original taped programming. George provided the production staff for the live & pre-recorded broadcasts.

His involvement in the teaching of mass media dates to the early 1970's & the Radio McGill community broadcast licence application to the Canadian Radio Television Commission.

George uses PC/Windows and Macs to write, edit and design in the print media and for preparation of budgets for his productions with a spread sheet program; he prepares project proposals, scripts, tape logs and the like with word processing programs; tax, other accounting, invoice, purchase order & inventory lists are taken care of with the office programs he operates.

George is a self-starter, who can be task or objective oriented & is motivated to help others create.

He is able to work independently and / or take direction.

He is flexible; evolutionary and well organized with demonstrated leadership skills.

He is naturally inquisitive & trained to be perceptive and experienced with a variety of cultural & ethnic realities.

As a successful self-employed freelancer George has a wide range of media management and production skills.