Paz Buttedahl

In 1998, Buttedahl launched VIA Vancouver Institute for the Americas, a Global Education arm at UBC operating in partnership with the Vancouver Institute Lectures program, to support research on Human Resources Development and Training Programs for worldwide implementations. VIA Vancouver Institute for the Americas assisted programs under the umbrella of UNESCO and CIDA, also participated in large multinational Educational Reform implementations.

Buttedahl and Knute worked together at the Canadian Association for Adult Education (now the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education) in Toronto, Ontario, until moving to Vancouver in 1978. She would eventually return to Ontario in the mid-1980s becoming project manager and program director for the IDRC International Development Research Centre while Knute worked with CIDA the Canadian International Development Agency conducting and implementing projects world-wide on international development and global education, mainly in Latin America and Asia. They would return to Vancouver in the late 1990s.

In 1978, Buttedahl moved with her family to Vancouver, BC, Canada, taking an academic position at the Faculty of Education, at UBC (University of British Columbia). In 1980, while working in academia, she co-founded with Knute, a non-government-organization (NGO) to provide services in Global Education to developing countries, they launched BRDA Buttedahl R & D Associates, an R&D firm which published adult education material and international development reports centered in sustainable education, integrating academics and field research working across borders, in multi-cultural and multi-lingual settings, cutting across multiple time zones, ensuring smooth transfer of new knowledge and technology to other groups or departments involved in innovation and Global R&D management. BRDA was based in Vancouver BC, providing consultancy services in research, editing, and publishing to projects funded by international agencies and organizations, among their clients included the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Organization of American States (OAS).

While teaching at the school, Buttedahl became the holder of an international scholarship with the help of the church and moved to the United States to produce a television program for Latin American children that focused on current affairs promoting staying in school. Her project was successful in the US, and she had the opportunity to obtain a university scholarship from Florida State University in Tallahassee, earned her doctorate in adult learning and international development and met her second husband, Dr. Knute Buttedahl. In 1975 they moved to Toronto, Ontario with her two children from her first marriage to Cesar Ascui of Santiago, Chile.

Paz Buttedahl (April 8, 1942 – October 8, 2007) was a Canadian former professor at University of British Columbia and Royal Roads University, a researcher and educator specialized in global education and international development issues. She was married to Knute Buttedahl, and was the co-founder and President of Buttedahl R & D Associates (BRDA), Vancouver BC; also founder and Director of VIA Vancouver Institute for the Americas with a main campus in Vancouver BC and an overseas campus in Santiago, Chile. Buttedahl was a member of the World Academy of Art and Science and participated with the Peacebuilding Commission.