Staff profile: Meet Greg Newby

Note: Greg passed away on October 21, 2025. Read the memorial post.

eServices for Citizens is a unit within ICT. We lead the design and delivery of the government's digital services. At any given time our team consists of 10 to 12 employees who share a passion for working with clients from across the government so we can deliver digital services that to are simple and fast and strive to improve the user experience.

We’ve been talking about releasing staff profiles for a couple of years and Greg volunteered to be among the first so we’re starting with him.

Joining eServices for Citizens

Greg joined the eServices team in 2020. He moved from L’Amable, Ontario with his wife Ilana and their sled dog team in the midst of a pandemic!

Greg’s official title is Project Manager. He describes his role as “planning, deployment and maintenance for a variety of citizen-facing online government services.” Like everyone on the team his role extends to a multitude of projects. Some of Greg’s notable projects to date are:

• his work on ushering in the government’s identity program now known as MyYukon;
• supporting the delivery of a variety of digital services and websites in the role of Service Delivery Manager;
• taking the helm and leading initial work on service modernization which has led to implementing platforms to create online forms; and
• he’s taken a leadership role and helped to streamline our team’s approaches to procurement and working with vendors. 

Awards

Since 2020 Greg has been both nominated and the recipient of multiple awards. Two that come to mind are the Deputy Minister Awards for our department (Highways and Public Works) and the Premier's Award of Excellence and Innovation.

Deputy Minister Awards

In 2024 Greg was part of a team that took home the Deputy Minister Award for Group Service Excellence. This award recognized the team's delivery of the Online Marketplace digital service. 

Premier's Award of Excellence and Innovation

In 2022 Greg was part of the team awarded the Premier's award of Excellence and Innovation for their work on the COVID-19 Proof of Vaccination digital service. Representing the team at the award ceremony from left to right: Premier Sandy Silver presents Greg Newby, Lyndsey Beale and Dianne Hart with the award.

Going above and beyond

I knew Greg was a great addition to the team when he did the following.

He was in charge of monitoring the team’s inbox and a senior had emailed asking for help to use MyYukon to access a digital service. We looked at the problem this person was having and we could not figure out the solution. Greg reached out to them and set up a time he could come to their home and help them in person. So he drove to their home, and watched as the person tried to access the service on his tablet. Greg instantly spotted what was happening and he helped them complete their task. He also brought his observations back to the team so we could improve the service to make it easier for other people to use.

Workplace health and safety

Greg is our team’s health and safety lead. He volunteered to take on this role without hesitation and in a matter of weeks he had brought the office up to snuff and whipped us into shape. Our team has never felt safer with Greg on the job!

Put me in coach!

A lot of people might not know that Greg is also eService’s unofficially official beach volleyball team captain! Our department has an annual staff barbecue and beach volleyball tournament. Greg is always the first to put out a call to get everyone out at lunch to practice before the event. 

Chef’s kiss

Greg is also known for his delicious vegan potluck dishes – especially the breakfast scrambles he brings to the annual staff Christmas breakfast! 

Work life balance

If you’re looking for Greg during lunch hour you better have a good pair of running shoes. No matter the weather – he’s probably out for a run. He’s really dialled in the whole work/life balance!

Personal life

Enough about Greg’s work biography – let’s get to the interesting material! Spoiler alert – it involves countless dogs, being famous and lots of running!

Sled dog rescue kennel

Greg and Ilana run a sled dog rescue kennel located in Whitehorse near Lake Laberge. It’s called StinkyPup Kennel and they have no shortage of adventures on their training runs or races like the Yukon Quest 100! We highly recommend you check out their blog!

Project Gutenberg

Another interesting thing about Greg is that he has been part of Project Guttenberg since 1991. Project Gutenberg started in 1971 when Michael Hart typed the “US Declaration of Independence” on a mainframe computer at the University of Illinois. Greg worked with a Microsoft team to convert 1000s of electronic books to audio books. You can read his book, “Forty-five Years of Digitizing Ebooks: Project Gutenberg’s Practices” or watch this video produced by Microsoft in 2023. They sent a film crew from Seattle up to the Yukon to capture footage of Greg and Ilana. 

Relays and ultras and marathons oh my!

I mentioned earlier that Greg often spends his lunch hours out running. Well that doesn’t begin to describe just how passionate he is about staying active and competing! He has participated in numerous running races, marathons and ultras. Our team follows his progress on race websites so we can see how he's making out.

These are some of the Yukon races Greg has competed in since he moved here and I am sure this list is not exhaustive! You can read about his races on his blog.

The image below shows Greg at the finish line of the MontaneYukon Arctic Ultra race after running the 100-mile race.

Klondike Road Relay

The Klondike Road Relay starts on Friday night in Skagway, Alaska and ends in Whitehorse the following morning. The relay race is 109 miles. Greg ran the solo race which is around 45 miles. It starts around 6 am in Carcross, Yukon and finishes in Whitehorse. 

Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra

Greg has competed in the “100-mile” race from Whitehorse to Braeburn in 2024. And in 2022 and 2023 he raced from Whitehorse to Muktuk Kennel – a route that follows the Yukon and Takhini Rivers and is mostly ice! He got pulled from the race in 2022 due to frostbite on his foot and took away a lot of lessons learned to prepare for future races. 

This is a gruelling race and the racers have to be fully self-sufficient. They pull a sled called a pulk that holds all the equipment needed for them to stay safe and warm. Greg’s pulk weighs around 90 pounds! The photo below was taken my Ray Marnoch and shows Greg shortly after his start.

Reckless Raven

The Reckless Raven is a 50-mile race that starts and ends at the Mt. McIntyre ski area in Whitehorse. This race takes place in July and we recommend you read Greg’s blog post about it to learn all about the ups and downs.

Yukon River Trail Marathon

This is a popular marathon in Whitehorse that sees a round 100 people competing. It takes place in August and starts and finishes at Shipyards Park in Whitehorse. Greg has participated in this race several times.

Next staff profile

Around December/January we’ll post the next staff profile on Ash Mohandas so be sure to check back for that.

For questions about eServices staff profiles email [email protected].