Some people while away the workday daydreaming about their happy place. Not Kristin McPherson. The founder of Happyland Print Shop mixes business with pleasure — day and night.

As communications manager at urban nature preserve FortWhyte Alive, the 2004 Graphic Design grad spends her weekdays where other people like to spend their weekends. When she goes home after work, Happyland is there waiting for her.

Since 2012, the 33-year-old entrepreneur has been increasingly successful at minding her own business, designing and selling prints, tote bags, pins and patches that celebrate Winnipeg’s quirks and customs — socials and salami shoulder, perogies and “majestic” Transcona’s pink flamingos, to name a few.

But McPherson doesn’t want to give up her day job.

“It’s a great gig. The role I’m in now I’m kind of like a one-person marketing department,” she says.

“I run the social media accounts, so every so often I get to go out and take photos of seasons changing or the wildlife that’s out there. It’s really nice; it’s nice to start my day with a walk on our trails with my camera. It’s a pretty incredible place to work — I like to go to work every day. It’s like going to a cabin in the woods, basically.” Read More →

Arlin Conway is connecting the province to the planet.

As Enterprise Solutions Manager at NetSet Communications, a rural high-speed internet provider based in Brandon, Conway criss-crosses the province pinpointing the connectivity needs of rural companies.

Conway is coming up on four years with NetSet, starting at the company shortly after graduating from Red River College’s Business Administration program in 2012.

“My title, Enterprise Solutions Manager, means I deal with anything that doesn’t fall within the regular cookie cutter packages,” Conway says.

“In a case like Altona [Conway’s destination the day after he was interviewed for this story], we’re going down to an agriculture dealer who has multiple locations across the province. When that’s the case, they might have a server at their head office or in downtown Winnipeg, or for the services they provide they need to tap into a certain billing system or POS (point of sale) system, or the manufacturer for their mechanics might have to access a certain portal. We work to make it all as efficient as possible.

“The goal with me sitting down with them? It’s nice to get some face time in and get to know your customer, but it’s also to give them a rundown and go through the different things that we could help them with. Check off the boxes. Then we take a step back, come back to Brandon and figure out how we can do it. We figure out things like if they need symmetrical service, if they need transport service as opposed to internet gateway, all these different things. Then, we wrap it in a bow and present it in a proposal.”

Currently, NetSet Communications is in the final stages of upgrading its entire network to an LTE (long-term evolution) platform, adding 48 tower sites and 20 fibre breakouts to its network as part of the federal government’s Digital Canada 150 initiative. Read More →

Any experienced hotel guest knows the person who holds the room keys also holds the power to make or break your stay.

Kevin Dyck, the Front Office Manager at the Delta Hotel in Winnipeg, agrees it takes a certain personality type to hold down the front desk at a major hotel.

“You need to be warm and genuine,” he says. “The people that have success genuinely want guests to have a good stay.”

And the ability to make a connection with a guest during a two-minute check-in isn’t something that can be taught – not even in Red River College’s Hospitality and Tourism Management program. Dyck, who graduated from the course in 2005, says that’s one of the first lessons he learned at RRC.

“People were weeded out pretty quickly through the program, which is a good thing because the people that are truly committed to working in the industry were left. It’s not for everybody.”

Yes, there’s far more to the job than locating freshly laundered towels. Quick thinking and problem solving skills are essential when you’ve got a medical emergency, an overbooked hotel, a flooded bathroom, a broken elevator or unhappy guests on your hands.

“You have to be on your toes and be able to easily adapt because you never know what’s going to happen,” says Dyck.

RRC’s classroom and on-the-job training prepared Dyck – and nearly one-third of his current staff – for such situations. Seven of the 30 employees in his department are Hospitality and Tourism graduates, including Guest Service Agents Star Wang, Kira Clarridge and Claire Yu, Service One Operators Keunjoon Lee and Nina Shi, Assistant Front Office Manager Tiffany Tang, Yuan Chen, who works on the 12th-floor executive lounge, and, of course, himself. Read More →

A successful co-op placement gave Roy Polvorosa a head start in his career.

While attending Red River College’s Information Systems Technology (now Business Information Technology) program, Polvorosa did his work experience practicum at Imaginet, a Winnipeg-based IT consulting firm.

When Polvorosa graduated in 2011, Imaginet immediately offered him a job.

“It was a great co-operative term,” Polvorosa says. “Sometimes companies give students the crummy work, replacing keyboards and what not, but I was actually in the trenches, so to speak. I ended up learning a ton and by the time my co-op was done, I had already covered half of what I was going to do in one of my courses. I had already done it real life versus a lab.”

As a Managed Services and Support Manager at Imaginet, Polvorosa is responsible for leading his team in ironing out IT issues, while also providing direction and support for Microsoft products such as Sharepoint and Office 365.

“Everyday I meet with my team, see what’s going on, give some guidance and make sure everyone is set for their day, and then I proceed to work on my own projects,” Polvorosa says.

“Often, I put on this other hat, where I’ll talk to the CEOs and IT managers that we look after, companies that look to Imaginet as their managed services provider. I talk to them about their concerns with their IT security, [and] what they’ll be planning for in the next five years in terms of their IT infrastructure.” Read More →

Jackie Anderson found her calling while she was still in college.

A graduate of Red River College’s Child and Youth Care program, Anderson completed her practicum at Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre in 1996. Fast forward two decades, and Anderson is still committed to the North End non-profit family resource centre.

“When I came into the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, I did my placement in the youth program. I was assigned mentorship, one-on-one with youth in the community who were struggling with different challenges and barriers in their lives,” says Anderson, who also completed RRC’s Criminology program.

“When I completed my practicum hours, I asked the organization if I could stay on as a volunteer because of the relationships I established and built with the youth. I didn’t want to just walk out of their lives.”

In 1997, Anderson was hired on at Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre in the full-time position of youth mentor. In 2000, she started working in program development for Isobel’s Place, Ma Mawi’s residential learning facility for Indigenous teen mothers. In 2003, Anderson developed Honouring the Spirits of our Little Sisters, Ma Mawi’s safe transition home for sexually exploited youth. After managing the home for seven years, Anderson worked in program development for HOME (Hands of Our Mother Earth), Ma Mawi’s rural healing lodge for sexually exploited youth.

In 2012, Anderson left Ma Mawi to take a position as the provincial government’s sexual exploitation specialist. However by 2015, she was back at Ma Mawi in the position of children in care coordinator.

“That was really good learning,” says Anderson of her foray into provincial politics. “I learned from that part of the system and I’m a stronger advocate now. However, that’s not where my heart lied. My heart lies with the community, grassroots.” Read More →

Miguel Arpin is cut from the same cloth as his father — and you can bet that cloth was measured twice.

Arpin is the owner of Lou-Mig Custom Woodwork, a finishing carpentry company his dad (the Lou in Lou-Mig) started in 1993. With his father now semi-retired, Arpin has been taking over the reins of the family business.

“Ever since I was a little boy we always worked in the workshop and I helped build our cabin at a young age,” Arpin says. “It was always ‘swinging a hammer,’ as they say, always wearing a tool belt to help dad out. I always loved it. And the way I was taught was, ‘If it’s not perfect, redo it.’”

Arpin finished Red River College’s Carpentry program in 2003 as a Level 4 apprentice carpenter. Coming into college, Arpin already had carpentry capabilities from following in his dad’s work boots, but he says the program helped to refine and enhance his skills.

“The course is amazing because it’s all the theory behind the knowledge,” Arpin says. “You can know how to do things, but what’s the theory behind it? Why is it done that way?

“The teachers were great. They have prior experience before teaching and I think that makes the difference. They’ve seen the real world. They didn’t just finish school and then go into a school to teach.

“I think you only learn that from being in the trade and doing the work. It’s that type of experience you get from Red River: a little bit of schooling, then go work, then more schooling, then back to work. That to me is the best way to learn, and it should be a part of all higher education.” Read More →

She’s not the one climbing ladders, but Ceilidh Houston is responsible for ensuring you have a good roof over your head.

As project coordinator at Transcona Roofing, Houston plans, organizes, leads and manages roofing projects from start to finish. A graduate of Red River College’s Civil Engineering Technology program, Houston was hired on at Transcona Roofing in May 2016 after completing both of her six-month work placements there.

“I’m responsible for quality, safety and profit,” she explains. “Basically, I’m in charge of coordinating with my foreman and our crews, in charge of coordinating with suppliers to ensure that I have everything I need, and in charge of coordinating with contractors, making sure I’m abiding by specifications and contracts.

“I’m monitoring the scope of a project to make sure that nothing outside the scope is being thrown in without getting paid for.”

After completing the first year of Civil Engineering Technology, Houston chose to specialize in the Structural Engineering Technology stream of the program. Perhaps it’s not an obvious match, but Houston says her education does apply to her employment.

“A lot of the design [instruction] I don’t use because I’m a subtrade, but learning how drawings, specs and contracts work, that’s huge for my job,” Houston says. “Also, I feel like what I learned most at Red River was the confidence to know what I’m doing and to know that I’m doing it correctly, so that when I walk into a trailer of 50 guys looking at me for an answer, I’m confident I can do the job.” Read More →

On the final day of Camp Aurora, Nikolai Bola watched as 40 LGBTQ youth he’d just spent a week mentoring put on a talent show. The individual acts don’t stand out in his memory as much as the event’s atmosphere: supportive, encouraging and joyful.

It’s was a far cry from what was once a typical day spent toiling away on the highways, but Bola had a transformative year after leaving his road construction career and attending Red River College’s Business Administration program. Walking away from the steady income that had provided him with a house, two new cars and a comfortable life wasn’t an easy choice, but Bola — who recently won the College’s Rebel Generation Alumni Award — says the short-term sacrifices have been more than balanced by long-term gains.

“I knew I needed to go back to school for a while,” says Bola, who began his decade in road construction at age 19, without a high school diploma. “Eventually I decided there wasn’t ever going to be a ‘right time,’ so I had to cut my losses and try it out.”

Having originally registered for Civil Engineering Technology due to his work experience, Bola made a last-minute shift to Business Administration, where he could pursue “broader learning objectives that would open up many different jobs.” He’d realized Civil Engineering might send him right back to the highway he was trying to leave, whereas the Business programs could provide him new horizons to explore. Pushing his doubts down, he signed the forms.

Changing his career trajectory would add more financial uncertainty to his decision to head back to school, but Bola had a strategy: take as many courses as he could, as quickly as possible, to speed his re-entry to the workforce.

A passing conversation derailed his plans, though. Read More →

Jennifer Everard focuses on ability, not disability.

As work experience coordinator at SCE Lifeworks, Everard supports people with developmental or intellectual disabilities — helping them work, participate and succeed in the community.

“I supervise four to five job coaches that work out in the community with people with intellectual disabilities at different work sites,” Everard says. “I also help our employment consultants with employment development support, and I assist in the transition of high school students coming into the program.”

Everard is coming up on 15 years with SCE Lifeworks, having landed a job in the organization immediately after completing Red River College’s Disability and Community Support program (then called Developmental Services Worker) in 2002.

However, her desire to help others started much earlier than college, or even high school.

“As a child going to an elementary school that had a lot of students with disabilities, I was just drawn to helping,” Everard says. “Even in Grade 1, I remember volunteering in the special education rooms. It just felt natural and comfortable.”

The two-year Disability and Community Support program includes six work placements relating to the disability field (community residents, employment agencies, schools and adult day programs). Everard credits the hands-on component of the program for showing her how she could best help people.

“I came into the program with the intention of pursuing a career in the education system,” she explains.

“My final practicum was at Connect Employment Services, who happens to be SCE Lifeworks’ sister company. My experience at Connect completely shifted my career focus, and I would not be where I am today had it not been for my practical experiences.” Read More →

Helene Seradilla is well acquainted with the concept of ‘mise en place,’ the French culinary term referring to advance preparation — gathering tools and ingredients so everything is in place when you’re ready to start cooking.

She didn’t realize it at the time, but during three years in Red River College’s Business Administration program, the 1998 grad was gathering the tools she’d need to become an entrepreneur in the restaurant business.

In 2012, Helene (nee Paredes) and her husband, well-known local chef Rod Seradilla, rolled out popular Filipino food truck Pimp My Rice. Last year, they opened full-service Corydon Avenue eatery Bisita (Visitor, or Guest, in Tagalog), a venture that required a solid business plan — something Helene had already taken a dry run at in college.

“That’s what we had to do in our program at Red River,” she says. “Pretend you found a location and you leased it and how much would the lease be, how much square footage … the equipment, the assets, the payroll, how would you work it, and what product would you have.”

A busy mom to two young sons, seven-year-old Ryu and six-year-old Sonny, with a full-time career at Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in the individual tax and benefits section, as well as the two “mom-and-pop” businesses, Helene has aced multi-tasking.

Fully hands-on with Pimp My Rice, which will be back on the road this summer after a hiatus in 2016, she often heads to Bisita in the evening and on weekends.

“I’m in there as much as I can be — as much as, you know, you can work with someone that you live with,” she laughs. Read More →