Kathleen Mira is taking care of business.

A graduate of Red River College’s Business/Technology Teacher Education program, Mira has taught at Technical Vocational High School in Winnipeg’s West End since 1999.

Mira has taught it all at Tec-Voc, from computer and software applications to accounting principles and systems to retailing, promotions and entrepreneurship, and everything in between. She says her time at RRC prepared her well for the multi-faceted and ever-changing world of business.

“You have to be versatile in this position. You have to be able to adapt to change,” Mira says. “We offer at Tec-Voc the full gamut of the business curriculum. Working here, I’ve had to be very versatile. I have to be able to turn my brain on for accounting, shut if off, then turn it on for marketing, shut if off, and then turn it on for entrepreneurship. You have to be able to change on a dime.”

Speaking of dimes (and nickels, quarters and loonies), Mira also operates Tec-Voc’s school store, Stingers, where students get real-life experience in a retail setting.

“It gives students hands-on experience that they normally wouldn’t get because of their age,” Mira says of the store, the name of which is a nod to Tec-Voc’s athletics teams, the Hornets.

“We have a point of sale system. [Students] scan items, they cash out, they cash in, they do inventory, they stock shelves, all those fun things. It’s like any other retail environment.”

The practical applications of Tec-Voc’s business programs don’t stop there.

“Being the accounting nerd that I am, I really wanted to start a credit union here at the school,” Mira says.

“We are in a partnership with Assiniboine Credit Union. We started that in December 2014, and it’s an awesome program where my accounting students can operate as member service representatives — or as many people know them, tellers. They get some hands-on experience developing those skills, so accounting is not just boring stuff every single day, they’re actually doing something.” Read More →

Gennaro (Jerry) Cianflone is a big cheese in the restaurant business today, but the CEO of Pizza Hotline and his wife Theresa (nee Maione) weren’t exactly rolling in dough when they started out 30 years ago.

The couple met as students in RRC’s Business Administration program, and they were fresh out of college in 1986 when they bought their first eatery, a full-service restaurant called Colombo’s Pizza on St. Anne’s Road.

“Theresa’s family was in the restaurant business and her father said at one point in time … he was interested in selling the business,” Cianflone recalls. “So I said, ‘Well, if you’re interested in selling, I might be interested in buying,’ and Theresa and I ended up buying that business and that was where we started.”

“The first year, of course, was very tough — the first couple of years where Theresa and I were working seven days a week around the clock. It was hard, it was very hard in the beginning but we did it. We persevered and we stuck through it and just kept going.”

From one small slice of the market, the business has grown to include Café 22 and 25 Pizza Hotline locations in Winnipeg, Selkirk, Winkler, Steinbach, Portage la Prairie and Brandon, all easy to reach by calling one “saucy little number”: 222-2222. These days, the notion that you can punch any number seven times and get a pizza is a running gag, but in the early 1990s, it was a new concept in Manitoba.

“Honestly I think we might have been the first company to have a call centre in Winnipeg because that’s how we did that. We had a centralized number and all the telephone calls would come in to one location and at that time it was in the basement of one of our locations,” Cianflone says.

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Thirty years ago, Dr. Mark Torchia started tinkering with an idea that had life-saving potential — a tool that could destroy inoperable brain tumours.

The seed was planted during a conversation with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael West at St. Boniface Hospital. A short time earlier, West had used a minimally invasive procedure to access a brain tumour and collect a sample for biopsy. To Torchia, it seemed logical to expand on that idea to deliver a killing blow to the target tissue.

“Taking the idea and turning it into something viable is where the challenge arises,” he explains. “It was one of those situations where the idea was there, but the core technology that was going to be required to really bring the idea to fruition didn’t exist.”

A 1995 recipient of Red River College’s Distinguished Alumni Award, Torchia and engineer Richard Tyc eventually met the challenge, developing the NeuroBlate System at the St-Boniface Hospital Albrechtsen Research Centre and in 1999, founding Monteris Medical Inc. to take it to market.

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a visual guide, the complex system lets neurosurgeons insert a laser probe into the brain and destroy tumours without damaging surrounding tissue.

Approved for use in the U.S. in 2009, the system was first used in Canada in 2015. It’s now available in some 45 hospitals in the U.S. and in three Canadian hospitals — in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Torchia says it’s only a matter of time before it’s available in Winnipeg.

The invention earned Torchia and Tyc a $100,000 Principal Award from the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation in 2015, and one of six inaugural Governor General’s Innovation Awards in 2016. Read More →

Chantale Lavack knows how to fix your lawnmower. In fact, she knows how to fix a lot of the tools in your garage – from chainsaws to pressure washers, tillers and leaf blowers.

Even more importantly, the Red River College grad (Outdoor Power Equipment Technician, 2009) knows her gender has no impact on her success in the small engine repair business – and she wants other women to know that, as well.

“I hope my experience encourages more women to get into [the field],” says Lavack, who operates her own repair shop, La petite machine, out of her St. Boniface garage.

“The door’s not going to be closed on you right away, and if it is, then good riddance — you don’t really need those people, anyhow.”

Lavack recently talked to us about how her RRC education is “like gold,” how she sees her business evolving, and why other women shouldn’t hesitate to join a male-dominated industry.

RRC: Were you interested in fixing things as a kid?

Lavack: I wasn’t. It’s kind of strange. I only learned later in life that I had a liking for repairing things and wanting to get my hands dirty. It’s not like I was 10 years old with my head under a hood with my dad or anything like that. My dad was a funeral director.

What drew you to small engine repair?

It was those Orange County Chopper shows! I just thought it was really neat to see these guys in a garage, creating all of this cool stuff and putting it together and seeing it work. I had been working in an office at CN Rail and didn’t find it to be all that satisfactory. You just don’t get to see the results of your work. But when you have something that’s broken, you fix it, and away you go. Read More →

Red River College grad Chad Labbe just wanted to earn a little green when he went to work at Shelmerdine Garden Centre for the first time. It was the spring of 1990, and he was 14 years old when his mom suggested it would be a cool after-school job.

“You’ll like it,” he recalls her saying. “And I remember the first year I absolutely hated it. I was never coming back after the first year. They always made me water and sweep; I hated watering because you’d just get soaked and then you had to bike home after a long day of watering and you’re cold.”

When the job ended that June, Labbe thought he’d hung up his hose for the last time. But when spring rolled around again, he couldn’t resist the lure of a payday. Twenty-six years later, the 2000 Landscape Technician grad has taken root as Shelmerdine’s vice-president and co-owner.

“This business grows on you,” he says, no pun intended. “When you plant a crop and look back one week, two weeks, a month, six months later … the rewards are just right in front of you; the fruits of your labour, if you will.” (Pun intended that time.)

It took a while for Labbe to recognize that he has a green thumb, but he’s since come to realize he’s a natural-born gardener. His knack for greenhouse work came to light five years into his budding career, after he entered RRC’s four-year Landscape Technician apprenticeship program.

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Rising with the sun and working until dusk isn’t for everyone, but it’s right up Jillene Rodgers’ alley.

Since graduating from Red River College’s three-year Municipal Engineering Technology program last May, Rodgers, 23, has been spending quality time on a highway construction site in Portage la Prairie.

Putting in 14- and 16-hour days at her new job with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation, Rodgers inspects asphalt and grades, and generally ensures contractors adhere to the highway department’s project plans, regulations, and guidelines.

“We do not actually do any of the physical labour, we just make sure the contractor does what we ask,” she says. “We want to make sure the contractor is following our rules and regulations, while staying within the budget.”

The best part of the job? Getting her fill of fresh air in the great outdoors and spending her days around big machinery.  Read More →

Othello Wesee has struggled to get to where he is today, and he’s devoted his life to helping kids so they don’t have to do the same.

Growing up in a refugee camp in Liberia, Wesee saw his fair share of violence, struggled to find clean drinking water and faced a serious lack of opportunity – even though he tried to make the best of things at all times.

“I coached soccer teams in grade school back home,” he says, adding he has always been one to improve his community.

The good news is Wesee was able to immigrate to Canada in 2004. The bad news? His wife, Vivian, then pregnant with their son Othello Jr., was not. During his first few years in Winnipeg, Wesee worked to save enough money to sponsor them – just one of the hardships the young family faced during their seven-year battle with immigration services. He also worked to make his new downtown neighbourhood a brighter place by organizing soccer teams for newcomer and inner city kids in Central Park.

Wesee knew he would need an educational boost to further his community-minded career, and found a perfect fit in Red River College’s Community Development/Community Economic Development program. He was able to quickly obtain the skills he required while taking the one-year program, all while working weekends to support his family in Liberia. He graduated in 2010, and also went on to earn his Health Care Aide certification at RRC. Read More →

Accidental entrepreneur Amanda Buhse found herself burning the candle at both ends after co-founding one of Winnipeg’s hottest startups two years ago.

When the 2006 Graphic Design – Advanced grad and her best friend Tom Jansen created their Coal and Canary Candle Company brand, they expected to sell a few hand-poured soy-and-vegetable wax candles to friends and family. A few months later, they were scrambling to fill Oscar and Grammy Awards swag bags and meet demand from their first retail clients.

“Coal and Canary kind of started as a hobby, just as an extra creative outlet and an excuse to hang out with my best friend Tom,” says Buhse.

“He had gotten into candle-making a couple of years prior and got really good at it and asked me if I wanted to join up, because I had the marketing and the graphic design backgrounds, so I could do the branding and the website and packaging and all that.”

Buhse, 31, was working full-time as senior web designer for fashion retailer Ricki’s and Jansen, 26, was in nursing school when they started making candles in Buhse’s kitchen. Before long, they were moonlighting in a rented 150-square-foot studio where they could make 24 candles each night. Next thing they knew, the business had taken on a life of its own.  Read More →

Landing a job out of university was never a problem for Suzanne Gessler. Landing a job she truly enjoyed? Well, that was another story.

It wasn’t until the “lifelong student” graduated from Red River College’s Professional Baking and Patisserie program in 2014 that she was able to create her own personal recipe for success: The Pennyloaf Bakery.

Gessler opened the Corydon Avenue shop specializing in authentic sourdough-style breads in October 2015, a year after she graduated from RRC. It’s a far cry from her former jobs as a city planner, social worker and social policy writer – all government gigs that were well-paid and stable with regular hours and lengthy vacations.

In other words: They were everything owning your own bakery is not.

But that’s OK with Gessler, who’s learned that rolling the dough itself is a better fit for her than rolling it in under somebody else’s watch.

“My dad got sick and passed away, and I got burned out to no end,” says Gessler of the moment she felt she needed to switch career paths, after 13 challenging years working to improve the homeless population’s housing conditions.

“After so many years of trying to do whatever I could to help out on poverty issues in the city, I’d kind of had it. I’d seen so many rounds of government funding come through and not a lot of change. Maybe there was some change, but I was too mired in it.” Read More →

Paul Cantin doesn’t want to set the world on fire — quite the opposite, in fact. His work on New Flyer Industries’ battery-electric buses could help put the brakes on global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout North America.

A 2004 graduate of RRC’s Mechanical Engineering Technology program, Cantin is a project leader in the New Product Development department at New Flyer, the continent’s leading manufacturer of transit buses, including increasingly lean-and-clean natural gas, hybrid and electric options.

The 35-year-old father of two says with 70,000 transit buses currently in operation in North America, converting the majority to more sustainable propulsion systems would have significant environmental implications for future generations.

“From our little corner of Winnipeg, we can make a fairly large impact on North American air quality,” says Cantin, whose team has collaborated on electric bus and charging systems with RRC’s Electric Vehicle and Technology Education Centre since 2011. More recently, his department began a new project with the College’s Transportation and Heavy Apprenticeship Trades program.

In April, Cantin was named to CBC Manitoba’s 2016 Future 40 list of “leaders and change-makers,” an honour that drew welcome attention to the home-grown expertise and ingenuity that’s driving the projects.

“Having these incubators of innovation being highlighted and shown to the general public is really valuable because it helps to inspire and show some of our youth … you don’t have to leave Winnipeg to make an impact,” he says.

“It’s really cool that we are able to acquire the knowledge [through] a post-secondary education here in Winnipeg — and to gain the experience, and be able to have a real tangible impact in North America.” Read More →