Joe Clark spent his teenage years on the soccer pitch — not whiling away the hours in his parents’ garage, pulling wrenches to restore an old car to its former glory.

It’s not the usual backstory you’d expect from a guy who now works as a technician for Mercedes-Benz Winnipeg (MBW), where Teutonic dream machines with price tags north of six figures aren’t uncommon.

Reflecting on his path to MBW, which began with Red River College’s Automotive Technician Certificate program, Clark himself tends to agree.

“When I started, I was about as green as you could get,” says Clark, 22, who used the certificate program as the Level 1 equivalent in his four-year apprenticeship training.

“[Auto tech.] was just a really applicable skill that I was curious about. It just so happened to work out for me. I was pretty lucky.”

But it took more than good fortune to transform Clark from a neophyte mechanic to a full-time member of the tech team at one of the city’s newest and most state-of-the-art auto shops.

For that, he credits his instructors at RRC and the program they’ve developed — a mix of theory and hands-on learning in local shops — which he says gives students the skills they need, whether they work on one brand of vehicle, as he does, or a variety. Read More →

Arhben Tumambing was never certain what he wanted to do.

The Red River College graduate went to university after high school, and from there worked a string of what he describes as unfulfilling jobs.

While he wasn’t sure, career-wise, where he wanted to go, Tumambing — a 2014 grad of RRC’s Administrative Assistant program — says he’s always had an interest in how systems and society function.

“I just like poking problems and seeing how things work,” he says.

Tumambing now works as a recruitment clerk with the Province of Manitoba, where he was hired after completing a practicum as part of his RRC studies.

His family moved to Winnipeg from the Philippines from he was 12, and Tumambing grew up in the North End.

“ I think I was kind of a lost child at some points,” he says.

After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree and double-majoring in sociology and developmental studies, he worked a string of minimum wage jobs because he couldn’t find something in his field.

“My mom was more of a practical person; she was like, ‘Here’s a less-than-six-month course going on.’ She said ‘Hey, that will propel you to even greater heights and experiences.’” Read More →

Brett Zahari welcomed his “baby”— a newly-opened downtown doughnut shop called Bronuts — into the world nine weeks ago. His baby daughter, Emelyn, arrived a week later.

Yet the 23-year-old says he was unfazed by the added stress of navigating both his café’s opening and the arrival of his first child.

“I don’t know any different,” says Zahari, from a table at the Exchange District hot spot.

The way he sees it, opening a business is tough — with a newborn or without — and the demands it creates are par for the course. “You don’t have time for the stuff you’d normally have time for,” Zahari admits. “You prioritize. It’s fun.”

He partnered in the venture with his brother, Dylan, and his wife, Meghan. In less than a year (from May 2014 to April 2015) the trio came up with doughnuts as a business idea, haggled and wooed their landlord for their must-have Bannatyne and King location, burned the candle at both ends balancing day jobs while turning empty space into a charming little café, quit their day jobs, took on considerable debt, and became bakers, marketers, managers, bosses and all the “other duties as assigned” of opening your own business.

In spite of the hectic pace, Zahari, appears to be having a good time. He’s quick with a wave, wink or a hello to customers coming and going. Building relationships, he says, is fundamental to success.

“The people around you are what are going to make you successful,” he says. “The connections that you have with people, that’s how you become successful in life.” Read More →

For Robyn Clisby, a day at the office always includes the unexpected.

The early childhood educator admits she can’t always predict what the children she works with are going to say. During a lunch-hour discussion about different kinds of food, one child piped up that his mommy is “really good at ordering pizza.”

“It’s so innocent,” says Clisby with a laugh.

A team leader at Cairns Children’s Centre Inc., Clisby says channeling this childhood innocence into learning is her passion. She applied at the Winnipeg centre while still a teenager eight years ago, after seeing a posting on a neighbourhood billboard.

Ever since, she’s been helping kids discover their world through play. When it comes to early childhood education, spontaneity is key, she says.

“Children show interest in the things they want to learn about,” says Cairn, 26. “The adults are there to support them.” Read More →

A lifetime playing drums couldn’t help Brock Macpherson find his rhythm in his first year at Red River College. Enrolled in the Business Administration program straight out of high school, he says his priority was decidedly freshman: hanging out with friends at downtown watering hole the King’s Head Pub, not studying.

But just five short years later, he’s senior account manager and part owner of a Winnipeg-based Xerox sales agency, Commtech Office Solutions. He joined their team after College in 2012; now, the 24-year-old helps to oversee some 900 small- and medium-sized business clients in the city.

Good thing he took a year off from college and “got the 19-year-old out of [his] system” before returning to school a year older and wiser. He found his footing in a year-long group project for an entrepreneurship course. Each group of 16 students needed a leader and no one was taking the initiative. Macpherson “stepped out of his comfort zone” and volunteered.

“That moment at Red River, that basically set the tone for the rest of my years,” he says.

Evening sessions of pizza and exam prep now took priority over extracurricular pints. Macpherson discovered how motivating it was to teach class materials to classmates, and how effective it was for his own learning — they trusted him to know his stuff, so he didn’t want to let them down.

It’s no different today in his role at Commtech. Macpherson is quick to explain that Xerox isn’t simply a company that sells printers to offices — their competitive advantage is a suite of “software solutions” that help companies digitize documents, manage data and increase security. Read More →

He can still remember splicing together radio broadcast assignments using cassette tapes and an X-acto knife.

But you won’t find Paul Samyn pining for the dated technology of his Red River College days. Since becoming editor of the Winnipeg Free Press in 2012, he’s been pushing his newsroom towards info-sharing platforms — Twitter, Facebook, email-driven alerts — that best deliver news to readers. Young hires, even interns, are encouraged by the 27-year vet to tap into their rich understanding of multimedia.

“Some of the new hires that we have, we’re looking to them to show us stuff and help us,” says Samyn. “And I think that’s really exciting.”

The Winnipeg Free Press has evolved from a newspaper into a non-stop “news engine,” Samyn says, noting this “anytime, anywhere” news model will determine its long-term success.

What haven’t changed, however, are the basics of good journalism underpinning the Free Press’s reputation as a trusted information source.

“You need to write. You need to think. You need to be able to communicate,” says Samyn, who graduated from RRC’s Creative Communications program in 1988 and moved immediately into the Winnipeg Free Press newsroom as a summer intern. Read More →

What makes great leadership? According to 2013 Disability and Community Support grad Audrey Dennis, it’s not just about your ideas — it’s also about the ideas of those around you.

“As a good leader, you need to recognize that your staff are the people you need to be consulting when you’re making decisions, because they’re the ones who work closest with the residents,” says Dennis, 44. “You have to value your staff, and put aside your own feelings.”

That philosophy is helping Dennis — who holds the apt title of team leader — introduce new initiatives for her residents and staff at St.Amant, a comprehensive resource and home for Manitobans with developmental disabilities.

Originally from Kingston, Jamaica, Dennis moved to Toronto when she was four, and later came to Winnipeg with her husband in 1999. Never afraid to try something new, she spent much of her early life pursuing a wide range of education and careers — from law enforcement to esthetics and electrolysis — before finding her calling as a support worker at St.Amant in 2005.

“The opportunity to quantify your work is greater in the [human service] field,” she says. “I feel I can connect with people in my care. I not only share the not-so-nice times in their lives — I get to experience their life journeys, successes, milestones, and the joyous times with them.”

With her career choice clear, Dennis next wanted to focus her education. In 2008, she signed up for Red River College’s Disability and Community Support program — a task she handled while still working full time. In addition to formal developmental planning skills, the program taught Dennis crucial values for disability support — including the need for patience, and to set smaller goals for long-term success. Read More →

Before he was even old enough to drive, Dale Place was running a business doing auto repair out of his parents’ garage.

So it’s no surprise that just a few years later, the ambitious teen became the youngest Red Seal Machinist in Canada, when he graduated from Red River College’s Machinist Apprentice program in 2000 at age 19. He achieved this feat by completing his required apprenticeship hours while still in high school, working at a machine shop he’d started at when he was 12 years old, sweeping the floors after school and in the summer.

While he was still completing his program at RRC, Place decided to take a risk and started a machine shop in his hometown of Selkirk. Starting out as a tiny one-man shop with little initial capital and no financial help, he grew the business into the success it is today: Manitoba’s largest machine shop, with nearly 70 staff and a 30,000-square foot facility.

“I liked working for myself right from the get-go. I wasn’t really interested in working at a burger joint,” says Place, the President and CEO of Kinetic Machine Works, noting he declined a full university scholarship to take Engineering in favour of continuing with the machinist trade.

“I’m a big advocate of the trades. Everyone I know who has gone into a trade, from RRC or another technical school, ends up making the same amount of money or more than those who went to university. There are a lot of situations where working in a trade and actually getting to build something can be more rewarding, but a lot of students just don’t know about these options.” Read More →

Marcy Markusa has interviewed countless politicians and dignitaries — from Preston Manning to Brian Bowman — but ask her which interviews stand out the most, and she’s quick to recall conversations with regular members of the community.

“I think I remember [those] personal interviews more, because there is no reason that person has to talk to you,” says Markusa, the 41-year-old host of Information Radio on CBC Radio One Manitoba.

“[For example,] why does a 73-year-old woman have to tell the world that she can’t read? There’s nothing for her to gain by doing that — except she realizes that by sharing that story, she’ll inspire someone else who also happens to be illiterate and might want to learn to read.”

Community is a common thread throughout Markusa’s life, dating back to her days growing up in North Kildonan, when a natural curiosity for her home city and province led her to always be that “person in the crowd.”

“I just started to be that person who said, ‘Hey, what do you know about this area?’ ‘Hey, what do you know about that neighbourhood?’ ‘Did you know this is going on?’” Read More →

Over the past 14 years, Sheila Harris has worked on exciting projects that touch the lives of many Manitobans, including improving the province’s drivers licensing system, implementing a new patient care system at St-Boniface Hospital, and installing MTS’s new 4G cellular network.

It might sound like she’s had multiple career changes, but all of this has been part of Harris’s role as an Information Technology (IT) Business and Systems Analyst.

“One thing that attracted me to the IT field is you can do so many different things. I’ve worked in five or six different industries now, which is great because I like variety, I like challenges and I like to learn,” says Harris, a Senior IT Consultant with SmartPlanIT. “It’s not just one job description, which is interesting to me.”

Because local organizations planning large-scale, complex software implementations often don’t have the resources to do the work, SmartPlanIT provides the people – and the brain power – to get the job done.

Harris might be sent to work as a Systems Analyst, a Solutions Architect, or a Business Analyst, the title she holds in her current role: working on replacing a Laboratory Information Management System for the City of Winnipeg’s Water and Waste Department, which will result in improvements to how Winnipeg’s water is tested and safeguarded, she explains.

“I feel really lucky that I’ve been given opportunities to work on some very meaningful projects in Winnipeg and the province,” Harris says. “I am so fortunate to live here, and it’s really rewarding to know the work I do impacts the community I live and work in, in a positive way.” Read More →