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 →

Like many aspiring actresses, Chelsea Odell had to give up her Hollywood dream. She never abandoned her passion for art and design, however — it just took her a little time (and education) to fully embrace it.

“I was taking theatre and film [courses in school], and on the other hand I was taking math and chemistry, hoping that by the end of that first year of university I’d know what I wanted to do,” says Odell, a 2014 Graphic Communications graduate. “I got to to the end of that year, and I thought, ‘Huh, I still like everything.’”

Odell, 33, eventually followed her interest in technology to a degree in computer science, graduating from the University of Manitoba in 2006.

Soon after, Odell joined Online Business Systems, an IT and business consulting firm that specializes in custom application development and package implementations for companies such as MTS and Investors Group. As a developer, her focus was on coding applications using an ever-evolving list of programming languages — from HTML to C#.

Despite her love of coding, Odell still longed to satisfy her artistic side — a side that, in computer programming, manifests itself in graphical user interface design.

“Even though I was interested in user experience, I noticed a gap in my own knowledge — [design] tools like Photoshop, etc. — I wasn’t particularly proficient with them,” she says from Portland, the site of one of Online’s U.S. offices.

Not wanting to halt her career to pursue another degree, Odell turned to Continuing Education, and enrolled in Red River College’s Graphic Communications program. Covering everything from the fundamentals of drawing to advanced graphic design, the program gave her the necessary skills to translate her coding knowledge to the design world. Read More →

Thompson, Manitoba may not seem like an obvious destination for someone from Nigeria, but for Justice and Public Safety graduate Olufemi Ogungbemi, moving over 10,000 km to the icy Prairies was exactly what he needed to find his family — and discover his dream career.

“To graduate and get a good job [in Nigeria] is really hard,” says Ogungbemi, a 28-year-old native of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. “I love my country, and I am a proud Nigerian, but the economy was suffering because of poor leadership in government. I felt Canada was a better opportunity for me.”

The chance to start a new life in Canada came in 2005, when Ogungbemi’s uncles — James Ogungbemi Jackson, a probation officer, and David Ogungbemi, an RCMP officer — asked him to move to Winnipeg, their home for over 40 years. In 2011, following years of paperwork, Olufemi arrived in Manitoba, where his uncles, both graduates of Red River College, wasted no time in introducing him to their alma mater.

“I can still remember the first day [Uncle James] took me to see the Notre Dame Campus,” says Ogunbemi, who also holds a degree in accounting from Lagos State Polytechnic. “I liked everything about the school, and the same day I registered to take a course in Justice and Public Safety.”

While Ogungbemi’s uncles inspired him to follow in their line of work, the idea to work in a justice position was one he’d had since witnessing corruption throughout Nigeria’s legal system.

“There is so much injustice back home [in Nigeria]. I really felt this is what I wanted to do: to protect life and properties, to keep the public peace, and keep people safe. Back home, if you join the police force, they are really corrupt; there is corruption everywhere. When I came to Canada, I felt I had a great platform to continue to my goal.” Read More →

Jolene Ross’s passion for human resources began with a different goal — to become a lawyer.

“Human resources people are often frustrated lawyers,” jokes the 31-year-old, echoing the words of her Red River College instructor, Angie Cusson.

While the legal intricacies of the profession initially drew her to sign up for RRC’s Human Resource Management program, the personal aspects of it are what she now finds the most rewarding.

“Every time you hire somebody, you’re making a change in their lives,” says Ross, a recruitment and retention officer with the Southern Health-Santé Sud regional health authority. “It’s the happy side of human resources; it’s the fun side. I think that’s kind of what drew me to it. It’s being able to interact with people, but still getting to participate in a process that has a legal side to it.”

Ross has helped make that dramatic change in many people’s lives. Since joining Southern Health-Santé Sud following her graduation from RRC in 2008, she has been part of several massive staffing transitions — including the 2012 amalgamation of regions that saw the health authority grow from 3,500 to 5,500 employees.

With sensitive personnel decisions a part of her daily work, Ross says maintaining professionalism throughout every aspect of her job is imperative. It’s a lesson she credits to the Human Resource Management program.

“[RRC] challenged me to become more of a professional,” says Ross, who also holds an arts degree from the University of Manitoba. “In our line of business that’s extremely important, because you sometimes deal with people when they’re at their worst, and when they’re at their worst, you have to treat them with that respect.” Read More →

Karen Dueck has gone from serving breakfast to serving the needs of children and youth in the community – and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Back in 2006, Dueck was working as a server in a restaurant to help support her family. She didn’t think going back to school was an option for her until a friend told her about the Youth Recreation Activity Worker certificate program at Red River College.

“When I first heard about it, I thought it was too good to be true,” says Dueck, whose two children were in their early teens when she entered the 10-month program, and who had experience doing respite work with a child with special needs.

“I had always enjoyed working with children and youth, but it wasn’t until I heard about this program that I really thought of it as a career. To that point I was just working to work, and to put food on the table.”

Designed to prepare young people to work with inner city children and youth to provide healthy recreational activities, the Youth Recreation Activity Worker program is offered at no cost to qualifying students aged 18 to 29. Dueck, who was 28 at the time, took the plunge and applied. At the end of the program she completed a summer work practicum as an Activity Worker with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Winnipeg, which partners with RRC to offer the program jointly. Read More →