It’s a high-stakes field requiring a delicate balance of mental dexterity and mechanical know-how. But for aircraft maintenance engineer (AME) Chevy Peters, the work is quite literally in his blood.

“My grandfather and my father are both engineers, so it’s kind of the family business,” says Peters, now an instructor for RRC’s Aircraft Maintenance Journeyperson (AMJ) program. “There’s a lineage there — I’m a third generation AME, and I’m pretty proud of that.”

Peters’ grandfather worked on helicopters in British Columbia (and later, as an instructor at B.C.I.T.), while his father served as an AME before becoming a pilot with Air Canada. In fact, both his grandfather and his father had pilots’ licenses, so Peters logged his share of hours working in and around planes as a kid.

“For a while I was thinking I’d be a pilot, but I found out I enjoyed fixing planes more than flying them,” says Peters. “I’ve always been mechanically inclined, and I actually got started by helping out with inspections, then trading that (work) for flying time. I found out I loved fixing stuff, and that was where my true calling was.”

Having originally enrolled in the Business Administration program at RRC — an experience he found useful, but not quite a perfect fit — Peters returned to take part in the first-ever offering of the College’s Aircraft Maintenance Engineer Diploma program.

He found his second go-round at RRC to be even more rewarding than the first, praising the equipment and facilities at the Stevenson Campus, the expertise of the instructors, and the ample opportunities for team-building with classmates.

After graduating, took a job with Buffalo Airways in Yellowknife — “If you’ve seen the TV show Ice Pilots NWT, that was my job,” he quips — working first on engine buildups, before moving on to a post with Great Slave Helicopters shortly afterward. Read More →

Just as the caterpillar transforms itself into a beautiful butterfly, a group of care home residents have transformed themselves into published authors and artists — thanks to the help and guidance of Red River College alum Kaitlyn Callahan.

A 2008 grad of RRC’s Recreation Facilitator for Older Adults program, Callahan recently celebrated the launch of a new exhibit at the Osborne Library — one comprised of eye-catching artwork produced by residents of Actionmarguerite St. Boniface.

The highlight of the exhibit is a series of watercolour and cut-paper pieces that make up a children’s book called The Caterpillar and the Butterfly, written and illustrated by a group of seven residents working under Callahan’s supervision.

“Art seems to be something that touches everybody on different levels,” says Callahan, 26, who partnered on the project with local artist Shirley Levacy. “It doesn’t matter if (the residents) can’t use their hands — they can still take part and produce something beautiful.”

Callahan’s residents call themselves the Creative Expressions Art Group. Members range in age from 33 to 57, and require long-term care due to either head injuries or neurological disorders.

As the recreation facilitator at Actionmarguerite (formerly Taché Centre), Callahan plans a variety of activities for residents. But she says the arts-related programming is especially popular, since it allows residents to channel their creative energies, work together as a team, and tap into skill-sets that might have otherwise gone undiscovered. Read More →

She’s one of few female faces in a largely male-dominated field. And she’s building a reputation as a quick study — one brick at a time.

Meet Nina Widmer, the first female apprentice in the history of Red River College’s Bricklayer Apprenticeship program. The daughter of German-born master craftsman Alfred Widmer, Nina has been working at her father’s side on historical restoration projects since she was nine.

The Widmer family moved to Canada when Nina was just six weeks old, after Alfred was commissioned produce ornate plaster mouldings and statuary at Fort Garry Place. In the ensuing years, father and daughter have worked together on such projects as the University of Winnipeg’s Wesley Hall, the A.A. Heaps Building (Bank of Nova Scotia), and the Union Bank Tower — soon to be RRC’s Paterson GlobalFoods Institute.

“It’s keeping history alive,” says Nina of her passion for restoration work. “You walk into some of these buildings, and they just take your breath away. And it’s really phenomenal if they can be brought back to their original state — which always looks so much better than plain old drywall.”

Since opportunities for historical restoration work are limited, Widmer entered RRC’s Apprenticeship Bricklaying program on her father’s advice. Given her background in masonry, she hoped it would give her an increased understanding of bricklaying, so was pleasantly surprised to discover there was still much to learn. Read More →

Mendoza, right, with RRC President Stephanie Forsyth.

“My life has certainly changed for the better and it is because of the support that I had received from generous people like you”.

So ended the inspiring words of Desiree Mendoza (Creative Communications, 2011) at the annual Red River College Donor Appreciation Reception in October 2011.

As the keynote speaker, Mendoza shared her story of moving with her husband and children from Brunei to Winnipeg in 2005.  With the encouragement of her husband to pursue her studies in Canada, she applied to the two-year Creative Communications program at Red River College.  Although it would be financially challenging to leave a job that helped pay the bills, Mendoza entered the program.

She applied for and was awarded the Enterprising Women’s Conference Award which helped defray the costs of her tuition and other school expenses. Because of the financial support the award provided, she was able to focus on successfully completing the program, including providing public relations and fundraising support to a Winnipeg homeless shelter, as part of the CreComm program’s Independent Professional Project (IPP). Read More →

But if you want to find work at CGA Manitoba — the self-regulatory body responsible for 2,000 CGAs and almost as many students in this province — there are other avenues open besides a straight business background.

For proof, look no further than the above trio of Red River College grads, who followed divergent career paths on their way to the Donald Street employer: Bruce Granke (Business Administration, 1982), Director, Professional Regulations; Marni Russell (Business/Technology Teacher Education, 1999), Manager, Communications; and Zachary Minuk (Creative Communications, 2008), Coordinator of Marketing and Communications.

Of the three, Granke was the first to pass through RRC’s doors, having seen the College’s Business Admin stream as a good gateway to the CGA program.

“I thought for me it was going to be a terrific learning environment, and I thought from an educational point of view it would be a very hands-on, practical education,” says Granke, whose roles in professional regulations — and communications and recruitment — help ensure the CGA Association’s membership is properly qualified, and held to a code of professional, academic and moral standards.

Granke worked in the private sector after graduating, and says he benefitted as a student from the program’s Entrepreneurship Project, in which teams spend nine months building a model company from the ground up.

“It was a great example that I found out afterwards was a very realistic exercise,” says Granke, noting some of the companies that arose from the project are still in existence. “Those are the types of skills and tools that were a huge help to me going into the workforce and into the CGA program.” Read More →

Entertainment reporter Rob Williams, a self-professed “music nerd”, has more than just enthusiastic expertise and humble attitude to recommend him. He also juggles an insanely busy work schedule, and even manages to have fun while doing so.

Keeping one step ahead of the game (or even two or three, if possible) is Williams’ winning strategy. Strict deadlines at the Winnipeg Free Press keep the Red River College grad in a constant state of writing and researching. His copy must be filed at least three days ahead of when it’s due to appear in print, meaning each week is a balancing act of scheduling and conducting interviews, composing feature stories and concert reviews, and compiling daily entertainment briefs.

A music critic and reporter, Williams, 38, also interviews non-music-minded celebs such as William Shatner, noting he “likes talking with people who are my heroes and figuring out what makes them tick.” Oh, and for the last 11 and a half years, he’s hosted a radio show every Friday morning for campus station UMFM.

Williams, a 1997 grad of RRC’s industry-renowned Creative Communications program, says technology has made things a lot easier since he landed his first job at the Selkirk Journal in the 1990s.

“Three of us had to literally cut and paste stories onto a wax table,” he explains. “A 48-page paper took us 12 hours to complete. Now, that just sounds ridiculous.”

The biggest change arrived with the transition from modem-based internet hook-ups to high-speed and WiFi. In the past, hard-copy concert reviews had to be delivered personally to the Freep’s offices by 11 p.m., for the next morning’s paper.

“Now, sometimes I haven’t finished the final version before it appears online and the concert is still going on,” Williams says. Read More →

Inspired in equal measure by his passion for family and for family-run businesses, Regina resident Wayne Morsky has been working for his own family business since the age of 13.

He’s now President and CEO of Morsky Group of Companies, head of a thriving infrastructure development operation that for 55 years been involved in diverse sectors of the industry, including general contracting, highway construction, railway maintenance, industrial services, HySpeed soil nailing, and oil and gas development.

Born and raised in Virden, Man., Morsky graduated from RRC’s Business Administration program in 1981, having attained skills he now describes as vital to his success as an entrepreneur.

“I could take the things I learned at Red River College and put them into daily effect quite quickly after getting out of school,” says Morsky, “especially because I was involved with a family-owned business.”

Since graduating, Morsky has helped take his family business to new heights, while maintaining his commitments to the profession and to the community. He’s a founding member of the Regina chapter of the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE), and was the 2010 Chairman of the Canadian Construction Association.

He’s served as past president of the Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association of Saskatchewan and past chair of the Western Canadian Roadbuilders Association, and sits on the boards of both the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Saskatchewan Centre for Excellence for Transportation and Infrastructure. Read More →

Just because you start out in an entry-level position doesn’t mean you can’t ascend to great heights.

For proof, look no further than Red River College grad Richard Graumann, who over the decades has worked his way from a job as a construction industry estimator to a senior management position at one of Canada’s leading construction management companies.

“Who would think you could go from being an estimator to being vice-president of a national organization?” says Graumann, a Civil Engineering Technology (CET) grad who’s now the Vice-President (Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario) for Canadian construction firm Stuart Olson Dominion.

“But in fact, at our company, we’ve got 12 VPs that represent different divisions, and of those 12 VPs, five of them came out of estimating.”

Graumann got his industry start working for his father — a local contractor — but enrolled in RRC’s CET program as a means of furthering his career in the field. He says the two-year program provided him with the skills required to make a quick transition to industry, and like many, he found work in Alberta’s building boom soon after graduation.

“Within days of sending out resumes I had three requests for interviews, so it was a good indication there was demand for my background and training,” he says. “Also, as it turned out, the employer I ended up working for had hired other students from Red River College, so they recognized the value of the program at that time.” Read More →

Even at a young age, Red River College alum David Hodge had a clear idea of what he wanted: namely, a career in Information Technology.

So when it came time to stake out a post-secondary path, Hodge was drawn to RRC’s Computer Analyst/Programmer option — it was a perfect match.

“The program was practical,” says Hodge, who graduated in 1983. “It got right to the point of what I really wanted to study.”

“It was intense, but it brought out the best in a lot of people. And generally, it was right on the money as far as how practical it proved once I’d graduated.”

Hodge, who’s now Senior Vice-President and Chief Information Officer at Great-West Life, describes his college years as a highly positive experience — one that allowed him to collaborate frequently with classmates, while at the same time getting a feel for real-world working environments.

“One of the realities of the program is that it mirrors real life, in that things don’t always happen in a structured manner, or according to a calendar schedule,” he explains.

“There were times of intense study and of course materials that had to be presented publicly, so it matched real life, in that things weren’t always orchestrated nice and neatly.”

Hodge was also impressed by the scope of the CA/P program, noting the curriculum included a financial component with emphasis on accounting, language and public speaking skills. The I.T. components and application languages taught — as well as the methods used to teach those skills to students — were similarly practical and pragmatic, he says. Read More →

At the turn of the new millennium, Sean Kavanagh was doing his best to make ends meet, eking out a living as a general contractor in the Lake of the Woods region.

He’d tried his hand at a number of careers, but didn’t find his true calling until 2001, when his wife suggested he let his nose for news lead him to more suitable employment.

“She said, ’You’re the only contractor on the lake who reads three newspapers a day, has the radio constantly tuned to the news station, and can’t wait to come home and watch the six o’clock news every night — maybe that’s where you should be directing your energy,’” Kavanagh recalls.

When the couple moved back home, Kavanagh applied for Red River College’s Creative Communications program, with an eye on entering the field of journalism as soon as he could. Within months, he was reading news reports on a local radio station, and — following work placements with the CBC — appearing on both radio and TV.

Though his passion for news gave him a bit of an edge, Kavanagh admits the program’s rapid pace took some getting used to, though it served him well once he began making his first forays into the field.

“CreComm is wonderful in many regards, but especially because they recreate the atmosphere that exists in professional life,” says Kavanagh, who’s now a TV and radio reporter for CBC News Winnipeg.

“In journalism, everything is very deadline-driven. My biggest recollection of the program was it did a great job of making you feel under pressure to perform, and to hand everything in on time … Your assignments really approximate the kind of assignments you’d get as a news reporter, and the same is true of the advertising and public relations streams.” Read More →