Red River College grad Kevin Castro is in the business of transformation.

The 21-year-old sous chef (who completed RRC’s Culinary Arts program in 2012) is slowly getting fired up for his day, cleaning odd corners of the Fitzroy kitchen and waiting for his team to show up to prep the day’s ingredients. The space he’s standing in is the first layer of transformation.

Once a showroom that modelled condo designs to urban professionals, the Fitzroy space was bought, gutted and renovated by Jon Hochman and Dustin Pajak over the first half of 2013. The shining, top-of-the-line equipment, sleek red walls and solid wood countertop pull off both a minimalist lack of pretension and a detail-oriented precision.

Castro hauls out a menu that’s all about transforming simple ingredients into the best “blue collar” eats.

“We do sophisticated presentation for food that’s normally dismissed as comfort food,” he says, pointing to the BBQ pork under corns and crackling, the caramel corn and hot nuts, and the salt beef sandwich on City rye bead. “It’s food that I like to eat – specialty dirty dishes.”

It’s food that’s grabbing the attention of media and foodies, too. Where this stretch of Sherbrook Street was once infamous for its broken motels and rooming houses, the influx of young homeowners, new entrepreneurs and chef-owned restaurants has turned the area into a reliable hotspot, a place the cool kids suggest hitting up to see what’s happening. The evidence of steady traffic is on the door Castro just unlocked: “Fitzroy – open 4pm till late.” Read More →

Red River College is known for its cutting edge curriculum, state-of-the-art equipment and industry-ready grads driving Manitoba’s economy. So it makes sense the school was an early supporter of WindCity, a brand-new Winnipeg-based web series.

“Red River has shown itself to be really innovative and forward thinking,” says Jean du Toit, the show’s production manager and an RRC grad. “It’s taken over old buildings, it’s renovated, it’s made itself felt as a presence in the downtown. The fact that it was an early supporter of WindCity is just another example of that forward-thinking mentality of the College.”

WindCity is the first locally produced digital sitcom to be situated in Winnipeg. It’s branded content, meaning local businesses and organizations pay to have their products or services featured in the plot. (Think product placement on steroids.)

The College is involved in the project in a few ways. For starters, three RRC grads play prominent roles in the series: There’s production manager du Toit, as well as Ali Tataryn (shown above) and Karl Thordarson (at right), both of whom have prominent roles in front of the camera.

Tataryn plays Morgan, a financial advisor with RBC, and Thordarson plays Duke, the show’s de facto villain. Tataryn, who runs Frame Arts Warehouse when she isn’t acting, graduated from RRC’s Applied Counselling program in 2006.

Thordarson graduated from the Greenspace Management program in 2008, and now works as a Technician for the City of Winnipeg’s Parks and Open Space Division. Du Toit, who works for Frank Digital, the production company that produces WindCity, completed the part-time Professional Photography program in 2011.

Another way RRC is involved is through its sponsorship of the web series, which in its first season follows Dylan, a man embarking on a mission to reclaim his business and the love of his life. The sponsorship led to one of the show’s supporting characters, Sam Fortier, being written as an RRC student. Read More →

Robert Lowdon was always drawn to photography, but translating that passion into a career was another story.

“On my website it says ‘Images that inspire.’ That’s something that’s been [important] to me because going in to this career has been a major life change,” Lowdon says. “I’ve basically taken a chance, thrown myself off a cliff and just decided I wanted to live life the way I wanted to.”

Before deciding to go pro, Lowdon, 30, worked in a warehouse and spent a few years in sales. During that time he also worked as an amateur photographer, shooting all kinds of local music shows and frequently heading to notorious venues like The Albert.

“I can remember dodging beer bottles, getting stepped on [on] my head,” he says with a laugh.

Since then, Lowdon has photographed the likes of Rihanna and Selena Gomez at MTS Centre.

“Selena Gomez was such a brain trip. I couldn’t hear anything because I put the earplugs in and just go to work. But all those screaming girls…”

Lowdon made the leap from snapping pics in bawdy beer halls to photographing some of the biggest acts in the world after enrolling in Red River College’s Professional Photography program, delivered through the School of Continuing Education.

He graduated from RRC in 2011 and started his own business, Robert Lowdon Photography, in 2012. Since then he’s racked up an impressive client list including Bacardi, the United States Consulate, the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Wildlife Federation and Credit Union Central. Read More →

Following three weeks of classroom study, eight weeks of lab time, and two weeks of work experience, students from RRC’s Winkler Campus have completed the final phase of the region’s first-ever mobile MIG Welding training program.

Delivered via RRC’s Mobile Training Lab, the program offers entry-level production welding training, allowing students with no previous welding experience to be ready for the workplace in just 13 weeks.

The initiative was made possible with funding from Apprenticeship Manitoba, and will help meet the growing regional demand for welders by providing work-ready candidates throughout the province.

For more information, or to be placed on a student contact list for future offerings, please contact the RRC Winkler Campus at 204.325.9672 or winkler@rrc.ca.

Click here to learn more about RRC’s Mobile Training Labs, which help increase access to trades training in rural and northern communities.

There was a time when Audrey Sawatzky thought retirement homes were just places the elderly went to live out the end of their lives. Now she knows differently – and she’s out to teach everyone the truth.

“[We are all] going to age,” says Sawatzky (shown above, at right), a graduate of Red River College’s Recreation Facilitator for Older Adults program.

“One day you will be 65 and there will be a 20-something looking at you thinking, ‘You’re nothing but an old person.’ But you won’t think that. You’ll think: ‘Look at the life I’ve lived. I have so much more to give, I just need an outlet.’ And recreation coordinators can supply that outlet.”

Sawatzky works as the recreation coordinator at Riverwood Square, a retirement facility for residents 55 and older that offers independent living options for active seniors, as well as supportive housing for those who require additional attention.

She says facilities such as Riverwood — often mistakenly regarded as “old folks’ homes” — actually heighten residents’ physical and mental well-being, thanks in large part to recreational programming.

“The point of recreation is basically to bring life to the building,” she says. “Just because you’re older… doesn’t mean you’re not alive any more.”

As a recreation coordinator, Sawatzky helps plan and coordinate activities for the more than 180 residents, ensuring events are both holistic and relevant. Approximately 15 programs, ranging from morning exercises and team sports to trivia games and arts and crafts, are offered multiple times per week. Read More →

A Red River College grad who heads both a leading IT solutions provider and one of the province’s largest surveying firms was recognized recently with a pair of prestigious awards for his work with remote Manitoba communities.

Clear Concepts Inc., a local IT solutions provider owned by RRC alum Christian Korell (Survey Engineering Technology, 1992), picked up a gold medal for Best Small Business Solution and was named Solution Provider of the Year at this year’s IT World Canada CDN (Computer Dealer News) Channel Elite Awards in September.

The focus of this year’s awards was on remote clients, in particular how a stable foundation in IT services and support allows them to become more self-sustaining. Clear Concepts was recognized for partnering with the Cowichan Tribe of Southern B.C., developers of a community electronic medical records (cEMR) system for First Nation communities.

Clear Concepts provided cEMR-related installation and infrastructure support to many clients across Canada including the Opaskwayak Health Authority in northern Manitoba, allowing that organization to receive funding for a new health centre and dedicated physician. The company has also provided services that allowed a northern Manitoba tribal council to better manage its eight communities, and has partnered with a local airline to streamline internal logistics processes. Read More →

Without Joelle Foster there would be 87 fewer youth-led businesses operating locally – and that’s just in the last three years.

As the Manitoba, Nunavut and NWT director of the Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF), Foster has financed and mentored 87 businesses. And many of these start-ups – like Shawarma Khan, EPH Apparel and Nest Family Centre – are having a big impact on small business in Manitoba.

“Small business is what drives our economy, especially here in Manitoba,” Foster says. “How do you think McDonald’s started? It started with an idea and an entrepreneur. A small business can become a large business.”

CYBF is a national organization that offers financial support and advice to entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 39. Without CYBF, many young entrepreneurs would not be able to secure the business loans or receive the expertise they need to start up.

“Our organization, we lend on character, not collateral.”  Read More →

Ben Davies was sorting rocks.

Earlier that day, at the gravel hauling company where Davies (Technical Communication, 2005) worked as a dispatcher, his boss had dumped a box of stones on his desk. Normally, gravel samples were sent to a lab for analysis of size, consistency and quality, ensuring the crushing equipment was callibrated. But why pay for analysis when the man on the lowest rung of the company’s ladder could do the task between calling trucks?

It was while he lined up the stones, smallest to largest by miniscule increments, that Davies knew he’d hit rock bottom.

Raised in Transcona, the 31-year-old had never pictured himself at this crossroads. After finishing high school he had chased the Canadian boy’s dream of a career in hockey, moving to B.C. to begin his climb to NHL ice. But competition was intense. When he returned to Manitoba to regroup, he found his decision to leave the province had burned some bridges in the tight knit community.  Junior hockey, like every other organization, has its politics.

That’s how he came to be sorting rocks. Was that piece of gravel slightly bigger? Was this piece crushed too powerfully?

The following Monday he arrived at work with the course books for both Winnipeg universities and Red River College. He read them in one day. Read More →

Despite a difficult upbringing and troubled past, Red River College alum Corey Rempel has managed to channel his misfortunes into a new career.

Having turned his life around following a period of criminal activity and incarceration, Rempel now serves as a youth care worker helping teens in similar situations.

“As someone who has been in the system, I know how important it is to genuinely listen to clients,” says Rempel. “If they don’t think you’re listening, you won’t get anywhere.”

Rempel was born and raised in B.C., where he grew up in an abusive, neglectful household. He says he was left with no choice but to run away at the age of 13.

“I came from a bad home,” he says. “My father was murdered before I was even born, and I really didn’t have a family.”

Eventually, Rempel found himself under the watch of social services. But even as a youth in care, he was quickly exposed to an onslaught of negative influences.

“Breaking rules, crimes, drinking, and doing drugs — I fell in with a crowd where this was normal,” he says. Read More →

Not everyone can confidently say they scored their dream job, but Shaun Leonoff, Red River College graduate and grandmother of nine, can assure you she did, and it’s all thanks to a car accident.

During the life-changing incident, Leonoff severely damaged her elbow, ending her 30-year career as an X-ray technician. Because of her injuries, Leonoff had no choice but to look for another career path; having attended RRC in the past (it’s where she earned her X-ray technician credentials), she was this time drawn to the College’s Volunteer Management program, available through the School of Continuing Education.

“I lived in St. Anne and I had been a volunteer of all levels, from (being) the teachers’ field trip mom, to being on boards, to chair of the parks and recreation centres, and even a Scout mom,” says Leonoff.

When asked what inspired her to volunteer in the first place, she says, “Living in a small town, I saw the immediate benefit of volunteering. I saw the positive difference it made in our community.” Read More →