You don’t always get a replay in life, but sometimes luck tilts in your favour.

Pinball wizard, carpenter and family guy Eric Swanson pursued two careers as a graduate of Red River College programs, and he enjoyed the college experience so much he embarked on a third career in 2014, returning to RRC as an instructor for the Carpenter Apprenticeship program.

Swanson, 36, graduated from the Hotel and Restaurant Management program in 1999, but when he and his wife Angela decided to start a family, he knew a career reset was in order. The hospitality industry’s late hours weren’t conducive to fatherhood, so he joined his dad Robert Swanson’s building company and headed back to RRC to earn his Red Seal certification as a carpenter.

“The instructors that I had when I came through my apprenticeship were the real inspiration for me wanting to do this as a career,” he says.

“I knew from Day 1 of my very first level that this was something I wanted to do. These guys are just so inspiring here, and they just make your day fun. When you come in, you’re learning but you want to be there. I rarely hear somebody say, ‘Let’s get the heck out of here.’ Everybody wants to be here.”

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Some people choose a career based on passion, while others are driven by necessity.

For Rebecca Trudeau, it was both.

Trudeau always knew she wanted to help break poverty’s vicious cycle, but it wasn’t until she discovered Red River College’s Community Development/Community Economic Development program that she realized she would be able to pursue her dream job — and, just as importantly, hold down a steady 9-to-5.

“When I was 17, we got evicted,” says Trudeau. “And that’s when my mind changed as to what I wanted to do with my life.”

The West End resident grew up on social assistance. Her mom, Kerry, is schizoaffective, meaning she exhibits traits of both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. It made working to support Trudeau and her two sisters impossible for the single mom.

While Trudeau knew she wanted to make a difference in the lives of others as well as her own, she went ahead with her plan to study history and conflict resolution at university for two years. But with student debt racking up, her fear of not being able to land a steady job straight out of school had her mapping out a different path.

“I chose the Community Development program so I was not only able to help the people that helped me when I was little, but also to learn about my own family and how to get my mom to be a more productive member of society,” she says. Read More →

When Augustina Foley’s young charges at the Morrow Avenue Child Care Program (MACCP) at Hastings School go home each day, they take a little piece of Foley along with them.

“Parents will tell me, ‘We take you home, because these kids don’t want you to know that they’re being disobedient at home; they have that much regard for you,’ ” Foley says.

The 2007 graduate of Red River College’s Early Childhood Education program is proud of the relationships she’s built with parents and the kids in her care. As MACCP site manager, she’s on hand at 7 a.m. each morning to greet parents so they can share information about daily activities and any issues that arise in the child’s life, both at the centre and at home.

Sometimes, if kids are acting up or acting out at home, Foley will sit down with them to see if she can get to the heart of the matter, and then invite parents to join the discussion when the child is ready to talk about any underlying causes.

“Which has helped most of the parents, too,” she says. “I do appreciate when parents trust us that much to be involved in that manner with their kids.”  Read More →

An artist at heart, Danielle King had no doubts about forming a creative arts company. But it was her time in Red River College’s Small Business Management program that really put her at the top of her game.

“When we landed our first big project, Clandestine: Anomaly, I can tell you in all honestly that we might not have made it through if I didn’t have the practical business skills I acquired at RRC,” says King, who co-founded the Winnipeg-based company ZenFri with her husband Corey in 2009, and graduated from RRC in 2010.

“The creatives in us would have drowned.”

After receiving $700,000 from the Canadian Media Fund and plenty of worldwide recognition, ZenFri’s Clandestine: Anomaly was released in June 2015. The groundbreaking mobile game uses augmented reality with GPS to allow players to crash land an alien vessel in their own city. It’s the biggest original game ever made in Manitoba – and it marks the start of other big things for ZenFri and King, who recently took the time to discuss her experience at RRC, the gaming world, and her future.

What drew you to RRC’s Small Business Management program?

I was drawn to RRC and the Continuing Education [option] due to classes offered in the evening and part-time, which fit my schedule and let me pursue creative endeavours during the day. While business and management were never really what I dreamed of doing for a living, I also don’t see it as a diverging path. I see it as having the skills to supercharge the path I was already on, which is to be a creative.

What was the program like?

I really enjoyed the Small Business Management program and especially the amazing library filled with books on business. I learn best with my nose deep in a book, so the wide availability and extensive collection of materials in the library was extremely useful. I was definitely one of those students who would drag 10 books to class with me to read during breaks. This balance between reading, talking to the instructors and taking the Continuing Education programs helped ensure that I could both learn what the instructor knew would help me succeed, as well as tailor my knowledge to suit my goals.

How did your experience at RRC help prepare you for your career?

After just coming from the Film Studies Program at the University of Manitoba, it was refreshing to change my learning habits to how RRC works, with more emphasis on practical skills such as payroll, managing human resources, applying for business loans, and anything else that might come up in the first years of a business that needs the owner’s attention.

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Mark Southern learned the airline business from the ground up, rising from an entry-level position to become Air Canada’s managing director of airport operations for North America.

He’s made a lot of connections over the years, but the 1988 Business Administration grad credits Red River College with launching his high-flying career.

“It was a good experience for me. It was exactly what I needed at the time,” he says, adding it was just what his parents, Dawn and Oakley, needed too.

“Both my parents were teachers; my dad was in administration for years. I think they were a little concerned that their son was playing a lot of hockey with no clear career plan.”

Southern was intrigued by leadership even as a teen working for Pacific Western Airlines, one of the companies that amalgamated in the late 1980s as Canadian Airlines, which itself merged with Air Canada in 2001.

“It’s one of the most interesting topics for me, leadership. It’s what I’m kind of passionate about it, and so that’s why I chose Business Administration,” he says.

“In that moment in time, the first big step was I had to get a management position and I thought, ‘Well I need to get some education.’ ”

The RRC program gave him a solid grounding in the broader business world, and as a union lead hand at the airline, Southern was able to put some of the lessons of organizational behaviour into practice right away.

“The other part that I thought was really cool was a lot of the instructors were business guys who were passionate about education,” he says. Read More →

No one wants to discuss their sexual health with a stranger. But those who enter Heather Day’s care can rest assured they’re in a judgment-free zone.

As a nurse at Nine Circles Community Health Centre testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, the Red River College grad creates a warm, welcoming environment for her patients – no matter which road led them to her.

“You’re asking people about their sexual health and their drug use and it can be pretty difficult to talk about that stuff in a cold, clinical environment,” says Day. “You need to help relax and put people at ease and tell them why it’s important that you’re asking these questions.”

Day graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing from the College’s three-year accelerated program in 2013. Six months after completing her senior practicum at Nine Circles, she landed a permanent position there conducting tests for STIs and HIV, providing support for those affected by HIV/AIDS, and promoting harm reduction for those who are at risk.

Her patient base comprises a number of at-risk populations, including those involved in the sex trade and people who use intravenous drugs.

“I’ve seen a lot of vulnerable people there,” says Day, who takes an empathic approach to care, focusing on trying to make her patients’ circumstances and actions safer, rather than condoning or condemning them. “Sometimes people will engage in behaviours that you would never engage in for whatever reason, so it’s really important to not focus on yourself and to focus on your clients.”

“There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to sex. So there can’t be a one size fits all approach to treatment and management of infections.” Read More →

Sarah Brazauskas always knew she didn’t want a one-size-fits-all career. As it turns out, the 27-year-old graduate of Red River College’s Graphic Design program walked into a dream job that could have been custom-tailored just for her.

As the first full-time Storyboot School coordinator for Aboriginal footwear phenomenon Manitobah Mukluks, Brazauskas pours herself into her work heart and sole, bringing together Aboriginal artists and students in the community and at the company’s Point Douglas headquarters.

“We’re teaching the art of mukluk- and moccasin-making to Aboriginal youth in an effort to keep the tradition alive within the community and spark the next generation of crafters and artists,” she says.

The job ticks all the boxes on the fulfillment front: Creatively satisfying, it has positive social implications and it resonates on a personal level too, connecting Brazauskas with her Aboriginal roots.

The school grew out of the Storyboot Project founded by Manitobah Mukluks CEO Sean McCormick. Storyboots are moccasins, mukluks and other craftworks created by Aboriginal artists who receive 100% of the proceeds from sales. Starting in 2013, classes were organized under an informal management framework, and Brazauskas took on the role of coordinator last April.

Six months later, she was featured in Maclean’s magazine’s Cool Jobs series. The experience was humbling — Brazauskas doesn’t like to be in the spotlight — but it was exciting as well. Her mom Jocelyn bought several copies of the magazine and it was posted in the Rennie Hotel, making her a minor celebrity in her small hometown on the outskirts of Whiteshell Provincial Park.

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In an era where vehicles practically drive themselves, you’d think the automotive trade might have evolved with the technology. But female mechanics are still almost as rare as flying cars.

Elaine Lagasse is hoping to change that.

A graduate of Red River College’s Automotive Service Educational program, Lagasse is also RRC’s first female automotive instructor. She sees the number of female students walking in – or perhaps kicking down – the door of the Automotive Technician Certificate program, and it’s not pretty.

“We probably average three or four per cent women,” she says. “So (in a program with 100 students), that’s three or four women. The numbers are very, very low.”

Lagasse was the only woman in her program’s class of 2004. She graduated with top marks and received the Ken Preboy Memorial Award before moving on to become a Red Seal Automotive Technician for four years, then landed her current position as an RRC instructor in 2008.

“There’s no reason why the numbers haven’t picked up more than they have,” Lagasse says of the program’s relative lack of female students. “I think the big thing is just breaking the barrier and realizing that there’s nothing that makes (the automotive trade) more suited for men versus women.” Read More →

There’s no dust settling on Winnipeg eco-entrepreneur Todd Burns.

The globetrotting president of Cypher Environmental has travelled far since he graduated from RRC’s Business Administration program in 2001, taking Cypher’s dust-suppression, road-stabilization and water-treatment products to dozens of countries.

“The last time I counted it was well above 35, so I’m probably around 41 or 42 right now. Last year I went to a few countries for the first time ever — Honduras, Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia.”

Even jet-lagged, the 34-year-old entrepreneur is usually the freshest face in the room wherever business takes him, whether he’s networking with local, national and international trade groups, or meeting with Cypher’s distributors in Asia, Africa, Europe, the U.S., Mexico and South America.

“Our distributors worldwide, the owners of those businesses have children my age,” he laughs.

Burns was by far the youngest executive invited to fly to Mexico with former prime minister Stephen Harper to attend the Three Amigos Trade Summit in February 2014 — an “awesome” experience that came three months before he joined a youthful peer group at a meet-and-greet with Prince Charles at AssentWorks during a whirlwind royal tour. And he was among a handful of local business owners asked to take part in a federal round-table on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Last year, he returned to RRC to speak to students in the International Business program, and he’s collaborating with RRC staff and students to further develop Cypher’s environmentally friendly dust-suppressant Dust Stop, with the support of a $65,000 Applied Research and Development grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

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There are those who prefer to make the news, and those who prefer to be the news. Red River College graduate Stephanie Scherbain knows which side she’s on.

“I wanted to be a part of the news, and not write the news,” says Scherbain, a graduate of RRC’s Creative Communications program. “I felt like I could make a difference by being in an organization that had initiatives and had something for journalists to write about.”

Mission accomplished. After studying both journalism and public relations in her first year of CreComm, Scherbain chose to major in PR during the program’s second year. She graduated in 2008 with all of the tools she needed to fulfill her career goals – and fast.

She landed a marketing job at St. Vital Centre in 2009 before assuming her current position as marketing and communications coordinator for the Exchange District Business Improvement Zone (BIZ) in 2010. There she shines a spotlight on the bustling area of downtown Winnipeg, by maintaining the organization’s website, working with businesses to create events, organizing culinary tours, and even playing tour guide herself on walking tours of the historic district.

“We feel that the Exchange is in the midst of a renaissance,” she says.

Scherbain credits her practical and hands-on CreComm education for giving her all of the tools she requires to do her job, from technical and presentation skills to TV and radio industry insight.

“It gives you the ability to think from different perspectives,” she says. “If you want to be on the news, then you’ve got to have something newsworthy. But then you have to think from the TV perspective, the visual perspective. It allows you to adapt to the different industries to make it a bigger, better picture.” Read More →