These grads aren’t just giving back to Red River College — they’re building it.

Chris Sousa (Building Construction Technician, 2012) and Glenn Garbett (Structural Technology, 1998) are two of the key pillars behind the Paterson GlobalFoods Institute, Red River College’s new Exchange District campus and residence, which is racing toward its official opening on February 21.

As site supervisor and project manager, respectively, Sousa and Garbett have been marshalls to the small army of tradespeople, engineers, architects and planners tasked with bringing a 100-year-old Winnipeg heritage building into the 21^st century.

“Ever since my teenage years, I really enjoyed this building,” Sousa says, sitting in the sunlit mixology class where bottles and glasses look out onto Old Market Square. “I fell in love with the building and had my own personal plans with what I wanted to do with it. I didn’t expect it to be a school.”

“To have Red River College have a great idea for the use of the old building — to add onto it without interfering with it, to not make it stand out like a sore thumb and to make the heritage a key feature — it was a great privilege to work on.”

“There have been definite project challenges that make PGI one of the most memorable buildings I’ve worked on,” Garbett says. “I’ve worked on other heritage buildings downtown, but it was nowhere near as complex.”

Those complexities started on day one for the two men when they met the former bank whose proud, smiling exterior hid confusing, twisted and occasionally malicious guts.

“Everywhere we turned it was like opening a can of worms,” Sousa says. “If walls weren’t collapsing, it was the ceiling. If the ceiling wasn’t collapsing, it was the floors. There was always something going on that kept you on your toes.” Read More →

Each year, a maximum of four Lieutenant-Governor’s medals are awarded to Red River College students who, in the opinion of a selection committee, combine to the greatest extent in their graduating year academic and technical achievement, involvement in College and/or community activities, and good character.

KIMBERLY COWAN
Professional Baking and Patisserie

Kimberly Cowan credits Red River College’s Professional Baking & Patisserie program for allowing her to turn her life’s passion into a full-time career.

Cowan spent her childhood on her uncle’s grain and cattle farm in her hometown of Landis, SK. When her family made the move to Portage la Prairie, it meant a lot would change for a then-teenaged Cowan. Through those transitions, one thing remained the same: her passion for food (specifically baking), which she inherited from her mother and grandmother, both talented cooks.

A few years after earning her Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in History, Kimberly decided to leave her full-time job at a local bank to go back to school and pursue a career in baking.  During her time with RRC, she competed in the Canola Bake-off in 2011 — tying for first with her Sticky Toffee Pudding entry. She also represented RRC in the baking category at Skills Manitoba and the Skills Canada Nationals, where she placed gold in the provincial competition.

Kimberly also played for RRC’s first ever women’s soccer team, helping them place third in the Manitoba College Athletic Conference in 2012. She is now in her eleventh year with Winnipeg’s Soccer League.

Today, Kimberly works as a full-time chef at Chocolatier Constance Popp, a premium artisan chocolate shop specializing in treats made with local ingredients.  She thanks her family, friends and instructors for their constant support and encouragement.

PATRICK MURPHY
Hospitality and Tourism Management

A husband and father of two, Patrick Murphy left his full-time accounting job to follow his passion in hotel management. He enrolled in Red River College’s Hospitality and Tourism Management program, having previously worked in the industry back when he first got married.

When asked what inspires him about the field, Patrick credits the people. He enjoys meeting guests from all over the world and learning more about their individual stories. As a child, Patrick had his own opportunity to travel the globe — his father’s military career took his family to the United States, Germany and Newfoundland.

He hopes to one day give his family the opportunity to travel the world as he has. Goal destinations include Baden-Baden, Germany, where he grew up, and of course, Disney World.

During his time with RRC, Patrick was awarded the Professional Leadership Award (2012), Canad Inns Award (2011) for academics and Fairmont Award (2011) for academics and student involvement. Today he is the Fairmont’s Gold Supervisor, responsible for the care of some of the Fairmont’s most special guests. His career goal is to work up the ladder and become general manager of his own hotel.

Patrick also contributes to his community as a team leader for Scouts Canada, an organization he discovered while looking for something to do with his son, Devon. He credits the program for teaching youth about the importance of diversity and respect.

From wintry Winnipeg to the beaches Down Under — Red River College grad Cliff Olson has certainly gone far with his training in hotel management.

A 1981 alum of RRC’s Hotel and Restaurant Administration program, Olson has enjoyed a long career in the industry, and now works in sunny Melbourne, Australia, where we caught up with him for an email interview.

RRC: You’ve worked all over the world, but where were you born?

Cliff Olson: Born in Winnipeg, but moved around Manitoba all through childhood, as Mom and Dad owned hotels in many areas.

Sounds like you’ve got the hospitality industry in your blood. What prompted you to come to RRC?

Yes, I grew up in hotels, and had been working in hotels and restaurants since I was 13. In high school I completed a two-and-a-half-year food services course. Afterward, I was looking at universities and colleges for a hotel management program. I went on a tour of the RRC campus and knew immediately it was where I wanted to be.

What stands out in your mind from that time?

I remember the instructors and coordinators were people I respected. They could talk about real experiences that I found helped me to learn.

Did you feel you were well-prepared for your field?

Absolutely, and I still use the things I learned. For instance I was never that interested in maintenance, but from the teachings I at least know enough about refrigeration, electrical and plumbing to understand what’s what in the real world. The accounting was invaluable and because of it when I went to work, I understood profit and loss statements and balance sheets. And the psychology was a great eye-opener, and helped me understand more about life. Read More →

When Rita Flamand was a young girl growing up in Camperville, Manitoba, she wasn’t allowed to speak her Metis tongue at school.

“They told me it wasn’t a real language,” she recalls. “They said it was a bastard language.”

Michif draws its verbs from Plains Cree or Ojibwe, while its nouns and articles are usually French. Like the Metis, it is a blending of cultures with its own unique identity. Despite having the five basic components of an independent language – syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology and phonology — it has traveled a difficult road to receiving official recognition, partly because there is no cohesive written form of the language.

Flamand has been working to change that. Since graduating from Red River College’s Aboriginal Interpreter program in 1998, she’s has been working as a translator on projects ranging from provincial voting guides to children’s cartoons, bettering her understanding of Michif as she builds toward a magnum opus: a Michif dictionary.

“I have everything set out to publish,” Flamand says, “I’m just dealing with the copyright issues… And I’ve been so busy using the stuff I took from RRC — translating and translating.”

It’s an unlikely project for a woman who only completed Grade 8. (Funding controversies at the time prevented Flamand and her classmates from progressing further.) She remembers working a variety of jobs as young as 14, traveling through Manitoba and northern Ontario to clean homes and look after children. A practical nursing course later on opened new job opportunities as far west as B.C., but also landed her in a tuberculosis sanatorium in Winnipegosis for a couple years in the mid-1950s.

Flamand married and raised eight children with her husband. When the last moved out in the ‘90s, Flamand faced a pressing choice; what to do next?

“My friend Darlene Timash knew I wanted to do something with my language – I was trying to get a writing system going at the time. She said ‘Rita, there’s a course starting at Red River College for Aboriginal interpreters, you should sign up.’” Read More →

So you graduate from Red River College’s Business Administration program with a major in marketing — what next? Well, if you’re Alex Kampen, you pack your bags and move to Bremerhaven, Germany, to play professional hockey.

Kampen, 21, grew up in Winnipeg and joined his first organized hockey team at the age of six, playing for the North Kildonan Cobras. As he gained more experience and his profile grew, he made his way up to the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL), where he played with the Selkirk Steelers for three seasons.

“Hockey has always been my life,” says Kampen from Germany. “It’s really been that driving force.”

Knowing he would eventually outgrow the MJHL age requirement, Kampen began exploring full-time post-secondary programs that interested him. After hearing good things about RRC, Kampen decided its Business Administration program would be the perfect fit.

Kampen spent his first year studying the foundation of business practices at RRC’s Roblin Centre downtown. During his second year, he took the initiative to bring a friend’s business idea to life while also finding a way to incorporate hockey into his studies. For his program’s Entrepreneurship Practicum, he worked with a small group of other Business students to create, develop and pitch “Puck Honey Stick Wax.”

The hockey product is a wax derived honey from honey farms and is meant to be used on the blades of hockey sticks to prevent water, snow or ice from sticking, which in return increases puck control and other performance variables.

Today, Kampen says he carries life-lessons learned during his time at RRC with him in Bremerhaven, where he plays for the Fischtown Pinguins in the 2012-13 Oberliga season.

“At Red River College, you’re definitely forced to do really well working with others. Right now, I’m on a hockey team and we all need to function and be efficient while working together.” Read More →

There are three slices of butterfish lying across each other on the plate, their edges stained purple by beet juice. A small golden hill of julienned apple and beet rises nearby. The dish is framed by asparagus stalks, cucumber, a taro crisp anchored in brilliant orange roe and a pool of wasabi mayonnaise.

It looks like a modern sculpture. With its combination of Scandinavian fish curing and Japanese sensibilities, it’s a meeting of two cultures.

And it’s the dish that just won RRC alum Chef Östen Rice (Culinary Arts, 2001) the Winnipeg Gold Medal Plate, earning him a spot at the Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna next year.

“That dish was very personal for me, it goes back to my heritage,” Rice says, on a break from meal rushes at Wasabi Sabi. “My mom is from Sweden. She cooked the way her mother taught her, the way her grandmother taught her and so on. I came across some old recipe books and they inspired me for this dish.”

“I realized a while ago that Japanese and Scandinavian food can work well together. The cultures have the same clean aesthetic and presentation style to them – and lots of emotion swirling around them.”

Rice’s distinctive style – his Scandinasian flair – and his recent award are both accomplishments with years of experience behind them. The 31-year-old Winnipegger, born and raised in Fort Rouge, knew from an early age that he wanted to be a chef.

“As far back as I can I remember, I was always interested in food. My mom cooked food from scratch and I was always hanging around. I think there are pictures of me as a toddler trying to help.” Read More →

Luke Kandia’s work as president and CEO of Seerx Technologies involves a lot of trouble shooting; when you’re building a client’s network infrastructure or recovering data from a fried laptop, it helps to have a mind geared toward problem solving.

So it’s fitting the 51 year old’s own search to find his calling was problematic.

“As a kid, you don’t really know what you want to do,” Kandia says. “When it came time to leave St. John’s High School, I went to the job fair and a university had a display up about Forestry and I thought, ‘Hey, I like the outdoors.’”

Kandia registered and headed east, only to find the course work heavy on measuring tree growth and light on communing with nature. After dropping out, he headed to Toronto for testing to enter fighter pilot training – a challenge that appealed to the adventurous young man.

Unlike the other entrants, he’d never flown a plane.

“All the other guys, they had been cadets, they had their private pilot’s license. When I got into the simulator, I bombed. They offered me a job in the army,” Kandia laughs.

Chastened, Kandia returned to Winnipeg to join a different force: the Winnipeg Police Service. As a cadet, Kandia peered inside the force’s operations, admiring the fast-paced, intense lives led by the officers around him. But the longer he served, the more the glamour wore off. A high-profile corruption case involving prominent officers soured his view of the force’s lifestyle. His plans to start a family faced off against his fears of meeting a known criminal while out shopping with his children.

“There was the glamour and the rush, but you’ve got to live with the rest of the stuff day to day,” Kandia says. “A lot of people on the station duty gave me the impression I could do better for myself outside.” Read More →

Red River College grad Tannis Rentz (Animal Health Technology, 2002) has been providing aid to people’s pets for more than 10 years now — ever since she began volunteering at the Transcona Veterinary Hospital as a teen.

But in April 2013, Rentz and fellow AHT grad Mary Robinson (2011) will travel a little further afield to help the tens of thousands of sick or malnourished dogs crowding the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal.

Rentz and Robinson are headed to Nepal’s KAT Centre, a not-for-profit treatment centre for sick and injured street dogs. As Rentz explains, there are currently more than 20,000 dogs living on the streets of Kathmandu — many of them infected with rabies and other communicable diseases that pose a threat to their human counterparts.

“And of course they’re constantly reproducing, because none of them are spayed or neutered,” says Rentz, who over the last 10 years has worked her way from a clinical position at the Winnipeg Animal Emergency Clinic to an administrative role with the Petsecure arm of the Western Financial Insurance Company.

“Initially, the government there thought it would be a good idea to terminate these dogs by throwing poisoned meat into the streets. But then they’d dispose of the poisoned bodies by throwing them into their water supply, which just made things even worse.”

While in Kathmandu, Rentz and Robinson will assist KAT Centre staff in treating captured dogs for their existing medical conditions (malnourishment, skin diseases, lesions, etc.), then rehabilitating them to the point they can be safely spayed or neutered. Read More →

He’s built a local business into a national retailer, cultivated a passionate base of customers through a tireless focus on service, and devoted himself to revitalizing his community and helping dozens of young people pursue their own career dreams.

That’s why Red River College is proud to name entrepreneur and philanthropist Bob Tallman as the 2012 recipient of our Distinguished Alumni Award.

Bob Tallman joined the family business, Princess Auto Ltd, in the mid-seventies, shortly after graduating from RRC with a diploma in Business Administration.

“I was the first in my family to be attending a post-secondary school,” he says. ”Our life had been focused around the family business, and I wanted to know something about business in general before I began working there on a full time basis.”

The investment in education paid off, as Bob and his brother Larry grew the small Winnipeg-based firm into a nationwide retail operation through the late-seventies and the eighties. Bob Tallman became the sole owner and CEO of Princess Auto in 1989.

Today, he oversees a network of 34 retail stores with over 1,800 staff specializing in industrial, garage and surplus items. The company prides itself on its diverse product assortment, boasting its one of the few places in the world where you can purchase a gas powered air compressor and an HDMI cable in the same building.

But it’s Princess Auto’s commitment to providing exceptional customer service that has earned it a cult-like following among shoppers, which is something Bob says was inspired by his time at RRC.

“I learned through my experiences at Red River College that a business ultimately is about the people who work in the business, the roles they play and most importantly, how they interact as a team,” he says. “It is probably the greatest lesson I learned at RRC, and has driven much of my strategy in building Princess Auto.” Read More →

At Red River College, we pride ourselves on helping budding entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into realities. From simple start-ups to international success stories, our graduates have a knack for leaving their mark on the marketplace.

Just ask Sean Sylvestre, (Business Administration, 2003) a recent grad who’s currently combining the training he received at RRC with the optical insight he acquired while working at his parents’ dispensary in Garden City. As the brains behind Eyewear Evolution, a new company that employs  “virtual mirror” software to bridge the gap between traditional and online retailers, Sylvestre has come up with an innovative solution to an industry-wide challenge.

“What we’ve created is a virtual mirror so that we can actually showcase the product in 3D on (customers’) faces — on either a tablet, their mobile phone, or through their PC,” says Sylvestre, who also works as general manager at Joss Vision Care on Pembina Highway.

“Part of the issue when people come in to try on glasses is they take off their current glasses, put on the demo, look in the mirror and they can’t actually see what they look like — because there’s no prescription in the demo. We deal with that problem.”

The new software also has benefits for brick-and-mortar retailers, who can employ a virtual inventory that allows them to keep pace with online vendors. Since they no longer have to pre-pay for inventory, retailers can sell their product for less, and may be able to cut down on staffing and operational costs, as well.

It’s the type of creative, cutting-edge vision that’s typical of RRC grads, many of whom achieve success in everything from marketing to office management, finance to manufacturing. Whether they’re at the top of the chain of command, or just getting in on the ground floor, RRC alumni tend to be armed with the skills and determination to make a real impact on industry. Read More →