For many, a relationship with your alma mater begins with admission — some paperwork online, an application, maybe some references.

For Structural Engineering Technology grad Jared Akman, his bond with Red River College Polytechnic started well before that. Back when the College’s Roblin Centre was being constructed in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, Akman was there with his family business — an early teen tasked with cleanup duty on the build site.

That connection between Akman Construction, an industry icon in Winnipeg, and RRC Polytech is at the core of Akman’s career. Though he started with jobs as simple as sweeping floors, it wasn’t long before he was moving up in the industry.

“I worked my way up as the building progressed into a deficiency coordinator,” says Akman. “I started on clean-up to gain an understanding of the complexity of the build and to work alongside the trades in hopes of gaining their respect. That fueled my love for Red River, being involved in the amazing project on Princess Street.”

Since then, Akman has not only graduated from an RRC Polytech Engineering and Construction Technology program — with a diploma in Structural Engineering Technology in 2008 — he’s also worked on a number of other projects, including the new Skilled Trades and Technology Centre at the Notre Dame Campus, and RRC Polytech’s newest expansion to the Exchange District Campus, Manitou a bi Bii daziigae, which opened downtown this fall.

Those projects have come to Akman Construction, a family business that Jared says he always wanted to continue with from a young age. The organization has been in his family since Aaron Akman, a certified carpenter, established the company in 1912 after immigrating to Canada from Russia. The company’s work began by growing the city, constructing single family homes in the North End of Winnipeg.

“I was given the opportunity to choose what field of work I was interested in and get an education in that sector,” says Akman. “But as the fourth generation, it was very important to me to carry on the family legacy.”

Akman credits his experience as an RRC Polytech student with setting his career path in motion. Having looked around at those working at the company, he realized many were already RRC Polytech graduates, including his father, Richard. On the recommendation of his father, Jared decided to get into the program himself.

“That made my decision very easy,” he says. “This was the right path.”

Derek McCorrister watched his father build two different businesses.

“I grew up in his contracting business, and he built a number of homes in Peguis First Nation,” says McCorrister, a graduate of RRC Polytech’s Entrepreneurship program. “I was a helper from a very early age and I saw what he had to do to provide for us.”

As a young adult, McCorrister worked for his father’s second business, a sporting goods store called The Sports Zone, in addition to doing other odd jobs, all while playing competitive hockey. He wanted to become an entrepreneur like his father, but at that time, he was trying to take care of his growing family.

“I had to make a choice for myself and my family to pursue my dream,” he says. 

McCorrister’s parents instilled in him the importance of pursuing an education, and he tried university, but says the setting didn’t work for him.

“I needed more structure and smaller class sizes, so I made the switch over to Red River College Polytechnic, and it was the right choice,” he says. “I only found out years later when I was attending RRC Polytech that my father attended, too.”

McCorrister graduated from the Entrepreneurship program in 2000, around the time his second daughter was born. He says he had many business ideas going into the program, including the inkling that would eventually become his current business, but his big dream was to open a billiard hall and lounge. His favourite part of the program was being surrounded by classmates with the same intention of opening up a business.

“It was cool to see other people doing this research to create something that would shape their future,” he says.

After graduating, McCorrister ended up working for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada’s Economic Development department. He worked extensively with Indigenous businesses and organizations in the private and not-for-profit sectors until he decided to take a leap of faith.

He knew the door to his entrepreneurship dream would close if he remained a civil servant, but that didn’t make it less scary. McCorrister says there were a couple of factors that made the decision challenging — one of them being that his family was continuing to grow and the job with the federal government provided stability and security.

Looking at the story of Eleanor Coopsammy’s career so far, there’s a lot of foreshadowing that she would end up as a journalist.

“I would sit behind a piano and pretend I was an anchor or a teacher. My mom even found an old news script I wrote,” says Coopsammy, a graduate of RRC Polytech’s Creative Communications program.

“I did quite a bit of public speaking when I was younger, and the journalism teacher at my high school asked me if I had thought about a career in radio or TV.”

In her high school yearbook write-up, Coopsammy’s blurb said she was most likely to take over from Oprah Winfrey. While this prediction didn’t quite come true, she did go on to create her own legacy at CTV Winnipeg.

She worked there for 16 years, and in that time, served in many roles and covered everything from politics to consumer trends, eventually becoming the host of CTV Morning Live.

“My first love was news, and I did develop an interest in business stories,” says Coopsammy. “Meeting new people, telling stories, learning about different things — those are all my favourite things.”

Coopsammy double-majored in history and English at the University of Winnipeg, all while holding on to her interest in journalism. She says she heard about the Creative Communications program while at UWinnipeg and was told that it was tough to get in, but she applied anyway and got accepted in 1997.

Coopsammy says the program opened many doors for her career, and instructors like Dean Cooper (who is still a media production instructor at RRC Polytech) had a lot to do with that. At the time, Cooper worked with local studios to revamp the College’s TV studio, and Coopsammy says it created access to opportunities on the television side for students.

She eventually worked at CTV with then-host Joanne Kelly, who is also currently an RRC Polytech instructor, teaching journalism.

“She had a profound effect on me, and I can only imagine the profound impact she is having on tomorrow’s grads.”

Looking back, Coopsammy says she appreciated the networking opportunities the program offered, such as the mentorship program that RRC Polytech developed with female leaders across television and public relations.

It’s an all-female executive team at North Forge Technology Exchange — a fortuitous coincidence at first, but one that now impacts every aspect of operations. 

Same with the mandatory code of conduct — ensuring every person who walks through the organization’s doors is treated with respect — and efforts to maintain an equal ratio of female to male founders in its advanced manufacturing lab and at the Innovation Hub.

And it’s all the doing of Joelle Foster, who moved into her role as the organization’s Chief Executive Officer in February 2020. Since then, North Forge has seen a 294 per cent increase in the number of companies they’re working with. The growth would be impressive at any time, but even more so during a global pandemic.

Foster has also developed a four-stage digital Founders Program, an advanced manufacturing program called AMLab™ and an Angel Network, and will be rolling out a Women in Innovation Lab called WiLab™. Outside of North Forge, she’s also the co-founder and general partner of the Women’s Equity Lab (WEL) Manitoba.

“The tech and advanced manufacturing industries have typically been male-dominated,” says Foster, a graduate of multiple Red River College Polytechnic programs and courses. “I want to make sure that I make an impact, that I can start to change the perception around incubators and accelerators.

“I want a woman to be able to walk into our space at any point and feel welcome, like they belong, and never to feel like it’s all for men and they’re not worthy or respected.”

At North Forge, the success of Foster’s mandate can be seen in the current roster of entrepreneurs, including a female founder who created a pleasure device in the organization’s fabrication lab, a Saskatchewan woman developing a platform geared toward Black business owners, and a duo who designed an innovative cart for new mothers.

“We have a lot of women from across Canada approaching us because of our all-female team,” says Foster. “There are a lot of women with ideas and inventions. Our doors are always open to everybody.”

Raymond Ngarboui has a good reason for being late to a scheduled appointment at the Rainbow Community Garden on a recent August afternoon.

Within sight of IG Field at the University of Manitoba, the Garden is a place where families new to Canada are able to plant, tend, and harvest their own crops.

Among those waiting for Ngarboui is a group of students from Gordon Bell High School who have summer jobs on the Green Team, an employment program he manages in his capacity as a Community Development Coordinator for the Community Education Development Association (CEDA).

Not surprisingly, all eyes are on Ngarboui as he pulls up. With his easygoing manner, he has the full attention of the students. After speaking with them, he has time to sit down and talk about his career in community development.

“I was here (at the Garden) when I got a call from the Downtown Access Clinic,” Ngarboui explains. “A single mother had just delivered (her baby) and was in serious need of food. I spoke with her, got her address, rushed to put together a food box, and rushed to her home to deliver it. That’s why I was a few minutes late.”

Connecting people and resources through Winnipeg’s social services infrastructure is all in a day’s work for Ngarboui, a 2008 graduate of RRC Polytech’s Community Development/Community Economic Development program.

“I try to bring together different groups to spark positive results,” he says. “Like a catalyst in a chemical reaction.”

His self-assessment as a community builder has deep roots. A native of Chad, Ngarboui fled the Central African country in 2005 amid a civil war.

“I went through a lot with my family. I survived. We were among a huge population of refugees in (neighbouring country) Cameroon who would help each other. So, I was already seeing community. And I had a vision to give more back.”

With some skills and knowledge in farming, he came to Canada. Like many newcomers, Ngarboui spoke no English. Through the immigration process, he was given a choice of cities: Edmonton, Quebec City, or Winnipeg. A different fluent French speaker (as Ngarboui is) might have found Quebec’s “la vieille capitale” an appealing prospect. Ngarboui had other ideas.

“I was eager to learn English. And I was told Winnipeg was the coldest of the three options. I said, ‘Okay, that’s another good challenge.’”

Angelina Pelletier, a 2018 Community Development graduate, credits Red River College Polytechnic (RRC Polytech) with helping her find her way in work and in life.

“What stood out at the school was the sense of community,” said Pelletier “The educators, the staff – they won me over with a nurturing environment.”

Pelletier was born and raised in Swan Lake, a small community in southwestern Manitoba. Her mother, from Fiji, felt isolated in the rural town of 350 people. While her Métis father (“an army brat”) did not grow up exposed to his culture and experienced shame about his mixed ancestry, Angelina was experiencing Indigenous culture and ceremonies like the Annual Pow Wow at neighbouring Swan Lake First Nation.

She began to understand her heritage in a particular way.

“Being of mixed race, I didn’t fit in a box. I’d get the question – ‘What are you? Middle Eastern? Egyptian?’ I was ‘Othered.’”

“But my mom is classified as an Indigenous Fijian person. And there are parallels in the Aboriginal beliefs in Fiji and in Canada. I think of myself as Indigenous.”

The family moved to Winnipeg in 1997, settling in St. Boniface in time for Pelletier to begin sixth grade – and for her to affirm her French roots.

“I went to French schools in St. Boniface, including the school my grandfather once attended, back when it was an all-boys school. Across the street was the all-girls school where my grandmother went. St. Boniface is still where I live, and I remain fluent in French.”

Winnipeg exposed Pelletier to the cultures of newcomers from many parts of the world. But, it wasn’t until she was in the Community Development program at RRC Polytech, that Pelletier had the opportunity to complete a practicum in the North End, a vast urban section of the city with its own rich history of multiculturalism yet pervasive issues around poverty and racism.

“Dad had a pharmacy on Balmoral Avenue, but I hadn’t really crossed the bridge to know the community. The North End is so much more resilient and the people more willing to help one another out than many realize.”

After graduating from Windsor Park Collegiate in 2004, Pelletier went on to study at The University of Winnipeg, with an interest in becoming a lawyer. Plans changed after she became pregnant during her first year, giving birth to a son, Tayshaun, in 2006.

“I needed practical skills. I went to Herzing College and became a Legal Administrative Assistant. Then I went back to university and earned a Bachelor of Human Rights and Global Studies over a period of six years as I was raising my son. I couldn’t find employment – there wasn’t a big demand for human rights practitioners at the time.”

Pelletier took on roles in finance and call centre work, none fulfilling her ambitions or interest.

A new direction

Then, in 2014, after a long battle with cancer, Pelletier’s mother passed away. Looking through things her mother had given her, Pelletier opened a dictionary-thesaurus – a gift upon graduating from Herzing. Inside was an encouraging note. Pelletier continued flipping through the book, looking for inspiration. She landed on a sample cover letter for a community development job.

“I didn’t really know what community development meant. But I was looking to my mom, who wasn’t here anymore, for guidance.”

Pelletier found another thing while rummaging through her mother’s items: transcripts from Red River College from the late 90s. Like mother, like daughter? It was one more sign.

After looking into RRC Polytech’s program offerings, Pelletier took a third plunge into post-secondary education. In contrast to her university experience, she embraced all that RRC Polytech had to offer.

Over the past year and a half, those who love to travel have mostly been kept waiting at home. Borders have closed and flights have been grounded, as the world put health and safety at the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As normalcy starts to creep back in, though, jet-setting opportunities are starting to pop up. This timing couldn’t be better for Culinary Arts grad Denice Linag. After graduating with honours last spring, she learned about the chance to go to Dubai to work at World Expo 2020 — a massive event planned for last year, which was postponed to start in fall 2021. Without any hesitation, she jumped at the chance.

“My instructor, Chef Melissa Hyrb, did the Expo ten years ago in Shanghai,” says Linag. “She remembered that when I was in class with her, I told her that I wanted to travel to learn more about cooking. So, she got back to me and that’s how this whole opportunity was presented.”

“To be honest, I’d never heard of the World Expo until this opportunity was presented to me — but I wanted to take advantage of it because during COVID, nobody was able to do much of anything. I have nothing tying me down, so I told them I was more than willing and I’m so happy I did. I couldn’t pass that up.”

Linag, 22, is part of a small contingent representing Canada at World Expo, a massive, six-month event put on by the United Arab Emirates, which opened on October 1 and will continue through to March 31, 2022. The Expo 2020 site takes up 1,080 hectares and features pavilions from 192 countries, which allows visitors to explore many different cultures, and — the focus area for Linag – their cuisines.

“Canada’s pavilion is huge,” Linag describes. “The inside of it has a panoramic theatre, which shows what Canada has to offer and what it went through during the pandemic, so it’s very interesting. We also have a VIP room and a boardroom, which is mainly who [the culinary team] is serving to. We also do casual event food for those walking through — teas, coffees, canapés — that’s mostly our role in the pavilion.”

James Warren is a big believer in having the right tool for the right job.

“You use a drill to drive a screw,” he says. “But sometimes, a drill is too much — you need to be more delicate, so you use a screwdriver. You can have different tools for different applications.”

Warren does not work in carpentry or building construction. Rather, he is CEO and part-owner of Karve, an information technology (IT) start-up in Winnipeg. The company was born of his time as a budding entrepreneur in the ACE Project Space at Red River College Polytechnic.

Warren and his Karve business partner, Jared Kozak, also co-own another tech company, DueNorth Systems. The two met when they were both with the Royal Canadian Navy. Warren remembers being “fascinated” by Kozak, a self-taught programmer in high school at the time.

Today, with a small staff made up of RRC Polytech graduates, they build, sell and maintain enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems, the architecture of which sounds complex to the untrained ear. These systems are used to manage the various flows for operations of medium to large-scale businesses. In other words, resource planning.

Warren uses a multinational moving company called You Move Me as an example to illustrate how his company’s ERP software works. It enables movers to schedule a crew, who get a particular truck, which gets assigned to a particular job, which needs a set of materials and assets that need to be on that truck for that job. The crew needs to go to the client’s starting location, pack a house, go to an ending, unload, and finally return to the office.

“The perfect audience for our platform is in companies that understand there are technological ways to improve,” Warren explains, while seated in Karve’s new offices in Osborne Village. “They must also understand that technology isn’t always the answer.”

Warren graduated from RRC Polytech’s Business Information Technology program in January 2018. A clever and innovative student, he left school with the mindset that he wanted to start his own business in technology programming and developing software. He knew exactly where to turn.

Almost immediately after graduating from Red River College’s Computer Analyst/Programmer diploma program in 1998, Gillian Bresch-Giesbrecht accepted a job as a programmer with Richardson International.

Now, more than 20 years later, she’s still there.

It’s not a common career trajectory by today’s standards (only 30 per cent of people stay in any one job for over four years, according to a Workopolis report) but it is an impressive one. Today, Bresch-Giesbrecht works as a Senior Project Manager, where she is part of a fast-growing department of approximately 80 other IT professionals within the company.

And when it comes to the experience of working, growing, and succeeding with the same company throughout her entire career, she only has one thing to say: opportunity is aplenty.

“I have been from Vancouver, all the way to Sorel-Tracy. I’ve been almost all across Canada, and had an opportunity to visit many people across the country. It is a great industry to be in: there is demand, room to grow, and you can make some decent money compared to other industries,” she says.

“You’re able to choose the type of career path you want. It might be quite technical, with lots of coding or building, or maybe you’re somebody who doesn’t necessarily want to hang out at your desk. You can go out and talk to people and help them find solutions to improve their systems.”

When Bresch-Giesbrecht began studying at Red River College in 1996, the Internet was still a relatively new concept for most. She was halfway through her first year of an arts degree at the University of Manitoba when she says she decided to switch over to a more technical program with plenty of career prospects.

Her father, Geoff Bresch, was an instructor in the Computer Analyst/Programmer (CAP) diploma program in the 1980s at Red River College, and later in his career became an instructor in the Business Information Technology program. He suggested she apply to CAP at RRC.

Joe Froese’s career is all about the hustle.

From his first day as an apprenticeship student, Froese made sure nobody ever outworked him. Now, at 27, as a journeyman carpenter he co-owns two businesses with his father, George – the man who instilled in him a strong work ethic.

In 2002, the elder Froese founded Access Framing Inc. (@accessframinginc) in the family’s home community of Grunthal, in southeastern Manitoba. The company puts up wood frames for residential and commercial buildings. George is also known in the area as a pastor at Bothwell Christian Fellowship, in New Bothwell.

Joe joined his father at Access Framing as an apprentice carpenter in 2012, and he bought into the company two years later. After completing high school at that time, he transitioned into the Carpentry program at Red River College and graduated in 2017.

There’s value in the program for students who want to take the incentive and further themselves, says Froese, adding his own education at the College helped him to hone his problem-solving skills. “I think Red River College put me far ahead of where I would have been, if I had just worked hard in the trade and ‘worked my way up,’ kind of deal. It definitely helped me get ahead,” he says.

In 2019, with backing from his father, Froese started a second company, Access Building Ent. (@accessbuildingent), to work on start-to-finish new home builds and general contracting.

“I had an opportunity that presented itself to me,” he says. “I had it in the back of my mind that I’d like to do start-to-finish home builds. A buddy of mine had a house that needed repair, and he could not afford to fix it up. So, I bought the house and the land from him. I tore the house down, subdivided the land, and we built a few new homes.”

Froese describes carpentry as “a hard, physical, demanding career path,” and he says a person’s attitude plays a big role in their success.

“My instructors at Red River College were helpful; especially if you showed an interest in carpentry, which I did,” he says. “I wanted to become the best at it that I could be when I started, and they helped me to achieve that.”

Froese still works closely with George. Not every day working with his father is perfect, he admits. “Some days, we just don’t get along,” he laughs. “But for the most part, we get along and have a good relationship that way.”

His advice to students who want to break into the framing and construction business is to pay attention, learn how to use the tools, and understand the basics first. “Once you are in the trade, hopefully you will apprentice with a crew that will teach you, and not just expect you to know everything. Listen to what they tell you and grasp the concepts. Then they will start giving you more responsibilities. You can work your way up quickly, actually, if you show that initiative.”