Convocation

Alumni Engagement

Events

Free virtual event: Challenging Workplace Norms for Better Roles and Opportunities

February 17, 2021

You’re invited! Ten Thousand Coffees is hosting a panel discussion on March 5, 2021 at 12:30 p.m. CST to celebrate International Women’s Day.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is #ChoosetoChallenge. Ten Thousand Coffees is on board, choosing to challenge and call out gender bias and inequity in industry, while choosing to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can help create an inclusive world and workplace.

From challenge comes change. Ten Thousand Coffees invites us all choose to challenge our workplace norms and build an environment where women can thrive. Join students and alumni across the country to hear from speakers who have already chosen to challenge the world around them.

This event brings together an illustrious group of women from major brands like RBC, adidas, and IBM to share how they #ChooseToChallenge and how everyone who joins the webinar can do the same. The event is free and open to all Red River College students and alumni. Whether you’re already a member of the Red River College Café or new to our mentoring and networking platform, you’re invited to listen in as these experts discuss how women – and everyone – can thrive in the workplace.

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Free virtual event: Will Mentorship Get me a Job? A Fireside Chat

January 12, 2021

You’re invited! Ten Thousand Coffees is hosting a country-wide event with two special guests from RBC on January 21, 2021 at 2 p.m. CST.

The event is free and open to all Red River College students and alumni. Whether you’re already a member of the Red River College Café or new to our mentoring and networking platform, you’re invited to listen in as two experts chat about how mentoring helped them get ahead in their careers.

Join RBC Olympian and Professional Athlete, Sam Effah, and RBC’s Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, Mary DePaoli, as they share industry tips for landing a job at a top brand like RBC, and how to stand out in a pile of resumes. Learn directly from Sam and Mary as they give inside tips and advice on finding a mentor and job in 2021, and learn the importance of becoming a mentor yourself in this critical time.

Why join?

  • Hear tips to land a job at a top brand like RBC
  • Learn how to find a mentor—and why you’d want one
  • Ask our hosts your top questions about mentoring
  • Network with hundreds of students and alumni across the country

Don’t miss this intimate conversation hosted by Ten Thousand Coffees for Mentoring Month 2021. Registration will be closing soon, so reserve your spot now.

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Manufacturing Technician grad tapped for Air Force One clean team

July 5, 2019

For the second year in a row, a Red River College alum has been hand-picked to join Air Force One’s Detailing Team, whose members will spend the next week restoring a fleet of historic aircraft on display at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

Crisanto Aquino, a 2004 Manufacturing Technician grad now working at Dr. Shine Auto Spa in Winnipeg, is the only Canadian detailer to be selected for the task — by no less an expert than the man who’s overseen Air Force One’s restoration efforts for the last 16 years.

“He’s perfected his skill at cleaning and polishing paint and metal,” says U.S. detailer Renny Doyle of Aquino.

“When I chose him for the team last year, I was confident he was qualified for the job. After a year on the team, he’s proven he has the experience needed to continue our work, and he has the leadership skills to help us coordinate new team members and show them the ropes.”

Each year, a team of detailers from Canada, the Caribbean and the U.S. is selected to restore, maintain and protect Air Force One — which served as a flying Oval Office for former U.S. presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon — and more than a dozen other historic aircraft, including the first ever Boeing 747, the Concorde Alpha Golf and the first Boeing 727-022 commercial airliner.

Recent additions to the fleet — currently on exhibit at the museum’s Airpark Pavilion — include a solid aluminum WWII B-29 Super Fortress bomber and a badly deteriorating Vietnam-era B-52G Stratofortress bomber.

All told, Aquino will spend eight days working on the aircraft under Doyle’s direction.

“I am just as excited about being chosen for the team … but I think I bring more to the table this year than last,” he says. “It is an honor to be stewards and caretakers for all these iconic aircraft — especially Air Force One.”

Doyle and his team were first tapped to restore Air Force One in 2003, when a Bush administration exec learned of his expertise restoring classic cars. Though it no longer sits on an open tarmac, the jet still requires a cleaning every year, as the open-air pavilion where it’s displayed leaves it exposed to dampness and cold that causes paint and brightwork to become cloudy.

Programmed to succeed: Information Technology a family affair for trio of RRC grads

June 13, 2018

Talking to computers wasn’t a completely foreign concept when Stu and Heather Charles entered Red River College’s Computer Analyst Programmer (CAP) program in 1977.

Almost everyone was familiar with the phrase, “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”

The CAP program, now Business Information Technology (BIT), had debuted in 1968, the same year 2001: A Space Odyssey introduced the HAL 9000 computer. But when Stu and Heather first met at RRC a decade later, programming languages like COBOL and Assembler were still mystifying to most people.

“Going to school, when people asked, ‘What do you do?’ we had to think of a term to use,” Heather says. “You couldn’t say, ‘Oh we code in Assembler and we use Hexadecimal.’ It was, ‘We write computer programs.’ What’s that? ‘It’s how you talk to a computer.’ ”

Flash forward four decades and the Charles family is still ahead of the computer literacy curve, particularly since Stu and Heather’s daughter Nyssa Charles, 29, graduated in 2012 from BIT with a major in application development.

“We actually have dinner conversations between the three of us that are fairly technical,” Heather says. “So if you were a layperson beside us you probably still wouldn’t understand necessarily what we’re talking about.”

Technology has advanced by leaps and bounds since CAP students wrote programs on punch cards that are considered vintage today. Stu, a 1979 grad, recalls that one assignment was infamous for how frequently students dropped their stacks of meticulously ordered cards.

The evolution was already well underway in 1980. When Heather, a 1981 grad, returned to RRC after taking a year off to explore other career options, the punch card system had been replaced with brand-new Hewlett Packard computer terminals.

“That was my first step into the new world … all the labs had the modern HP computers and we did all the development on those. So I saw that change even in that year.” Read More →

Bird Construction launches new scholarship; channels alumni pride into student support

December 18, 2017

Last month at the College’s annual Technology Awards Reception, longtime industry partner Bird Construction launched a new scholarship that exemplifies what it means to be a proud RRC grad.

The first-ever Bird Construction Employee Red River College Alumni Scholarship for the Construction Management Degree Program was awarded to Philipe Bras, who’s currently completing his final year of studies.

Terry Jacobson (shown at right), an RRC alum and 40-year Bird Construction employee, presented the $1,000 award, along with Dom Costantini, the company’s vice-president and district manager.

The new scholarship — the fourth RRC financial award to be made possible by Bird Construction — was created to give company employees a chance to have a positive impact on the lives of College students. It will be presented each year to a student who has achieved outstanding academic success in Construction Management, and is enrolled in their final year of studies.

Bird and its staff — 60% of whom are proud RRC grads — play a vital role in fostering positive relationships with the College through long-term investments in the development of both students and programming.

Many past and current Bird employees volunteer on RRC advisory committees, and the company helps students build successful careers by facilitating project site visits and taking part in the co-operative education program each year. Read More →

UX marks the spot: College to host top tech designer’s January tour stop

December 12, 2017

Red River College, in partnership with North Forge Technology Exchange, will host a two-day UX Workshop at RRC’s ACE Project Space on Jan. 18 and 19, 2018.

The workshop facilitator, Willy Lai, is an award-winning user experience design leader with over two decades at top tech companies in Silicon Valley including Apple, Samsung, PayPal, Intuit and eBay, and tickets for his only Canadian workshop are going fast.

Just a few of the 40 participant spots are still available and the College would love to see those remaining spaces filled by RRC alumni.

For more information or to register for the event, visit: northforge.ca/uxwinnipeg2018

Back to nature: Business Administration grad launches handcrafted hair-care line

September 8, 2017

Tania Czemerynski’s bad hair days are behind her — and she wants to tame your mane, too.

Czemerynski is the founder of Cze by Tania, a Winnipeg business that specializes in all-natural hair and beard care products for women and men. Czemerynski launched Cze (pronounced ‘Chay’) in the fall of 2015, but the roots of her hair care business go back a little further.

“I started (making hair care products) because my hair was super dried out — it was broken and brittle. I didn’t do it with the intention of starting a business,” Czemerynski says.

“I started making my own home remedies sometime in 2013. I started to research different oils and things to make my hair grow out, because my hair was broken — it wasn’t growing. My boyfriend was like, ‘Your hair feels like a mop.’ I had spent so much money on store-bought products, so I started to make my own and it was really noticeably different within six weeks.”

A 2012 graduate of Red River College’s Business Administration program, Czemerynski went on to earn a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Manitoba two years later.

She had entrepreneurial ambitions, but initially Czemerynski was only sharing her home hair remedy with family and friends. It wasn’t until co-workers (at her former serving job) asked to try her “magic hair oil” that Czemerynski realized she had a potentially profitable product on her hands — and her head. Read More →

Creative Communications Media Awards on Friday, April 21st! Please attend!

April 19, 2017

We invite you to join us for the 14th Annual Creative Communications Media Awards! The 2017 CCMAs will be held on Friday, April 21, 2017, at the Canad Inns – The Metropolitan Entertainment Centre.

This year at the CCMAs, we invite you to relax in a sophisticated 1920s speakeasy. Sip a cocktail and unleash your inner Gatsby at the peak of prohibition.

The Creative Communications Media Awards (CCMAs) is a chance for Creative Communications students to show their hard work and be recognized for their achievements. The awards night creates an opportunity for students and professionals in the communications industry to network and connect. Awards are given to students for outstanding work in a variety of categories. ︎Doors open at 6:30p.m.

Awards start at 8:00p.m. Tickets are $20. There are complimentary hors d’oeuvres and cupcakes as well as a cash bar.

To reserve tickets or for more information, contact Hailey Gajadhar and Hannah Gehman at info@ccmaonline.ca

Calling all Creative Communications alumni

March 6, 2017

Noelle Vong, coordinator of this year’s Independent Professional Project (IPP) Expo, cordially invites all Creative Communications alumni to this year’s event.

Please see the above invite. For more information, contact Noelle Vong at theippexpo@gmail.com.

RRC Polytech campuses are located on the lands of Anishinaabe, Ininiwak, Anishininew, Dakota, and Dené, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis.

We recognize and honour Treaty 3 Territory Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, the source of Winnipeg’s clean drinking water. In addition, we acknowledge Treaty Territories which provide us with access to electricity we use in both our personal and professional lives.

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