Iconic change makers

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Iconic CHANGE MAKERS We applaud these local luminaries for being the change they want to see in the world

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Photography • Mathew McCarthy

Photography • mathew mccarthy

Dave Scott-Thomas

Carol Leaman

Sports, University of Guelph, Speed River TFC

Technology, Axonify

More than 18 years ago, Dave ScottThomas took a leap of faith and turned his broken-down Dodge Omni eastward from Victoria, bound for Guelph.

The former high school teacher and fisheries biologist was taking a chance on a new job to build a track and field program at the University of Guelph from the ground up. The pay was just $3,000 a year.

With a shoestring budget, there was plenty of work to be done.

But steadily, Scott-Thomas turned the struggling program at Guelph into a powerhouse in Canadian athletics. The university has become Canada’s dominant running school and, last fall, the Gryphons 70 GRAND 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 2015

men’s and women’s cross-country teams became national champions for the ninth consecutive year.

The mild-mannered Scott-Thomas has won a record 27 Canadian Interuniversity Sports coach of the year awards for his work with the men’s and women’s teams in cross-country and track and field. His athletes are an extension of his family, and his whole-person style of coaching breeds their loyalty.

Scott-Thomas’s Speed River New Balance Track and Field club has produced five Olympic-calibre athletes and plans to send even more to Rio de Janeiro in 2016. His Olympians include middle-distance runners

Taylor Milne, Alex Genest and Hilary Stellingwerff, and marathoners Eric Gillis and Reid Coolsaet who are putting Canada back in the discussion for long-distance running.

Along the way, Scott-Thomas has built a culture of excellence and hard work, attracting elite athletes to his program and helping them become names on the international stage. All the while he keeps asking a simple question, “Why can’t Canadians be as fast as anyone else in the world?”

As the head coach likes to say, “Canadian muscle can work as well as anyone else’s muscle on the planet.”

— GREG MERCER

Carol Leaman has made a career of taking ideas and turning them into multimillion-dollar businesses. Trained as a chartered accountant, Leaman is a key figure in Waterloo Region’s tech sector and has long been a mentor to young entrepreneurs through her work with organizations like Communitech.

In 2011, she won the Waterloo Region Entrepreneur Hall of Fame’s Intrepid Award, and that same year, she sold web analytics firm PostRank to Google for an undisclosed sum. She invested the proceeds from that sale in a new project, Axonify.

Back when Leaman bought Axonify, a Waterloo-based corporate training startup,

it had just three employees. Today, it is a $5-million company with dozens on the payroll and counts Walmart, General Electric and Johnson and Johnson among its customers.

“What inspires my success and drives me is the challenge of taking a small concept and figuring out how to turn it into a big idea,” she said.

The president and chief executive officer of Axonify has left her mark on plenty of startups across Waterloo Region in her 20-year career in technology. Before PostRank, she ran RSS Solutions, a manufacturing software firm, and the virtual reality company Fakespace, which

she grew from a $3-million to a $30-million company.

“It’s always hard. You can never predict anything with certainty, and it’s constantly fraught with stress,” she says. “But I love it and wouldn’t want to do anything else. The reward at the end makes it worth the effort a million times over.”

— GREG MERCER

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In everything he does, Dr. Joseph Lee

Photography • PETER TYM

Dr. Joseph Lee Health, Centre for Family Medicine

is inspired by the need to transform the way health care is delivered. And in an era of long wait times and short tempers, few could argue against the need to streamline services.

Lee’s Centre for Family Medicine, with clinics in Kitchener and Wellesley, is one of the first family health teams in the province and the centrepiece of a regional team effort to be more efficient and economical.

Born and raised in Windsor, Ont., Lee graduated from Western University’s medical school in 1986, completed his family medicine residency at Queen’s University and then began practising in Waterloo Region in 1988.

His passion and natural leadership ability have made him instrumental in the success of the University of Waterloo Health Sciences Campus in downtown Kitchener, which includes the Centre for Family Medicine, a family health team, the University of Waterloo’s Optometry Clinic and School of Pharmacy, and the McMaster University Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.

Lee cites the development of the KW4 Health Link as one of his proudest achievements. It’s designed to better integrate the work of hospitals, home care, community workers, doctors and other health-care providers to provide better care for less money for highly vulnerable people.

“I often say I’m the pretty face of a team … and then people groan! It’s not about me. The great joy is there have been a lot of people who have done some great stuff, and I view all these things as being part of a tapestry.

“The bottom line is that we as a society should be caring for others in a better way.

The concepts behind all of these things are just helping people to help people and making it easier for them to do that. At the end of the day, it’s about enabling people to do what is really a simple concept.”

— NANCY HARPER

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Photography • Mathew McCarthy

Joe & Stephanie Mancini Activism,The Working Centre It was a three-month trip to build windmills in Tanzania that changed everything for Joe and Stephanie Mancini.

The husband and wife, who met in high school in Hamilton, were only 19 when they saw Tanzanians working together in a co-operative spirit. They were inspired by the experience and wanted to bring that same community-minded approach back home to help others.

After graduating from St. Jerome’s College at the University of Waterloo, they opened the Working Centre in 1982 with little more than a $6,000 government grant, hoping to tackle the unemployment and

poverty they saw in downtown Kitchener.

Today, it’s a vital hub of community cooperation in the city’s core and more than 1,000 people use it every day.

The Mancinis, who as directors live on deliberately humble salaries, say they’re inspired by the small army of staff and volunteers who believe in their shared mission to help the region’s unemployed, underemployed and homeless.

“If anything has motivated us, it’s staying rooted and connected to the people who are doing this work,” says Joe, who recently co-published with his wife the book Transition to Common Work, which is about their

practical, community-first philosophy.

“We’re seeing so much good come out of it, so we just want to keep helping it to grow.

It’s just evolved, and we’ve stuck with it.”

Over the years, the Working Centre concept has grown into a model for community development, with its supportive housing projects, café, St. John’s Kitchen — which serves 300 meals a day — medical clinic, greenhouse, thrift store, used bike shop and two community gardens.

— GREG MERCER 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 2015 GRAND 73

Photography • Tomasz Adamski

Dr. John Tibbits Education, Conestoga College

As THE long-serving president of Conestoga College, John Tibbits’ leadership has touched the lives of approximately 47 per cent of the region’s population, all who 74 GRAND 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 2015

have taken classes at the school.

He’s taken the institution from a perceived skills-training centre to a polytechnic school that offers full degrees, diplomas and apprenticeships to more than 11,000 full-time and 30,000 part-time scholars.

“Fifteen years ago the job market was changing with technology. We wanted a greater focus on applied learning with a blend of technical skills, soft skills and critical thinking,” Tibbits explains.

That meant a broader definition of education at both ends of the spectrum.

“Eighty per cent of the population needs a post-secondary education, so we put in more pathways to that, whether that means diplomas or apprenticeship. I like to think we’re saving souls. Some students would have difficulty taking part in this economy if we weren’t here for retraining, for instance,” he muses.

It also meant spearheading, along with former Humber College president Robert Gordon, agreements with universities to accept college credits. That evolved into offering degrees in health, engineering, business and design, and university coprograms in other areas.

Forming educational partnerships with industry stakeholders is another win-win success story. Partnering ensures students get a relevant, industry-related education, while the industry reaps prepared new employees.

“John is a man with extraordinary vision, a man of conviction and passion for our community,” says Frank Boutzis, the chair of the board of governors at Conestoga who has a ringside seat to Tibbits’ work.

“You can never promise you’ll win, but you can commit to being better with small steps every day,” Tibbits says.

Several small steps for John Tibbits, one giant leap for education in Waterloo Region.

— LISA HAGEN

When Chloe Callender arrived here from Trinidad and Tobago in the 1950s, the term “ethnocultural relations” wasn’t on the radar. In more than 30 years as an educator, community development worker and race relations consultant, Callender has championed diversity region-wide.

As a young teacher, she was inspired by her students as they enthusiastically discussed their cultural backgrounds.

The inspiration moved her to develop a race relationship policy, with gender equity adviser Joyce Stankiewicz, for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board that, in essence, stands today.

“I’ve done a lot of work with young people in the community, encouraging appreciation of their culture … and of the importance of making a contribution to this developing Canadian culture,” Callender says.

She has lived those words, contributing to a staggering number of committees and organizations.

She has sat on the Waterloo Regional Police Services Citizens Advisory Committee and the Waterloo Region Holocaust Education Committee. She was president of the Congress of Black Women of Canada’s Ontario chapter.

In her honour, the congress established the Chloe Callender Awards, a postsecondary scholarship for young leaders of Caribbean or African heritage.

Callender co-founded the K-W Caribbean Canadian Cultural Association, developed programs for the homeless and served on the Ontario Arts Council, local university senates and Conflict Resolution Network Canada. And it’s all been with an eye toward promoting cultural relations.

But the accomplishment she derives the most joy from is her time with SEVEC (Society for Educational Visits and Exchanges in Canada). The group focuses

Photography • Tomasz adamski

Chloe Callender Race Relations, Community Builder on her love of getting people together from across the nation to learn about each other.

“This is a great country and it becomes more so when each person contributes to it in a positive manner,” she explains. “SEVEC is so useful for building community and country.”

Callender has been celebrated at the

Kitchener Mayor’s Dinner, the Oktoberfest Women of the Year Awards, the SEVEC awards and received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

— LISA HAGEN 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 2015

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What drives Kelly-Sue Labus is this

Photography • mathew mccarthy

Ron Schlegel Business, Philanthropy Ron Schlegel started caring for the elderly when he was just 10, after his father bought a small nursing home in London.

He’d bring food and run errands for the residents and, in return, they helped him with his homework.

“My passion evolved into a vision that would promote research and innovation to enhance care and quality of life for older adults,” says Schlegel, 72.

Schlegel, a former professor of applied sciences at the University of Waterloo, now owns a network of 15 retirement communities. But his work to improve quality of life among the elderly is more than just a business — it’s been a lifelong mission.

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That’s why he has put his wealth behind the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging, which aims to become one of the world’s top institutes for studying aging.

In 2005, Schlegel set up the institute with an initial $6-million donation, a gift that has since grown into tens of millions.

He’s contributed $48 million to construct a long-term care facility attached to the institute that will bring students and residents together on the University of Waterloo campus.

Last year, he gave another $1-million donation to the Kitchener campus of McMaster’s School of Medicine to boost research.

Schlegel’s philanthropy earned him an Officer of the Order of Canada honour. But success in business helped, too. Among his family’s network of enterprises are a poultry division that produces 10 per cent of all the turkey in Canada, Guelph’s Homewood Health Centre and Schlegel Urban Developments, which does commercial and residential projects.

A lot of Schlegel’s philanthropy doesn’t make headlines, such as his support of the House of Friendship, Sports for Special Athletes and the Kitchener Panthers baseball club.

“Ron and his family have done a lot of high-profile things in the community. But they’ve also supported a lot of stuff that’s under the radar,” says Bill Pegg, president of the Panthers.

— GREG MERCER

fundamental philosophy: children are at the mercy of adults, and it’s the right of every person in this country to be able to eat.

As the executive director of Nutrition for Learning, she’s incensed that about one million children in a country as wealthy as Canada don’t have enough to eat and that one in seven go to school without proper nutrition.

When Labus came on board in 2009 — drawing on a colourful work history that included selling RVs, working in greenhouses, opening restaurants and running her own marketing business — she saw it as an opportunity to use her business savvy to help an organization that wasn’t in great financial shape.

It didn’t take long for a genuine passion for the cause to emerge.

“As I got into it and really understood what the organization was doing and saw firsthand the children we were feeding and the need in our community, my whole position changed. It became a passion that no child in our community or across Canada should be hungry.”

In 1997, the program fed 40 needy kids a day. Today it feeds 18,000.

Born in Kitchener and raised in Waterloo, Labus draws inspiration from the team she’s built around her and is humbled by the accolades that come her way.

“Our organization is not just driven by me. I feel like the rodeo wrangler bringing all these people into place, and I really have to give the credit to the staff and the 2,500 volunteers and to my board who believe so strongly in everything I do.

“It takes the whole community to make this happen. I just feel like a tiny cog in this great big mechanism of wheels, just trying to keep it well-oiled and moving.”

Photography • Tomasz Adamski

Kelly-Sue Labus Activism, Nutrition for Learning

— NANCY HARPER 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 2015 GRAND 77

It was the ’80s — that much-vilified

Photography • Peter Tym

Alex Mustakas

Arts, Drayton Theatre

Mr. Moustache, employment counsellor, Pirate King, impresario — these are the various roles Drayton Entertainment’s Alex Mustakas has held on and off the stage (Mr. Moustache being the name of his first company bearing the translation of his Greek name).

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Drayton Entertainment is a testament to Mustakas’s business and theatrical acumen. In an industry littered with failed companies, Drayton is the only large-scale theatre company in Canada that runs without operating assistance funds from the government, says Mustakas.

He has fashioned a unique, self-sustaining 78 GRAND 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 2015

theatre model that survives only on revenues from ticket sales and private sponsorship. Word spread and he now gets bimonthly requests from around the world to take over fledgling theatres.

Originally from Cyprus, his performing talent was recognized at Eastwood Collegiate and at the local Gilbert and Sullivan Society under the tutelage of John Kerr.

After studying economics at Wilfrid Laurier University to appease his traditional father, the footlights called.

He pitched his theatre idea over a quarter century ago to the town of Drayton. They were seeking a use for the opera house above the council chambers. With the

council’s blessing, the small first show, directed by Mustakas’s mentor Alan Lund, launched what would become one of the top theatrical employers of actors and musicians in the nation.

But what’s his proudest accomplishment?

“I am most happy that I am able to introduce theatre to a lot of people who have never been exposed. I get way too much of the credit now. I have so many people helping — the board, staff and volunteers. But I still get great satisfaction from the audience,” he says.

“Because of that grassroots support of this area, we grew from a solid base.

This community means quite a lot to the company and me. This is my home.”

— LISA HAGEN

decade of excess — when the late Nyle Ludolph took on one of the most ambitious agendas imaginable.

Unable to stomach the throwaway society we’d become, Ludolph knew there had to be a better way. And he found it.

Widely regarded as the “father of the blue box,” Ludolph helped the City of Kitchener become the first municipality in the world to introduce city-wide recycling.

He died on Oct. 14, 2011, but not before leaving a legacy that’s a keenly visible presence on any given recycling day in Canada and around the world.

Blue box recycling was a hit when it rolled out in September 1983. Ludolph would go on to champion it around Ontario — and as others quickly jumped on the bandwagon across Canada, it provided all the credibility and efficiency that other recycling efforts had lacked.

Steve Gyorffy, who was Kitchener’s director of operations at the time, remembers Ludolph as a straight-up good guy whose legacy will continue to have an impact for generations.

“He lit the fuse for reduction initiatives at the municipal level. Now 30-plus years later, it’s everywhere,” Gyorffy says.

“We were on a tour in Hungary, passing through this little village, and it just about brought tears to my eye to see blue boxes by the curb at just about every house. I thought, ‘Wow I can’t believe this — that’s how far his influence had spread.’

“He achieved his goal of a better environment. We have a lot more to do, of course, but it was a great step forward. He didn’t like our throwaway society and he figured there was a better way.

“It turned out to be a really, really interesting time. What really amazed me was how people tuned in to it. We had people coming to the city from everywhere to see what it was all about. It was pretty groundbreaking.”

PHOTOGRAPHY • STUDIO 404

Nyle Ludolph

(1927-2011)

Recycling Pioneer, Environment The year after Ludolph’s death, the Region of Waterloo named a building in his honour during a special Earth Day ceremony at the Nyle Ludolph Materials Recycling Centre.

— NANCY HARPER

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