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Women CEOs leading the way in the trades

There are more women than ever starting businesses, especially those involved in trades, which is surprising considering those professions have historically been some of the most male-dominated businesses in the country.

CEO of Freshco, Mandy Rennehan, a very successful retail construction company based out of Oakville, Ont., believes that women leaders are essential to trades businesses. “A woman’s added value really shines through because we are passionate,” Rennehan says. “Women are detail-oriented and fastidious where many men aren’t.”

Millennial women are also catching on to the trend and starting their own trade businesses. CEO of Ash Street Design, Brittany Truppe, is one of those millennials. She started her business of designing and building interior speciality doors last year.  “It is a custom sliding door business. We essentially fabricate high-end interior-based wood doors in all shapes and sizes and I’ve expanded into contemporary styles and all different types of finishes,” Truppe says. “I really like the whole concept of the artisan market style. I don’t want to do cookie cutter stuff. I want it to be unique.”

These two women had to prove their worth in their respective areas time and time again. “Being a woman and being young, there were times where I definitely had to go above and beyond,” Truppe says. “Coming from finishing, there was a lot of time spent doing the tasks to prove my worth. You would get men throwing out terminology and the names of types of equipment to see if I knew what I was talking about. I felt I was being quizzed often.”

Rennehan agrees that women are tested more often to see if they are credible in their job position. “The biggest hardship is the confidence of the woman going into it. They need to make sure they know more than anybody in that space. Credibility is everything for a woman in trades. Make sure you have the passion and you are armed with the knowledge,” Rennehan says. “Many women have an irrepressible sense of accountability and if things happen, they will fix them. Women have a lot of advantages in this space, they just need to believe it.”

As a young female business owner, Truppe is taking a progressive approach to her artisan boutique and wants to keep her business relatively small, instead of aspiring to build a large corporation. She also focuses on the use of local woods and keeps costs low and affordable to give more people the opportunity to purchase one of her unique products. Though she is still in the midst of constructing her business, she also wants to dedicate part of her time towards helping women learn to build. “The biggest thing I want to focus on is having a program geared towards women to make them more comfortable working with tools, because a lot of women don’t. I envision doing it in my own shop,” Truppe says. “You would drop in for an hour or two and the women would build and I would charge for materials. I’ve networked with local artisan shops and furniture shops and they are pretty pro-women. I’ve found I have a lot of support from new-age men as well.”

Rennehan is also an avid philanthropist, highlighting the importance of women CEOs giving back to others after becoming successful in the trades sphere. She started a non-profit program through her other business, a design firm named Rennduprat, that will teach kids between the ages of 10 to 16 how to use millwright machines. The non-profit will then make Christmas ornaments through the project and ship them around the world. Rennehan also founded the Chris Rennehan Scholarship Fund, named after her brother who sadly passed away from a heart attack at age 38. The scholarship fund helps a tradesperson who is in dire financial straits by giving them the funds to go to trade school or obtain work through Freshco.

Women business owners are essential to the future of trades in Canada. Truppe and Rennehan both bring credibility, generosity, and a progressive community approach to their businesses. Though there are challenges to being a woman in the male-dominated trades’ professions, there are more and more women that are coming out as strong leaders in this type of employment.

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Karen Farbridge
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Woman of the Week: Karen Farbridge

Karen Farbridge is a straight-forward, confident, and extremely successful woman in Ontario’s sustainability community.  As a previous leader in municipal government, she is charismatic and focused on making the world a better place.

When the former Mayor of Guelph is asked about her proudest accomplishments from her 11 years on council, she is quick to bring it back to the importance of community engagement. “Advancing our practice around engagement and rethinking how local government is involved with sustainability is what I feel the most proud of,” Farbridge says. “People are looking for connections to place and community and they find them in different ways in their lives, and I found it in this way in my own life.”

Farbridge has been involved in the environmental and government non-profit and public sectors for over 20 years. Most recently, she established her consulting agency, Karen Farbridge and Associates after her final term as mayor in 2014.  “The key focus is to implement projects that accelerate growth to create low-carbon and resilient communities,” Farbridge says. “That can entail work with the public sector, [for example] with Natural Resources Canada and Municipal Affairs Ontario, and also in the private sector. It also includes work with Research institutions, such as University of Guelph and York University and the Columbia Institute out of B.C.”

Farbridge has several projects on the go and uses her extensive experience in the political realm to help various organizations with sustainability initiatives. She helped the Columbia Institute in B.C. write a report, Top Asks for Climate Change: Ramping up Low-Carbon Communities, that included a report card assessing climate change initiatives, labelling the successes and which areas needed improvements. The report was released on June 1 and focuses on how the federal government is progressing towards goals pertaining to the Paris Agreement.

Farbridge is also contributing to a collaborative project with the Ontario Climate Consortium and the University of Guelph via the Community Energy Knowledge Action Partnership. This project studies net zero and low-carbon developments across five different Ontario municipalities, taking into account testimonies from a number of urban planners, economic development officers, and community management officers.

Long before becoming mayor, Farbridge was involved in municipal politics. She became a city councillor in 1994 while also working for the Ontario Public Interest Research Group Guelph at the same time. She obtained a PhD in biology and spent 10 years in academics at University of Guelph. Farbridge encouraged council to develop a group plan on climate change that focused on the Kyoto protocol. As her career progressed, she served her first term as mayor of Guelph in 2000-2003 and her second and third terms from 2006-2014.

In between her terms as mayor, Farbridge worked with the University of Guelph to develop a community energy plan that was later implemented. “I ran again for Mayor in 2006. That community energy plan was brought forward to the new council and it was adopted,” Farbridge says. “Since that time, I put a lot of time into promoting the community energy plan.”

Farbridge has received several awards including the City Builder Award from the Canadian Urban Institute in 2014 for her leadership in sustainability and community energy. She also received the Clean 50/Clean16 Award from Delta Management Group in 2014, which is awarded annually to 50 individual leaders who are advancing clean and sustainable development in Canada. In 2012, Farbridge was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal from the Governor General of Canada for her contributions and achievements to Canada. Farbridge was elected Guelph’s first female mayor in 1999.

Farbridge is passionate about mentoring women and plays an integral role in environmental charity Nature Canada’s Women for Nature initiative, which promotes women leaders involved in nature. The organization is currently creating a mentorship program where Farbridge and other notable women in the environmental sector help younger women forward their careers. She is also a part of a mentoring project to help women who have a start-up businesses in Guelph, and has a relationship with a woman in the city to help her build up her start-up.

When Farbridge is taking a break from combatting climate change, she enjoys gardening, hiking, and is looking forward to a canoeing trip in Algonquin Park this summer. She is clearly a nature lover and has made a considerable impact within the sustainable community in Ontario.

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Woman of the Week: Jen Aitchison

One of the best ways to effect change is to make it happen from the inside out — instead of waiting for the world to change, why not do it yourself? Jen Aitchison, Vice President of Sustainable Energy Insurance at Jones Brown Inc., embraces this concept, offering risk management solutions for companies invested in renewable energy, giving green technology a competitive edge in the business world.

Upon meeting Aitchison, she exudes a strong, confident demeanour. Hanging around her neck is a pendant that says, ‘Fearless’. The necklace was given to her by a family member, and is one of Aitchison’s life mantras. “When I first started down this route, I was terrified of walking into a room full of people and shaking their hands. The best thing I can tell women is eat the fear,” Aitchison says. “Shaking one person’s hand at that event is a success because you can build on it and you realize it isn’t scary.”

Aitchison is one of the first insurance brokers in Toronto to start a sustainable energy insurance practice, and over the last eight years she has helped several companies in solar and wind energy navigate their way through the complexities of risk management solutions in an emerging industry where no standard existed before. Aitchison initially brought the idea of sustainable energy insurance to Jones Brown as a side project. “I asked myself how can I use my eight years of experience in the insurance industry and couple that with my environment and sustainability passions? Maybe there is a way to work from the inside out, this being a bit of a capitalistic environment and a bit of an old boys club here,” Aitchison says. “When I first pitched the guys, they were like that is so cute. They said that I could pursue that pet project on the side, but also asked that I don’t let my normal day job slip.”

Aitchison began researching sustainable energy insurance and visiting various renewables companies. She quickly discovered there was a large gap in the renewables industries when it came to insurance and over the course of six years, worked hard to create a sustainable energy insurance practice. Within the practice, she focuses largely on product development of integral financial instruments such as performance guarantees, educating industry members on risk management specifics for renewables and an annual sales budget exceeding $150,000. After being promoted to partner at Jones Brown six years ago, Aitchison is one of the leaders of insurance for renewables and a leader for women and the environment in the insurance sector.

“That’s how I made insurance not suck, for a lack of a better term. I ended up working both sides, teaching insurance companies what some of the emerging technologies were, what challenges were being faced and what some of the solutions we needed,” Aitchison says. “At the same time, I was teaching the renewable energy sector about insurance and some of the things they should consider when setting up their projects.”

Though Aitchison has achieved great success at Jones Brown, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Being a woman with an environmental agenda in the insurance industry had its struggles and Aitchison had to fight for pay equity as recently as 2015. “I didn’t get pay equity until November of last year and it was a 30 per cent difference. I threatened to leave,” Aitchison recalls. “It was shocking. It is important to talk about that still happening.”

Alongside becoming one of leading environmentalists sporting an insurance portfolio and fighting for her rights as a woman in a leading role, Aitchison also won the 2015 Canadian Solar Industry Association President’s award because of her work as the Fire Safety Committee Chair for the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA). Aitchison helped create a PV Fire Safety handbook to keep firefighters safe in case they encounter electrified solar panels during a fire.

Aitchison is also a founding committee member of Women in Renewable Energy (WiRE), a group that brings women together across various renewables industries. Aitchison is in charge of field trips to various renewables companies, support on networking and awards, and overall direction of the group with the other committee members. WiRE began in 2013 when the initial founding members met at Women of Wind Energy (WoWE), a group supporting women invested in wind energy. “We were talking about being from different backgrounds and that there wasn’t a group that encompassed all types of renewable energy,” she says. “We were frustrated that wind and solar were all fighting for the same piece of the pie. We didn’t want that and wanted to break those barriers down. That’s the type of women we are at WiRE. We see barriers, and we rip them down.”

She also emphasizes it was important to the committee that WiRE was not a ‘hen’s club’ or ‘a clique’ and is a very opening group of women professionals. There is also a mentorship aspect to the group that brings young women and professionals  together to collaborate and network. “In the WiRE environment, we connect women with women,” She says. “We also run a speed mentoring event. It is so great to see them succeed and get out of their shell.”

Aitchison is a single mom of two kids, ages 11 and 17, and manages to balance her work life while being an inspiring parent as well. She is currently reading “Bet on Me: Leading and Succeeding in Business and in Life” by Annette Verschuren. In her rare spare time, she likes to play guitar, cycle, draw, snowboard, hike and kayak with her kids. She also builds shelves and other odds and ends on the side, confessing “I’m a bit of a junkie for making things out of nothing.”

Aitchison is a born mentor; she is fierce, empowered, kind-hearted and patient. Her own passions and experience have given her a credibility in the renewables sector that cannot be ignored and yet she is modest and sincere about her successes. If more women like Aitchison join the fight to change the world to a more environmental one from the outside in, sustainability and women leadership will certainly stand a chance to rise out on top.

 

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Music Reviews

Women’s Music Panel at CMW tackles wage gap

Canadian women have fought for generations so that musicians of all genders are able to pursue their dreams and goals in music, but pay gaps and limitations still persist.

“Power Playing: Advice for Top Women In Music for the Emerging Generation” was a panel hosted by Canadian Music Week that focused on female journalists, publicists, and musicians. It featured six women that are in executive positions in the music industry and addressed the successes and issues of working women. The women on the panel did not hold back and I learned the discrepancies continue to persist in the music industry today.

Moderator and founder of Women in Music Canada, Samantha Slattery emphasized that women continue to make less money than men in the music industry. She explained that for every dollar that a male employee makes, a woman in the music industry makes 73 cents. Women continue to be compensated unfairly for their contributions and have a difficult time climbing up to executive roles.

“Women need to do a better job advocating for themselves and each other,” said panelist and senior director of Live Nation, Melissa Bubb-Clarke. “It is important to chalk it up to business objectives. Anytime that you can bring it back to a financial contribution, ask yourself what is my return on my investment and how should I be compensated for that?”

Bubb-Clarke explained that she received a bonus check that was lower than she believed she deserved for her contribution and returned it.  She was uncertain she would be receiving any check at all after making such a bold move, but learned an important lesson when she was given a bonus check with double the amount the next day.  Interestingly, Bubb-Clarke and most of the other women on the panel, began their careers in administration and landed their jobs internally only to climb in the company from there.

A recent initiative was launched by MTV called the 79 percent clock. The clock is a daily reminder for women that because of the wage gap we still experience today, 21 per cent of our workload is free when compared to men’s average salaries in the same job. It is also possible to calculate your workload on the website by plugging into the app when you start and complete work.

“Working for Women in Music Inc., I have a lot of conversations with women about insecurity. They need to realize they are worth more,” said president of Women in Music Inc., Jessica Sobhrai. “If you truly believe you deserve more and they say no, it isn’t the company for you and there is no room for growth. It’s knowing your value.”

A report  published by Canadian Music Week went on to say that women who work in the music industry work five hours more than the average Canadian, with a starting pay of 24,000 per year and 75 per cent of female employees are under 40. A low salary and long working hours create difficult criteria if you have a family. “It is a 47/7 job. It gets tricky for women in their 30’s who want to have a family,” Panelist and Director of Operations from Toronto-based music public relations company known as the Feldman Agency, Olivia Ootes said. “If we want people to stay in the entertainment industry, we need to change standards.”

Though issues of gender equality persist in the music industry, the women on the panel were hopeful and positive about the changes that were underway for the upcoming generation. Bubb-Clarke noted that women in executive positions have worked hard to carve out the path for future women leaders in music.

Though there are still struggles for women in the workplace, if we keep pushing into the executive roles in the industry and demanding fair pay, the standards will change for future generations. As the Spice Girls once said, “Girl Power!”.

 

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Toronto

Serda Evren – team builder extraordinaire

One of the most challenging years in Serda Evren’s life taught her to look hard at herself, find the value in everyone, be open to people, and have fun. It was a very productive eighth grade.

“Leadership is about making decisions and sometimes you have to make tough decisions but you make them full of heart; you make them with emotion but you don’t let your emotions make the decision,” says Evren, who recently added a North American communications mandate to her role as Vice President of Communications and Philanthropy for MasterCard Canada.

When she was 13, Evren’s parents emigrated from Istanbul to Toronto, and suddenly the outgoing and full-of-life teen was the odd girl out. “We moved, leaving home and friends, for this completely new place at this critical age,” she remembers. “English wasn’t my first language, I wasn’t into New Kids on the Block. I was bullied and teased, but I realized you either make it or you don’t, and I decided to make it.”

That experience during her formative years made her realize the importance of seeing people for who they are, and understanding who she is. As she has advanced in her career, she has built on that philosophy to include helping others understand what they are good at. “I thought of myself as a generous, thoughtful, loving person and all they saw was a new kid. I wanted people to see who I really was, and that motivated me to always try to see people for who they truly are.”

Life became better, thanks in part to Evren’s practice of reading the newspaper aloud every day, cover to cover, to practice her English. By grade 10 it was flawless, and she was also a master of current events, which launched her passion for politics.

The University of Toronto was even better. She ran for the student union office, and in third year volunteered for the federal Liberal Party. With two years of volunteer service and a brand new political science degree under her belt the Liberals offered her a paying job. Thus began several years of long hours, lots of travel and sometimes living out of a suitcase. “The biggest gift of politics, other than the opportunity to change the world, is the people you meet. You work long hours in the trenches, you share beliefs, living together, travelling together, not eating or sleeping well. These people are your lifeline, and you form life-long friendships.”

Working in Federal and Provincial politics during the Jean Chretien and Dalton McGuinty administrations and a 14-month stint in Washington, DC, where she interned with Representative Congressman Anthony Weiner (yes, the “sexting” congressman) gave Evren insight into what makes a good leader, and a bad leader. A big part of that is surrounding yourself with the right people. “You can be a genuine, incredible, person, but if you’ve surrounded yourself with the wrong people it’s not going to work.”

Building a good team requires recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. It requires some thoughtful introspection. “You have to spend time on yourself to be self-aware. You have to really understand yourself… your strengths, weaknesses, motivators, demotivators. If you’re not self-aware how can you possibly build an effective team around you?”

That also means finding your purpose. She advises: figure out the value you bring, what you’re really good at, and harness it. Deliver on it every day. Show up every day to make the team or the organization function better.

One thing Evren’s team – and her bosses – will tell you is that she is fun to work with.
“Let’s have a good time. Let’s build something together we’re proud of, so you feel good about what you’re doing.” She is not a stickler for hierarchy. “It kills spirit and inspiration,” she says. “There have to be lines because you’re not doing the same job and don’t have the same responsibilities but … I’ve seen people who put 100 steps between them and junior staffers and there’s no reason that needs to happen. I’d rather be building the bridges, being collaborative.”

Her goal is to build inspired teams – where everyone has a purpose and a role in making something better, and making a real impact. “It doesn’t have to be something huge, like reinventing PR. It could be that at a moment in time you brought forward an idea that shifted a strategy or changed a perspective.” It also means she doesn’t have to pretend to be good at everything. Leaders who succeed in building teams of people with diverse skills create successful departments or functions.

“I have never had an ‘end goal.’ I believe in letting opportunities find me. Who knows what the future holds but if I help people find and develop the value they bring, that’s something that helps those individuals and the organization for a long time, and I call that success.”

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Women of the Week

Women of the Week: Jelena Pticek and Karen Carrillo

What would you consider an empire?

If you ask Jelena Pticek, she and partner Karen Carrillo do not own an empire “in the material sense of the word.” This despite the fact that they collectively oversee multiple companies: Koocoo Carrillo, Poppyseed Creative Living, Freedom Clothing Collective and Freedom Reconstructed.

Koocoo Carrillo, run by Karen, is a clothing line featuring hand-crafted, limited-edition pieces; Poppyseed Creative Living, run by Jelena, is a “furniture ‘reinterpreting’ business,” using yard or antique sale finds; Freedom Clothing Collective, a joint project, is a co-op for local artists; and Freedom Reconstructed, also a collaborative venture, is a line of refurbished goods.

Before joining forces, both women originally worked corporate jobs. According to Karen, “it was depressing not to be able to illicit helpful change, or not having a say or, worst of all, seeing all the waste (garbage and time).”

Jelena, too, never felt at ease in the corporate world.  “I knew that the only way I would be able to correct this is if I changed something about it,“ Jelena explains.

Not surprisingly, both call their decision to quit and become entrepreneurs as the highlight of their careers. It would prove to be a great decision, both from a personal and work-related standpoint.

“We both often stop to admire the store and how far it’s come. The we-made-this bit is pretty thrilling, and everyday at least one customer tells us what a lovely store we have, and it never gets old!”

Not stopping at just running a successful independent business, Jelena and Karen are working to ensure their company is one with the proper social mores.

“We strive to be Locally and Environmentally focused,” says Jelena. “With Poppyseed Creative Living my goal was to appeal to the audience with strong environmental sense but also with the desire to surround themselves with items that are unique in their nature.”

By selling products that are refurbished or, at the very least, eco-friendly, Jelena and Karen can feel good about their company, knowing that they are making a difference. This is vital in a society that is becoming more and more eco-aware.

As Karen, the driving force behind the company’s environmental focus, explains, “Newcomers love to hear about how we are affecting change.”

This eco-friendly attitude extends across the company, from the products to the marketing. “Via marketing we often do small craft shows and we always use recycled or reused objects, either paper for printing business cards or flyers (which we keep to a minimum) or packaging, or displays, our toilet paper is even post consumer,” Karen says.

Clearly, the brains behind the Freedom Clothing Collective have created a company that will flourish in the coming seasons. Yet even as they work to save the world (and run a successful business), both women manage to balance their priorities and keep their heads on straight. The secret?

Although life will get chaotic, says Jelena, “It comes down to identifying priorities, making compromises with yourself and adjusting your own expectations.”

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Women of the Week: Patricia Bebia Mawa

As a child, Patricia Bebia Mawa dreamed of being a lawyer. Her current job is quite far from that dream, but considering she calls her media career “a divine orchestration,” I don’t think her inner child is kicking up that much of a fuss.

Raised in Nigeria, Mawa learned early on that “success is never presented to you, but comes as a result of what you present to the world.” In 2000 she got the opportunity to come to Canada thanks to a training program run by CBC television, and chose to stay here to pursue further education. While studying at the Algonquin College of Science and Technology, she met the man who would become her husband:  Moses A. Mawa. Together, they produced the pilot for Planet Africa and, in 2002, signed a deal with OMNI TV. Now syndicated worldwide, Planet Africa focuses on “success stories, unity a well as to enlighten and entertain the world about the experiences and aspirations of people of African Heritage, wherever they live on the planet.”

In 2004, they created the Planet Africa Awards program. Broadcast by the Planet Africa Network, these awards honour those who prove to be excellent role models. In 2010, they created the Diversity Awards, “to recognize individuals who further harmony and innovation as well as harness the benefits of diversity.”

The Mawa empire also extends into the publishing industry. The first publication,Planet Africa Magazine, launched in 2005. “We started Planet Africa Magazine to document our history, share our stories and inspire the African Diaspora to aspire for excellence,” Mawa explains. Then, in 2012, came Diversity Magazine, a publication “to inspire, transform, empower, showcase, celebrate and integrate exceptional elements of our mosaic.” Up next: Destiny Magazine. Obviously very dear to her heart, Mawa says she wept when she saw the final design. To make the whole situation even sweeter, on the day of its launch, Mawa and her husband will be presented with Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee Medals.

With so many projects on her table and many more in the pipeline, plus a family at home, how does Mawa keep going? “I love what I do,” she says. “It is a blessing to have platforms that inspire and empower.”

Mawa’s devotion to her current line of work shines through in every word she says, and it is easy to believe her when she refers to it all as a preordained plan that she has wholeheartedly accepted.

“The greatest misfortune that can befall a person is walking this earth without leaving their mark on it. What has kept me going is doing everything I do with a sense of purpose.”

It is safe to say that she has left her mark on this earth, and that she will continue to do so in the future.

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Women of the Week: Heather Payne

It started with a tweet.

In June of 2011, Heather Payne asked who was interested in learning about coding. From that simple 140-character question—I want to learn to code (a bit) and I want other ladies in #Toronto to join me. Anyone at #swtoronto know any women who might be interested?—an empire was born.

As it turns out, a lot of women were interested. Instead of the expected “dozen people meeting in a coffee shop once a month to work through tutorials together,” the first workshop sold out in a day. Subsequent workshops would prove to be just as successful and would lead Heather to turn the idea into a business.

Now an official non-profit organization, Ladies Learning Code offers “one-day workshops to women (and men) who want to learn beginner-friendly computer programming and other technical skills in a social and collaborative way.”

About a year after Ladies Learning Code was created, the organization expanded, adding HackerYou. Still following the original design of hands-on learning with a solid amount of instructor/student interaction, HackerYou was created to offer a more extensive education than the one-day LLC workshops while still allowing its students to maintain full-time jobs.

HackerYou is “focused on created the best part-time programs for people who want to learn to code,” Heather explains. Rather than offer another version of education that already exists—online tutorials, college or university courses attended by numerous frazzled students—Hacker You offers “hands-on, project-based learning from industry-leading professionals, small classes with a 10:1 ratio of students to instructors, and a beginner-friendly, social and collaborative learning environment.”

The business continues to expand, now offering classes in other Canadian cities. Heather is also reaching out to a younger generation—and, by doing so, potentially changing the future dynamics of a male-dominated industry—by offering Girls Learning Code. Running primarily on school breaks, these courses are designed to get young girls more interested in code. And it’s working.

“We hear from parents how much of an impact Girls Learning Code is having on their daughters, and I am confident that in 10 years, there will be an awesome group of women joining the tech industry, who can look back and point to Girls Learning Code as the place where they got their start.”

Considering her ever-growing empire, it is interesting to note that this was not Heather’s original plan.

“It’s surprising to me now, but back when I was in university, entrepreneurship wasn’t part of my plan. I didn’t even really know what it was. My plan back then was to graduate, get a job at a Fortune 500 company, and work my way up.”

Luckily for her, and her numerous satisfied students, that plan never came to fruition. Instead of taking the typical road, Heather is carving out her own path—and having a great deal of fun doing it.

“I’m sure my career will unfold in ways I can’t currently imagine over the coming years, but for now, I’m really enjoying waking up each day and feeling incredibly empowered and engaged.”

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Women of the Week: Mary Jane Conboy

Mary Jane Conboy’s foray into science began with curiosity. In her youth, she spent many hours outdoors wondering how things worked, how certain elements in nature functioned.

“Some things in nature are just so beautiful that it just compels you think more deeply about it,” says Conboy.
Having studied biology and geology at the University of Toronto, Conboy went on to complete a PhD at the University of Guelph. Her expertise is in hydrogeology, the study of rock and underwater processes. She specialized in bacterial contamination of drinking water in wells.

“It really got into an area where you’re looking at how what we do on the top of the land can affect the water quality down below,” she said. “It really emphasizes the interplay of what we do and the impact on nature. And then sort of that impact back on us.”
Today, she’s the director of science content and design at the Ontario Science Centre. For the last two and half years, Conboy has stepped into the shoes of a visitor, creating compelling exhibits. Her method is quite unorthodox in that she strays from the traditional use of blocks of text and stories.

“That’s not really the standard approach here,” she said. “You really have to get people to learn, and really get immersed into the subject. Be compelled by basically having had some experience that really shows them. And then they kind of inquire afterwards. You will sometimes see that there are text and stories near the exhibit, but the idea is that you’re doing the exhibit and there’s something about it.”

Essentially, the visitor leaves the Science Centre filled with awe, bottled with more curiosity about the world.

Last June, Conboy and her team finished an exhibit about innovation, presenting visitors with open-ended experiences. In order to do so, Conboy deconstructed the skills an innovator has, such as being persistent, the willingness to test and tweak and the tenacity to try it over and over again. Another skill is not being afraid to make mistakes.

“Basically, we know as a society we have to change the way people are thinking. Develop different problem solving skills. That’s how we get solutions to today’s problems, by having those innovative ways of looking at the same thing but coming up with something different. The goal of the hall is really to inspire innovative behaviour.”

In the fall of 2013 the Science Centre will unveil the Human Edge, its newest exhibit. It takes the Human Body Hall to a whole new level.

“If you tell the story [of the human body] by looking at it in the context of somebody who’s pushing their physical abilities to the limit, you start to learn a lot of new science,” she says.

Part of The Human Edge focuses on the respiration system and a sport called free diving. It’s where the diver holds their breath for about three minutes, swimming deeper into the water. This portion of the exhibit, narrated by a champion diver, explores what the dive feels like at specific time intervals. At the same time, it looks at the respiration system.

“It’s a really different way of focusing on one of the core systems in the human body, but doing it in a really compelling way.”

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Women of the Week: Mindy Berkson

For Mindy Berkson, a fertility expert, life and work have collided. Hailing from the Chicago area, Mindy was initially destined for a life in venture capital, attending the University of Michigan for Economics and later working for a venture capital company. “My first job out of college was writing business plans for start-up companies in the 1980s,” she says.

While she was content in the industry, she found herself going in a new direction after the birth of her first daughter, initially intending to be a stay-at-home-mom. “The day my daughter was born, I said, ‘thank God I never have to write another business plan,’” she chuckles. Upon attempting to expand their family, Mindy discovered she was infertile. She was plunged into the world of fertility treatment. “I spent three and a half years as a patient in the industry [which] stymied me. It was so difficult to navigate. I didn’t know what questions to ask, I didn’t know how to locate the right resources.”

The frustration of the industry ignited something in Berkson; she had found her passion. After her twins were born, she returned to the industry, this time as a professional. She worked in a fertility centre for eight years, recruiting egg donors and surrogates on a national scale. Her previous experiences as a patient gave Mindy a unique edge in the industry, helping women, men and couples finally conceive and accomplish their dreams of becoming parents. Her goal is to help intended parents explore their options for biological families and serve as a guide through the often-stressful financial, physical and emotional demands of the infertility process.

“It was at this point of my life when I took my venture background and married it with my experience [in with the fertility industry] and wrote a business plan for Lotus Blossom,” Mindy explains. Lotus Blossom Consulting was born in 2005 and has helped myriad people with a range of fertility issues.

Though the company has grown exponentially in the last eight years, Mindy still personally meets with her clients, regardless of their location. “My approach is very individualized; there is no cookie cutter consultation. Each client comes to be with very different needs and I always work one-on-one with my clients,” she explains. Berkson and her team of multi-discipline professionals work with clients to fulfill financial, emotional and physical needs, which vary with each client.

Although her consultancy is located in Chicago, IL, Mindy works with clients all over the globe. She’s worked with couples and individuals from Canada, Europe, Australia and Latin America to make their dreams of parenthood a reality. While many clients travel to the U.S. to personally meet with Mindy and her team, she travels the world to meet with doctors, lawyers, immigration officials and translators to ensure her clients have the best possible experience. In addition to the in-person consultation, Mindy meets with international clients via Skype for continued support.

Although her professional and family lives are demanding, Mindy still devotes much of her time and energy to charity. She founded the Jude Andrew Adams Fund in 2007 in honour of her stillborn nephew of the same name. “The grief [of his family] expressed reminded me of… my clients suffering from infertility. The grieving process really meshed for me,” Berkson says. The fund helps financially needy couples overcome their infertility issues, typically helping 2-3 individuals or couples per year. “10% of profits from Lotus Blossom go towards the fund.” Mindy is also a newly elected board member of Fertile Action, an organization that raises awareness for fertility preservation for cancer patients, often taking measures to help cancer stricken women preserve their eggs before they begin treatment. “Another goal of the organization is to [educate women] about options after their cancer is in remission, such as egg donation and surrogacy.”

Mindy credits her own experiences in finding her passion for the fertility industry, saying, “my three and a half years as a patient [helped me] find my passion for the industry.” Now a happy mother, Mindy helps others overcome what she did 16 years ago. She hopes that, in the changing landscape, anyone dreaming of becoming a parent can achieve their goal. “There are so many different families out there today. Thank God we have all this advanced technology to help these people achieve their aspirations of parenthood,” she smiles.

For more information, please visit the Lotus Blossom website or contact Mindy directly for a complimentary consultation at 1-847-881-2685.

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