Ottawa Business Journal Winter 2021

Ottawa’s tech firms to watch The companies that will make their mark on the post-pandemic economy P59

WINTER 2021 Vol. 23, NO. 04

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WINTER 2021

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Ottawa’s tech firms to watch The companies that will make their mark on the post-pandemic economy P59

WINTER 2021 Vol. 23, NO. 04

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CONTENTS

CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Terry Tyo, 238-1818 ext. 268 terry@greatriver.ca HEAD OF CONTENT Peter Kovessy, 238-1818 ext. 251 pkovessy@obj.ca EDITOR David Sali, 238-1818 ext. 269 david@greatriver.ca CONTENT CREATOR & CAMPAIGN MANAGER Lisa Thibodeau, 238-1818 ext. 280 lisa@obj.ca

04 Prospectus 05 Datebook 06 Newsbriefs

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NEWS RELEASES Please e-mail to editor@obj.ca.

UP CLOSE: 08 Caroline Phillips shares Patrick Twagirayezu’s

ADVERTISING SALES General Inquiries, 238-1818 ext. 228 sales@obj.ca

mission to give back

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Wendy Baily, 238-1818 ext. 244 wbaily@obj.ca

Robert Hocking on Jennifer Heagle finding her true passion – and second chance – in business

Eric Dupuis, 613-266-5598 eric@obj.ca Victoria Stewart, 238-1818 ext. 226 victoria@obj.ca CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tanya Connolly-Holmes, 238-1818 ext. 253 creative@greatriver.ca DESIGN DEPARTMENT Regan Van Dusen, 238-1818 ext. 254 regan@greatriver.ca

12 Ron Corbett explores how Mark Monahan is

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14 Tourism: Hotels make pitch to staycationers 16 Go Global: Iogen’s international ethanol push BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS:

Celine Paquette, 238-1818 ext. 252 celine@greatriver.ca FINANCE Cheryl Schunk, 238-1818 ext. 250 cheryl@greatriver.ca PRINTED BY Transcontinental Transmag 10807 Rue Mirabeau, Anjou, QC H1J 1T7 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR We welcome opinions about any material published in the Ottawa Business Journal or issues of interest to local businesspeople. Only letters with the writer’s full name, address and telephone number will be considered for publication. Addresses and phone numbers will not be published, but they might be used to verify authenticity.

Letters can be e-mailed to editor@obj.ca.

reimagining Bluesfest amid the pandemic

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Ottawa Business Journal is published by

23 Bernie Ashe’s lifetime of achievements 24 CEO of the Year John Sicard’s next mission 24 CFO of the Year Julie Morin’s ‘huge milestone’ 26 Deals of the year 28 Ottawa’s best businesses and top performers

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CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Mark Sutcliffe

PRESIDENT Michael Curran

Eastern Ontario’s economic corridors Freight handlers, food processors and shipbuilders leverage strategic geography to reach new markets.

PLUS

Ottawa Valley firm’s water treatment technology gains traction in Australia

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A guaranteed minimum of 10,000 copies are printed and distributed.

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ISSUE NO. 3

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All content of Ottawa Business Journal is copyright 2021.

Great River Media Inc. and may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher. Publisher’s Liability for error: The Publisher shall not be liable for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value of an advertisement. The publisher’s liability for other errors or omissions in connection with any advertisement is strictly limited to publication of the advertisement in any subsequent issue or the refund of monies paid for the advertisement.

Manufacturing, logistics, food processing, tourism, investments and entrepreneurship in Eastern Ontario.

MANUFACTURING | LOGISTICS | FOOD PROCESSING | TOURISM | INVESTMENTS | ENTREPRENEURSHIP

WINTER 2021

59 COVER STORY: Tech firms to watch 65 THE LIST: Largest fintech firms 67 OBJ.social OBJ REGIONAL 70 People on the Move

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PROSPECTUS

The kick in the ass that we needed The COVID-19 pandemic is devastating on many fronts. Consider the thousands of Canadians who have perished from this terrifying virus, the countless lost jobs, the increasing number of business failures and the unending mental strain.

There is real hardship here.

I doubt anyone’s annual risk assessment at the beginning of 2020 predicted such a profound business disruption. Despite the extreme challenges, most entrepreneurs survived our “annus horribilis,” even if they crawled to its finish line.

As we enter 2021, let me make this admittedly positive and contrarian prediction.

Without discounting the real-world hardship created by COVID-19, the economic impact of the pandemic could eventually be viewed as largely positive when it comes to competitiveness.

I think that’s especially true in a city such

as Ottawa, which is solidly planted in the knowledge-based economy.

My biggest surprise in 2020 was the number of business leaders who, often privately, shared with me that they’re experiencing record growth and profitability. It’s both astonishing and makes complete sense.

Look at Ottawa’s private sector, somewhat dominated by its technology enterprises – Shopify, Kinaxis, Ericsson, Nokia, Ciena, BlackBerry, Mitel and dozens of others. Let me put that another way: e-commerce, supply chain, network solutions, 5G, autonomous vehicles and cloud communications. This sounds like a solid bet to me.

I’m not forgetting about local providers of goods and services.

If you operate a restaurant, boutique or fitness studio, your immediate future is bleak. There is unfairness in this, given these businesses could have neither predicted nor prepared for a pandemic and related forced closures.

Still, how many restaurateurs and retailers are exploring new business models that might make them more resilient, more forward-looking and more profitable?

Would these bold attempts at business innovation have occurred without a pandemic?

Here is the truth. Even the best CEOs have nagging business issues that go ignored. These issues are often tough to solve and require a deep rethinking or restructuring of the business.

If necessity is the mother of invention, hardship is the kick in the ass that many business operators need to make tough decisions and evolve.

I join the multitudes in cursing COVID-19, but I recognize it might bring significant good in this narrowest sense.

As we drift into a winter of discontent, hundreds of entrepreneurs are steeling their nerves, pooling their capital and preparing to use the pandemic as a springboard to stronger businesses and a more robust local economy.

@objpublisher Michael Curran

BUYING GUIDE FOR BUSINESS PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

OTTAWA’S 2021

BOOK OF LISTS EXCLUSIVE: OTTAWA’S HIGHEST-PAID EXECUTIVES

WINTER 2021

MORE THAN 30 INDUSTRY SECTORS

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PLUS: OTTAWA’S LARGEST CONSTRUCTION

Which telecom company counts Major League Baseball, Hyatt Hotels and the Liverpool Football Club among its clients?

PROJECTS AND GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

TECH, TOURISM, REAL ESTATE & MORE

KEY ECONOMIC STATS

INDUSTRY LEADERS

SUPPLEMENT TO

NEW: BEST-PERFORMING STOCKS Which company deploys 3,800 employees into hundreds of private and public sector buildings throughout the National Capital Region?

SEE PAGE 64

MISSED THE LAUNCH PARTY?

Watch here: http://bit.ly/BoL-2021-launch

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THE 2020 DIGITAL EDITION

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OTTAWABUSINESSSURVEYREPORT.CA

JANUARY 18 The most soughtafter award program for young local entrepreneurs will open nominations in January. Yes, Forty Under 40 is back! Not even the pandemic can stop this region’s impressive young entrepreneurs. Jointly organized by OBJ and the Ottawa Board of Trade, the award is given to rising business stars who demonstrate remarkable business accomplishments, expertise and community involvement.

Of course, you must work in the National Capital Region and be younger than 40 to apply. Nominations will close in late March.

Recipients are selected in April and celebrated in June. Visit www. fortyunder40.ca for more information.

JANUARY 28 With a presidential inauguration scheduled for January, the state of Canada-U.S. relations will be front and centre. What will a new American president mean for a $30-billion trading relationship?

To help answer that question, former U.S. ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, will be the guest speaker at the Mayor’s Breakfast.

Appointed by President Barack Obama, Heyman was ambassador

for three years starting in 2014.

Before the diplomatic posting, Heyman distinguished himself as a Chicago-based investment banker for Goldman Sachs. With a tight relationship to the last Democratic president and a long career in investment, Heyman has become a go-to source on Canada’s most important trading relationship. The Mayor’s Breakfast will be a virtual event until further notice.

Attendees are asked to register at www.ottawabot.ca to access the online broadcast.

FEBRUARY 10-11 Relatively new to Ottawa, the Association for Corporate Growth, better known as ACG, is a group that brings together private equity and M&A dealmakers with business leaders looking for capital. With 2,500 members, the ACG Toronto chapter is the largest in North America and will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2021. The Toronto group is helping a local chapter get on its feet. To that end, ACG will organize its second annual Ottawa conference in February. The conference theme is “The 2021 Canadian M&A Sector: Emerging Trends and Opportunities in a PostCovid Market.” The virtual event will explore topics such as cybersecurity, impact investing, alternative lending and provide attendees with an economic forecast provided by the Conference Board of Canada. For information, visit www.acg.org/toronto or email ectrotet@acg.org.

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WINTER 2021

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EXECUTIVE BRIEFS

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$400,000 REAL ESTATE

WINTER 2021

Sender Gordon takes over as president and CEO of Regional Group

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Becoming an ordained rabbi might not seem like the conventional pathway to a career in real estate, but Sender Gordon says his bachelor of talmudic law degree laid the groundwork for his new job as CEO of the Regional Group.

“It’s all about analysis,” the 33-yearold executive says of his rabbinical training, adding that acquiring, selling and leasing real estate exercises many of the same mental muscles.

“It’s all about analyzing property, analyzing opportunities, searching for the diamond in the rough.”

Gordon officially took the reins as president and chief executive of the family business on Jan. 1. He follows in the footsteps of his father Steve, who’d run the company since 1984 –​ coincidentally, when he was the same age as his son is today ​– and oversaw Regional’s ascent to become one of Ottawa’s largest real estate firms with a commercial portfolio of nearly three million square feet and a residential arm that’s built 2,000 units.

The elder Gordon says the transition is part of a well-orchestrated plan to pass the torch to the next generation of leadership at Regional, which was founded by Steve’s fatherin-law, Len Potechin, in 1958.

Raised by Bushbalm after appearing on the CBC reality TV show Dragons’ Den. The company, which sells skincare and ingrown hair prevention products, was founded by Shopify employees Tim Burns and David Gaylord.

TECHNOLOGY

Carbon-capture startup Planetary Hydrogen moving most staff to Nova Scotia A burgeoning Ottawa cleantech firm that’s already landed Shopify as a customer for its “carbon-capture” technology that aims to reduce greenhouse gases is relocating most of its employees to Nova Scotia, the company said in early January.

Launched in 2019, Planetary Hydrogen has created a patented system that speeds up the natural process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Dubbed SeaOH2, the system uses renewable electricity to split ocean water molecules into hydrogen and

oxygen, a process known as electrolysis.

Planetary Hydrogen hopes to have a pilot plant up and running in the Halifax region by 2022.

“We were always going to set up a lab on one of the coasts,” he told OBJ. “We need an ocean to ultimately make this thing work.”

Now at seven employees, Planetary Hydrogen is fuelled by more than $600,000 in financial backing from the Capital Angel Network, Torontobased Ramen Ventures and other local investors.

Snelling Paper & Sanitation acquired by global packaging giant A family-owned firm that’s been a fixture of the Ottawa business community for more than a century has been sold to the Canadian arm of a global manufacturer of packaging and cleaning supplies.

Snelling Paper & Sanitation, which has been operating in the capital since 1915, was acquired in December by Bunzl Canada. Bunzl is also acquiring Sur-Seal Packaging, a Winnipeg-based industrial packaging company that is wholly owned by Snelling.

Bunzl Canada is a division of food distribution giant Bunzl Distribution USA. That company, in turn, is part of London-based Bunzl plc, a U.K.-based public enterprise that trades on the London Stock Exchange.

In addition to providing janitorial and sanitation services to commercial clients ranging in size from Scotiabank Place to “mom-and-pop” stores, the company also provides packaging for major food retailers, including Ottawa’s own Farm Boy, as well as uniforms, linens and other products.

We’re starting off the new year with a bang.

–Kevin Ford, CEO, Calian Group. The Kanata firm, which acquired six companies in 2020, closed its first transaction of 2021 with the purchase of antenna systems provider InterTronic Solutions. The deal could be worth up to $22 million if the Quebec-based firm hits its earnings targets.

TECHNOLOGY

WarnerMedia acquires Kanata’s You.i TV

CONSTRUCTION

Pomerleau to build $42M Parks Canada artifact storage facility in Gatineau Quebec-based construction firm Pomerleau has won its second major contract in the National Capital Region in the last two months –​ this one a $42-million deal to build Parks Canada’s new artifact collection facility in Gatineau.

Ottawa’s Moriyama and Teshima Architects and NFOE Architects of Montreal are jointly designing the new building, which will house about 25 million historical and archeological objects.

According to the federal government, the 88,000-square-

foot storage facility will be specially designed to allow for the “protection and conservation of the collection under optimal storage and environmental conditions.”

Indigenous peoples, researchers, institutions and community groups from across the country will have access to the collection. Construction is expected to be completed in 2023.

Separately, in November, Pomerleau landed a contract to construct what’s being billed as the “greenest” British High Commission building in the world on Sussex Drive.

WarnerMedia has completed its acquisition of Kanata-based software firm You.i TV, the New York-based media giant confirmed in late December.

You.i TV’s platform that delivers video apps for devices such as smart TVs, mobile phones and tablets will help the U.S. entertainment firm roll out its HBO Max streaming service in global markets, WarnerMedia said. HBO Max is slated to expand into Latin America this year, while HBO-branded services in Europe will be upgraded to HBO Max. Financial terms of the deal were not released. The Globe and Mail said a source pegged the value of the transaction at more than US$100 million.

Since You.i TV’s founding in 2008, the 200-person company has built a high-profile list of customers that includes AT&T –​ the parent company of WarnerMedia and a significant

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Jason Flick is the co-founder and CEO of You.i TV investor in You.i TV ​– Fox and Toronto’s Corus Entertainment as well as major professional sports leagues such as the NBA and NFL. You.i TV attracted more than US$50 million in venture capital over the past five years as the market for streaming services expanded rapidly.

Rise in Ottawa home prices this year predicted by Royal LePage.

The real estate brokerage is forecasting the aggregate price of a home in the capital will increase to $624,000.

FINANCING

mid-December it closed a $20-million series-A funding round to fuel its ongoing expansion into the U.S. It was the second major VC raise of 2020 for GoFor, which landed $9.8 million in seed funding back in June. The company has been riding

a massive wave of growth as demand for same-day delivery service has skyrocketed during the pandemic.

Monthly revenues at the Ottawa firm ​– which provides just-in-time delivery services and makes software that helps customers fill last-minute

orders –​ are now 10 times what they were nearly a year ago, while its headcount has ballooned to 110 from about 45 in March.

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After a breakout year in which it delivered on all its market promise and then some, Ottawa last-mile logistics startup GoFor is keeping its foot firmly on the gas pedal as it revs up for an even bigger 2021.

The four-year-old company said in

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Logistics platform GoFor gears up for U.S. expansion push with $20M series-A round

UP CLOSE

FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT PATRICK TWAGIRAYEZU

1

His surname gets mispronounced all the time.

He’s often called “Mr. T” for short.

2

He’s naturally curious.

“I’ve never been afraid to approach people to ask questions.”

3

In 2013, he won the Prix Bernard Gradmaître “youth of the year” award, given to an outstanding young leader in the Ottawa francophone community.

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He saved up money for university through parttime jobs, such as working as a dishwasher at the RA Centre.

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Remember his Grade 8 buddies? Phedely Ariste also studied law at uOttawa with Twagirayezu and is an associate at Gowling WLG while Bryan Detchou earned a political science degree at uOttawa, followed by a Master’s in international relations, and is a special advisor in the Senate of Canada.

Patrick Twagirayezu says it was an overseas trip to visit family that sparked his interest in volunteer work. PHOTO BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

Lawyer Patrick Twagirayezu’s mission to give back Young philanthropist has already made his mark on Ottawa and beyond

BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

caroline@obj.ca

S

ometimes, it takes something so simple as positive feedback from a teacher, coach or mentor to change the way a child sees themself – or their future.

For Patrick Twagirayezu, it was being told “You’d make a good lawyer” by one of his teachers at his French Catholic high school, Franco-Cité. She was addressing him and his buddies after they delivered a persuasive presentation to their class.

The Grade 8 teacher’s encouraging words sowed the seeds for Twagirayezu’s future as a lawyer.

“From that point on, I thought it might

be a possibility, something that I could maybe do,” said Twagirayezu, 26, at the Ottawa office of Emond Harnden, where he’s a new associate at one of the largest boutique-style labour and employment law firms in the country. “I’ve been lucky to have people around me who have always steered me in the right direction even when I didn’t necessarily know what the right direction was.”

A MISSION TO GIVE BACK Twagirayezu has a résumé that’s hard to match. He’s won awards and scholarships, and started charitable movements. He helped to organize a roundtable discussion on youth

engagement at Rideau Hall, hosted by then-governor general David Johnston.

As well, the proud Franco-Ontarian represented French-language students and student trustees from school boards across the province. Twagirayezu also founded the Capital Youth Initiative aimed at reducing youth poverty in Ottawa and is currently a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.

“For me, the only two things I want to do are: continue improving as a lawyer and keep giving back to the community,” he said.

Twagirayezu moved to Canada as a little boy with his mother and younger sister. He spent his first couple of years in Winnipeg, enrolled in a French school.

He had to learn the language from scratch while picking up his English from outside the classroom.

Twagirayezu jokes that Winnipeg’s extreme cold gave his family enough reason to leave but, really, they relocated to Ottawa due to its vibrant and strong francophone community.

In high school, Twagirayezu was a well-rounded student who studied hard, played quarterback on his football team,

I didn’t think we were going to pull it off … We learned everything on the fly.

– Patrick Twagirayezu, on planning his first benefit concert

and was head of his student council. He lived in Ottawa Community Housing, in the Heron Gate area, before moving to the Hunt Club area. His mother worked as a personal support worker while Twagirayezu held down multiple part-time jobs during high school and university. To boot, he helped kids in social housing to improve their French, after school.

Twagirayezu’s interest in volunteer work started during a trip back to Rwanda to see relatives. He couldn’t help but do a quality of life comparison, realizing he was fortunate to grow up in Canada.

When Twagirayezu returned to Ottawa, he started on his new mission to give back to his community. He wasted no time contacting the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Foundation to see how he could help. He and his

friends planned a benefit concert for CHEO through C.H.A.N.G.E. 4 Kids, a fundraising movement co-founded and led by Twagirayezu.

“I didn’t think we were going to pull it off,” said Twagirayezu, recalling how they initially had no money for the deposit on their venue, the Bronson Centre. They hastily canvassed neighbourhoods asking for contributions, and were baffled when donors started asking for tax receipts in return. “We learned everything on the fly.”

In the end, the concert was a fundraising success and was held again the following year, in support of CHEO and Do It For Daron (DIFD).

“Because we were the organizers, we had to be on top of everything,” Twagirayezu says in explaining how C.H.A.N.G.E. 4 Kids taught him to take

ownership of his fundraising efforts and future leadership roles.

Twagirayezu went on to earn a combined law and political science degree at the University of Ottawa, graduating magna cum laude. He had part-time and summer jobs at Emond Harnden, where he also articled.

“I love what I do and I love the people I work with,” said Twagirayezu, who credits his school board student trustee experience with sparking his interest in labour and employment law, and in finding practical solutions for solving disputes.

Emond Harnden was named the 2020 Outstanding Small Business Philanthropist by the Ottawa chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. In 2014, Twagirayezu won in the youth category after being nominated by United Way. He was part of this year’s selection committee but refrained from voting in the small business category.

“I was extremely proud,” he said of Emond Harnden’s award. “To me, it reinforced one of the main reasons I came here, which was that this is a place that cares about its community.”

PULVERMACHERKENNEDY & ASSOCIATES TRANSITIONING YOUR FAMILY BUSINESS IS MORE SCIENCE THAN ART

Introducing Dr Hartley Stern

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General Hospital and with Provincial Ministries of Health and Regulators to improve the safety and quality of care in the majority of Canadian jurisdictions whilst CEO of the CMPA. He has also driven major improvements in quality and safety using (but not limited to): compelling articulation of vision and strategy; major refinements in data acquisition and analysis; and innovative partnerships.

Visit our website at: www.pulvermacherkennedy.com to learn more about Dr Hartley Stern.

“We Know a Thing or Two, Because We’ve seen a Thing or Two”

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Feel free to call for a no-obligation interview (+1.647.290.1300) and visit our website at: www.pulvermacherkennedy.com • Ottawa • Toronto • New York City • South Florida •

WINTER 2021

e are delighted to welcome Dr Hartley Stern to PKA, as a Senior Advisor, to our highly esteemed clients in the Healthcare Industry.

By way of background: Dr Stern has held significant health care leadership positions over a 30 year period in Universities, Cancer Systems, and Hospital Systems, in Ontario and Quebec, and most recently in the Canadian Medical Liability System (CMPA). He has forged strong relationships with governments in most provinces but most significantly in Quebec while CEO of the Jewish

UP CLOSE

ROUND 2:

“There was light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.

“I could move on.” And for the next seven years Heagle applied her finely tuned business skills in a consultancy, a period she extraordinarily describes as “healing and recovery time” from her previous experience.

Her journey to becoming a chef and running a successful food business was serendipitous.

It started with a Christmas gift of a couple of courses from the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa Culinary Arts Institute, which led to full-time study that allowed her to focus on food and thinking about her life.

“I went into that experience with no expectation. I just wanted to be happy,” she says. “It then dawned on me, I’ve got a toolkit of skills, so let’s start a business.”

But this time she knew she’d never do something again unless she was passionate about it.

A story of true passion and second chances How Red Apron co-founder Jennifer Heagle left a $20M tech enterprise to follow the ‘slow road to success’

BY ROBERT HOCKING news@obj.ca

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n his book, Shop Class as Soulcraft, author Matthew Crawford describes how his high school guidance counsellor once used the image of a mechanic in dirty overalls as a warning of something to avoid becoming. He goes on to explain that this was the beginning of an era where young people were pushed away from manual competence toward university and professional careers, with the follow-on being a decline in overall job satisfaction and feelings of fulfillment.

Round 2 is a series of stories that explore what came next for people who may have followed that advice, but have since chosen ways to live more tangibly in an increasingly abstract world.

Jennifer Heagle is one of the original founders of Red Apron, an Ottawa specialty food store that sells prepared meals and emphasizes locally grown ingredients.

Her story is an arc that follows a Hobson’s choice between making a

business viable or being on the street looking for work. Of achieving exceptional success only to question whether how she was applying her talents was truly fulfilling a deeper need for meaning.

Heagle’s first chapter started in the early ’90s when she became president of Proterm, an Ottawa-based tech services company, after her parents, who had started the business, decided to move Stateside. It all began with the proposition, “Run the business and make it a success, or close it down and find another job.”

The business started when the world of tech was changing.

“Things were taking off in a way we were attached to. We just started growing. I can’t even remember how; all I remember is the stress,” she recalls.

To meet Heagle is to immediately sense her deep intelligence, so when she describes growing the business to more than 100 employees and $20 million in revenue, it’s not surprising. But through it all she remained a reluctant entrepreneur.

“I absolutely felt trapped. The commitment is huge, but the idea of quitting never crossed my mind,” she says, explaining that simply walking away

A NEW DEFINITION OF ‘SUCCESS’

JENNIFER HEAGLE wasn’t an option because of the impact on so many other people’s livelihood.

“I was honestly in survival mode for 10 years, I just thought, ‘I’ve got to get through this somehow.’”

When she finally sold the business, despite having outwardly achieved and proven so much, she describes being relieved.

After a brief stint starting and running a restaurant, she knew that the hours and lifestyle weren’t for her. She met someone who wanted to partner, a person coming from a similar place to her own – both were mothers with young kids – and that the beginning of Red Apron wasn’t about “dreaming big.”

Instead, for her and her partner, Jo-Ann Laverty, it was about putting boundaries around what she was willing to do.

“Saying you’ll do anything is a recipe for craziness,” she says. “Working within your personal boundaries means you have to work harder.”

Heagle believes that being a mother also gives her a different view on what success needs to encompass. With

young kids, “at any cost” was no longer an option. More success doesn’t mean more happiness, she says.

“I don’t want to work 80 hours a week if the trade-off of more money is giving more life to work. I’m not interested in that.”

Red Apron was started without its partners putting a lot of money into the business, which forced them to be modest.

“We could only grow when we had the money. We could have started bigger (and) lost money for five years, but we didn’t,” Heagle says. “We’ve had a slow road to success. It’s been 15 years now, but it’s safer, less stressful.”

Ultimately, Heagle’s lesson is about knowing what integrity you’re defending and being open to more than one idea of what it takes to be successful.

When I asked if, given the chance, she’d do it again, she explained, “150 per cent yes, I don’t know who I’d be without Red Apron. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of.”

Because the business is such a reflection of the personal values of the

founders, cutting corners and finding hacks that would lead to more profit is not at the forefront of their mission.

What I love most about Heagle’s story is that what’s meaningful for her encompasses the whole potential of business.

“We make a difference in more than just the food we make, but in the jobs we create, in the small farms we support – in how we help others thrive,” she says.

“It’s about giving a shit because not everyone does. We could make more money, but our values don’t allow us to do that.”

Having heard Heagle’s story, it’s easy to understand why her customers would be loyal. But something even greater is in understanding how the pursuit of happiness comes by not focusing on success at any cost, but instead in creating a business with values and a commitment to something bigger than the bottom line.

Robert Hocking is a marketing strategist and teacher who’s endlessly inspired by the creativity of commerce.

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UP CLOSE

How Bluesfest found its groove in the face of the pandemic

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COVID-19 forced organizers to rethink the concert experience for attendees and sponsors alike – while raising new questions for 2021

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Musical festivals are built around one unshakeable, foundational assertion – it’s more fun listening to music when you’re with other people. So what do you do when your core business suddenly becomes illegal?

RBC Bluesfest executive director Mark Monahan calls the decision to cancel the 2020 edition of the festival ‘the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make.’ PHOTO BY JULIE OLIVER

they were closing their borders.

On the same day, the Glastonbury and Bonnaroo festivals were cancelled.

BY RON CORBETT news@obj.ca

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ike all of us, Mark Monahan has memories of last March that will stay with him for years.

At the start of March 2020, the executive director of RBC Bluesfest was busy selling tickets for that year’s festival, to be held July 8-18. Headliners included Alanis Morissette, Rage Against the Machine and Jack Johnson.

At the same time, Monahan was monitoring news stories about some SARS-like virus in China, which was starting to pop up in North America.

“I was following the story because I remember SARS so well,” he recalls. “We had a Toronto Bluesfest the year of SARS, and we got slaughtered.”

But Monahan also remembered SARS was short-lived and didn’t extend much beyond Southern Ontario. So he wasn’t that worried about COVID-19.

Then came March 6. I’m not going to call it The Day the Music Died. You’re allowed to think it.

“Someone came into my office,” he remembers, “and said the South

by Southwest Festival had just been cancelled. That’s one of the largest festivals in the States. I sat there and went, “Holy shit.”

WATCHING A TRAINWRECK

It’s hard to imagine any business being more affected by a global pandemic than music festivals.

When you look at other industries affected by COVID-19 – tourism, hospitality and sports come to mind – you’ll see that they have multiple areas of consumer appeal.

People gather in a restaurant to eat.

People embark on a cruise ship to travel.

People go to a sporting event to find out who wins.

But a music festival? Everything you’re going to hear at a musical festival you can easily hear at home, and it will likely sound better. (If you’re a fan of an artist like Bob Dylan, it’s a guarantee.)

Musical festivals are built around one unshakeable, foundational assertion – it’s more fun listening to music when you’re with other people.

So what do you do, what can you do, when your core business suddenly becomes illegal?

WINNING OVER SPONSORS

‘YOU’VE GOT TO TRY SOMETHING’ After streaming the drive-in series, Bluesfest turned the September CityFolk Festival – which it also runs – into a payper-view event, featuring outlaw country heroes Jason Isbell and Steve Earle.

“Those shows were an incredible success,” says Monahan. “They were great

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RBC Bluesfest 2020 was cancelled on April 28, later than most other festivals, but Bluesfest is a mid-summer festival, not a spring event like SXSW or Coachella.

It took time to admit defeat.

“Cancelling was probably the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make,” says Monahan. “We’ve always taken pride in overcoming all obstacles. Every successful festival does. But there was no safe way we could hold a festival this year.”

Bluesfest has a board of directors and a long-time dedicated staff. They got together for frantic meetings last spring to discuss what had just happened – “Would you call that a pole-axing, or did it feel more like a meteor strike?” – and what to do next.

“We decided early on that we weren’t going to crawl into a corner and wait out the year,” he says. “We wanted to put on live shows. How could we safely do that?”

Some ideas were kicked around.

Some bad ones were quickly discarded – viewing cubicles, one really, really big field – and at one meeting someone said, “What about a drive-in? I think someone is trying that in the States.”

shows, and after we had Q&As with both Isbell and Earle. That’s something we were never able to offer at a traditional concert.”

The “traditional concert” term surprised me. I’d never heard it before.

It has obvious echoes of “traditional media,” which is what they call newspapers today. Either that or legacy, which is better than dead, although still a sad progression down the adjectival health continuum.

I asked Monahan when he started using the phrase “traditional concert,” and why wasn’t he crying about it?

“Because it’s not all bad,” he said.

“Some performers love the live-stream shows. Why not? They don’t have to go anywhere. And the audience, getting to ask Steve Earle a question after the show, a lot of people love that.”

Monahan is hoping to build on the live-stream and pay-per-view successes of 2020. One plan is for Bluesfest to partner with Ottawa Tourism for livestream shows that will only be available in Ottawa hotel rooms.

Ultimately, there will also be that “traditional festival” to start planning.

Monahan figures the success of Bluesfest 2021 will hinge not only on a successful vaccine rollout, but on rapid testing.

“We’re already talking to a company that promises results in five minutes,” he says. “We could have a staging area before people enter the festival grounds, where the test would be administered. Wait there to be cleared, and then you’re in.”

I ask if that might create a bottleneck problem at the front gates. Lineups are hated by every festival organizer. They’re right up there with lawn chairs, smuggled booze and work-visa problems created by felony records of most alt-country bands.

“Could there be lineups with rapid testing? Yeah, we’ve thought about that,” he says. “We’re going to do a test run at an event before Bluesfest, to see how it works.”

There follows a lengthy pause. No one asking or answering a question. The last question twirling around the room – “Could there be a bottle-neck problem because of rapid testing?”

Monahan finally starts laughing.

“I know,” and then his laughter builds until he has to stop and catch his breath.

“Yes, that may be a problem. But we’ll figure it out, don’t worry. You got to try something, right?”

You know what? He’s right.

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Each of us has a “Holy shit” moment from March 2020; a moment when we saw, or heard something we never thought we’d see or hear.

Maybe it was March 11, the day the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. If you’re a basketball fan it might still be this day – late that afternoon the NBA suspended its season.

If you’re a parent maybe it was March 12, the day schools in Ontario announced they would remain closed for two weeks following the March Break.

On the same day, the NCAA cancelled its March Madness basketball tournament.

For Monahan – for anyone in the festival business – the days following the cancellation of the SXSW festival must have seemed like watching a trainwreck.

The crash came March 18. On that day Canada and the United States announced

AN INDUSTRY UNDER SIEGE

The drive-in idea grew until it became the #CanadaPerforms at RBC Bluesfest Drive-in series, held over two weekends in August at Place des Festivals Zibi in Gatineau.

The drive-in shows were done in partnership with the National Arts Centre and featured performers such as Sam Roberts and Patrick Watson. The artists performed on two stages, and the audience stayed in cars.

When he had the lineup and dates booked, Monahan went looking for sponsors. He approached the companies that normally sponsor Bluesfest.

“They asked me how many people would be watching the drive-in shows,” remembers Monahan. “I told them the Zibi festival site had space for 440 cars. “‘Four hundred and forty?’ they said, and I told them ‘That’s right – 440.’ They said they’d get back to me.”

Monahan had a problem. RBC Bluesfest can get crowds of more than 20,000 for some shows, and over the course of a festival will draw hundreds of thousands.

Four hundred and forty is, to a corporate sponsor, a little – well, it’s less.

(Even if you throw in passengers and trunk cheats.)

So Monahan went back to the sponsors and said he forgot to mention something. The shows would also be streamed over Facebook Live. This seemed to interest them. “‘How many people will be watching the stream?’ they asked, and I said, ‘How many people would you like to be watching?’ They told me one million was a good number. I told them, ‘You’re not going to believe this.’”

Monahan promised the sponsors one million views for the drive-in shows.

Bluesfest had never live-streamed a performance before. Monahan says he wasn’t so worried about the number as he was about whether the stream would actually work.

And what was the final number?

2.1 million.

TOURISM

Hotels look to growing staycation market to propel recovery Industry hopes local ‘guests’ will become tourism ambassadors, encouraging outof-town friends and family to visit Ottawa

BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS caroline@obj.ca

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f ever there was a year to head outside and embrace Ottawa’s coldest months, it’s 2021 – the year of the winter staycation.

Whether it’s urban adventures or rural getaways, there are many ways to stave off COVID cabin fever while knee-deep in January.

The tourism industry could use the boost, too. It’s been one of the hardesthit sectors since the pandemic first checked into Ottawa last March.

Tourism spending plummeted by 63 per cent, from $2.2 billion to $800 million in 2020, according to Ottawa Tourism. Of the 43,000 Ottawa residents working in tourism, thousands lost their jobs or had their hours scaled back.

Unless you’re self-isolating in a cave, you’re likely aware the COVID-19 vaccination process is underway. Still, it will take time for the tourism sector to bounce back, says Jantine Van Kregten, communications director at Ottawa Tourism.

“It’s not like a light switch has been flipped,” says Van Kregten, who’s predicting a “slow and steady” economic recovery for tourism.

With most people sticking close

The Wakefield Mill Hotel and Spa has added new ski chalets and converted several bedrooms into private dining rooms to increase its appeal among staycationers.

We’ve gone from a discretionary want to almost a nondiscretionary need.

– ROBERT MILLING, PRESIDENT, WAKEFIELD MILL HOTEL AND SPA

to home these days, industry groups nationwide have been launching hyperlocal campaigns, encouraging residents to show their love for their community by supporting, buying and shopping local.

“Every choice you make has an impact,” says Van Kregten.

Tourism has seen a rise in shorter, closer holidays known as staycations, nearcations or homecations.

“Typically, in a normal year, you wouldn’t be staying in a hotel in the same city in which you live because you have a bed in your home that’s already paid for,” says Van Kregten.

But a change in scenery has its benefits, especially with so many employees working from home to prevent the spread of COVID. “I think it provides a mental boost,” says Van Kregten. “It gives you something fresh to think about.”

PROMOTIONAL PUSH More than 40 hotels are participating in Ottawa Tourism’s It’s Still On Us promotion, which gives guests a $100 credit for a two-night minimum consecutive stay, until March 31.

The Fairmont Château Laurier has

“absolutely” seen a rise in Ottawa-area couples and families spending a couple of nights at the historic hotel, says Deneen Perrin, its director of public relations.

High on the list of hotel guest feedback: “I really needed this,” she says.

The hotel’s central location makes it a great launching pad for exploring downtown while also offering amenities that staycationers are seeking on their mini-vacations, says Perrin. The hotel’s pool and health club, long and rich history, and popular tradition of serving afternoon tea are among its top draws.

The Château Laurier is also a safe place to stay, she adds.

“You know you’re in an environment where people are really paying attention to COVID protocols.”

The hotel is located steps from the Rideau Canal Skateway, which is a major tourist attraction during Winterlude.

“I always say: we don’t hibernate, we celebrate winter,” says Perrin.

The Wakefield Mill Hotel and Spa is welcoming local outdoor enthusiasts to its quiet retreat in the woods, located north of Ottawa.

“I’m expecting it to be a pretty busy cross-country ski winter,” says Wakefield Mill president Robert Milling, who’s offering special ski packages of one- to three-night stays at the heritage hotel.

Visitors have ski-in, ski-out access to Gatineau Park, which offers more than 200 kilometres of groomed trails. The hotel has added a ski waxing room and 10 new chalets. It’s also converted several bedrooms into private dining rooms due to Quebec’s tight COVID restrictions, and has created a new games room.

The Wakefield Mill Hotel saw an unprecedented uptick in staycations between July and September.

“I guess the simplest way to put it is: we’ve gone from a discretionary want to almost a nondiscretionary need,” says Milling. “People need a break like I have never seen before.”

Ottawa Tourism is hoping staycationers evolve into tourism ambassadors who can convince out-oftown friends and family to visit in the post-pandemic future.

Photo credit: Ottawa Tourism, credit Ryan Stefan Photo / Your Favourite Photographer Inc.

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2021 LOOKAHEAD: NEW OUTDOOR EVENTS OFFER HOPE FOR TOURISM SECTOR

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in spring 2021, at which time guests will be able to race each other across the river while taking in spectacular views of the city.

INTERZIP ROGERS Advanced registration is now open for trips on the firstever interprovincial zip line, which will transport guests 1,400 feet across the Ottawa River.

Located west of the Portage Bridge and connected to the new Zibi development, the line travels 120 feet in the air, connecting Ontario and Quebec.

The highly anticipated aerial attraction will open

CAMP FORTUNE’S NEW PIPE COASTER Outdoor enthusiasts will have to head to Camp Fortune this summer for the unveiling of the outdoor park’s latest addition: a recreational luge track.

Reaching speeds of up to 40 km/h, the gravitypowered attraction will give guests a new perspective of the Gatineau Hills as they race down trails and through tunnels to the bottom of the track.

REMBRANDT IN AMSTERDAM EXHIBIT Two of Ottawa’s major tourist attractions are partnering up in 2021 to celebrate springtime in the capital.

The Canadian Tulip Festival and the National Gallery of Canada are marking the arrival of a special exhibition, Rembrandt in Amsterdam: Creativity and Competition, to Ottawa on May 14, 2021 – the same day that the Tulip Festival officially gets underway.

The partnership will also be celebrated at the festival, with special “Rembrandt” tulips featured throughout Commissioners Park.

“A Rembrandt exhibition at the Gallery would be a big draw regardless, but with a tie-in to the Tulip Festival, it is going to be amazing,” says Van Kregten.

COMMEMORATIONS In late August, Canada will mark the 50th anniversary of the We Demand protest on Parliament Hill – the first large-scale public protest for gay rights in Canada.

Capital Pride is expected to commemorate the historic occasion, with specific events still in the works.

Collectively, the special events and attractions are poised to add up to a year like no others for visitors to the capital.

“I guarantee you there are unexplored sections of our region that offer experiences that equal or top what you can get elsewhere,” says Van Kregten. “Everybody in our industry is super creative and resilient, so 2021 should see several innovative events for everyone to enjoy.”

To stay up-to-date on upcoming events and festivals in Ottawa, subscribe to Ottawa Tourism’s weekly email newsletter: What’s Happening in the Ottawa Area.

Each Thursday subscribers will receive an email with a dozen or so suggestions of events, attractions, and more to visit over the upcoming week. Sign up by visiting ottawatourism.ca.

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Using a hand brake, riders can control how fast – or slow – they want to progress down the hill.

Camp Fortune hopes to have guests weaving their way down the track by the end of June 2021.

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ttawa’s tourism sector is heading into 2021 feeling optimistic that a lineup of exciting new attractions, outdoor adventure activities and anniversary celebrations will encourage visitors to return to the capital.

With many events canceled or postponed last year due to the pandemic, there is pent-up demand among residents and travellers alike to safely come together again and enjoy the attractions in Canada’s capital, says Jantine Van Kregten, director of communications at Ottawa Tourism.

“People really want to reconnect, not only with family and friends, but with their city,” she says.

“When it’s safe to host people in our homes again, we can really use that opportunity to bring people to Ottawa and show off what we have to offer.”

Here are a few of the attractions and events you don’t want to miss in 2021:

GO GLOBAL We’ve been engaged in (biofuels) since the very beginning. – Brian Foody, CEO, Iogen

How waste is converted to cellulosic ethanol Farmer or other partner brings waste, like straw or manure, to facility to be treated.

Enzymes break down cellulose into sugars.

Ottawa’s Iogen helping to fuel the next green wave

Sugars fermented and distilled to become ethanol.

Ethanol producer eyes growth in U.S., Europe

BY JORDAN HAWORTH news@obj.ca

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s governments and consumers around the world increasingly look for cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels, an Ottawa-based biofuels company is hoping its early-mover advantage in the industry will help position it to capitalize on an expected boom in demand for renewable energy.

Iogen specializes in cellulosic ethanol, which unlike typical renewable fuels such as corn ethanol, is made primarily from agricultural waste and results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions. It is compatible with modern combustion engines, making it an attractive alternative to fossil fuels.

“People are drawn to cellulosic ethanol for

three main reasons: Concern for the environment, concern for agriculture, and oil-related security concerns,” said Iogen CEO Brian Foody, who joined the company in 1982 when the biofuel market was still in its infancy.

“We’ve been engaged in that business since the very beginning and we have a good position in part because we are really knowledgeable about the marketplace,” he added.

As one of the first firms in the Canadian biofuel market, Iogen cut a path for itself and other companies, investing half of a billion dollars into research to improve ethanol’s efficiency.

The company built and operated the world’s first cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant, and brought ethanol to Canadian gas pumps for the first time, right here in Ottawa.

Ready to use.

Source: Iogen Corp.

But for Foody, the Canadian market was not enough.

GLOBAL REACH In 2014, Iogen partnered with Raízen, Brazil’s leading ethanol producer, to open a US$100 million expansion mill for the production of cellulosic ethanol. The facility produces approximately 151 million litres of biofuel per year.

Since then, Iogen has turned its sights – and patents for cellulosic ethanol – to the two largest biofuel markets: Europe and the United States, where Iogen is already the country’s fifth-largest producer of cellulosic ethanol and Foody has been called upon by federal politicians setting renewable fuel standards.

He previously testified before both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate as they debated legislation that ultimately established minimum ethanol requirements for oil refiners.

Now, ethanol is blended into almost every fuel type.

“Biofuels are still somewhat of a niche in the United States,” Foody

said. “But they are, if you will, the gold standard for green fuels.”

But the influence of politics on the renewable fuels market can also create volatility.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted dozens of exemptions in 2018 to oil refineries from the mandatory ethanol requirements, hurting firms such as Iogen.

“We saw the price for renewable fuels fall to its worst by nearly 80 per cent from its peak in 2017,” Foody said. “The market has recovered much, but not all, of its losses.”

But later in his presidency, Trump moved to block similar exemptions for oil refineries while also looking to boost ethanol production in an effort to appease corn farmers.

Foody said he’s hoping that the incoming Biden administration will set a clear path to increase the use of renewable fuel.

“We are very much looking forward to what the next step in the evolution of the market will be, and are looking to be leaders,” he said.

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s expanded testing and COVID-19 vaccination campaigns begin around the world, some aviation experts say the airline industry’s previous patterns of recovery offer insights into how carriers are likely to rebuild their flight networks serving Ottawa in the coming years.

Shorter, regional routes are likely to be among the first to be restored as airlines meet demand from visiting friends and relatives, leisure, as well as business passengers resuming travel to familiar, nearby destinations. These routes are also relatively easier for air carriers to scale up as they are typically serviced using smaller aircraft with fewer seats to fill.

Long-haul domestic flights and transborder routes connecting Ottawa with popular destinations, followed by major U.S. hubs will likely be next, then longer-haul overseas routes.

“It’s going to be a gradual buildout,” says Mark Laroche, the president and CEO of the Ottawa International Airport Authority.

While routes that previously saw daily service may initially return with less frequent flights at first, airlines will add additional capacity to Ottawa as they see more passengers starting or ending their journey in the nation’s capital.

“Aircraft are portable assets, and airlines will deploy them on the routes where they see demand quickly returning,” Laroche says. “During recovery, the more Ottawa residents make use of the routes serving the capital – while respecting public health guidelines regarding travel, of course – the stronger the business case becomes for the carriers to resume more nonstop flights from YOW.”

across the country have continuously adapted to evolving public health measures by moving quickly to introduce health and safety measures that provide passengers with a consistent experience throughout their journey.

This includes mandatory face coverings, enhanced cleaning protocols, plexiglas shields at checkin counters as well as visual and audio reminders to practise physical distancing.

Those efforts, combined with those introduced by airlines, have paid off.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief medical officer of health, said in November that there was little to no evidence of COVID-19 transmission among air travellers, which she attributed to enhanced cleaning measures.

Safely serving those passengers who continued to fly – as well as facilitating cargo and essential Ornge ambulance flights – meant many parts of the Ottawa airport’s operations remained busy throughout 2020 and helped maintain the terminal’s readiness to be part of the economic recovery alongside its tourism industry partners.

“Ranging from strict safety and security protocols, to passenger concessions, we have to be prepared for one, 15 or over 100 planes a day,” Laroche says. “Our job is to be ready, responsive and responsible.”

A nimble response

Since the start of the pandemic, the Ottawa airport and its counterparts OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

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Now, for tomorrow

How the aviation industry’s recovery will take flight in Ottawa

WINTER 2021

Start the conversation ottawa@bakertilly.ca 613.820.8010

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Ottawa chefs prepare for return of meetings and conventions with new culinary offerings, services W

ith many conferences and conventions rescheduled into 2021, several of the city’s top chefs are hard at work planning new and safe ways of using food to bring people together.

While in-person celebrations may temporarily be on hold, some organizations are still finding a way to make food the centrepiece of their event – even from a distance.

The Great Canadian Kitchen Party is an annual cooking competition that brings hundreds of people together for an evening of food and drinks prepared by top Canadian chefs. The event – which typically hosts its local competition and Culinary Championships at the Shaw Centre – also raises money for Canadian musicians and athletes.

With large in-person gatherings out of the question last year, GCKP co-founder Karen Blair and her team brought the kitchen party experience into the homes of ticket holders instead.

“Chefs, restaurant owners, musicians and Olympic athletes who had dreams of competing in Tokyo have all had their livelihoods put on hold, so we knew we had to do something to help,” she says.

Virtual attendees – including more than 600 from across Ontario – were invited to order a takeout meal from a list of six local chefs competing in the event before tuning into an online broadcast of live music from performers across the country, allowing guests to still gather with their families and enjoy the perks of the Kitchen Party from the comfort of their homes.

And, while the 2021 Culinary Championships portion of the party – originally scheduled for February – had to be postponed until 2022, the team is eagerly awaiting their return to Ottawa and the Shaw Centre, where guests will be able to come together to celebrate innovative menus from across the country.

“Ottawa has some incredible chefs and a very lively culinary community, so for us it’s a great fit,” says Blair. “We are sad not to be hosting there, but we are looking forward to rejoining the community when it’s safe to do so.”

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A VIRTUAL KITCHEN PARTY

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and similar offerings that invite guests to make their own plates will likely be replaced with pre-portioned individual servings.

Kenton Leier, executive chef at the National Arts Centre, is also exploring creative ways of ensuring guests “We are looking closely at everything from how we can gather safely without sacrificing any part of the event – serve food to how we set up a room so that guests won’t least of all the NAC’s well-known culinary fare. lose the feeling of an intimate event, but will feel safe and “While the food experience may look different, the spread out in the space,” says Patrick Turcot, the executive overall quality and taste will be the same,” says Leier, chef at the Shaw Centre. who catered a handful of events over the summer before When business and social events resume in earnest, additional limits on the size of in-person gatherings were attendees are likely to see several subtle changes. For example, culinary staff will be more likely to serve dishes to reintroduced. “I have a lot of confidence in the industry, guests directly, with buffets and self-serve setups becoming and I know we will adapt and make the necessary changes to be able to do things safely for our guests.” less common, says Turcot. Similarly, charcuterie spreads Providing clear directives on where attendees should gather and sit is also a priority when events return – a routine Leier and his team rolled out last summer when hosting an outdoor wedding at the NAC. Where a typical event would see guests mingle over cocktails before a meal, NAC staff instead directed guests to their tables as they arrived. Louis Simard, the executive chef at the Chateau Laurier, expressed similar sentiments DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE about the ongoing changes to meetings and Visit OBJ.CA/OBJ-DIGITAL-EDITION to view events. the digital edition for exclusive features “You can expect that the sequence of service

will be different and more streamlined,” adds Simard. “We have been nimble in our approach and we continue to look for any way possible to serve our guests and meeting delegates.”

The ingredients going into the dishes will also be carefully considered amid the growing emphasis on supporting local businesses, says Turcot. He plans to continue to use locally and nationally sourced ingredients to not only create exciting new combinations for guests – such as a blackened cod with soba noodles and lobster broth, or mac and cheese with duck confit – but to help support local area farmers and producers affected by the pandemic.

“It’s going to take some time before we get back to normal, but by working closely with local farmers, event planners and organizations across the city we will be able to earn back their trust and their business,” he says. “And we are very much looking forward to that day.”

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GROWING THE COMMUNITY In November 2020, Wellington West BIA expanded its boundaries to include the Holland Cross commercial complex across from Tunney’s Pasture, and the businesses along Scott Street and Gladstone Avenue.

With the expansion, the Wellington West BIA now reaches all three local LRT stations and serves all of the businesses and commercial properties across Hintonburg and Wellington Village.

“We can finally complete the picture that we’d always had in mind for this BIA,” says Dennis Van Staalduinen, executive director at the Wellington West BIA. “This will enable us to do things in a much more efficient way, and bring even more resources to our businesses.”

For Devinder Kaur, owner of PranaShanti Yoga, the expansion means she can still be part of the BIA after she decided to relocate her studio to Gladstone Avenue.

Having been a part of the Wellington West BIA for more than a decade, it was a bittersweet moment when she thought she might be leaving – but an even brighter moment when she learned the BIA expansion would include her new location.

“What the BIA does is really exceptional to support all those businesses,” she adds. “I’m happy to be able to stay a part of that community.”

For entrepreneur Gareth Davies, Hintonburg was the perfect fit for his hand-crafted homeware goods store Maker House.

Wellington West BIA a ‘hotbed for new ideas’ among retailers Thriving business improvement area cements popularity as a proving ground for entrepreneurs looking to debut new concepts for consumers

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n escape room, gourmet doughnut bakery and a shop specializing in handmade furniture might have sounded like unusual business ideas to the casual observer a decade ago.

But the likes of Escape Manor, SuzyQ Doughnuts, Maker House and others have all grown into runaway success stories after getting their start in Wellington West – a commercial area spanning the Hintonburg and Wellington Village neighbourhoods that has a long history as a proving ground for new retail formats and innovative consumer offerings.

For entrepreneur Gareth Davies, Hintonburg was the perfect fit for his hand-crafted homeware goods store Maker House, which he launched as a pop-up store on Wellington Street West in 2015. After receiving a flood of interest and positive feedback from customers, he knew the business was there to stay.

“We called it a ‘pop-up to permanent,’ which really gave people the chance to buy into the business and support this new vision we had,” says Davies, who sources his products from more than 200 Canadian artisans. “The neighbourhood just wrapped their arms around us and said ‘You’re not going anywhere.’”

A part of Wellington’s history

Just up the street, Liliana Piazza’s family had a similar experience in Wellington Village when her father launched Ottawa’s first Montreal-style bagel shop in 1984.

As the Ottawa Bagelshop quickly grew into a wellknown Ottawa institution, Piazza says her family has seen the neighbourhood transform into a lively community for business owners and families alike.

More than three decades later, the Ottawa Bagelshop still operates out of its original Wellington West location – a OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

testament to the community’s ongoing support and a sign that one original idea can last a lifetime, says Piazza.

“The neighbourhood has only improved as time has gone on,” she adds. “That’s part of the reason I invested in renovating the business. I felt that the neighbourhood could support the Bagelshop for a long time to come.”

That underpinning was especially evident during the pandemic, adds Piazza, with fellow business owners and locals fighting to keep the community animated and a destination for residents across the city.

Dennis Van Staalduinen, executive director at the Wellington West BIA, has also seen the creative spirit of the neighbourhood grow as the community welcomes new shops to the area.

“The long-term commitment of the businesses, the passion of the community, and the entrepreneurial spirit that exists here all accelerate the success of the area,” says Van Staalduinen. “This was always an organic, real main street district, that has served Hintonburg and Wellington Village well - and will continue to do so.”

He adds that unique stores, restaurants, and services help set the area apart and attract other creative entrepreneurs from across the city.

It’s an experience that Davies says he can account for first-hand.

“The community really validates all the extra work that we do to source local,” he adds. “The customer base here is very open minded, and they take pride in their neighbourhood being a hotbed for new ideas.”

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AFRAID

FUTURE, shape it.

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Find out more at tlfr.ca/smartmoney

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THE ROI IS A BETTER CANADA

BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD / ROB ASHE

Building a billion-dollar business

DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE

To watch the full interview, visit http://bit.ly/Ashe-interview

“I always credit some of whatever success that I’ve had to Bernie,” he says. “If I had an issue, he was the first guy on my speed dial to talk (to). He might not have known the Cognos business, but he had a lot of common sense.”

Today, Ashe is a valued mentor to a new generation of tech entrepreneurs as well as an unabashed community booster. He’s served on Shopify’s board of directors since 2015 and has also volunteered with organizations such as the OSEG Foundation, the Ottawa Community Foundation and the

University of Ottawa.

Now, Ashe joins a distinguished list of past Lifetime Achievement Award recipients that includes Potter, former Ottawa Hospital CEO Dr. Jack Kitts and Minto Group executive chairman Roger Greenberg.

“I don’t think I’d ever consider myself part of that group, so I’m humbled,” he says.

“But that being said, I love the city, and I feel like I did make some contributions along with a lot of other people. So I’m just really proud.”

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Rob for the job.

“I guess when I look back on it, I think about having to explain to people what software was. My mother thought it was the stuff you put leftovers in in the fridge.

It’s hard to imagine that now, 35 years later, when software is running the world.

But back then, this was a whole new thing.”

Cognos’s groundbreaking business intelligence software eventually became standard equipment in corporate headquarters the world over, helping global giants such as Procter & Gamble make sense of a myriad of business data. The company eventually became Canada’s first billion-dollar software firm and had offices in 40 countries.

Ashe played a major role in Cognos’s ascent, serving in various senior management capacities before taking over as CEO in 2004. The following year, Treasury & Risk Management Magazine named him one of the “100 most influential people in finance.”

After IBM acquired Cognos for $4.9 billion in 2008, Ashe stayed on as part of the global tech giant’s executive team.

He served as IBM’s general manager of business analytics until he retired in January 2012.

The former basketball star remains the consummate team player, noting he benefited from exceptional mentors such as former Cognos leaders Michael Potter and Ron Zambonini.

“I feel kind of proud to have been part of that,” he says. “We were kind of zealots and revolutionaries.”

Ashe reserves special praise for his older brother, a highly accomplished executive in his own right who was named Ottawa’s CEO of the Year in 2015 for his work with the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group.

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During his early days at the University of Ottawa back in the 1970s, Rob Ashe was more consumed by his passion for basketball than he was by any thoughts of a career in business.

“I realized in about third year that (basketball) wasn’t going to get me very far and got serious about my school work and became a CPA,” says Ashe, who graduated from uOttawa with a degree in accounting. “But I must admit I never really imagined I’d get so involved in the business community as I have.”

Indeed, while the young man’s hoop dreams never came true, Ashe wound up forging a lasting legacy as a towering figure in Ottawa tech. He ultimately helped transform a small software company named Cognos into a multibillion-dollar business intelligence firm before it was acquired by IBM in 2008.

Ashe’s considerable accomplishments in tech and his devotion to the greater community earned him the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award from OBJ and the Ottawa Board of Trade.

The self-effacing former executive never would have predicted such success when he first walked into an office with a “bunch of blue binders” to become the manager of Cognos’s Canadian accounting operations in 1984.

At the time, the upstart firm had a few hundred employees and was doing perhaps $15 million worth of sales annually. The software industry was in its infancy, and even Ashe’s own family members didn’t really understand what his new employer did.

“There were a lot of doubters, I think,” says Ashe, who got his foot in the door at Cognos thanks in part to an assist from his big brother Bernie, who knew the firm’s comptroller and recommended

BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS CEO OF THE YEAR JOHN SICARD / KINAXIS

‘I want to make this the most iconic company in Canadian history’ As he climbed the corporate ladder at the company now known as Kinaxis, John Sicard says he always had the same response whenever he was handed a new assignment.

“Whatever it takes – put me in, coach,” he recalls telling the company’s previous CEO, Doug Colbeth.

But it was a different story when he was approached about succeeding Colbeth. Despite having held a series of executive positions at the company, Sicard says he was “shocked” at being considered to lead the company and didn’t immediately throw his hat into the ring. After all, he had never previously been a CEO, let alone the CEO of a publicly traded company.

But he realized that closing the door on the opportunity carried its own risk.

“If an outsider were to come in and become the CEO, they could poison the soup,” he recalls thinking at the time. “They (wouldn’t) have the pedigree, the history, the passion or the caring for the (employees) or the customers. So I decided to bet on myself.”

Sicard officially became CEO of the supply chain planning software company in January 2016 and has led Kinaxis through a period of remarkable growth. Its stock price has nearly tripled since 2017 and the company has been on a hiring spree during the pandemic. More and more customers are realizing the value of its software, which helps some of the world’s largest companies –​ including automakers Ford and Nissan as well as consumer products giant Unilever ​

CFO OF THE YEAR

JULIE MORIN / MINTO GROUP AND MINTO APARTMENT REIT

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Engineering an IPO

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DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE

To watch the full interview, visit http://bit.ly/Morin-interview

When the Minto Group was gearing up for its initial public offering in late 2017 and early 2018, it had a goal of raising $200 million by spinning off a portion of its apartment portfolio into a public investment vehicle.

But by the time the Ottawa-based company completed its roadshow of meeting potential investors, it had more than $900 million in demand – a testament to the company’s history,

DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE

Read OBJ’s full profile of John Sicard at obj.ca/awards. To watch the full video interview with Sicard, visit http://bit.ly/Sicard-interview

– ensure they have the right amount of raw materials on hand to manufacture their goods by tracking demand and inventory in real time.

When he accepted the CEO position, Sicard says he set a personal goal of carrying on the company’s tradition of growth. Five years later, that accomplishment is already indisputable.

But Sicard says he has an even

portfolio and executive team, including chief financial officer Julie Morin, who helped to engineer the public offering.

“It was an extremely successful launch,” Morin says. “The IPO was a huge milestone in my career.”

In addition to serving as CFO of Minto Apartment REIT, Morin is also CFO of the Minto Group, a fully integrated real estate company offering new homes and condominiums, apartment rentals, furnished suites, commercial space and property and investment management.

In a mere 18 months after going public, Minto Apartment REIT nearly doubled its asset base to more than $2 billion, growing its suite count

bigger goal in mind for Kinaxis.

“I want to make this the most iconic company in Canadian history,” Sicard says, adding that he sees it as part of a brighter future for Ottawa’s tech sector as a whole.

“There was a time that this city was viewed as Silicon Valley North.

And we might have lost a bit of that (reputation),” he says. “Well, it’s coming back.”

from 4,300 units to in excess of 7,200.

But Morin says the numbers only tell part of the story. Even more important, she says, is that Minto expanded into cities where it historically lacked a presence.

“We forged our way into Montreal, which was always a market that was on our radar and we wanted to access,” she says, noting the company closed its first acquisition in Quebec’s largest city in the spring of 2019 and followed it up with two more in the fall of that year.

“It’s been a great trajectory,” Morin says. “We grew in markets where we (already) were … (and) we went into markets we had never been in before.”

DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE WINTER 2021

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BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS Deals of the Year TECHNOLOGY KINAXIS AND RUBIKLOUD Kinaxis CEO John Sicard has never hidden the fact that he expects big things from the supply chain management company. With a customer base that includes major brands like Ford, Honeywell and Procter & Gamble, Kinaxis has become a dominant player in its field.

The pandemic has made supply chain management a hot topic and a critical issue in many market verticals. During a conference call with analysts in May, Sicard hinted that an expansion into new market verticals was just a matter of time. A month later, Kinaxis announced a US$60-million deal to acquire Toronto’s Rubikloud.

Rubikloud uses machine-learning and AI to help retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers in the health and beauty, household goods and grocery sectors predict how much inventory they need to keep their shelves properly stocked and determine sales and pricing strategies.

Sicard told OBJ at the time there is “big business in retail” and expects the vertical could generate more business for Kinaxis than all the other sectors the company currently serves combined.

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FINANCE SOLINK AND OMERS VENTURES

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Having made OBJ’s list of Fastest Growing Companies three years in a row, Solink was already riding high before the pandemic struck. Some 900 customers – mostly quick-service restaurants and retailers – rely on Solink’s cloud-based platform that integrates security camera footage with point-of-sale and other systems.

All this data is accessible through any mobile device, with AI tools that can flag suspicious activities, spot inefficient workflows and deliver realtime alerts. This kind of intelligent remote monitoring has proved that much more valuable with the pandemic.

Newsmaker of the Year SHOPIFY As the pandemic accelerated the already rapid growth of e-commerce, Ottawa’s Shopify was at the forefront of helping millions of merchants move their businesses online.

As 2020 drew to a close, Shopify’s share price continued to soar as it nearly doubled its third-quarter revenues and signed a litany of new partnership agreements with enterprises as diverse as retail giant Walmart, social media platform TikTok and Chinese payment processor Alipay.

It also made headlines in other

ways, such as when a team of Shopify employees volunteered to help develop the federal government’s COVID-19 tracing app. And the commercial real estate industry – along with many businesses, both in the tech sector and beyond – took notice when Shopify declared the era of “office centricity” to be over as it moved to sublease its flagship Elgin Street headquarters and said it would think differently about how it uses physical office space, prioritizing opportunities for collaboration and training.

of invention.

Rather than just write off 2020, the National Arts Centre and RBC Bluesfest teamed up to create #CanadaPerforms at RBC Bluesfest Drive-In. This summer weekend series of live concerts at the Place des Festivals Zibi site served as a bridge between an on-site and livestreamed experience.

The Drive-In encouraged concertgoers to drive in to watch live concerts from their individual dedicated space, with room for up to 440 vehicles.

Canadians were also able to watch the live-streamed concerts online through Facebook. A diverse range of emerging and established Canadian artists and bands took part, including Marie-Mai, Sam Roberts Band, Patrick Watson and Tim Hicks.

To pull it off, the Drive-In required a team of up to 200 – people who work in the live event business who had otherwise been put out of work by the pandemic.

“Given the disappointment brought about by this year’s cancelation of our event, we felt it was essential to come up with a safe, alternative live music experience for music fans in Ottawa and beyond,” said Mark Monahan, RBC Bluesfest’s executive director.

RETAIL KETTLEMAN’S BAGEL CO. In June, Solink announced a series-B venture capital round from its previous investors worth $23 million. The lead investor in both rounds has been the VC arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System – OMERS Ventures.

REAL ESTATE BROCCOLINI AND AMAZON In June, less than a year after opening a one-million-square-foot order fulfillment centre in Ottawa’s east end, Amazon announced an even larger one that will be located in Barrhaven’s Citigate Business Park.

As before, the build is the responsibility of Montreal’s Broccolini Construction. The goal is to have the new facility completed at a cost of about $200 million by the fall of 2021. This will

be Amazon’s eighth such distribution centre in Ontario and 14th in Canada.

The multi-level facility is expected to have a ground-floor footprint of 450,000 square feet and more than two million square feet in total. This will make it the single-largest building in the National Capital Region. It will also feature automated robotics systems to pick and pack orders of smaller items such as books, electronics and toys.

The facility is expected to create 1,000 full-time jobs.

TOURISM BLUESFEST AND NAC It’s a gross understatement to say the pandemic put a damper on live performances and musical festivals.

But necessity, they say, is the mother

Montreal native Craig Buckley, founder of Kettleman’s Bagel Co., opened his first store in Ottawa in 1993 with a simple premise – make the best bagels you could find. Twenty-seven years later, that still holds. Kettleman’s continues to make bagels the traditional way, with a woodburning oven and a “no wall” experience where customers can see all the doughy magic happen.

Kettleman’s has three locations in Ottawa and big growth plans. Last year, Kettleman’s placed 275th on Canada’s Profit 500 list with five-year revenue growth of 306 per cent – a list typically dominated by tech companies.

While the pandemic has obviously posed some unexpected challenges, Kettleman’s continues to forge ahead.

Over the summer, the bagel chain

Broccolini is a leading single-source provider of construction, development and real-estate services, catering to the industrial, commercial, institutional and residential markets in Canada. Our organization provides a range of services, acting variously as a general contractor, construction manager, project manager, property manager and developer.

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THIS PROJECT

we make it HAPPEN

we make it

TOGETHER

MontrĂŠal | Toronto | Ottawa b r o c c o l i n i . c o m

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HAPPEN

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BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS announced the impending opening of its first Toronto-area location in Etobicoke.

In July, Kettleman’s also announced that Kanata will soon be home to the “world’s first Montreal-style bagel shop with a drive-through.”

Kanata residents welcomed the news.

Kettleman’s made the announcement on social media. Within 24 hours, its Instagram post had received more than 660 likes, while its Facebook post had 406 comments.

Best Businesses MDS AERO SUPPORT CORP. The company sums up its success as the union of culture and strategy – a culture that is “high performance” and a strategy that is “balanced and ambitious.”

The numbers say it all. MDS works with the world’s largest aerospace companies to deliver customized and turnkey test facilities in 23 countries. It is active in the markets for gas turbine R&D and testing, aviation engine maintenance, repair and operation services, and electrical propulsion.

MDS is the market leader in the first two segments with more than 75 per cent global market share.

The company continues to invest in its leadership, technical expertise and product offering. It’s also looking at new opportunities in the wind tunnel, space propulsion and urban air mobility markets.

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SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETING ASSOCIATES OTTAWA INC. (SLIAO)

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In a city like Ottawa, it’s easy to think of interpretation and translation services only in the context of spoken language.

But this, of course, is not the only way in which people communicate.

The team at SLIAO specializes in sign language translation and interpretation, bridging the communication divide between a Deaf and a hearing person – in several spoken languages.

Since SLIAO’s founding in 1997, its in-person translation services have been widely used for conferences, court proceedings, federal government

Best New Business VITALTRACER A medical smart watch that monitors all vital signs – it’s been a decade-long odyssey for company founder Azadeh Dastmalchi.

VitalTracer’s wearable is much more than just another fitness device in the Fitbit category. In addition to heart rate, it uses biosensors and machinelearning algorithms to measure blood pressure, respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels, body temperature and the heart’s electrical signals.

Dastmalchi’s inspiration came 10 years ago, when her father, diagnosed with hypertension, was told to take his blood pressure three times a day, but found the typical blood pressure cuff too uncomfortable.

Dastmalchi, a University of Ottawa PhD candidate in biomedical engineering, soon realized that her idea of combining biosensors with artificial intelligence could do much more than just take blood pressure readings.

With more than $1 million in grants received to date to fund continued development, and orders already in hand from four hospitals, Dastmalchi is hopeful VitalTracer will be certified as a medical device by this fall.

AGILE WORK EVOLUTIONS Founders Dr. Lisa Chillingworth Watson and Meredith Thatcher launched Agile Work Evolutions in 2019 with “a mission to remove barriers and future-proof organizations for remote working.”

The company developed what it calls North America’s first servicesenabled software, to help employers

services, hospitals, community and academic settings, and in a variety of other scenarios.

In 2018, SLIAO launched a video remote interpreting service, in which a sign language interpreter facilitates communication between a Deaf

VitalTracer implement more flexible and efficient work environments. AWE’s cloud-based analytics platform surveys employees to provide accurate profile data and comprehensive reporting. This helps employers better understand how their people are working today, how and where they want to work, and easily create and manage a truly agile workforce.

Not surprisingly, this proved to be a highly valuable resource when the pandemic struck. In the first seven months of 2020, AWE logged revenue growth of 900 per cent.

QUANTROPI Quantum computing may become a reality in a few short years. With it, the cryptography used to secure the internet and internet-based communications will become obsolete. The privacy and security

and hearing person via video using a smartphone, tablet or computer webcam. VRI has quickly grown to account for about 60 per cent of the company’s revenue.

This remote capability proved invaluable, not just for SLIAO’s

that we rely on will be gone.

Enter the team at Quantropi. The company was founded two years ago with the express purpose of figuring out how to secure data and privacy in the quantum age in a way that is accessible to anyone, with as little effort or cost as possible for the end-user.

Quantropi is of course not the only team to be working on this challenge, but it argues that most approaches to quantum-ready cybersecurity fall down outside a laboratory environment, require new dark fibre infrastructure, are prohibitively costly or unscalable, or otherwise fail the real-world adoption test.

Quantropi is addressing this quantum conundrum with a quantum solution that it says is easily deployable, cost-effective and effortlessly scalable, to upgrade existing network infrastructure.

clientele, but for the company itself when the pandemic limited in-person engagement.

Over the past four years, SLIAO has opened four call centres across Canada with a fifth in the works. Revenues have tripled during this time.

BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS GIATEC SCIENTIFIC Giatec Scientific’s smart IoT-based technologies use wireless sensors and mobile apps for real-time monitoring of concrete. The goals are to ensure an optimal mix for long-lasting durability and deliver more accurate measuring to mitigate over-production and waste.

This is important considering that traditional concrete manufacturing accounts for up to eight per cent of the Co2 emissions from human activity.

Giatec says it can reduce the overall consumption of concrete by the construction industry by 12 per cent.

Despite the impact of COVID-19, Giatec still increased its revenue, customer base and profits. The company has continued to hire through the pandemic and invest heavily in R&D to develop new products.

Giatec says its plan to be working with 60 per cent of the top construction contractors in North America in three years remains on track.

Best Performance BEST PERFORMANCE: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY LITTLE RAY’S NATURE CENTRE Paul “Little Ray” Goulet and his partner Sheri Goulet started Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo in 2000 after years of caring for animals and providing educational presentations.

Thanks to their dedication and passion, the zoo has grown to become Little Ray’s Nature Centre – the largest animal rescue in Canada, with locations in Ottawa, Hamilton and Syracuse, N.Y. Their team delivers one of the most extensive and diverse animal education and outreach programs in North America.

The team is also active overseas.

Little Ray’s Boots-On-The-Ground conservation program this past year assisted the World Conservation Society to design and build important infrastructure for breeding programs of

critically endangered turtles in Myanmar.

Little Ray’s Nature Centre has also launched a new campaign to help increase wild populations of critically endangered crocodiles in Laos by expanding crocodile rearing ponds and building incubators for a breeding program.

BEST PERFORMANCE: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP BEAU’S BREWING CO. AND DUNROBIN DISTILLERIES

What is a brewery to do when COVID-19 restaurant and bar closures leave it with thousands of kegs of beer it can’t ship?

Team up with a local distillery with the equipment to turn that beer into muchneeded hand sanitizer.

That’s what Beau’s Brewery of Vankleek Hill did in April with Dunrobin Distilleries.

The distiller had the equipment but not yet a location in which to set up operations. Beau’s had the facilities. The two businesses combined resources to

Canada’s leading expert in removing communication barriers Conversations with your Deaf employees and customers in their first language will help grow your business and it is the right thing to do because language is a human right.

In Person Interpreting

ASL/LSQ Translation

SLIAO is proud to receive the 2020 Best Ottawa Business Award for Best Business.

Thank you to our customers, to our team of dedicated interpreters, translators and administrative staff across the country.

Most of all, thank you to the Deaf community!

www.sliao.ca

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Find out how our services can connect your company with sign language users across the country.

Email us at vri@sliao.ca or translation@sliao.ca and reference OBJ01-21 to receive a demonstration and free consultation session.

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Video Remote Interpreting(VRI)

BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS quickly start producing an extra-strength hand sanitizer.

Within a matter of weeks, the partners were packing and shipping product. A portion of the sanitizer produced was donated to a host of front-line healthcare and non-profit community services organizations across the National Capital Region.

BEST PERFORMANCE: SALES ROCK NETWORKS OBJ’s Fastest Growing Company of 2019 is parlaying its telecommunications pedigree into partnerships intended to bridge Canada’s digital divide.

As part of a product and market diversification strategy initiated two years ago, ROCK Networks launched a Community Broadband Networks program that helps rural communities plan, design and build a high-quality, revenue-generating broadband network.

They can then lease space on the network to a variety of ISPs. Compared to the traditional “Big Telco” model, this “open access” model provides better pricing and choice to rural residents.

The first municipality to launch is Pictou County in Nova Scotia, which is to build a fibre-rich network with a total project value of more than $70 million.

ROCK expects broadband, which currently accounts for 20 per cent of its revenue, to account for more than 50 per cent in the next fiscal year.

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BEST PERFORMANCE: MARKETING OTTAWA TOURISM

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When a severe decline in visitors led Ottawa Tourism to estimate a $1.4-billion decline in visitor spending, the organization turned its focus to a hyperlocal crowd.

It partnered with Bandwango to launch a digital summer savings passport for local residents called #MyOttawa Pass.

This free, mobile-based pass, which ran from June 24 to Sept. 7, featured discounts and offers from more than 80 local businesses. #MyOttawa Pass was designed to encourage residents to support the local economy and Ottawa businesses during their critical stages of reopening.

Over the course of the campaign,

#NextBigThing FELLOW.APP In 2014, Aydin Mirzaee and Eli Fathi, co-founders of online survey company Fluidware, agreed to an acquisition by California-based SurveyMonkey.

But a nagging “entrepreneurial itch” led Mirzaee to leave SurveyMonkey in 2016. Insiders of the Ottawa tech community knew it was only a matter of time before he resurfaced at the helm of a new startup. Sure enough, Mirzaee soon co-founded Fellow.App with Amin Mirzaee (his brother) and Samuel Cormier-Iijima.

They bill Fellow.App as a platform to improve managers’ relationships with their employees by organizing and optimizing common tasks such as running meetings, setting up oneon-ones, providing feedback and tracking growth.

Unlike Fluidware, which bootstrapped its way, Fellow.App has raised an $8.75-million seed round. It then began 2020 with the high-profile hire of Erin Blaskie from L-Spark as its new director of marketing.

Today, Noibu helps e-commerce retailers retain customers and increase sales by detecting and addressing critical errors that can disrupt the online shopping experience.

This has proven to be a vital service for retailers as they invest in e-commerce storefronts like never before due to the pandemic. Clients now include cosmetics giant Avon and clothing retailer Jack & Jones.

Co-founder Robert Boukine told OBJ in April that retailers have become more aware than ever of the importance of having a website that runs smoothly.

NOIBU

NEUROVINE

This startup began life by creating 3D virtual tours of high-end retailers’ brick-and-mortar stores to provide shoppers with an interactive experience online. But the team then saw a stronger business opportunity in retail and changed focus.

Neurovine combines wearable technology and machine learning algorithms to track patients’ concussion recovery and progress. The goal is to build a personalized solution that can advise a user when they are pushing their physical or mental

the pass generated more than 81,000 web page views and almost 10,000 pass registrations.

Businesses could participate in #MyOttawa Pass for free beyond whatever discounted redeemable offer they decided to include. These businesses benefited from extensive exposure online and offline, earned media attention, and an influx of

Neurovine

new and returning paying customers. The program also raised awareness among residents of the economic asset that tourism is for the community.

BEST PERFORMANCE: HR PRONTOFORMS As part of its “people-first” strategy, ProntoForms launched a framework

exertion too far.

Husband-and-wife team Ashleigh and Matthew Kennedy founded the company. She’s a neuroscientist from Stanford University and he’s a family physician.

The startup commenced clinical trials last year with the Bruyère Research Institute and has also been working with athletes at Carleton University. When the COVID-19 lockdown put a stop to in-person sessions, the Neurovine team was able to convince the ethics boards of both institutions to allow the trials to continue by hosting them remotely.

This online approach has enabled the company to expand the geographical reach of its trials across Canada to recruit more participants and potentially accelerate the trials process. The long-term plan for Neurovine is to develop a system that will allow doctors to work with patients via an online portal.

called ROAR (Recruit, Onboard, Amplify, Retain). The overarching goal was to strengthen the company’s distinct culture and promote ProntoForms as a destination employer. This was done through a combination of internal activities and communication channels, as well as external promotion through social media.

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BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS aerospace companies to deliver customized and turnkey test facilities in 23 countries.

The company’s service offering has expanded from full aviation engine test and industrial engine test to also include component test solutions, test facility operation and maintenance, engine component rig design and make, and turbomachinery engineering design services.

In 2019, the company was awarded a contract from Rolls-Royce for the largest and most complicated aircraft engine test facility in the world – a distinction that cements MDS’s position as a global leader.

In the last fiscal year, MDS’s export revenue reached $128 million – representing 90 per cent of its total revenue. Over the past 10 years, it has logged revenue and headcount growth of more than 300 per cent.

Ottawa Tourism

BEST PERFORMANCE: CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE GIATEC SCIENTIFIC INC. Little Ray’s Nature Centre

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MDS Aero Support Corp.

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The strategy quickly proved its worth as the pandemic struck and “Prontonians” shifted to remote working.

Staff rallied to remain connected in a variety of ways. A technical challenge saw more than 3,500 lessons completed in 40 days. Weekly wellness webinars and a fitness challenge drew a 65 per cent participation rate. A modified version of ProntoForms’ annual summer event

Giatec Scientific Inc.

BlackBerry drew record levels of participation. The monthly all-hands meeting became a weekly event, with a virtual attendance rate of 90 per cent.

On the hiring front, ProntoForms’ employment brand awareness videos generated a combined viewing audience of more than 40,000 and the number of applicants jumped by 180 per cent year-over-year. A #CareersThatKickSaaS

social media campaign has almost doubled the number of views of the company’s career page.

BEST PERFORMANCE: EXPORT MDS AERO SUPPORT CORP. For more than 30 years, MDS Aero Support Corp. has been working to ensure the reliability and safety of air travel. It works with the world’s largest

The team at Giatec Scientific understands that every department in the organization must always be thinking about the customer experience.

Courteous and efficient service goes hand-in-hand with deep technical knowledge and understanding what customers face in the field. When a customer purchases a Giatec product, they are not only getting hardware and software training and support, but also in-depth knowledge of how that product can be customized to their specific application.

Employees benefit from seminars, webinars and conventions intended to improve their skillsets and empower them to think creatively. Their performance is measured against Giatec’s core values on the basis of their responsiveness, professionalism, teamwork, outside-the-box thinking and customer feedback.

This emphasis on individual employee performance and development is supported by specific KPIs related to customer experience that are measured on a quarterly basis.

BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS

Non-Profit of the Year PALLIUM From its humble beginnings in the Ottawa basement of founder Dr. José Pereira in 2000, Pallium has grown into a world-class professional development organization.

This non-profit has developed 18 Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative Care (LEAP) courses. These courses prepare frontline health care workers to address end-of-life care as well as influence health care practice and system change.

Since 2014, Pallium has delivered more than 1,700 courses and trained over 29,000 health care professionals across Canada. This includes more

BEST PERFORMANCE: CO-OP BLACKBERRY

Kanata North #SeriousTechLivesHere TEAM OF THE YEAR RELOGIX

COMPANY OF THE YEAR FUSEBILL

Customer-driven, quality-obsessed and future-focused.

That’s the mantra guiding the team at Relogix. The past year has been transformative for the company, as a $4-million venture capital round allowed it to triple the size of its team.

With that kind of growth, building and maintaining a distinct corporate culture is critical. A new job role was created to focus on people, processes and systems. A holistic view of how the company operates was distilled into a guiding philosophy dubbed the “Relogix Way,” on the premise that a good process is only as good as the people following it.

This whole process drove opportunities for individual growth and mentorship, and also drove more effective communication and collaboration between departments.

In addition, new process improvements and ensuring the right person is in the right role has boosted productivity tenfold.

Fusebill has ranked in recent years as one of Ottawa’s best employers and fastest-growing companies. It says something about the camaraderie of a team when co-workers take the initiative and offer to forego their own salaries if it means their peers can keep their job through a rough patch.

But Fusebill has weathered the pandemic quite well thanks to its pivot over the past year. The company operates on a SaaS model, delivering an award-winning, enterprise-class subscription billing and management platform that is used by hundreds of leading companies worldwide.

In its last fiscal year, Fusebill grew its customer base by more than 155 per cent and its team by 40 per cent. After several years of rampant expansion, it pivoted from that growth mode to customer success mode, which has proven timely with the pandemic to retain customers.

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Co-op students from local schools are joined by their peers from across Canada.

Every effort is made to make these students feel that they are valued employees on mission-critical projects across the organization, from product development to HR and finance. An active social committee ensures students also have plenty of opportunities to network.

In many cases, the same students return to BlackBerry year after year throughout their academic journey.

Conversion is big for the company, to turn these future business leaders into fulltime employees upon graduation.

Fusebill

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At BlackBerry, co-op placements represent an opportunity for learning that flows both ways. Co-op students share new ideas, fresh perspectives and the latest academic learnings with the teams in which they work. They also benefit from a high-quality learning environment that equips them for careers in the corporate world.

Each term, this enterprise security software and services company welcomes about 150 co-op students at its locations across North America. About a third of them go to work at the Ottawa campus.

than 1,500 in Ottawa.

Pallium’s work and its role in fostering positive change in frontline healthcare has become all the more critical with the COVID-19 pandemic.

To help healthcare professionals across many settings acquire palliative knowledge and skills, Pallium partnered with the Canadian Medical Association to take its LEAP courses online and offer them for free for a time. More than 10,000 health care professionals nationally, including hundreds in Ottawa, have to date taken advantage of these free resources.

KANATA NORTH designed the embedded liquid-crystal screen that displays the speedometer, HVAC controls, mapping functions and charging data.

Now at more than 40 employees, Crank has built up a list of highprofile clients that includes CocaCola, GE Appliances, John Deere and Nintendo. Co-founder and president Brian Edmond says demand for the company’s services is growing year after year as embedded screens become ubiquitous in devices ranging from smart watches to coffee-makers.

“Your cellphone’s in your pocket and it looks like this, and everybody’s (asking), ‘Why doesn’t everything I touch have that look and feel?’” he says.

TIGHT TIMELINES

Crank Software founders (from left) Brian Edmond, Jason Clarke and Thomas Fletcher have built the Kanata company into a profitable enterprise whose products are found on everything from coffee-makers to bikes. FILE PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

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Crank Software gears up for big 2021 as Kanata firm lands deal with California automaker

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Demand growing as embedded screens become ubiquitous in more and and more devices

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

A

Kanata firm that designs graphical user interfaces for internetconnected devices such as wearables and appliances is making a splash in the automotive space after its technology was chosen for a groundbreaking new solar-powered vehicle.

Crank Software, which develops

software for embedded screens and displays, is part of the team working with San Diego-based Aptera Motors on what the California manufacturer says will be the world’s first electric vehicle that requires no charging for most daily use.

Crank is building the central infotainment system for the lightweight three-wheeled car, which became available for preorder in early December. The Ottawa company

Still, the Aptera project proved to be a particular challenge. The budding automaker is aiming to start rolling its new vehicle off the assembly line this year, and Crank’s development team had less than eight weeks to take the car’s infotainment system from PowerPoint sketches to a fully functioning unit ready for installation.

Edmond notes with pride that the Ottawa company was up to the task.

“It was a very seamless transition from our development to actually running it in the vehicle,” he says.

Founded 13 years ago, the bootstrapped enterprise has matured into a profitable company with steady revenue growth and more than 250 customers. In 2019, Crank moved into a new office on Innovation Drive.

While the firm has hit a few bumps in the road as clients navigate their way through the pandemic, Edmond says it’s been on a smoother path lately as a tumultuous 2020 drew to a close.

The company has added four new hires in the last three months, and many customers that put projects on hold earlier in 2020 are now back in spending mode.

“Especially in the last few months, things have been picking up and moving in a really positive direction,” Edmond says. “I would envision more growth for us (in 2021) and more hiring.”

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On disability leave following harassment, Ottawa employee grapples with severance questions

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Nelligan Law says justice and dignity matter as much as money in such cases

K

ara (not her real name) and her husband came to Canada to raise their children in a just society free of discrimination.

A former doctor who couldn’t get her foreign credentials recognized, Kara went to work in a different profession. For almost eight years, she worked for the same employer. Then, over a period of months, she began to suffer from severe stress and anxiety. She couldn’t sleep and dreaded going to work. Kara would also come to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts.

Why? A micro-managing supervisor appeared to have targeted Kara because she was an immigrant. This person subjected Kara to a steady stream of microaggressions and demeaning comments. There was no one big thing, but together, they made for a toxic workplace.

“Quite often, harassment isn’t as direct as you might think it’s going to be, or like how it’s presented on TV,” said Jill Lewis, a labour and employment law lawyer at Ottawa’s Nelligan Law.

‘HER EMPATHY MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE’ “From that first meeting with Jill, she was human,” Kara said. “Those other lawyers were just looking for money, they didn’t care about their clients. Her empathy made all the difference.”

At that point, Kara didn’t even care about any kind of monetary settlement – she just wanted to be heard and find some sense that justice had been served.

“By the time I got back home from that first meeting, 75 per cent of my suffering was gone,” Kara said. “When you are in a dark place with no hope and you are filled with anger and you don’t know what you should do, finding someone in that darkness who has a little light for you makes all the difference.”

Lewis, of course, did more than just listen.

First, she worked with Kara (at Kara’s pace, given her mental health challenges at the time) to document incidents of workplace harassment.

Then she spoke to Kara’s doctors and explained what information the insurance company needed to confirm that she met the definition of disability as described in her policy.

“Focus on the diagnosis, not the cause – that’s the key to a successful LTD claim,” Lewis said.

JUSTICE IS SERVED All this material was then submitted with a new application. This time, Kara’s LTD claim was approved. She received a retroactive payment to make up for months of zero income.

Second, Lewis tackled that severance package with a demand letter. At issue

Jill Lewis is a labour and employment law lawyer at Ottawa’s Nelligan Law

was the base entitlement for eight years of service and additional general damages for wrongdoing related to workplace harassment and discrimination.

In the end, Kara received a settlement roughly twice what she had been originally offered. The best part? The general damages portion isn’t income, so it’s tax-free.

Kara received far more than she ever expected, and her former employer ended up covering 90 per cent of her legal costs.

Her experience has demonstrated that newcomers to Canada do sometimes face discrimination and injustice, but skilled and compassionate professionals are standing by, ready to help.

“My humble advice to anyone in the same situation is don’t deal with anything like this by yourself,” Kara said. “Because you don’t know if you are in the right, and even if you do, it’s how you ask for your rights that will get you justice. You need someone who knows the law.”

“Quite often, harassment isn’t as direct as you might think it’s going to be, or like how it’s presented on TV.“ - Jill Lewis

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A REJECTED LTD CLAIM AND JOB LOSS Kara ultimately took short-term disability leave.

The real problem started when she applied for long-term disability. The insurer rejected her application because her doctor’s note gave the impression that this was only a workplace problem, rather than a true mental health issue.

Not only did Kara’s employer provide little to no help with her LTD application, it then gave notice that her entire department would be let go. This raised a whole new set of questions Kara couldn’t answer about whether the severance package that had been offered reflected her true entitlement under Ontario’s Employment Standards Act. “I needed someone to stand up for me,” Kara said. “We had left everything behind and come to Canada for justice, only to experience this. It impacted me and my family seriously.”

She spoke first to a couple of lawyers in that “we get paid when you get paid” category about filing a workplace harassment suit. They turned her away on the grounds that her case wasn’t strong enough.

Then a referral led her to Lewis.

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HOW PUBLIC WASHROOMS CAN AID OTTAWA’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY Basic amenities support small businesses by making neighbourhoods more inviting for shoppers and tourists, writes Toon Dreessen

C

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reating a welcoming environment is no easy task for small businesses. Finding the right space, fitting up the location and attracting customers are typically top-ofmind concerns.

The old real estate saying, “location, location, location” is very true. If your business needs regular clientele walking past your doorway, you need to be in the right place.

How can cities help create the kind of community that supports small businesses? One way is with good public amenities. Most important to this might be washrooms.

Consider that in an area bounded by Tunney’s Pasture, Highway 417 and the Rideau and Ottawa rivers, there are 16 public washrooms. This area is home to 15 per cent of Ottawa’s population as well as most of the city’s traditional main streets such as Wellington West, Somerset, Elgin and Bank, as well as the ByWard Market – key places where we want to attract walkable density.

If a new business opens today, it has to provide washrooms for both staff and the public. (Older locations might be exempted because they predate modern building codes.)

But even if those washrooms exist, COVID-19 has demonstrated that they might be closed to the public because store owners are unable or unwilling to maintain them. And those washrooms are sometimes at the back of the store, meaning they may not be accessible to everyone if it involves sending customers through a crowded stock room or navigating narrow corridors.

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TOURISM AND SMALL BUSINESS BOOST Cities can lead the way.

The GottaGo campaign makes a compelling argument for why Ottawa needs public washrooms. This is a necessary public health service that provides a valuable resource to tourists, visitors, an aging population and people with disabilities. It is exciting to see that this advocacy has resulted in two self-cleaning toilets being on the city’s immediate to-do list.

Imagine if a network of public washrooms existed along our traditional main streets. Parents could confidently plan a day of shopping knowing there is a place to take their kids when, inevitably, someone has to go. It would benefit pregnant women and people with disabilities by ensuring that there is always a place to go.

In addition to making Ottawa more accessible and inclusive, it’s also a gender issue. The Royal Society for Public Health, in a report from 2019, found that women wait longer, in part due to clothing and menstruation.

Similarly, UBC research identified this “potty parity” issue in a December 2019 study.

Imagine if a network of public washrooms existed.

Parents could confidently plan a day of shopping knowing there is a place to take their kids when someone has to go.

Also, because women are more often the caregivers, lack of parity in washrooms means “a huge line for the ladies’ room, with girls and women of all ages, plus some boys with their mothers, lots of little kids in strollers and … no line for the men’s room.”

There is good precedent for safe and accessible public washrooms. In the U.K., London has a famous network of public “loos” that charge about 50 cents for access. A similar amount is the expected norm for tipping at French public washrooms, though that price can go up to a few dollars in major centres.

These washrooms are staffed to ensure they are cleaned and remain safe. Contrast that to the mindset here in Ottawa, where the city’s multibillion-dollar LRT opened to grand fanfare a year ago but provided public washrooms in only four stations, none of which are downtown.

As a city, we have an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in public health and design. Smaller singleperson automated washrooms could be located at bus stops and be integrated into welcoming spaces with local information about the community.

Larger, gender-neutral, staffed washrooms could be located at key areas such as parks or thresholds between

In the U.K., London has a famous network of public “loos.” communities. These could be designed to be sustainable, showcasing local features and community news, creating a design language for a community that attracts people to the area. This can also be a chance to provide equity with free menstrual products and redesign how we think, and talk, about washrooms.

Planning an outing, whether for fun or to run errands, shouldn’t involve a series of mental checks to make sure that there are stores along the way with available washrooms. As a city, we shouldn’t be relying on the goodwill of small businesses to provide a necessary public health service. These are routine bodily needs.

We should be supporting small business owners by providing public health services that can help attract customers to their doors. That boosts tourism and economic activity, while creating a more welcoming and inviting city.

Toon Dreessen is president of Ottawabased Architects DCA and past-president of the Ontario Association of Architects.

For a sample of Architects DCA’s projects, check out the firm’s portfolio at bit.ly/DCA-portfolio.

Follow @ArchitectsDCA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

OBJ REGIONAL

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MANUFACTURING | LOGISTICS | FOOD PROCESSING | TOURISM | INVESTMENTS | ENTREPRENEURSHIP

ISSUE NO. 3

Eastern Ontario’s economic corridors Freight handlers, food processors and shipbuilders leverage strategic geography to reach new markets.

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PLUS

Ottawa Valley firm’s water treatment technology gains traction in Australia

OBJ REGIONAL

METALCRAFT MARINE WINS $7.2M COAST GUARD CONTRACT

We’re all about growth.

I can’t see us stopping.

– BILL CONNOR, PRESIDENT, METALCRAFT MARINE

MetalCraft Marine is one of three companies to be awarded federal government contracts to supply 48 new barges to the Canadian Coast Guard.

The Kingston company won a deal worth $7.2 million to build 13 barges of 20 cubic metres and 11 barges of 40 cubic metres, according to Public Services and Procurement Canada.

The Coast Guard will use the vessels to respond to marine pollution incidents, including oil recovery. In a news release, the government said the hard-shell barges will provide “safe temporary storage of hydrocarbon oils and oily waste recovered from an oil spill.”

All barges are expected to be delivered before March 31, 2022. The investments are part of the federal government’s $1.5-billion Oceans Protection Plan launched in 2016.

Kingston shipbuilder makes waves with high-performance vessels MetalCraft Marine manufactures fire boats and patrol vessels for customers around the world

BY DANI-ELLE DUBÉ WINTER 2021

news@obj.ca

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n the shoreline of Lake Ontario, the Kuwait Fire Department’s newest ship is taking shape.

Loaded with pumps several times more forceful than those on a standard fire truck, the 82-foot boat must still be capable of racing to emergencies at high speeds – a task that requires powerful engines, high-end navigation tools to

locate ships in distress and durable electronics to withstand the punishing climate off the Arabian Peninsula.

It’s a list of requirements that Kingston-based MetalCraft Marine knows well. The Eastern Ontario shipbuilder has already delivered four vessels to the Kuwait Fire Department since 2015 and is drawing on its expertise in designing and constructing high-performance aluminum workboats for governments and organizations

around the world to expand into new markets.

“We’re all about growth,” says MetalCraft Marine president Bill Connor, noting that the company’s revenues have more than doubled over the past seven years. “I can’t see us stopping.”

PATROL BOATS MetalCraft Marine was launched in 1987, when founder Monty Smith bought Kingston Aluminum Yachts. From there,

he and Tom Wroe renamed the company and changed its direction, steering it towards the patrol and workboat sector.

Today, the company is equipped to construct custom vessels that range from 25 to 85 feet, priced anywhere from $60,000 to $6 million. And depending on the size, a boat can take from eight weeks to a year-and-a-half (or 25,000 hours) to construct.

While the firm has contracts with the Canadian government, more than 80 per cent of its products are exported to the U.S. – where most major ports have at least one of their fire boats – and other countries including Kuwait, Vietnam, Grenada and Bangladesh.

Up until about seven years ago, most of MetalCraft Marine’s business revolved around fire boats, says general manager Michael Allen. He says the Kingston firm remained at the forefront of the niche industry by continuously making its vessels bigger, faster, capable of

300 YEARS OF SHIPBUILDING HISTORY

pumping more water and outfitted with increasingly sophisticated technology.

At the same time, the company has also dabbled in custom projects, such as constructing a pair of 65-foot glassbottom boats for a tour company in Tobermory, Ont. But in recent years, the company has built off its success in delivering on a “big” contract with the Canadian government to provide highperformance boats, growing its product line to include high-speed rigid inflatable boats used by coast guards,

police departments and military forces.

“We’ve been able to take that product line and expand it,” Allen says, estimating that roughly 30 per cent of the company’s sales now come from the patrol boat market. “Now we have a very well-known — and it’s becoming better known every day — very high-speed, highperformance patrol boat that (is) getting interest from all around the world.”

SKILLS SHORTAGE Operating a shipbuilding company comes with unique challenges. It’s a

REGIONAL BRIEFS

While the history of MetalCraft Marine goes back for slightly more than three decades, the shipbuilding history of its Kingston site dates back some three centuries.

To help explore Lake Ontario, French colonists built at least one small boat by 1676 and, by 1678, there were at least three boats built on the site that would later be home to MetalCraft Marine, according to the company.

capital-intensive industry in which payments are typically only made once a ship is delivered, meaning cash-flow, construction financing and the fluctuating price of raw materials must constantly be top-of-mind for the company’s managers.

Additionally, MetalCraft Marine –

MacLeod said the event will provide a much-needed boost to the local economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and leave a “lasting legacy” on the County of Renfrew and its communities.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for Renfrew County to showcase all that we have to offer,” added county warden Debbie Robinson.

Plantagenet startup ShipTrack hopes acquisition by Waterloo firm paves way for global growth

Renfrew County to host 2022 Ontario Winter Games

as well as build its customer base in Europe. He believes the company has found the perfect partner in Descartes, a publicly traded company that has sales and marketing staff in more than 40 locations around the world.

“We’ve done well in Canada, and we want to do a lot more elsewhere,” said Winter, whose firm has posted triple-digit annual revenue growth since it was spun off from IT services provider PiiComm in November 2018.

Rideau Lakes launches $5.8M broadband expansion

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Thousands of homes and businesses in the Township of Rideau Lakes could soon face shorter waits to download content off the internet.

The township council said it’s planning to apply for a provincial grant worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to help cover the costs of a multiphased, $5.8-million project to extend high-speed internet service to about 2,000 customers in the township.

“Our investments continue to accelerate Rideau Lakes as a rural internet leader,” mayor Arie Hoogenboom said in a statement. “Broadband drives investment, resident satisfaction and youth opportunities.”

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Thousands of visiting athletes, coaches and supporters are expected to flock to Renfrew County in March 2022 when the region hosts the Ontario Winter Games.

Lisa MacLeod, the provincial minister of heritage, sport, tourism and culture, said that Pembroke and the surrounding area will stage the event. More than 3,000 athletes, coaches and officials are expected to participate in the Games, which feature more than 20 sports.

In just two years, ShipTrack’s last-mile logistics software has already made plenty of inroads in the Canadian shipping industry.

Now, the Plantagenet-based startup is hoping to harness the power of another Ontario company’s global marketing engine to help accelerate its expansion push.

ShipTrack, which employs 62 people in Ontario and Quebec, has been acquired by Waterloo-based Descartes Systems Group in a $25-million all-cash deal ShipTrack co-founder Shawn Winter told OBJ that the bootstrapped enterprise had been looking for a way to break through in the lucrative U.S. market

which currently has approximately 80 employees, including 15 in the U.S., where it has a facility just across the border in Watertown, N.Y. – faces a challenge finding skilled workers.

One way it’s tackling the problem is by working with colleges to expand its trained workforce.

From the perspective of MetalCraft Marine’s managers, there should be plenty of work for its new hires in the coming years.

With a loyal customer base and some 90 per cent of sales coming through word-of-mouth referrals, MetalCraft Marine has built a solid foundation for future growth.

“It’s been one boat at a time,” Allen says. “It’s a relatively small industry with a few major players, and at the end of the day customer service and quality wins out. And we do that each and every time.”

What’s next for the company?

Finishing that 82-foot long boat for the Kuwait Fire Department. It’s a big job that will take a year-and-a-half to complete, but it’s a tall order the company is excited to tackle.

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PHOTO BY BRETT TODD

Eastern Ontario’s new railway tycoon Along the main CN rail line between Toronto and Montreal, entrepreneur Clayton Jones is seeing his fervent belief in rail shipping paying off

BY BRETT TODD news@obj.ca

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n retrospect, an armed invasion probably wasn’t the best way for Clayton Jones and his fast-growing railway companies to finally get noticed.

Last April, when COVID-19 tensions were running high along the border with northern New York, residents in the St. Lawrence River communities in Eastern Ontario were alarmed to see dozens of Canadian military vehicles rolling down the streets. Rumours flew about the army locking down the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge or the establishment of a tent hospital for the infected.

Tinfoil-hat fantasies were foiled, though. Instead of martial law, the line of armoured cars, troop transports and more was just the latest and most visible sign of the huge success of Jones’s Canadian Rail Equipment Works & Services (CREWS) and Jones Rail Industries companies.

These firms have been quietly expanding in recent years in the Township of Edwardsburgh-Cardinal’s Johnstown Industrial Park while showcasing how rail transportation can be a vital part of the regional economy ​– in this specific case through moving 140 rail cars of military hardware to locales all over North America.

“To me, this was not a gamble at all,” says Jones while discussing his fervent belief in rail shipping during a tour of his sprawling facility (tucked just far

enough off the adjacent County Road 2 that runs along the St. Lawrence River to be out of sight of motorists) filled with hundreds of rail cars and tankers.

“I believed in the potential of rail here in this corridor in Eastern Ontario. I laid the first track, and the floodgates opened wide with customers.”

EXPANSIONS After nearly 20 years in the rail industry, a career that included time at the St. Luc Diesel Shop in Montreal and the Ottawa Central Railway, Jones ventured out on his own in 2004 with Jones Team Mechanical, a locomotive and rail-car repair business.

He expanded into track repairs three years later, launching Jones Rail Industries. CREWS was formed in 2012 to offer rail car storage, switching services and transloading (moving products between rail cars and tractor-trailers) for some of the largest companies in North America.

Jones purchased 96 acres of land in Johnstown along the main CN rail line between Toronto and Montreal for CREWS and Jones Rail Industries in 2018, and the company has been booming ever since.

Four different phases of development are currently underway on the site, which employs about 50 people directly and hundreds more indirectly. The area is a 24-hour beehive of activity, with rail cars and trucks constantly coming and going.

The Phase I rail yard can now store a

I laid the first track, and the floodgates opened wide with customers.

– Clayton Jones, president, CREWS and Jones Rail Industries. minimum of 234 rail cars. Phase II features what Jones calls “the most state-of-the-art propane terminal in Canada,” with room for more than 200 cars transloading fuels for shipment to gas stations and other facilities across the country.

Phase III is all about assisting U.K.based fuel giant Greenergy with its fuel services. All are still growing, and Phase IV ​– reserved for a new client that Jones cannot name yet ​– is just getting up and running, with that part of the site being cleared and prepped for more rail lines and facilities for the new customer.

CREWS is an operational ally of just about all of its neighbours in Eastern Ontario. The firms that Jones can name include Air Liquide, BASF Cornwall, Ingredion, Greenfield Canada, Kriska and Next Polymers, which ship hundreds of millions of dollars of product in and out of the Johnstown facilities every year.

And, of course, another client is the Canadian Forces. Jones still chuckles about what happened when troops “occupied” the area in April. Security concerns mean that he has to keep a tight lid on the specifics of the incident, although he does “look forward to assisting the Canadian Forces in the future when they need to move more equipment

from Petawawa to Alberta to the Port of Montreal for destinations overseas.”

RAILWAYS ‘UNDERUTILIZED’ Not only is Jones committed to proving that railways can provide quick and cost-effective shipping for industry, he is also an advocate for how environmentally friendly trains are for transporting goods compared with tractor-trailers.

“The Montreal-Toronto rail corridor may be the busiest in North America, but railways are still underutilized around the continent overall,” says Jones. “This represents a huge opportunity for railway shipping that offers environmental efficiencies and economic advantages.”

Judging by how busy Jones’s operations are in Johnstown, he isn’t the only one to believe in the power of rail. The expansions will soon allow for hundreds of more rail cars on the site, while transloading numbers will shortly hit more than 20,000 truckloads per year.

So while it may have taken a literal army for the region to notice Jones and his budding railroad empire, the secret is now out for good on both this booming industry and how much rail has to offer the local economy.

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ABOVE: Leclerc’s 160,000-square-foot Cornwall facility. RIGHT: Employees at Olymel’s Cornwall facility, which specializes in bacon products, are seen working prior to the onset of the pandemic.

Food processors ramp up Cornwall operations Cookie and snack bar maker Leclerc doubles capacity of Eastern Ontario facility

BY DANI-ELLE DUBÉ news@obj.ca

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everal food processors have invested millions of dollars into their Cornwall operations in recent years, capitalizing on the proximity to major urban markets and propelling the industry into one of the city’s largest employers.

Among the major players are Leclerc, maker of the well-known Celebration line of cookies as well as snack bars. The Quebec-based firm recently doubled the capacity of its 160,000-square-foot Cornwall facility with the installation of a new production line, according to the city.

The investment means Leclerc will be able to produce some 2,200 bars every minute at its Cornwall plant, where

it employs 60 staff and is looking to continue hiring.

“Our location is ideal for food processing,” says Bob Peters, division manager of economic development at the City of Cornwall. “Both Cornwall and Eastern Ontario are in that triangle of three of central Canada’s largest metropolitan areas – Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa – so as a food processor you’re within a region that allows you quick and easy access to deliver your products to consumers.”

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Ontario’s food and beverage manufacturing sector ranks as the thirdlargest in North America, according to the province, generating revenues

of more than $35 billion – a healthy proportion of which comes from Eastern Ontario, which has several competitive advantages.

A 2016 study, published by Ontario East Economic Development, found that the region had the lowest operating costs for food and beverage manufacturers among 24 North American regions.

Eastern Ontario also offers manufacturers several other advantages, according to the report, including secure and stable

sources of water, a skilled workforce and easy access to markets in North America and beyond.

Indeed, Cornwall’s geography played a major role in Olymel’s decision to set up shop in Cornwall in 2000, according to company spokesperson Richard Vigneault.

The pork and poultry processor’s Cornwall facility specializes in fresh sliced bacon as well as pre-cooked bacon products for a variety of markets, including consumer retail as well as hotels and restaurants. It employs some 564 people, or about four per cent of the company’s Canadian workforce.

The company spent approximately $40 million to expand its Cornwall facility in 2013 and has continued to invest in its Eastern Ontario operations, including the installation of a highdefinition vision system for automatic bacon sorting – a project that was fully designed and implemented by the Olymel Cornwall team, according to the city.

New slicers were slated to be installed in 2020 that would increase production by 25 per cent.

From Peters’ vantage point, there are no signs that the investments in food processing are set to slow down locally.

“It’s been strong, significant growth – not just in Cornwall but in Eastern Ontario,” Peters says. “So we’ve welcomed additional food processors to the region and we’re continuing to do so. And those that we have welcomed are expanding.”

Our location is ideal for food processing. – Bob Peters, division manager of economic development, City of Cornwall

Explore the Ottawa Valley Science & Tech Corridor Hundreds of innovative firms operate between Kanata and Deep River.

Here’s your opportunity to join them.

BUSINESS INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Innovation, science and technology growth are not always found where you would expect. In Renfrew County, located just west of the city of Ottawa, picturesque small towns and communities around waterfront properties along the many lakes and rivers, are enjoying a boom in growth. This growth is largely being fueled by individuals and businesses looking to increase productivity and morale by exchanging the hustle and bustle of urban life, for quieter healthier lifestyles closer to natural open spaces.

Large manufacturing area, employee kitchen, 4 - 2 pc. baths, perfect office administration space with large board room and plenty of parking on site.

With anchors like Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, one of the world’s leading research and development campuses, Renfrew County offers a multitude of business investment opportunities. Whether you are looking for an existing business or developing a new enterprise, there are a variety of businesses, buildings and properties available to suit large or small: industrial manufacturing, retail, accommodations, restaurants, agriculture or agri-food business and services, or other new commercial or residential developments.

• PETAWAWA – RETAIL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY. The newly developed Petawawa Town Centre will be the commercial and retail hub of the area. Located in the middle of Petawawa, it is a major centre for shopping, business and entertainment. With anchors including a major grocery store, building supply store and Starbucks, it is ripe for further investment.

Examples of current opportunities:

TECH AND START-UPS

• ARNPRIOR PRIME 173,300 SQ. FT. COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL/MANUFACTURING/ WAREHOUSE/DISTRIBUTION FACILITY $6,932,000. Bordering the city of Ottawa, 20 minutes to Kanata, 40 minutes to downtown Ottawa along HWY 417.

• WHITEWATER REGION TOWNSHIP - WHITEWATER RESORT & EXCLUSIVE WATERFRONT HOUSING DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNTITY for $5,350,000 waterfront resort and development property along the Ottawa River. 323 acres of fields and forests and 3,700 ft. frontage on a 12 km long lake, all located downstream of a world-class whitewater paradise. Just 95 kms from Kanata. Ideal for year-round and cottage living development project, corporate retreat or training centre.

Entrepreneurial spirit is strong in the Ottawa Valley and we have the peer community and support structures in place to accelerate your success. Enterprise Renfrew County provides the basic business planning foundation, coaching, mentoring and seed money from our Starter Company Plus program. Through the Renfrew County Community Futures Development Corporation, a variety of financing options and programs in support of businesses and innovative technology development are available to help in the establishment of your business and to accelerate your growth. Meeting periodically to collaborate, share and for mutual support, our entrepreneur network is joined by local investors and government agencies supporting industry with financial and technical resources.

Combined with affordable land and buildings, access to key transportation and communications links and located right next door to the city of Ottawa, starting and/or growing your business within the County of Renfrew makes strategic and financial sense.

With Highway 417 expanding west with 4 lanes well into the County and increasing availability of high speed internet services, hundreds of innovative firms , entrepreneurs and employees are changing their location of work. People are enjoying spacious, less expensive office space throughout the County of Renfrew, or creating their dream home office in any one of Renfrew County’s many affordable, picturesque small towns, or waterfront communities.

Why wait for retirement to move out of the city? Enjoy the comparative low cost of small town living and change to a healthier lifestyle while basking in the natural outdoors. You don’t have to give up on the city entirely, it is not that far away after all.

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Live rural, work global! This waterfront property is west of Ottawa and minutes from the slopes. Features pine doors throughout, an outdoor fire pit, inground pool and private walking trail along the Madawaska River (MLS® Number: 1218898). To view this and other properties for sale in Renfrew County go to bit.ly/liverural

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• DEEP RIVER - COMMERCIAL/LIGHT INDUSTRIAL BUILDING $420,000 Just off Highway 17, located in the beautiful, picturesque Town of Deep River, an excellent quality built 8300 sq. ft. commercial building just off Highway 17 fronting on C.D. Howe Drive. The Property includes two buildings with a shipping and receiving dock.

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OBJ REGIONAL

Renfrew cleantech firm expands global reach with deals in Australia, New Zealand Bishop Water Technologies gains traction with water treatment technology

BY ADAM STANLEY news@obj.ca

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s municipalities across Canada and around the world face ever-stricter wastewater treatment standards, an Ottawa Valley firm with big international expansion plans is seeing demand grow for its technology that helps customers retrofit and upgrade their existing facilities.

Renfrew-based Bishop Water Technologies sells a variety of water and wastewater treatment solutions including its BioCord Reactors, which remove nutrients from water by allowing symbiotic layers of different bacteria to develop on densely arranged loops of polymer fibres – mirroring the process that occurs in nature.

It’s a solution that can extend the life of existing wastewater treatment infrastructure with a relatively low capital investment. That makes it particularly appealing to municipalities such as The Nation east of Ottawa, which avoided the costly expense of constructing a new mechanical treatment plant by installing BioCord Reactors in its current lagoon system in Limoges.

“There are many communities in Ontario and throughout Canada that are in a very similar situation as The Nation,” said Bishop Water CEO Kevin Bossy.

“As their populations grow, many are wondering how to provide wastewater services for new residents and new businesses without taking on the massive debt and higher operating costs that a more complex solution might bring.”

But the reach of Bishop Water, which also targets customers in the mining, light industrial and paper sectors,

among others, extends well beyond Eastern Ontario.

Its technology can be found across Canada, as well as in Chile, Australia and New Zealand. Bossy said the company is also close to signing a Scandinavian representative to deepen its inroads in that region.

EVOLUTION Prior to leading Bishop Water, Bossy worked at RBC for more than a decade including stints in capital markets, commercial banking and investment banking (he jokes now that he tells people he used to work in investment banking but pivoted to wastewater management “because the smell was better”).

While living in Toronto, he had a cottage in Eganville and eventually bought a house in Renfrew, moving with the bank to the Ottawa Valley.

One of his clients, he said, approached him about Bishop Water Technologies.

“The opportunity to grow a business that wasn’t necessarily about just making money but ... had a culture to it, where people could come and make a difference, was important,” said Bossy.

“It seemed like an opportunity that I

BioCord Reactors are installed directly into a treatment lagoon, eliminating the need for additional tanks, pipes and pumps that other systems require and reducing capital and operating costs.

couldn’t turn down.”

He joined Bishop Water Technologies in 2008 as CEO of the firm, which was spun out of Bishop Aquatic Technologies, and built on the company’s expertise in providing solutions to the aquaculture industry.

Despite cutting his teeth with the business in the midst of the financial crisis slightly more than a decade ago, Bossy said the pressure from COVID-19

The opportunity to grow a business that wasn’t necessarily about just making money but where people could come and make a difference was important.

– KEVIN BOSSY, CEO, BISHOP WATER TECHNOLOGIES

was significantly greater.

“Financial crashes come and go, but none of us had been inside of (a global pandemic) before,” he said, tipping his hat to the company’s employees for rallying around the company and doing whatever was necessary to maintain the company’s momentum.

Those efforts paid off.

The company was able to move projects that had been under discussion prior to the start of the pandemic across the finish line in 2020, and Bishop Water’s project in The Nation was honoured with a national industry association award that recognizes early technology adoption.

“At the end of (2020), looking back, we had a really good year,” said Bossy, adding that the company is looking to expand its Canadian footprint this year while deepening its reach in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

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OBJ REGIONAL: VIDEO In a series of video interviews, OBJ’s Mark Van Dusen speaks to eastern Ontario’s entrepreneurs, business executives and political leaders to explore the trends shaping the region’s economy. Through his conversations, Van Dusen uncovers stories of innovation, industry leadership and perseverance.

To watch the full series, visit obj.ca/videos.

AGRITECH STARTUP REIMAGINES HYDROPONIC FARMING A team of entrepreneurs incubating their early stage company in Kingston is hoping its modular hydroponic farming solution will help reduce food insecurity around the world – particularly in places acutely affected by climate change and shortages of arable land.

Dunya Habitats is developing modular “tiny farms” that stand about two metres high that can be combined in clusters. They allow farmers to grow produce year-round in any climate, ranging from freezing locales in the Canadian Arctic to droughtprone regions of sub-Saharan Africa, and are currently

HFI PYROTECHNICS ROCKETS TO NEW HEIGHTS

being tested in Kingston, Atlantic Canada and Alberta.

“Hydroponics is a proven method. We’ve helped to optimize it,” says Sumi Shanmuganathan, chief strategy officer at Dunya Habitats.

The next time you’re watching scenes of a dramatic water rescue, take a closer look at the smoke locator bobbing in the waves.

It’s possible the device was made right here in eastern Ontario by HFI Pyrotechnics – a company that’s gaining growing recognition for manufacturing illumination devices, smoke grenades and flares used in military exercises and search-and-rescue missions.

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How SAAS NORTH made its home in Ottawa S

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AAS NORTH is the first event of its kind in Canada: an annual conference that brings hundreds of cloud software executives, venture capitalists and tech enthusiasts together to network, strike deals and learn about the latest happenings in the softwareas-a-service sector.

And when its organizers went looking for a city to launch the annual event in 2016, the support from Ottawa’s tourism and tech communities quickly tipped the scales in favour of Canada’s capital.

Local meetings and convention experts showed the SAAS NORTH team how they could leverage local attractions, hotels and event space at the Shaw Centre to create a memorable experience for delegates.

Five years later, the results speak for themselves.

Attendance has grown year after year, reaching 1,200 guests in 2019, and SAAS NORTH has become one of the leading events in the Canadian tech industry, and is consistently ranked as one of the top five SaaS events globally.

David Tyldesley, the vice-president of Vancouver-based Cube Business Media who co-founded SAAS NORTH with Ottawa tech accelerator L-Spark, attributes the growth to the connections his team has made in Ottawa.

“It was kind of serendipitous for us to connect with a company halfway across the country who was contemplating hosting a similar SaaS event,” he says. “We have seen incredible grassroots support from the Ottawa community, which reconfirms that we made the right choice by partnering up and hosting it in the city.”

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BREAKING THE EVENT MOULD From the outset, Tyldesley wanted to establish SAAS NORTH as a top-tier event and reached out to the Shaw Centre and Ottawa Tourism for insights into the local services available for a conference of its magnitude.

Collaborating with Delia Lapensée, a senior account manager at the Shaw Centre, the SAAS NORTH team received marketing material to help excite attendees about visiting Ottawa.

“We work really closely with Ottawa Tourism, our hotel partners and local off-site attractions to showcase what Ottawa offers as a host city,” says Lapensée, adding that industry officials typically give conference organizers a tour of the surrounding amenities to get a feel for the destination.

“From there we look at their guest demographics, what food and drinks they like and how to design the floor plan

so it’s conducive to networking and mingling.”

Lapensée and her team worked with Tyldesley to bring the SAAS NORTH vision to life, breaking the mould of the traditional conference floor plan.

Steering away from the classic pipe-and-drape booths synonymous with trade shows, the team focused on ambient lighting, modern music and an intentionally casual layout that allows people to get lost in the content on display, as opposed to weaving in out of rows of booths. Illuminated turn-key exhibits and displays added a subtle glow that added to the ambiance, befitting of the short November days.

As SAAS NORTH continued to outgrow its initial floor plan, Lapensée assisted Tyldesley in adapting the structure of the event to incorporate even more meeting rooms and event spaces.

“We had to do more than just rely on a great view; we wanted to create an experience for our guests,” says Tyldesley.

“We managed to leverage the space, but also create an ambience that actually encourages people to hang out with the vendors and other attendees.”

A VIRTUAL BACKDROP Hosting the event in Ottawa over the last four years also allowed SAAS NORTH to prominently promote and build its brand, adds Tyldesley, which contributed to the event’s continued growth.

With fewer competing events taking place at the same time, SAAS NORTH is able to take over downtown Ottawa and host all of its delegates in one area as opposed to everyone spreading out at hotels across the city – making for a more cohesive event structure.

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“There was a lot of pressure to put this event in Toronto because of its size and market,” he adds. “But we saw an opportunity to stand out in Ottawa’s mid-size market and it has definitely paid off.”

While plans were underway to bring SAAS NORTH back to the Shaw Centre in 2020, COVID-19 abruptly derailed the opportunity for delegates to meet in person.

With SAAS NORTH pivoting to a digital conference instead, it was just as important to incorporate Ottawa into the event since the city has played such a pivotal role in the event’s success, says Tyldesley.

The Shaw Centre team worked with SAAS NORTH’s emcee to film an opening welcome sketch from the event space, paying homage to where the event would have taken place had attendees been able to gather.

“We had so much fun working on that video for the digital conference this year, and it was a really creative way to bring a sense of normalcy to the guests,” says Lapensée. “It was a great reminder that even though we moved to virtual, the Shaw Centre is still the home of SAAS NORTH.”

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Visit OBJ.CA/OBJ-DIGITAL-EDITION to view the digital edition for exclusive features

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— SPONSORED CONTENT —

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hile the COVID-19 pandemic created significant challenges for countless female entrepreneurs and business owners, many are finding their footing with the help of their friends, colleagues and professional connections through organizations such as The Women’s Business Network.

“We are growing stronger and stronger every day,” says WBN executive director Soula Burrell. “We must encourage each other.”

Like many organizations in Ottawa, the WBN had to pivot in 2020.

That meant postponing the annual Businesswoman of the Year Awards, which are now scheduled to go online in February due to COVID restrictions.

The BYAs will shine a spotlight on 12 finalists, who are profiled on the following pages, and recognize one recipient in each of four categories – emerging entrepreneur, established entrepreneur, professional services and organization – for their expertise, achievements and community involvement.

The WBN has also adjusted to the pandemic by finding virtual ways of connecting its members (see page 54) and finding ways to help women in business survive – and, in some cases, even expand (see page 55) – through the pandemic.

It all underscores the important role the WBN plays in strengthening Ottawa’s business community, as well as the value of membership in the organization.

“Join us and help us help you in growing your business and support system,” Burrell says.

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WOMENINBUSINESS2021 BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR AWARDS

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WOMENINBUSINESS2021 “Rather than buying something from Amazon, it’s an opportunity to support your local business community,” Stewarts says.

Plus, she adds, it’s a fun way to interact with local business owners at a time when it’s difficult to meet faceto-face.

“We don’t have our regular spaces to make connections,” Stewart says. “We’re doing everything we can to maintain and rebuild those spaces at a time that’s very challenging for many of our members.”

SUPPORT SYSTEM

Supporting women business leaders in challenging times Digital events, additional outreach among new initiatives

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hen businesses were hit with the fallout from the pandemic in early 2020, the Women’s Business Network of Ottawa sprang into action, ready to help, guide and support local businesswomen during this challenging time.

With more than 250 members, the WBN has been supporting women in the Ottawa business community for almost four decades.

One reason they were able to pivot so quickly was a readiness to switch to online digital platforms from their usual in-person events and meetings.

The results were surprising.

“Our attendance tripled,” says WBN executive director Soula Burrell. “We were able to reach more women who were stuck at home, or unable to get child care to leave the home for events, including people in contact with high-

risk individuals, at a time when it was sorely needed.”

At the same time, the WBN continued to hold regular monthly events – while respecting evolving health and safety guidelines – to network, listen to dynamic speakers and discuss business topics.

OUTREACH The WBN also put out a call to its members, asking them to reach out if they had suffered hardship during the pandemic, such as a lost job or challenges accessing government commercial rent relief programs.

“Many business owners are busy running their companies and may not be aware of all the assistance programs that are available,” says Victoria Stewart, the WBN’s vice-president of operations.

Closer to Christmas, the WBN

Soula Burrell is the executive director of the Women’s Business Network of Ottawa.

launched a special social media campaign with a local gift guide, highlighting gift ideas that can be purchased from WBN members.

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Women are disproportionately affected by working from home in many cases, Burrell explains, because they often bear the majority of the childcare and household duties. The juggling between family and work life is even more intense when stress levels are high and resources are low. With the added chore of assisting with online learning for children in many families, many women are stretched thinner than ever.

“That’s where we come in,” explains Burrell. “Sometimes all a woman needs to know is that other women like her are struggling too, which allows them to connect over sharing and solutions.”

The WBN can often provide the backdrop and support system for women in business and encourage them, in turn, to find new and innovative ways to support each other.

Burrell’s advice for businesswomen for the short term? Until things return to a “new normal,” take it one step at a time, but keep your eye on the bigger picture too (with any necessary adjustments).

And don’t forget to “give back to get back.”

“Businesswomen need to create a culture of solution-seekers and they must keep the end goal in mind,” Burrell advises.

Whatever challenges 2021 brings to Ottawa’s business community, WBN is there to support, advise and cheer on local businesswomen every step of the way.

WOMENINBUSINESS2021 Whole Therapy expands amid pandemic, backed by community support Women’s Business Network a key resource to overcoming challenges

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hen the COVID-19 pandemic page that provides support, guidance swept across the country and practical solutions to help clients last year, the first instinct of manage their pain during Whole many business owners was to retrench, Therapy’s temporary closure (it preserve cash and hold out for a reopened to the public later in the relaxation of government-imposed year). Wright credits being prepared public health guidelines. to pivot her business operations to But Jen Wright, the owner of creative online solutions as one factor Whole Therapy – a in their continued multidisciplinary success. care centre – took As she worked the opposite route her way through the by expanding her evolving business business and opening WBN is helping the next landscape and a third location. generation of female pushed ahead with With its focus entrepreneurs by providing the expansion, the on in-person, scholarships through The WBN Women’s Business hands-on physical Scholarship Fund, awarded Network was an care, including annually to three exceptional essential source of chiropractic and female business students support along the way. massage therapy pursuing entrepreneurial “I didn’t have a lot services, Whole studies at Algonquin College, of mentors,” Wright Therapy was Carleton University and says. “WBN became among the business the University of Ottawa. a place where I could segments hit hard ask questions without by restrictions feeling self-conscious, early in 2020 aimed because (others were) at limiting the spread of the novel experiencing the same challenges.” coronavirus.

“During the shutdown, I had a really A GROUP EFFORT rough time at first,” Wright wrote in an While women make up roughly half of email to the WBN. “I seriously considered the National Capital Region’s workforce, just closing up shop for good. I wasn’t only a fraction of available funding sure what the following months would makes it to women-led organizations, bring.” according to the WBN. Wright moved quickly to branch This means the broader business out and reach her clients virtually community has a responsibility to by establishing an online members’ support women working in the National

SUPPORTING YOUNG LEADERS

Jen Wright is the owner of Whole Therapy.

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— SPONSORED CONTENT —

connecting and finding practical solutions to the challenges facing entrepreneurs, business owners and other professionals.

Wright says that WBN gives her a sense of support because its members are genuinely interested in each other’s success.

She adds that she believes that successfully navigating the pandemic is a group effort for the business community.

“In times like this, we all just want to feel safe,” she says.

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Capital Region through organizations such as the WBN. Its volunteer groups support the community through initiatives such as scholarships, mentorship programs, networking and opportunities for women to hone their public speaking skills.

WBN executive director Soula Burrell says Whole Therapy is just one of the businesses the organization is encouraging and supporting amid the pandemic. The WBN continues to reach out to members and other businesswomen interested in

THE BRIGHT SIDE OF BUSINESS The Bright Side of Business is an editorial feature focused on sharing positive stories of business success. This column is presented by Star Motors, Ottawa’s original Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-AMG and Mercedes Van dealer.

Indigenous tourism operators ready to ride economic recovery

BY NICKIE SHOBEIRY news@obj.ca

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cohort of local Indigenous tourism operators is hoping that a specialized training program will position them to be at the forefront of their industry’s expected rebound in 2021.

Algonquin College and Ottawa Tourism ran a 10-week, federally funded Indigenous Tourism Entrepreneurship Training program late last year. Created for Indigenous learners by Indigenous entrepreneurs and subject-matter experts, this free program shares the fundamentals of business planning and development.

One of the program participants was Marc Forgette, founder of Makatew Workshops, which offers Indigenous crafts workshops to corporate and not-for-profit organizations. He says his business is likely to benefit from the expected rise in domestic tourism over the coming year.

“There’s a lot of great Indigenous tourism ideas out there,” Forgette says. “I think we’re going to see more Canadians staying within our borders, which will be amazing.”

ago, I decided to really start exploring my culture and where we came from.”

Within two weeks of leaving his corporate job, Forgette secured his first gig: running a booth at an event for 300 international travel writers.

“I had to teach myself how to use the sewing machine, sew 150 medicine bags, and treat (them) within five weeks,” Forgette recalls.

“Sometimes I was wondering, ‘what the heck did I get myself into?’”

Forgette’s workshop invited participants to sew beads onto the medicine bags. In the end, it was a huge success, with his table being among the event’s most popular booths.

“From that point on, I knew that I was onto something,” Forgette says.

MAKING NEW CONNECTIONS

ABOVE: The launch of the Indigenous Tourism Entrepreneurship Training program.

RIGHT: Some of the products created by Makatew Workshops. PHOTOS SUPPLIED

TAKING THE PLUNGE Forgette, who is of French and Algonquin descent, founded Makatew in June 2019 after spending a dozen years working in business development and sales.

In those roles, he regularly attended trade shows and noticed a lack of locallysourced items, and Indigenous products in particular. It’s a gap he says goes back decades.

“Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, there was not very not much shared about our culture,” he says. “About three, four years

Like many businesses, Forgette took Makatew virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic. While he says his online workshops have been well-received, Forgette says the Indigenous Tourism Entrepreneurship Training program “couldn’t have come at a better time” and helped him shore up some of his business fundamentals, such as creating a mission statement.

“All the teachings in this course are Indigenized teaching – that’s very important to me, because everything I’m doing, I want to make sure I’m doing correctly,” Forgette says.

The program also connected Forgette to a network of Indigenous entrepreneurs, including two new business collaborators.

“We’ve already started working together because I feel I can help them in their journey, and they can help me in my journey as well,” he says.

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2020 hands Ottawa’s tech innovators a roster of competitive opportunities Heading into 2021, what opportunities await Ottawa’s tech sector?

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one offers a SaaS solution to help managers improve their relationships with employees.

And so on. These examples don’t even touch on Ottawa’s world-class pedigree in telecommunications technology, where new innovations could certainly ensure better bandwidth for home-based workers everywhere.

So, heading into 2021, what do we need and what opportunities does this create for Ottawa’s tech sector?

• Better options for safe human interaction. There are plenty of collaboration tools for conveying critical information in real-time, but these still do not substitute for in-person contact.

• And spontaneous engagement, to fuel creativity and support emotional well-being. Make no mistake, there has been a cost to this shift in how we live and work. While many of these costs may be considered intangible, their impact may prove to be severe.

• Make remote experiences more seamless. As lawyers, we have found that going virtual in some ways actually led to improved and faster service for our clients. But when you work all day on the opposite end of a video call, those little microstressors, such as internet latency or lag, quickly become maddening.

Are these challenges easy to overcome? Of course not. But entrepreneurs and visionaries don’t launch ventures to solve easy challenges, as Ottawa’s track record in technological innovation can easily attest.

Conor Cronin is an Ottawa corporate and securities lawyer with the Business Law Group at Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall LLP. Much of Cronin’s work at the firm focuses on helping young entrepreneurs and startups get organized, navigate the early stages of their development and deal with shareholder disputes. He has acquired a vast amount of corporate legal knowledge through his work in purchase and sale transactions, involving privately and publicly owned companies, preparing shareholder agreements and employee stock option plans. Contact Cronin at ccronin@perlaw.ca

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s a corporate and securities lawyer, my primary focus is on helping entrepreneurs and startups get organized and navigate the early stages of their development.

That means I work with a dynamic group for whom the “new normal” has been routine long before the pandemic – they live and work in a headspace that seldom conforms to the regular 9-5 grind.

For this crowd, the switch to remote working might seem to have not been that severe of a change, at least not compared to, for example, the buttoneddown team of a law firm.

But innovators and trailblazers and visionaries on the cutting edge of technology are still social animals like other humans. They suffer just as much from the shortcomings of the technology we have all come to rely on to remain connected and productive over the past nine months.

The chief difference between us and them, of course, is that many of them are in a position to do something about the shortcomings of said technology.

The past nine months have proven that the world of office work can function outside of traditional business hours without a manager looking over the cubicle wall. On the other hand, it has shown some cracks – the micro-stressors that can add undo aggravation to our lives at a time when mental health may already be suffering. A micro-stressor may be something as basic as bandwidth issues in the home office, when competing with the kids who are logged on for school.

On the other hand, these stressors represent opportunity. We need only look as far as the 2020 Best Ottawa Business (BOBs) awards to see how the local tech community has the expertise and intellectual horsepower to make a remote world more functional and agreeable.

We had one award winner that turned around in 72 hours a new COVID Workspace Monitoring Dashboard to help employers ensure a safe work environment for their teams. Another logged revenue growth of 900 per cent in the first seven months of the year for its software that helps employers implement more flexible and efficient work environments. A third

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CONNECTING TECH IN OTTAWA

Ottawa’s tech firms to watch Tehama, Field Effect, Neurovine and Noibu poised for a breakout 2021

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

I

TEHAMA When Westboro-based software startup Tehama spun off from IT consulting firm Pythian in 2019, founder and CEO Paul Vall​ée said he pictured a day when working remotely would be as commonplace as hopping in a car and driving to an office.

He probably didn’t imagine that day was just around the corner.

Indeed, no one foresaw that a global pandemic would dramatically alter the way workers across the world went about their daily lives in 2020.

Tehama was in the right place at the right time to respond to the radical shift to a remote-first mentality. Over the past 12 months, its cloud-based platform that lets off-site employees securely access company data on their laptops and other devices has rapidly emerged as a musthave commodity for a growing number of clients.

“The opportunity in front of us right now is 100 times bigger than it was (last) January.

We’re going for it. It’s a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity.”

– Paul Vall​ée, founder and CEO, Tehama

Vall​ée, a respected Ottawa tech leader who originally helped launch Pythian nearly a quarter-century ago, sees huge upside in the work-from-home trend.

He believes it will open up vast pools of talent for companies that are no longer limited to searching for new hires in their own backyards and will allow employees themselves to have more control over where, when and how they work.

But the move away from an “officecentric” environment is also fraught with potential pitfalls, he adds. That’s where Tehama’s technology comes in.

“We want to feel confident that our data is safe, that our privacy is protected,” says Vall​ée. “The risks of a work-fromhome workforce are very large.”

After a big 2020 that saw the young firm triple its revenues, grow from 48 to 71 employees and land US$10 million in venture capital financing, Vall​ée is expecting more of the same this year.

“Any one of the customers that we’re in front of now could single-handedly double our revenue,” he says.

“Without hyperbole, I believe that the size of the opportunity in front of us right now is 100 times bigger than it was (last) January. We’re going for it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a juggernaut here in Ottawa.”

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n a devastating year for so many local businesses, Ottawa’s tech sector provided a ray of light.

While the pandemic ravaged the economy and took a terrible toll on lives and livelihoods in 2020, the innovators who have been an engine of growth for one of the capital’s most important industries continued to prove their mettle.

Many local tech firms responded quickly to meet the needs of a society turned upside down overnight with the sudden shift to remote work and learning.

As other segments of the economy floundered, Ottawa’s tech industry was a ballast that helped shelter the capital from some of the worst economic sideeffects of the COVID-19 crisis.

And it wasn’t just headline-grabbing names such as Shopify and Kinaxis that led the way. Upstart firms that aren’t yet household names also made their mark,

suggesting that the future of Ottawa tech is in good hands.

Fittingly, a number of those companies were highlighted in Techopia’s companies to watch list last year.

Take GoFor as an example. The last-mile delivery startup was one of the city’s biggest success stories of 2020, racking up nearly $30 million in venture capital to help fuel its rapid expansion across Canada and the U.S. Founded less than four years ago, the firm is on a breathtaking trajectory that has at least one investor predicting it will be valued at more than a billion dollars before the end of this year.

Meanwhile, software firm Rewind showed it was more than worthy of being on last year’s list. The five-year-old enterprise that provides a backup solution for e-commerce merchants placed 49th on the Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s 400 fastest-growing companies last fall, making it the only Ottawa-based business to crack the top 100.

So without further ado, Techopia

presents its 2021 list of tech firms to watch. We think these four companies have what it takes to scale up to a new level over the next 12 months as the economy continues to grapple with the coronavirus and begins to take tentative steps toward the post-pandemic reality.

While we don’t have a crystal ball, we’re confident these companies will play a big role in Ottawa’s future.

Success is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Let’s get you ďŹ nancially prepared for the 2021 opportunities that will abound.

WINTER 2021

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60

“2021 will be the year that the world finds out that we exist.”

– Matt Holland, CEO, Field Effect

FIELD EFFECT

Europe with an office in Germany.

Coming off a year in which it doubled its revenues and grew its headcount from 38 to 125, Holland says Field Effect is poised to truly come into its own in 2021. He’s forecasting the firm’s revenues will triple over the next 12 months and predicts Field Effect’s payroll will hit 200 before the year is out.

“Right now, we’re still that plucky upstart with a chip on our shoulder wanting to make positive change,” he says. “I think 2021 will be the year that the world finds out that we exist and that we’re special.”

NEUROVINE Co-founder Ashleigh Kennedy says 2020 was both challenging and rewarding for Neurovine, a health-tech startup that uses artificial intelligence to help track the recovery and progress of concussion patients.

Launched by Kennedy and her husband Matthew, Neurovine plans to build a personalized solution that can tell concussion patients when they’re pushing their physical or mental exertion too far and offer a tailored recovery road map that will help doctors prescribe better treatments.

The company launched virtual trials of its wearable technology last year after landing hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from a group of investors led by Jeff Hunt, a former partner in the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group.

The nine-person organization originally based the clinical trials of the technology at the Bruyère Research Institute, but when the COVID-19 lockdown put a stop to all in-person sessions in early 2020, Neurovine’s team requested permission to host the trials remotely.

The shift involved a bit of trial and error, but Kennedy now says the company’s system is on track for regulatory approval as a Class 2 medical device in both Canada and the United States later this year. That would allow doctors, physiotherapists and other health-care professionals to “prescribe” the technology as a treatment for patients experiencing post-concussion symptoms.

“The prescription piece for us is key to really making the technology accessible to patients,” says Kennedy, adding that if all goes well, the wearable technology that uses machine-learning algorithms to track patients’ concussion recovery and progress will be on the market by this fall.

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during the pandemic, so has the public’s awareness of the potential repercussions of online attacks, Holland adds.

“I think it’s starting to change how people look at this problem generally.

The threat of cybersecurity breaches and the negative outcomes are just becoming more apparent.”

But trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys is no easy task. In fact, Holland himself says he barely had time to catch his breath over Christmas and Boxing Day before getting right back at it.

“Nobody ever stands still. We need to continuously be creative, so that is just who we are,” he says, noting Field Effect reinvests about half its annual revenues into R&D in its ongoing effort to thwart cyberhackers’ best efforts. “If we can’t stay ahead (of security threats), then we’re failing as a company.”

After opening an office in London last February, Field Effect is wasting no time expanding its international footprint in 2021.

The company recently hired five employees in Sydney and Melbourne and expects to set up shop south of the border with outposts in New York and San Francisco later this year. The firm is also looking to gain a foothold in continental

WINTER 2021

Cybersecurity firm Field Effect officially launched four years ago, but as founder and CEO Matt Holland explains, the company’s roots stretch much deeper.

“Even though there’s this perception that we’re this new company, we’ve actually been hard at it for a long time,” he says.

The foundation of Field Effect’s technology was actually laid back in 2009, when engineers at Holland’s previous tech enterprise, Linchpin Labs, started developing a cybersecurity platform. After Holland sold Linchpin to U.S.-based tech giant L3Harris Technologies in 2018, he poured his money and efforts into creating a fullscale solution aimed at protecting small and medium-sized businesses from the escalating barrage of cyberthreats perpetrated by bad actors all over the planet.

“A lot of people are starting to call us the Shopify of cybersecurity because we build something that works really well for small and medium businesses as opposed to just large enterprises, which is largely where the rest of the industry is kind of focused,” he explains.

As internet traffic has accelerated

Ashleigh Kennedy, Neurovine

SPONSORED CONTENT

Bridging the language gap between human and machine uOttawa Faculty of Engineering lab teaches AI to truly understand written communication

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•

Training chatbot algorithms to have the specific domain knowledge necessary to provide consumers with a single and easy way to find key information in those situations where a general-purpose voice assistant like Siri or Alexa falls short.

Text mining for legal purposes, a new project in collaboration with the Faculty of Law at uOttawa and with the Department of Justice. The goal here is to save people from having to spend tens of hours wading through reams of documentary evidence to flag items of interest that may be relevant to a case.

Protecting privacy, avoiding bias

W

hen it comes to human-machine interaction, you could say that language is the last frontier.

Natural language processing, or NLP, is the branch of artificial intelligence that deals with the interaction between computers and humans using natural language. In this field, adaptive algorithms are trained to understand and draw conclusions from human languages.

The applications are far-reaching, from largescale content analysis, to more effective engagement through voice interfaces, newsgathering and predicting trends or behaviours in a target population over time.

Prof. Diana Inkpen is the director of the University of Ottawa’s Natural Language Processing Lab. Her team of PhD and MSc students are pushing this frontier, primarily through applied research that responds to the real-world needs of public and private-sector partners external to the university.

The lab’s speciality is extracting information and insight from text – what people write and how the machine can understand what these texts mean.

“Human language is very difficult in general for machines, because they don’t have the context of experience that we do to understand nuances of meaning, or to classify text by emotion or mood,” Prof. Inkpen said. “We have to train an algorithm by feeding it large volumes of the right kind of data specific to the domain knowledge we want it to have.”

This is her passion. Prof. Inkpen has served as co-chair and has been an invited speaker at many conferences relating to AI and natural language processing, published more than 30 journal articles and 100 conference papers, and contributed to several books on the subject. She also serves as editor-inchief of the Computational Intelligence journal (Wiley)

•

Prof. Diana Inkpen, director of the University of Ottawa’s Natural Language Processing Lab.

and as associate editor of the Natural Language Engineering Journal (Cambridge University Press).

Real-world applications

Her team has a variety of projects on the go. These include: • Crawling the web to analyze what people share publicly on social media, to gauge mental health and develop predictive models that can flag situations where intervention may be required.

• Tracking children’s communication online, to alert parents of incidents of cyberbullying, substance abuse or mental health challenges.

OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

What’s interesting about this work is the way privacy factors into both ends of the equation.

On the one hand, an adaptive algorithm designed to learn over time can only be trained by feeding it as much relevant real-world data as possible. This data must be secured by the research team to ensure there is no risk of a privacy breach if any sensitive personal information is involved. The other side of it is on the application of an algorithm – that its real-world use abides by any relevant privacy regulation.

Prof. Inkpen notes it’s also not just about enough data, but the right data, to ensure fairness and avoid bias. One example is the case of Amazon and an algorithm it had employed to screen job applicants. In 2015, it was discovered that the algorithm was biased against women because it had been trained using resumes from the past 10 years, the vast majority of which had been submitted by men.

Ultimately, Prof. Inkpen’s work is about making that transfer from the university lab to the real world where her work can improve lives.

“Technology transfer is something we value because that is the purpose of applied research to solve real problems and, in our case, determine how AI can better help real humans,” she said.

Learn more

Discover other cool areas of applied research that are underway at uOttawa’s Faculty of Engineering at engineering.uOttawa.ca.

So far, Neurovine has raised nearly $1 million in seed funding. In addition to Hunt, other contributors include the Capital Angel Network, LaunchHub, York Angels, Maple Leaf Angels and a network of doctors called HaloHealth.

The most notable characteristic of that group is that every one of the contributors is based in Canada. Kennedy would dearly love to continue that trend as she turns her attention toward a series-A round that’s expected to close in the coming months.

“I’d love to keep our roots here,” she says.

Neurovine has enlisted Christopher Mulvanny, a California-based health-tech finance veteran who now serves as the firm’s virtual CFO, to help spearhead its fundraising efforts. Kennedy knows that the odds of finding the necessary capital to scale up Neurovine without tapping into U.S. sources are slim, but she’s determined to make her company a truly Canadian – ​ and Ottawa – ​ success story.

“The amount that you need to raise in a company like ours is huge,” Kennedy concedes. “Medical technology is risky.

As Canadians, we’re conservative and risk-averse. So (we’re) trying to figure out how we can raise the amount required to have it (remain) a successful Canadian story as opposed to flying south to make it work.”

NOIBU

Noibu’s clients now include cosmetics giant Avon, international clothing retailer Jack & Jones and trendy fashion brand Guess.

“We’ve been able to prove out a sales model and figure out who our customers (are) and how to go and find them,” Cardamore says.

Still, Noibu wasn’t immune from hardships in a tumultuous 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the continent, many merchants “hit the brakes” on discretionary spending while they waited to see how the virus would affect their bottom lines, quickly flattening Noibu’s growth curve.

Luckily for Cardamore and Co., customers didn’t keep their pursestrings closed for long. Online shopping surged as consumers hunkered down at home, making Noibu’s technology more relevant than ever.

“Basically, no one knew what was happening (early in the pandemic) and everyone was deferring decisions,” Cardamore says. “But ever since then, e-commerce has really done well. We’ve

been able to grow with (customers), which has been fantastic as well.”

As a new year dawns, the bootstrapped business ​– which generally prefers to sign customers to yearly deals rather than monthly subscriptions like many software-as-a-service companies ​ – is focused on beefing up its network of sales channel partners.

Now cash-flow positive, Noibu is also bolstering its tech stack with new artificial intelligence capabilities in a bid to continue growing its income from existing clients. The company reinvests about 40 per cent of its revenues into R&D, a hefty ratio even by SaaS standards.

The key, Cardamore says, is to keep finding new ways to deliver as much value as possible to the firm’s rapidly expanding client roster.

“It’s our goal and we’re driving towards that,” he says.

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Thankfully for the young firm, cofounders Robert Boukine and Kailin Noivo hit on a nifty way to change the company’s trajectory right around the same time Cardamore ​– a seasoned software developer who’d cut his teeth at Nortel, JDS Uniphase and BlackBerry QNX ​– came on board.

After more and more customers started complaining that vexing problems such as software glitches and server issues were wreaking havoc with their sales pipelines, Noibu pivoted to become a bug detection service for e-commerce sites.

Noibu’s clients now include cosmetics giant Avon, international clothing retailer Jack & Jones and trendy fashion brand Guess. A year ago, the company employed four people who worked out of a rented house. Today, Noibu’s headcount sits at 19 and is on track to hit 40 by the end of this year.

WINTER 2021

After riding the e-commerce tsunami to 500 per cent revenue growth in 2020, Ottawa software startup Noibu is projecting a similar surge in sales over the next 12 months as its platform aimed at detecting bugs in merchants’ online stores gains momentum.

Founded in 2017, Noibu initially offered 3D virtual tours of high-end retailers’ brick-and-mortar outlets, allowing consumers to shop online while they were browsing a pseudo storefront.

But despite achieving some early success, including a $10,000 investment from the Capital Angel Network, the venture never really made the kind of splash the founders were hoping for.

“While it was a really neat idea, there was always a challenge … getting a good, strong pull from customers,” says CEO Dan Cardamore, a 20-year veteran of the Ottawa tech scene who joined the company in mid-2019. “It wasn’t necessarily a need.”

Noibu’s leadership team includes, from left, Dan Cardamore, Robert Boukine, Kailin Noivo, Filip Slatinac

Techopia Live

Connecting Ottawa’s next generation of tech entrepreneurs Techopia regularly speaks to Ottawa-based entrepreneurs and tech veterans to explore strategies to build and scale tech companies. Visit obj.ca/videos to see OBJ’s full collection of videos, including more than 150 interviews with local tech leaders.

omNovos CEO Allan Zander

Slightly more than five years ago, omNovos was spun off from its parent company, DataKinetics.

Using its data-mining expertise, omNovos helps retail

clients including FarmBoy, Olly Fresco’s and a fashion retailer in Brazil understand their customers’ behaviours and engage them on multiple channels.

Alongside its impressive organic growth, omNovos has also scaled up through acquisitions and has joined forces with two companies on the West Coast in recent years.

Tech companies considering a growth-byacquisition strategy face several questions.

How do you evaluate a prospective acquisition?

And once it’s complete, how does a firm unlock the full value of the combined entity?

Watch the video interview at obj.ca/videos to hear how omNovos approached these questions and to hear expert insights from Techopia Live sponsor Stratford Managers.

Techopia Briefs INTOUCH INSIGHT LAUNCHES COVID-19 SCREENING TOOL

As you navigate these uncertain times, know that we are here for you.

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perlaw.ca | 613.238.2022

An Ottawa software company that’s seen its revenues nosedive during the pandemic is adding a COVID-19 screening app to its product offerings in anticipation of employees heading back to the office in 2021.

Intouch Insight officially launched the new service in early January, saying it will help ensure a “safe return to work” for employees as vaccines against the coronavirus start rolling out around the world.

CEO Cameron Watt said the app will allow for “robust reporting and tracking” of employees who show symptoms of the virus. The tool, which can be installed on any mobile device, tablet or computer, alerts management via email if an employee or visitor fails a

screening questionnaire and will allow for “centralized reporting” of COVID screening data from various office locations, he added.

Offering a screening app would seem to be a logical step for Intouch Insight, which helps clients track customer satisfaction as well as collect data on issues such as employee health and safety concerns.

In addition to aiding a public-health cause, the product could also help boost the firm’s financial prospects.

Intouch Insight reported revenues of $2.97 million for the three-month period ending Sept. 30, down from $4.9 million a year earlier. The Ottawa firm, whose customers include the likes of A&W and Sobeys, said in recent financial filings that the COVID-19 crisis has pummelled many of its key market verticals.

SOLACE SAYS MOVE INTO AVIATION SPACE AIDING ITS MARKET ASCENT An Ottawa software firm that helps streamline the flow of data across high-speed networks is expanding its services to a high-profile U.S. aviation customer as it continues to diversify beyond its traditional sweet spot in the financial sector.

Solace said the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has begun using the company’s cloud-based software platform to collect and disseminate real-time information for its NextGen Weather Systems.

The system crunches data from sources such as weather radar and environmental satellites to predict where air travel routes might run into bad weather and flag potential en-route safety hazards hours in advance.

Launched nearly 20 years ago, Solace primarily has served banks and other financial institutions. Among its marquee customers are Barclays, the Royal Bank of Canada and SAP. Under former CEO Les Rechan’s watch, the company shifted several years ago from a traditional enterprise sales model to a subscription-focused platform that now delivers cloud-based software to clients in a wide variety of industries, from aviation and retail to gaming and manufacturing.

613-562-5399 scaleupgarage.ca

manager

THE LIST LARGEST FINTECH FIRMS (RANKED BY NUMBER OF LOCAL EMPLOYEES)

Number of Ottawa employees

Year est. in Ottawa

Key local executive(s)

Notable current clients

Services offered

1 2

Payments Canada 800-350 Albert St. Ottawa, ON K1R 1A4 613-238-4173 payments.ca

230

1980

Tracey Black president and CEO

Stakeholders include financial institutions, the federal government and the Bank of Canada.

Owns and operates Canada’s payment clearing and settlement infrastructure, including associated systems, bylaws, rules and standards.

Veem 300-135 Michael Cowpland Dr. Kanata, ON K2M 2E9 1-877-279-2629 veem.com

80

2014

Sheila James vice-president of operations

WND

Global B2B payments; small business fintech solutions; foreign exchange locks.

3

Slice Labs 200-950 Gladstone Ave. Ottawa, ON K1Y 3E6 613-737-5423 slice.is

45

2015

Stuart Baserman chief technology officer

The Co-operators; SOMPO; Progressive; AXIS Insurance

Insurance cloud services platform using artificial intelligence, machine learning and behavioral science.

3

Telepin Software Systems 411 Legget Dr. Kanata, ON K2K 3C9 613-366-1910 telepin.com

45

2007

Vince Kadar

Singtel; Digicel; Etisalat Egypt; Tigo Tanzania; Telkom Kenya; Freedom Mobile

Mobile transaction platforms.

5

edjuster* 203-28 Concourse Gate Ottawa, ON K2E 7T7 1-866-779-5950 edjuster.com

36

2000

Tasneen Raahman director of HR

WND

Fully-managed process for managing residential and commercial claims.

6

Payment Source 320 March Rd. Kanata, ON K2K 2E3 613-831-6877 paymentsource.ca

24

2014

Trevor Cook CEO and co-founder

WND

Prepaid cards and vouchers that enable Canadians to make payments or load accounts with cash or debit via face-to-face transaction at retail locations.

7

Shift4 Payments (formerly MerchantLink) 220-400 March Rd. Kanata, ON K2K 3H4 613-592-5444 shift4.com

20

2015

Susan Lovell

Delta Hotels; Marriott Hotels; Tommy Bahama Restaurants; Wendy’s International

Secure payment processing.

8

InsureGO 1-1439 Youville Dr. Ottawa, ON K1C 4M8 1-844-678-7346 insurego.ca

11

2018

Morgan Girouard founder and CEO

WND

Insurance rate shopping website.

PandaPay 70 Bongard Ave. Ottawa, ON K2E 7Z9 pandapay.ca

10

2014

David Morrell partner

CPA Canada; Choice Hotels; Barrhaven Ford; Al’s Steak House

Manages credit card transactions.

MotionPay Technology 201-228 Hunt Club Rd. Ottawa, ON K1V1C1 1-886-615-5289 motionpay.ca

8

2016

Riven Zhang founder and CEO

Chinese Embassy; Hugo Boss; Arc’teryx; Dior; ECCO; Royal Canadian Mint; Museum of Vancouver; Salomon; Skechers; Stanley Park; Lake Louise Ski Resort

Point-of-sale and e-commerce solutions enabling merchants to connect with Chinese consumers in Canada.

Company/Address/ Phone/Fax/Web

9 10

*These companies did not respond to this year’s survey in time for publication. This information is from previous years. These lists are current as of November 2020. ©2020 by Ottawa Business Journal. All rights reserved.

THE LIST Company /Address/ Phone/Fa x/Web

1 BUYING GUIDE FOR BUSINESS PRODUCTS AND SERVICES 2

NAV Canada 77 Metcalfe 613-563-5 St. Ottawa, ON K1P 588 / 613-563-3 5L6 navcanad 426 a.ca

OTTAWA’S 2021

Curtiss-W right Defense 333 Palladium Dr. Kanata, Solutions 613-599-9 199 / 613-599-7 ON K2V 1A6 curtisswrightds.co 777 m

MORE THAN 30 INDUSTRY SECTORS

PLUS: OTTAWA’S LARGEST CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS AND GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

TECH, TOURISM, REAL ESTATE & MORE

KEY ECONOMIC STATS

LARGEST AEROSP ACE COMP ANIES

(RANKED

BY NUMBE R OF LOCAL

Cathy Pomeroy vice-president of operation s

Year est.

1996

EMPLOYEES)

Publicly traded? /Exchang e N

Major clients Airlines using

Canadian

airspace.

Specialty

areas

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325 integratio (UAVs), ground, helicopters, fighter Dale Potter n vehicles and vice-president Naval combat naval Arnprior and general 1960 manager manufacturing;systems; C4ISR; Aerospac data fusion; e 107 Baskin N aerospace services.

ISS; radar engineering; DND; U.S. 613-623-4 Dr. E. Arnprior, ON Navy; internatio training and systems; 267 / 613-623-1 K7S 3M1 300 aerospace arnpriora logistics nal military Tom Melvin erospace.com 736 forces; president Designs, manufact Telesat 2005 ures electro-op tics, IRST, and supports naval 2100-160 N deployable C4ISR applicatio Elgin St. Ottawa, Boeing; Bombard 613-748-0 flight data communications, ON K2P 2P7 manufacturing. ns, as well as provides 123 recorders, 263 ier; Safran telesat.co military Dan Goldberg turn-key electronic m CEO Commerc s ial and military MDS Aero 1969 manufacturing product 200-1220 Support Corp.

N components. utilizing precision- integration; assembly Old Broadcast; 613-744-7257 Innes Rd. Ottawa, Products include machined and telecom; corporate avionics racking 219 and mdsaero.com / 613-744-8016 ON K1B 3V3 John Jastrems and electronic airframe structurafabricated and governme ki l assemblie panels/en nt Global president s, closures. and CEO satellite CAE Canada 1985 communicationsoperator providing 200-350 Legget N secure satellite-d solutions worldwide Rolls-Royce; Dr. Ottawa, elivered 613-247-0 .

ON K2K 2W7 342 / 613-271-0 150 Turbines; Pratt & Whitney; Air cae.com France Hébert 963 NPO Saturn; France; Siemens; MTU Solar vice-president Global provider Gastops and general WND of test manager, and engine CAE 1011 Polytek componentsfacilities and test systems Y and security Canada, defence markets. Specialize in the aerospace WND for TSX: CAE 613-744-3 St. Ottawa, ON K1J s in the delivery for new engine 530 / 613-744-8 , industrial engines 137 9J3 gastops.c and Shaun Horning of complete developm marine 846 om ent. turnkey facilities president Civil aviation; and CEO MDA Vision defence and 1979 security, healthcar 302 Legget Systems and Sensors N Dr. e.

Kanata, DND; U.S. 613-599-7 ON K2K 1Y5 Air 602 x234 130 Aerospace; Force; Pratt & Whitney; mda.spac Jeremy Brooks e Defence; BellGE Aviation; IMP AerospacCollins director of Condition Helicopter; e& -based Hughes; Commerc Raytheon 1969 MHI lead, vision operations and site debris sensors maintenance Canada systems and ial Aviation,Vestas; Baker 730-360 Albert N and analyzers products and services; laboratory Avio sensors St. Ottawa, Canadian ; filter 613-233-4 Space ON K1R 7X7 Breeze-Ea services; aviation MRO debris analyzers oil wear 121 120 Boeing; EuropeanAgency; DND; stern products raytheon.com/ 613-233-1099 Garry Venman including FLIR ; fluid Maxar; Airbus; (EMSA); Sierra Maritime Safety Systems and president Geointelligence; Agency Nevada Northrup ETM Industrie 1956 robotics and Grumman Corp.; OneWeb; space operation ; MELCO 310-266 Hall s Y s; satellite Government, NYSE: RTN 613-432-6 Ave. Renfrew, ON systems.

DND 136 K7V 4E7 115 etmindus John Robertso tries.on.ca n president Air traffic managem Satcom Direct 1977 ent; service airborne radar.

Avionics 1260 Teron and support N Rd. of avionics Kanata, ON, Boeing, Lockheed 613-224-3 and K2K 0A1 301 65 Arnprior AerospacMartin, General satcomdirect.com Joanne Walker Dynamics e, Honeywe L3, Gastops, general manager ll, Heroux-D , Metal NAV Canada, Kongsberg evtek, tool CNC machining 2006 Parker, Geospatial PCC room (in-house and plastic injection 400-411 Legget N made jigs, molds); all WND fixtures, diesmolding capabilitie aspects of 613-271-5500 Dr. Kanata, ON s; bought-ou K2K 3C9 52 / 613-591-0 t finished inventory from raw and plastic injection kongsberggeospat Ranald G. 774 goods. stock McGillis and ial.com castings to president Cabin communi and CEO CAM-TAG 1992 systems; Wi-Fi cations systems; Industrie 2783 Fenton s* N systems; customizaflight deck communi DND; NAV 613-822-1921 Rd. Ottawa, ON K1T cations ble handsets.

Canada; 50 3T8 Defense; Lockheed U.S. Departme camtag.com / 613-822-2874 Michel St-Denis nt of Martin; Raytheon Grumman general manager ; FAA ; Northrop Geospatial visualizat Honeywe 1966 control software ion; situationa ll 100-303 Terry N l awarenes solutions. s; command Fox Dr. Ottawa, Bombardier 613-591-9 -andAerospace, 064 ON K2K 3J1 50 Systems, Héroux-D SAFRAN Landing honeywell.com/ 613-591-9120 Marina Mississian evtek senior director Machining , Intelcan Technosy sub-assem of space payloads 1974 military and blies stems 69 Auriga commercial and complete assemblie Y Dr. Nepean, aircraft.

Bombardier; NYSE: HON s for both 613-228-1150 ON Boeing; Gulfstrea 50 / 613-228-1 K2E 2Z7 military; business intelcan.c Ziad Nader 149 om and commercm Aerospace; CEO and president Satellite antennas ial aviation CMC Electron 1973 ; microwav subsystem e/electron s; 415 Leggett ics N ic compone connectiv broadband communi Bulgarian ity.

613-592-6 Dr. Kanata, ON K2K cations products;nts and Ministry of 500 / 613-592-7 48 3RI Information Defence; Roberts airborne cmcelectronics.ca Rick Snedden 467 Flight Departme Region West Africa; director of Designs, manufact nt hardware Corporation of Aeronautics and Indonesian Searidge 1903 engineering ures and integrates navigation, Technolo Astronautics; de Aviation 300-60 Camelot gies Y de Cuba communi solutions. surveillance and air (parent company) Aerospace Dr. Supplier Nepean, ON traffic managemcations, including airport of turnkey aviation 48 agencies; and high tech; airlines; ent CNS/ATM NYSE: TDG 613-686-3 K2G 5X8 Moodie Cheikh governme developm infrastruc military 988 ent. nt ture projects searidget CEO and co-founde Cockpit avionics; ech.com 2005 r communi components; Boeing N embedded cations antennas systems; enhanced ; specialize GPS receivers; NAV Canada, 1220-45 O’Connor flight managemd electronic factors engineeri vision systems; of Singapore NATS, Civil Aviation St. Ottawa, ON ent heads-up ng.

Authority 26 displays; human Services de , Dubai Airports, Direction 613-745-8 K1P 1A4 Charles S. Remote tower 111 “Duff” Sullivan des Civil Aviationla navigation aérienne, boeing.ca / 613-745-9779 and digital managing Departme Hong Kong airport solutions. director of nt 1999 Canada Boeing Hypernetics, Y Division of DND; PSPC; NYSE: BA Systems Plaintree Canadian Inc. Space Agency 10 Didak Dr. 20 613-623-3 Arnprior, ON K7S David Watson Commerc 434 0C3 ial plaintree.com / 613-623-8603 CEO and defence and military aircraft; systems; launch satellites; 1972 communication *These companie weapons; systems; advanced electronic Y systems; performa s did not respond Collins Aerospac information CNSX: NPT nce-based to this year’s e, Honeywe logistics and and Aerospace, survey in training.

Meggitt Aircraft ll, Heico, Goodrich time for publicatio General Atomics Braking Systems, Manufacturer n. This informati on is from market, such of electromechanical previous years. components electroma as wheel speed transduce WND = Would for gnetic not disclose. rs, proximity the aerospace magnet alternatowheel indicators switches, , indicator rs. flags and permanen t

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

EXCLUSIVE: OTTAWA’S HIGHEST-PAID EXECUTIVES

Which of Ottawa’s largest aerospace companies designs engine testing systems for Air France?

360

Lockheed Martin Canada 870-45 O’Connor 613-688-0698 St. Ottawa, ON K1P 1A4 / 613-688lockheedmartin.ca 0702 Leonardo 1100-500 DRS Palladium 613-591-5 Dr. Kanata 800 / 613-591-5 ON K2V 1C2 drs.com 801

350

Lorraine Ben chief executive Martin Canada of Lockheed

1981

1995

Y NYSE: CW

Y NYSE: LMT

Northrop Grumman ; Boeing; Lockheed Raytheon ; BAE Systems; Martin; General Dynamics

Defence; systems

11 12 13 14 15 15 15 18 18

20 21

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No. of local Key local employee s executive 1,400 Neil Wilson president and CEO

SPONSORED CONTENT

uOttawa Kanata North ramping up Smart Connected Vehicles Innovation Lab If your company operates in the CAV industry, uOttawa wants to talk

uOttawa associate professor Burak Kantarci says the university’s track record of successful collaborations with industry on various technologies is paving the way for the school to assist businesses working on connected and autonomous vehicles.

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anata North is a growing hub for connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) innovation, but what does local industry need to take it to the next level?

Look at any successful technology ecosystem that has come before, anywhere else in the world, and one consistent theme emerges – the process of getting great products to market is greatly enhanced by collaboration and knowledge transfer between academia and industry.

That’s why the University of Ottawa established its Kanata North campus – to be at the heart of the action and help local tech clusters accelerate development and shorten time to market.

As its next step in this mandate, uOttawa-Kanata North is ramping up for the late summer 2021 launch of its Smart Connected Vehicles Innovation Lab. This 4,000-square-foot expansion at 535 Legget Dr. includes meeting and collaboration space and simulators to put CAV research to the test before it hits the road.

“The Lab will be open-access, providing a space for students, researchers, the CAV community and our partners to convene and collaborate,” said Veronica Farmer, uOttawa’s director of partnerships and commercialization. “Our proximity to the Kanata North CAV cluster and the public test track makes our lab a great addition to the existing ecosystem and complements the pursuit of CAV innovation in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.”

The Lab will be staffed by a team of 15 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and research associates led by uOttawa associate professor Burak Kantarci. He already has an impressive track record working with local companies on application-based R&D. His research team with diverse experience and skills will cover a variety of areas critical to the development and commercialization of CAV technologies – wireless networks, IoT, mobile computing, cybersecurity, AI, signal processing, machine/deep learning for mobile systems, and cloud and fog systems.

This combination of expertise and resources provides the local CAV industry with a cost-effective and low-risk environment in which to advance R&D projects to a high Technology Readiness Level, said Kantarci.

“We are encouraging industry to come work with us in the space, both physically and virtually, to de-risk development, advance technology and solutions and accelerate prototyping for faster time to market.”

The potential outcomes encompass much more than just wheels on the road, Kantarci added, with applications in a number of areas related to connectivity, smart cities, public safety, road management and disaster resiliency.

“At uOttawa, we have already had successful collaborations with industry in the areas of cybersecurity, cyber-physical systems, vehicular sensing and data analytics, and the outcome has been either joint patents, improved services/solutions or joint publications,” he said. “Many of the commercialization and technical challenges that the CAV industry is facing right now, we will be able to address with the range of capabilities we are bringing to the table.”

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Come talk

uOttawa’s Kanata North Smart Connected Vehicles Innovation Lab is expected to open by late summer, 2021.

But its team is active in research and ready now to engage with local industry and discuss research opportunities and collaborations that will lead to new innovations with global impact. Learn more by contacting Veronica Farmer, director of partnerships and commercialization, at vfarmer@uottawa.ca.

Veronica Farmer is uOttawa’s director of partnerships and commercialization.

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OBJ.social is supported by the generous patronage of Mark Motors, Sparks Dental and Marilyn Wilson Dream Properties. STORIES AND PHOTOS BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

PHILANTHROPY

Gary Zed’s holiday campaign projected to pass $1M; extended through winter

businesses that are really hurting,” said coffee shop owner Todd Simpson, who threw in an extra 25 gift cards for The Ottawa Mission. It’s an organization he’s always tried hard to support.

Simpson told OBJ.social that business has dropped by 90 to 95 per cent since the pandemic first hit. Most of his customers are public servants who are now working from home. His downtown coffeehouse used to serve more than 400 people daily. Now, he’s lucky to have 50 customers a day.

“It’s devastating,” he said.

The funny thing is, even during their greatest time of need, small businesses

are much more comfortable with helping others than being helped, Zed has learned. He had a difficult time convincing the owners to accept his generosity and, in many cases, they still insisted on contributing extra.

“Thousands of businesses in our community are experiencing something almost cataclysmic, yet when I called many of them to say I want to support them, do you know what their first question was? ‘What can we do to help?’” said Zed incredulously. “It’s in their DNA. I almost forcefully needed to say, ‘No, like, you’ve done enough. We’ve got this. It’s time to return the favour.’

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Among the big donors to match the Zed family gift were: Smart Living Properties CEO Tamer Abaza, Broccolini Construction COO Anthony Broccolini, Modern Niagara Group CEO Brad McAninch, CLV Group and InterRent REIT CEO Mike McGahan and Farm Boy partner Jeff York. They are reaching out to their own networks to multiply the giving, said Zed, who, similarly, is still planning to tap into his own connections.

Key to Zed’s giving campaigns is boosting small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. He’s been buying meals, gift cards and warm clothing from local restaurants and retail stores, allowing the owners to earn a few bucks.

All his purchases help Ottawa’s most vulnerable.

He purchased 200 gift cards from Morning Owl Coffeehouse at 219 Laurier Ave. W. that were to be handed out to shelter clients of The Ottawa Mission on Christmas Day. “I just can’t get over what a generous gesture this is, helping out small

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A series of holiday campaigns launched

by Ottawa philanthropist Gary Zed and his family to aid both small business and charity has more legs than an entire fleet of flying reindeer.

The successful investor and entrepreneur started spreading his goodwill at the start of December with a $100,000 gift. It’s since been matched by enough business leaders to push the campaign past the $800,000 mark, and counting. Zed was contacted by the donors – some entirely out of the blue – after they read about his matching campaign.

Zed plans to keep making an impact, long after the last needle-shedding Christmas tree gets tossed to the curb.

He believes it’s crucial the campaign continues during the tough winter months.

“Hunger and homelessness don’t have a start and stop on the holiday calendar,” he said in an interview, while he and his children prepared to host a large BBQ for those who rely on The Ottawa Mission for meals.

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OBJ.social is supported by the generous patronage of Mark Motors, Sparks Dental and Marilyn Wilson Dream Properties. STORIES AND PHOTOS BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

CULTURE

Snowsuit Fund of Ottawa hosts Gala-In-A-Box Edition to help keep kids warm throughout winter What little kid doesn’t get excited over the first big snowfall of the season?

A little kid who doesn’t have a proper snowsuit, that’s who.

That’s where the Snowsuit Fund comes in. It’s a cherished little charity here in Ottawa that makes sure every child in our

region has access to the necessary outdoor winter wear so that they can make snow angels, go sledding, get their tongue stuck to icy metal fences if they’re not careful, all while living in one of the coldest capital cities in the world.

“We want kids not only to survive but to thrive,” said Trina Fraser, the volunteer board chair of the Snowsuit Fund and a

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partner with Ottawa law firm Brazeau Seller. “We want them to go outside and play, to want to go outside and play.”

Each year, the Snowsuit Fund provides more than 16,000 snowsuits to babies and children up to the age of 15. It relies solely on donations from individuals, groups and businesses in order to serve low-income families in the region.

Normally, the charity holds its annual Snowsuit Fund Gala in November, a popular night out that features dinner, dancing and major fundraising. Due to COVID-19 restrictions on large social gatherings, organizers instead packaged all the gala highlights and delivered them to people’s front doors.

“We’ve really been trying to put together a package that is really fun and exciting for people, something to look forward to,” explained Fraser. “We’re all kind of stuck at home in this rut, doing the same thing, kind of day in and day out.”

The fundraiser was co-chaired by Snowsuit Fund board vice-chair Danny Kingsbury, retired vice-president and general manager with Rogers Media, and Lise Clément, principal at Lansdowne Technologies. Her company has ordered a dozen Gala-In-A-Box packages as a way of celebrating the festive season.

With the extra money they saved on their holiday party budget this year, they can afford to splurge on the Snowsuit Fund’s online auction.

CULTURE

Ottawa Art Gallery kicks off online art auction with virtual VIP dinner parties Whether they were in desperate need of a better background for Zoom calls or just wished to transform blank walls into conversation starters, dozens of bidders helped to make the Ottawa Art Gallery’s Give to Get Art fundraiser a resounding success.

The local arts organization featured 56 pieces of new and original art that included paintings, photographs, mixedmedia art, sculptures, ceramics, textiles, prints and jewellery. The works were donated by emerging and established artists from the region.

The OAG has got fundraising down to a fine art when it comes to its popular auction, an annual event that normally attracts hundreds of art lovers and collectors for a night of silent auction bidding, combined with food, drinks and socializing. Who doesn’t have a bidding

war story or two to share, such as that sneaky competitor who hovered over the auction sheet for too long and took forev-er to write down their bid as the final seconds ticked down.

The coronavirus pandemic meant the OAG had to use its imagination in how to hold its event this year. Luckily, creativity is what Ottawa’s municipal gallery does best.

The OAG held a two-week-long Give to Get Art exhibition at its 50 Mackenzie King Bridge location. Purchasers of a $35 ticket could participate in the online auction.

Fifty per cent of each sale goes back to the artist while the remaining half goes to the OAG to help with its free educational programs, tours, events and admission.

Supporters heard how OAG is working with different community groups, such

as BEING studio, which supports artists with developmental disabilities. It’s also collaborating with the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre on a program that uses the visual arts as a wellness tool in

mental health.

An integral part of most fundraisers is social interaction. Several members of the OAG board hosted virtual dinner parties that evening.

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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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After spending more than a decade in various marketing jobs at one of the world’s best-known tech companies, Michele Bedford thinks it’s time for a hidden corporate gem headquartered in her hometown to get a bit of the spotlight.

Bedford is settling into her new role as chief commercial officer at Calian Group, a Kanata-based firm that’s quietly become one of the region’s most prominent publicly traded companies.

The 46-year-old Ottawa native was hired in late 2020 with the goal of boosting Calian’s profile on the national and global stage. She’s also responsible for implementing common sales procedures across the firm’s four product divisions and helping Calian raise its game when it comes to bidding on lucrative government and private-sector contracts.

Those are all skills Bedford honed during an 11-year stint at Microsoft, where she began her career in the firm’s Ottawa office devising marketing strategies for the tech powerhouse’s Canadian operations before moving south to Microsoft’s head office in Redmond, Wash., near Seattle.

A mother of two boys aged 12 and 15, Bedford returned to Ottawa two years ago to be closer to family and reacquaint her children with the country where they were born. While working remotely for Microsoft, she began seeking the “right fit in a Canadian-based company” and believes she’s found it in Calian.

Now at more than 4,400 employees, Calian generated revenues of more than $430

Michele Bedford / Calian Group million in fiscal 2020. The highly diversified company operates medical clinics, runs military training exercises, provides IT consulting and cybersecurity services and makes mobile wireless products, satellite antennas and other technology.

Yet perhaps because it doesn’t specialize in one clearly definable product, Calian often remains an afterthought in any discussion of leading Canadian tech firms. Bedford

hopes to change that.

“The good part is the technology is there, the innovation is there, the customer success is there,” she explains. “Now it’s a matter of telling that story publicly.”

Now living in the same Kanata neighbourhood of Beaverbrook where she grew up, Bedford has come full circle.

While attending Clarkson University, a small school in upstate New York

where she studied electrical engineering and business management, Bedford took a marketing class as an elective and was instantly hooked.

“It was awesome,” she says.

“I just thought marketing was where it was at. I never looked back.”

That led to her first job as a market analyst at Kanatabased telecom giant Mitel. Her then-boss Dave Curley – now the chief revenue officer at Ottawa software firm Assent Compliance – steered her away from doing an MBA, assuring her she’d learn more from working with him and his team than she would in graduate school.

“He was right,” Bedford says with a smile. “I went to work for Dave straight out of college, and I learned a ton. That’s sort of the story of my whole career.

Where could I learn the most was where I went.”

She followed Curley to Ottawa software firms Bridgewater Systems and Texar, among other stops in a career that’s seen her work with both multinational corporations and fledgling startups.

Along the way, she adds, her STEM background has been indispensable in a way most outside observers might not appreciate.

“Marketing is math,” she explains, contending that all successful sales campaigns rely on carefully analyzed data. “We’re not the softer side of the business – we’re the value-generation side of the business.”

— David Sali

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Jim McConnery has assumed the role of managing partner at Welch LLP. McConnery, who’s been a partner at Welch since 2007, takes over for Micheal Burch, who held the position for nearly 13 years and will stay on with Welch in a “small role” to help build the firm’s family wealth advisory practice.

KPMG has appointed longtime Ottawa partner Andrew Newman as managing partner for the firm’s Ottawa and Kanata offices. Newman succeeds Grant McDonald, who held the job for nearly a decade and will now focus on his role as the global head of KPMG’s aerospace and defence practice.

Raymond Bohn has been appointed president and CEO of NAV Canada.

Bohn was most recently NAV Canada’s executive vice-president and chief human resources officer.

EY Canada has named Warren Tomlin managing partner of the firm’s National Capital Region office. Prior to joining EY, Tomlin held senior management positions with IBM, Accenture, Fuel Industries and Canada Post.

Thales Canada has appointed Chris Pogue as its new managing director of defence and security. Before joining Thales, Pogue spent two years as president of defence firm MDA’s government operations and, in a career that spans nearly 20 years as a defence executive, has also had stints at General Dynamics Canada and CAE Canada.

Fasken Ottawa has welcomed two new associates to its team. Nabila Abdul Malik practises predominantly in the areas of civil and commercial litigation, international and domestic arbitration, white-collar crime, international trade and investment. Her work has taken her from the Attorney General’s Chambers of Malaysia to the headquarters of the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Shannon Kristjanson focuses on corporate/ commercial, procurement and national security law. She has been involved in a variety of transactions for both private and publicly held companies, including mergers and acquisitions, reorganizations and financings.

The Ottawa Real Estate Board has elected a new board of directors for 2021 that includes president Debra Wright, past-president Deborah Burgoyne, president-elect Penny Torontow and vice-president Ken Dekker. Joining them are directors Chris A. Brown, Danny Dawson, Paolo Farago, Curtis Fillier, Tony McDermott, Erin Peck, Jake Prescott, Anne Scharf and Ralph Shaw.

HATS OFF

D-Squared Construction was honoured with a Philanthropy Service recognition in the Growth 2020 Awards from Canadian Business for its track record of deep involvement in its community.

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With webinars on a range of subjects from the future of artists’ labour, to strategies for thriving as an arts collective and label, to building multi-faceted portfolio careers across disciplines, ARTPRENEUR 2020 challenged boundaries and binaries in search of a path forward for artists to build a stronger creative sector above and beyond mere recovery.

Artpreneur 2020 was made possible thanks to the support of our sponsors: Edwards Creative Law, Patrick Gordon Framing Studio, Ottawa Business Journal, House of Common Studio, and Proctor Shift Consulting.

ARTPRENEUR is available to stream now on all podcasting platforms.

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Visit www.Hillarys.ca for complete list of locations

With COVID-19 grinding the gig economy to a halt, ARTPRENEUR 2020 addressed the economic, social, and cultural disruption of the arts sector in Ottawa and beyond. Arts Network Ottawa and presenting partners Wallack’s, Invest Ottawa, and SHIFTER Agency, were pleased to facilitate valuable discussions and see knowledge shared by panelists, moderators, and audience members alike.

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OBJ’s quarterly newsmagazine can be conveniently picked up at select Hillary’s locations, including World Exchange Plaza, Constitution Square, Place Bell, Minto Place, 1235 Bank St. in Old Ottawa South and 1317 Wellington St W (Wellington Village).

Arts Network Ottawa is proud to announce the launch of the new ARTPRENEUR branded podcast. In November 2020, the annual ARTPRENEUR Conference brought together leading local and national creative experts and business leaders for as a series of webinars to assist artists in building their creative professions. Recorded over the course of the three-day conference, this podcast provides those who were unable to attend access to sessions in audio form.

WELCH LLP OTTAWA BUSINESS GROWTH SURVEY

THE POST-PANDEMIC INDUSTRIES TO WATCH IN OTTAWA J

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ust as COVID-19’s impact was felt differently in various industries, the economic recovery is likely to be unevenly experienced across business sectors.

Already riding a wave of growth prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, a significant portion of Ottawa’s tech firms have maintained momentum through the pandemic – a signal for many that tech will likely be among the city’s fastest-growing industries in the coming years.

With several other sectors expected to continue to face short-term challenges, the tech sector’s relative strength may even help it address its long-standing labour shortage by attracting students to the industry, suggests Jim McConnery, Managing Partner at Welch LLP, which is good news for the city and the recovering economy.

“People will go where the jobs are,” he says.

“As (some) industries continue to do well, and maybe some others are struggling, we’ll see a shift in career paths.”

Similarly, there will likely be an uptick in the manufacturing and logistics sectors, says Andrew Arnott, regional vice-president of business financial services at RBC. Many companies in these industries found creative ways of adapting to the business realities brought on by the pandemic and are poised for future growth, he adds.

“We have a very positive outlook on food processors, manufacturers, wholesalers and anybody that’s aligned with the distribution of

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Stock image, for illustrative purposes only.

food and beverages,” says Arnott.

Respondents to the Welch LLP Ottawa Business Growth Survey say they expect tech companies – which, generally speaking, have more flexibility to operate remotely – to see the most growth. Relatively few expect a rapid rebound in hard-hit industries such as hospitality and retail.

Read the full 2020 Welch LLP Ottawa Business Growth Survey report by clicking the link below:

www.ottawabusinesssurveyreport.ca

INTRODUCING

Welch LLP’s New Managing Partner

Jim McConnery CPA, CA, TEP welchllp.com | 613.236.9191

What business sector will experience the most growth coming out of the COVID- 19 pandemic?

40%

17%

TECHNOLOGY

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

11%

8%

BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

5%

5%

CONSTRUCTION

MANUFACTURING AND LOGISTICS

5%

4%

TRAVEL, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY

REAL ESTATE

2%

1%

RETAIL

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