Nickel Belt News
Volume 57 Number 9
Friday, March 3, 2017
Thompson, Manitoba
Serving the Norman Region since 1961
Providing you with expert advice & friendly service. Book online at speedyglass.ca or try our free app on your iPhone
We look forward to serving you. Ϳͷ-A Kelsey Bay Thompson, MB R;N ͷS Ph: Ͷͺ-ͽͽ;-ͽͶͺ; Fax: Ͷͺ-ͽͽ;-ͽͷͺ
Entrepreneur’s business about reinventing scrap materials and himself BY IAN GRAHAM EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
Becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t Don Glenn’s aim when he began his first transformation of something that would otherwise be destined for the landfill into a piece of furniture. He just needed a new bathroom vanity. “My fence was falling down and I took some of the material from the fence and was able to make a vanity out of it which sounds funny but it actually looks really nice and my family was like, ‘Why aren’t you doing this for a business?’ and it just kind of snowballed from there,” Glenn explained Feb. 17 when he was announced as Entrepreneurship Manitoba’s Just Watch Me video contest winner for people with disabilities or health concerns in the start-up category. “You have no money so you use what’s around you, right?” Hitting upon a potential self-employment idea couldn’t have come for a better time for Glenn, now the owner of Shorty’s Upcycling Studio in Thompson, where he takes wouldbe garbage and refurbishes it into one-of-a-kind furniture items. He could no longer work in his former field as a mechanic after developing dermographia, a medical condition that causes itching and swelling of the skin “I’m basically allergic to contact and pressure which, at first, it doesn’t sound that bad but when you think of it, you brush your teeth, my mouth swells up and I get itching and burning, Glenn said. “You wash your face, your face all swells up and gets red. At night
I swell up. You scratch unconsciously, then you open sores. If you ever think about when you’ve been in the bush or somewhere where there’s a lot of flies around, you get to a point where you get a fly bite and you’ve had so many that you just can’t take it any more. You almost want to just break into a run and get away from it. It’s like that only 10 times worse and a part of your mind is constantly trying to suppress that urge.” Not being able to work and help support his family or buy the medication that helps ease his symptoms – which costs $2,800 a month and isn’t covered by the provincial health system – was taking its toll, Glenn says. “I went through a real low time mentally,” Glenn recalls. “I was sitting at home on the couch and I can’t pay my bills, I’ve got my kids to look after, I’ve got my family. I was going crazy. I’ve always been doing stuff with my hands and so I had to find something to occupy my mind and to be a productive member of society and in my home. It came right down almost to the point where I had to do it.” Taking his skills from the idea stage to reality was helped along by the Elevate program at Community Futures North Central Development (CFNCD), which is funded by the federal government’s fund for persons with disabilities program and helps rural entrepreneurs grow or launch businesses. “Don’s application was the first Elevate application in the province,” said Dennis Green, a CFNCD busi-
Nickel Belt News photo by Ian Graham Shorty’s Upcycling Studio owner Don Glenn with some of his creations during his announcement as a winner in the Just Watch Me video contest at the Community Futures North Central Development office Feb. 17. ness development officer. “There are now 42 of them. When the judges judged, Don’s video hands-down won right way. They all said this guy should be a motivational speaker.” Glenn navigated the Elevate program with the help of former CFNCD employee Leann Brown, who said it wasn’t always easy. “There were some bumps in the road,” said Brown, who also read an emailfrom Brenda Davidson of the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities congratulating Glenn on winning the video contest. “You’re such a great role model for entrepreneurs with disabilities,” said Davidson’s
email. “Your upcycling work is beautiful. My dad loved the refurbished cabin sign you made. I love the positive message you have for other entrepreneurs.” Glenn says the Elevate program helped him to take advantage of what turns out to be an ideal environment for a business like his. “Thank you Community Futures North Central Development for taking a shot on us,” said Glenn. “I didn’t have much going for us at the time so thank you for the first step. Things were really confusing for us at that point in our lives and [Brown] helped a lot to get us going in the right direc-
tion and helped us through a learning curve as well as a difficult part of our lives.” One thing Glenn doesn’t lack for is materials. “Thompson is kind of a unique environment in that it’s kind of an end of the road community as far as manufacturing goes,” he says. “We really don’t produce and ship out anything other than nickel so a lot of stuff comes here basically to die. We have a real problem with stuff accumulating, which has been great for me. The other day I went in my garage and looked in the corner of my garage and I have a helicopter turbine leaning in the corner. Where else in
CITY CENTRE MALL • 204-939-0010
MON - THU: 9 am - 9 pm • FRIDAY: 9 am - 10 pm • SATURDAY: 9 am - 9 pm • SUNDAY: 10 am - 6 pm
the world could you go to a scrap pile and find that, maybe Russia?” Local businesses have been very accommodating to Glenn when it comes to providing scrap materials, he says. “I’ll get calls – ‘We’ve got this really cool piece in the scrap pile. We’re excited to see what you can make out of it,’” Glenn says. Perhaps the biggest challenge, other than shipping products to out-of-town buyers because of their size and weight, is figuring out how to price the items he creates. “A certain part of it is almost an artistic value,” Continued on Page 5