Kevin Pederson | 32
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Co-founder and President West Coast Canning Kevin Pederson is a serial entrepreneur. been the launch of Canada’s first mobile Buy-in, startups, invention marketing, canning company with my partner Matt he has done it all and he has done it in Leslie (both are UNBC graduates) which Prince George. is changing the way craft breweries One supporter called him “the hardest and cideries do business.” West Coast working person I have ever met” with “a Canning has now surpassed 1.5 million goal in life to stay here in Prince George cans filled. where he can make a difference.” They have been all over beverage He is not above being the guy selling industry’s media for this innovation, raffle tickets or and it’s not the first volunteering in the time he’s been in the He believes that kids’ craft area at an spotlight. He is stirring social development event, but he also the golf industry with and community keeps more elaborate a software invention progress comes in company on initiacalled FirePar that the form of viable tives like the PG Golf keeps speedier, more & Curling Club board, efficient tournament businesses. the Spirit of the North scores. Healthcare FoundaHe got the business tion, Startup PG and other key local bug as a student at UNBC, graduating causes. in 2007 with a double-major in Finance He also believes that social developand Accounting. He bought Repac ment and community progress comes (packing for liquor stores) at the age of in the form of viable businesses. 26. Now he is fixated on innovating and “Today, I still own and manage my boosting local employment, becomfirst company, Repac Products, and ing an economic service to the city he have five companies in total at various loves . stages of startup, including a local craft ice-creamery I started this summer with my father called Frozen Paddle,” he said. “My most recent achievement has
Kyrke Gaudreau | 32 Sustainability Manager UNBC The wheels of life are turning for the He has B.Engineering from McGill, a community better than they ever have Masters and PhD in Social Ecological before, at UNBC, because of the way Sustainability from Waterloo, was an exthe mental gears are turning for Kyrke pert witness at power supply hearings in Gaudreau. He has been a Prince George Manitoba, is a certified expert consultant resident for only about two years but he in the topics of sustainability assessment is spinning with this city’s possibilities for and complex systems, and he is a master the future, and that is symbolized by the gardener. bicycle he rides up that enormous hill His volunteerism also rolls into his work, almost every day. as a director of the He is not only The concepts of comurban cycling file with an inspiration on munity sustainability the P.G. Cycling Club, a campus, he also – a city giving as much board member of the practices what he to the world as it takes, Northern Technology preaches…he is a being food secure and Engineering Socileader in promoting from the local region, ety and the P.G. Public being carbon neutral, Interest Research sustainability. being net providers Group, was previously of energy – are the ideals that Gaudreau on the Kitchener Healthy Communities strives for in his work. It is believed that board and he haunts the public gardens the university should be a leader in these and bike shops of the city. categories, and Gaudreau is the leader of “He is not only an inspiration on campus,” these goals at the university. said one supporter, “he also practices “I look forward to making Prince George what he preaches…he is a leader in the most cycling friendly and sustainpromoting sustainability to everyone he able city in B.C.,” he said. Under his watch meets.” “UNBC became Canada’s ninth Fair Trade designated university, set up a partnership to donate food to St. Vincent de Paul Society, and won Canada’s Greenest Employer for the fourth year in a row.”
PRINCE GEORGE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE | 2016/2017
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