The Spirit of Winnipeg Awards 2012
The recipients of the five categories at the 2012 Spirit of Winnipeg Awards were:
Charity: Siloam Mission
Not-for-Profit: Assiniboine Park Conservancy
Start-up Business: Premiere Executive Suites
Small Business: Neil Bardal Funeral Centre
Medium Business: Win-Mar Freight Group
Large Business: Canad Inns
Innovation is about striving for better approaches and practices that contribute to the vibrancy of our businesses and our city. Innovation enriches our city, but for many businesses and organizations today, innovation is about survival.
The Spirit of Winnipeg Awards are presented annually by The Chamber and BDO Chartered Accountants to six local companies, charities, and not-for-profits that have embraced change by taking a concept or idea and choosing to do things differently. This year, the Spirit of Winnipeg Awards were held March 2, 2012 at The Fairmont Winnipeg.
PROFILES OF RECIPIENTS AND FINALISTS 2011
CHARITY:
Siloam Mission (RECIPIENT)
Siloam Mission is a Christian humanitarian organization that alleviates the hardships of Winnipeg’s poor and homeless and helps them transition into healthier, self-sufficient lifestyles. A connecting point between the compassionate and less fortunate, Siloam partners with more than 4,300 volunteers and donors each year, providing 1,200 meals every day, 110 beds per night in their emergency shelter, holistic health care (including a gym and free dentistry and optometry), employment training, clothing, art programming, one-on-one transition services and 87 units of supportive housing for people who are ready to move forward, but need supports in place.
Immigrant Centre of Winnipeg (FINALIST)
Over its 64-year history, the Immigrant Centre has provided a range of settlement services and programs free of charge, encompassing the immigrant experience from arrival and initial orientation to immediate and long-term needs involving adaptation and integration. If immigrants are to achieve independence and successfully integrate into Canadian society, they require complete and accurate information. For the Centre, the key to staying focused and innovative, despite rapid growth – last year, the Centre helped 15,434 clients, up 33 per cent - is to constantly ask not only what its clients need today, but what they will need tomorrow.
Winnipeg Harvest Inc. (FINALIST)
Winnipeg Harvest collects and shares surplus food (donated by the food industry, farmers and gardeners or through food drives, special events and individuals) with people who are hungry. In 2010, nearly 58,000 Manitobans received food each month from Winnipeg Harvest and their local food bank. Winnipeg Harvest must continue to be innovative and look at ways to distribute food donations to its more than 320 partner agencies in Winnipeg, rural Manitoba and First Nation communities (including soup kitchens, shelters, drop-in centres and schools). However, its ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for food banks. Meanwhile, in 2010/2011, more than 383,000 hours (equivalent to 192 full-time positions) were donated by volunteers to sort and repackage incoming food at the warehouse and to deliver snacks to daycares.
NOT-FOR-PROFIT:
Assiniboine Park Conservancy (RECIPIENT)
Starting from scratch, Assiniboine Park Conservancy was challenged to not only drive the most significant development in Assiniboine Park in the past 80 years, but to simultaneously integrate the functions and operations of more than 20 city functions and four distinct not-for-profit entities that had been operating autonomously. A private-public, not-for-profit corporation, Assiniboine Park Conservancy is responsible for ensuring that the park is transformed into "one" park with various attractions, amenities, services and programs. It was created in response to a need for significant focused commitment and re-investment to ensure visitors have an experience unlike any other, whether this is achieved through the development of stunning new facilities, new marketing initiatives or new programs.
Boss Guitar Works – Ecole Selkirk Junior High (FINALIST)
BOSS Guitar Works is a teacher-supervised, student-driven guitar-making program with a twist. The twist is that the guitars have been used to support 16 charities and community organizations to the tune of more than $53,000. Almost all the work is done at lunch hours, after school or on non‐instructional days, such as Spring Break. Inspired by the philanthropic activities of the band Rush, BOSS Guitar Works now has become a force all its own. Students have moved well beyond the traditional "bake sale" approach to where they donate a guitar that a charity can take and raise an almost unlimited amount of money. Winnipeg Harvest was able to realize $1,800 from having BOSS Guitar Works involved in its latest event. The students have also developed relationships with more than 35 corporate sponsors, well beyond the traditional realm of school fundraising.
Extended Education, University of Manitoba (FINALIST)
Extended Education at the University of Manitoba provides a significant educational bridge between the university and its communities by partnering with stakeholders to offer innovative, flexible educational programs. It increases access to university study through innovative curriculum and delivery methods, and addresses economic, cultural and geographic barriers to success. Extended Education, one of the largest, most diverse academic units of its kind in Canada, also encourages interdisciplinary thinking and a culture of academic entrepreneurship.
START-UP BUSINESS:
Premiere Executive Suites (RECIPIENT)
Premiere Executive Suites – Canadian Prairies provides fully furnished condominiums to predominantly business travelers, visiting and working in Winnipeg. The extended-stay accommodations industry is relatively new in Canada, but the objective is to provide a home-away-from-home, where travelers can cook, do their own laundry and enjoy the comforts of a separate living space. Premiere fills a void in the Winnipeg market, currently providing some 30 higher-end suites, featuring brand new furnishings and housewares with a fresh, contemporary feel.
365 Technologies Inc. (FINALIST)
365 Technologies operates as an outsourced IT department for businesses without internal IT staff and offers its services for an all-inclusive fixed monthly fee. In addition to remote and on-site troubleshooting of network issues, 365 uses monthly best-practice reviews to fine-tune security, infrastructure and backup elements, plus quarterly myCIO (Chief Information Officer) meetings to ensure business owners maintain a strategic view of their technology management. This comprehensive approach embeds 365 as a trusted advisor to the business, moving beyond the ad hoc service provider approach. The use of technology and innovation through task automation is essential for 365’s service delivery.
Cruise Media Group Inc. (FINALIST)
Many organizations are realizing they are involved in social media whether they choose to participate or not. Cruise Media Group thinks of itself as their business development or public relations arm and helps them join the conversation by developing, managing and creating a social media platform as well as implementing strategies to increase brand awareness. Cruise Media humanizes businesses and connects with people on an emotional level, creating and fostering long-term relationships. A variety of specialized tools (video, iProfile Personal Branding Tools, etc.) are used to create and develop relationships with targeted audiences.
SMALL BUSINESS:
Neil Bardal Funeral Centre (RECIPIENT)
Since 1894, four generations of the Bardal family have been in the funeral service business. The family has always welcomed change and today the Neil Bardal Funeral Centre’s indoor Garden of Memories is the first of its kind, legislated as a legal place to inter cremated remains on private property. The Centre has further adapted to society’s changing needs by embracing social media and offering Webcast services. The Centre also believes giving back to the community is important - the Neil Bardal Concert Series highlights Winnipeg’s musical excellence and designates proceeds to charity.
Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods & Oils (FINALIST)
Hemp foods helped change the life of Mike Fata, Manitoba Harvest CEO. At over 300 pounds, Mike was battling health issues and unable to live the active lifestyle he desperately wanted. After a friend introduced him to hemp foods, Mike and two co-founders started Manitoba Harvest to promote change in others. Today, Manitoba Harvest is the world’s largest vertically-integrated hemp foods manufacturer, selling seeds, protein powder, oil, organic beverages and more across North America and Europe.
Parenty Reitmeier Inc. (FINALIST)
Parenty Reitmeier provides translation services in more than 100 languages for manuals, catalogues, training and safety materials, marketing literature, Web sites, software and audio/visual. Translators who live in their native countries are used because they are better versed on how a language is evolving and can localize translated documents. After noticing a growing trend for clients to train their worldwide employees via eLearning, Parenty Reitmeier set up an in-house multi-media studio, where it now records voice-overs and inserts subtitling.
MEDIUM BUSINESS:
Win-Mar Freight Group (RECIPIENT)
Win-Mar’s job is to move customers’ freight. After growing its customer base and owner operator network for over 10 years, and successfully implementing the succession plan of two of its original owners, the company re-organized and took on a new look. This move – the addition of two shareholders to the logistics arm - acknowledged that both customers and carriers require a significant and detailed amount of attention. Under the new ownership group, the company was recognized within four years as Canada’s 2nd Fastest Growing Company by Profit Magazine.
Pitblado LAW (FINALIST)
In a traditional sense, Pitblado LAW is a law firm that provides business-based legal services to its clients, but in a broader sense that is only part of the process. The way Pitablado approaches the law and its relationships with its clients enables them, based on the firm’s values and how they live those values, to fulfill the role of trusted advisor.
Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP (FINALIST)
TDS, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, is one of the largest full-service law firms in Manitoba with more than 70 lawyers, providing services in over 20 areas of practice in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian. All that TDS is, it owes to its clients. TDS recognized its clients’ increasingly complex needs and joined Anita Wortzman to form Acumen Corporate Development, which provides companies with a structured, comprehensive approach to the planning and execution of growth by acquisition, financing and other strategic opportunities. This relationship appears unique among North American law firms. TDS also is a founding member of Lex Mundi, the world’s foremost association of independent law firms, representing 160 member firms in over 100 countries.
LARGE BUSINESS:
Canad Inns (RECIPIENT)
Canad Inns is Manitoba’s largest hotel chain and serves more than nine-million customers per year at its 12 hotels and affiliated restaurants, banquets and nightclubs in Winnipeg, Portage, Brandon and Grand Forks. It is an innovator in hospitality concepts, working with community and public sector partners to develop unique destination concepts, such as a hotel on the campus of Health Sciences Centre. Believed to be the first attached to a major health care facility in Canada, this hotel will support families staying close to hospitalized relatives, as well as provide first-class services to staff working on the health sciences campus, as well as visiting physicians, scientists and health-care professionals.
AECOM (FINALIST)
AECOM is a global provider of professional, technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water and government. With approximately 45,000 employees around the world, AECOM provides a blend of global reach, local knowledge, innovation and technical excellence in delivering solutions that create, enhance and sustain the world’s built, natural and social environments. At AECOM, innovation begins with its people. A commitment to excellence inspires the pursuit of novel solutions that substantially improve project delivery and performance.
Magellan Aerospace (Bristol Aerospace) (FINALIST)
Magellan Aerospace has been a pioneer in Canada’s aviation and aerospace industry and has a reputation for developing and manufacturing quality products, defect free and in conformance with customer requirements. In an industry where keeping ahead of the technology trajectory is key, Magellan has shown remarkable innovation in developing business paradigms in collaboration with educational institutions, like-minded organizations and government agencies to develop new programs. Magellan set out and has become Canada’s sole designer and supplier of small satellite buses, and has opened one of the most advanced composite materials centres in North America.