management practices and hands-on professional
tourism skills required by industry today!
Since 2000, I have worked in various faculty roles with Thompson Rivers University, Langara College as well as Management roles with the Business Development Bank of Canada (ISO 9001), Tk’emlups te Secwepemc (Kamloops Indian Band) and the Economic Development office for the City of Kamloops.
Within the university setting, I am responsible for teaching undergraduate courses to tourism management students with a focus on how to gain professional skills for a career in the tourism industry. In the public administration setting, I worked as Senior Partner and General Manager leading the business development activities, the promotion of consulting & advisory services as well as overseeing the financial management.
I have lived in Kamloops since 2004 and have traveled extensively to all of the BC economic regions and Yukon Territory providing consulting services with the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) Consulting Group. My network includes government agencies, industry associations and small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) among all industry sectors. BDC’s Business Centers are located throughout the province (Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George, Kelowna, Terrace, Prince Rupert, Smithers, and Whitehorse Yukon and Yellowknife, North West Territories ).
Working in a distributed team format was critical to reaching departmental goals and objectives. Key knowledge holders required daily communication for input on key decisions and approval of content for the preparation of consulting proposals, funding applications, and reporting requirements. My distributed team at BDC also consisted of reporting to colleagues situated in offices virtually in every metropolitan Capital City in Canada.
Working as General Manager for the Kamloops Indian Band Development Corporation, I oversaw five business entities and corporations, all staff, subcontractors and partnerships. In this role, I gained extensive experience in resolving complex staff, evaluating managers, hiring C-level individuals, reporting to the Chief and Council, dissolving a business, and addressing all HRM roles with focus on performance management.
At BDC I was personally accountable for more than 400 business planning projects with 42 of them helping Indigenous organizations. My success centered around effective leadership and communication among colleagues/peers, contract administration, budgeting for targeted profit margins, seeking legal advice to assess risk, and qualifying vendors.
Most notably, I worked as Procurement Lead for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project on spread 5A. I negotiated and completed 15 strategic partnerships for the construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline Project and BC Hydro Capital Projects.