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(2010)
CATHERINE VU
»When Catherine Vu was honoured in the Top 40 class of 2010, she had been running her company, Pro-Active IT Management, for seven years. Today, Vu is proud of the services the 20-year-old com- pany has provided clients, but running a profitable company has always been a means to an end.
“I always say that my business supports me in the lifestyle that I want, which
is: enough money to live, but enough time to give,” she says.
Vu’s given plenty over the years, through work with organizations like Alberta Easter Seals and the Canadian Cancer Society, among many others. And she recently finished her two-year chair with NorQuest College’s 1000 Women, which raises money for women in STEM.
Looking back at her younger self, Vu sees a woman who wasn’t entirely sure of her path, but now sees that “it was the beginning of the journey. She was doing the right things, and becoming her own person. I realized that to achieve my dream of becoming a philan- thropist, I don’t need a billion dollars. I just supported one charity at a time, and now
I’m living my best life and supporting my community.” –Cory Schachtel
(2011)
JASON GREGOR
» On June 14, at 9 a.m., Jason Gregor got the call that TSN 1260 was going off the air. He found out at about the same time listeners were greeted with the announcement that Bell Media had pulled the plug on the radio station.
“It was like 40,000 listeners had been broken up with, and they didn’t know why,” said Gregor.
But he wasn’t down for long. Since 2005, he had run his Just a Game show independently, acting as his own contractor, pounding the pavement to attract sponsors. So, after
he had discussions with The Nation Network and Susan Reade from Stingray, which owns radio stations across the country, he hatched a plan for Sports 1440, which launched in September.
Gregor received an hon- orary technology degree
from NAIT for his on-air accomplishments and years of community and philan- thropic work. He’s helped raise millions of dollars
with organizations including Santa’s Anonymous and the Alzheimer Society of Alberta. And the purpose of the Gregor Foundation, which he created in 2013, is to supply outfits for high school graduates who
can’t afford them.
“When they called me, I
thought they were going to be asking for a donation,” he says. “But it was humbling. It’s an absolute honour to put in the work, and it’s nice to be recog- nized for the work put into the community as a whole.”
NAIT also awards a Jason Gregor bursary annually to a deserving student. But he says his listeners and sponsors deserve a lot of the credit for seeing these charitable initia- tives through. –Steven Sandor
(2012)
LISA BAROLDI
»When we first honoured Lisa Baroldi in 2012, we were im- pressed with her work raising funds and securing contracts for a variety of organizations, including one from Alberta Human Services to help reduce the disproportionate number of Indigenous children and youth in care. But “fundraiser” isn’t
a job children dream of doing when they grow up, so we wondered: What was she like as a kid?
“When I was younger, I al- ways had a penchant for helping the underdog... And I think that that runs through everything that I’ve done in my career.”
That penchant probably
“I believe that where we’re from shapes who we are, and I just always knew that I wanted to be a voice for where I’m from globally. So when I got
to school in Ottawa, at the so-called ivory tower of where Canada’s foreign policy was assessed, down the street from where it was made, I always thought, how would people back home respond?”
Three years ago, Baroldi became the president and CEO of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Edmonton. “I realized when I got here that that commercial real estate has a PR problem — there’s great people in the industry doing incredible things in the community, but they tend to put the buildings first, they don’t put the people first.”
Baroldi connected with past colleagues in the Indigenous community to create the first Indigenous inclusion project for commercial real estate.
“I keep thinking we better prepare this industry because urban reserves are a reality. Indigenous communities and companies are becoming more involved in commercial real estate. They’re developing and owning and starting
to employ more people.
So there’s a groundswell of Indigenous economic sover- eignty and increased activity in business, and we see
this as opportunities for partnerships.”
–Cory Schachtel
came in part
from growing
up in the small town of High Prairie. Baroldi hasn’t lived there for a while, but from the time she left for Ottawa’s Norman Paterson School of Interna- tional Affairs
to become a Canadian dip- lomat (which totally tracks), she’s kept it close to her heart.
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