Vancouver, British Columbia, October 21, 2008 – In recognition of their entrepreneurial drive and growing success, the Business Development Bank of Canada's (BDC) 2008 Young Entrepreneur Award winners will be honoured tonight at a ceremony in Vancouver. The awards are a highlight of Small Business Week, which runs October 19-25 under the theme: "A world without boundaries, open to new markets".
"These creative young entrepreneurs have the ability to see opportunities where others wouldn't and they have put all their passion and energy into turning those opportunities into successful businesses," said BDC President and CEO Jean-René Halde. "This year's winners stand out for their leadership, passion, setting new trends in the use of technology and making a difference in their communities."
This is the 21st year that, through its Young Entrepreneur Awards, BDC has recognized this country's up-and-coming business people between the ages of 19 and 35. The winners are selected by a panel of business people, based on criteria including originality of the business concept, its success, growth potential and social involvement. The committee also considers the entrepreneur's age when the business was started and any special challenges overcome.
Special awards
Two additional special awards will be presented during tonight's ceremony.
The Export Excellence Award will be presented to the winner with the most outstanding export objectives, strategies and results.
The Corporate Social Responsibility Award, introduced this year for the first time, recognizes a growing commitment by young entrepreneurs to social responsibility. The award will go to the winner whose company stands out in terms of practices and policies promoting environmental protection, sound human resources management or community well-being.
The 2008 Young Entrepreneurs, by province and territory, are as follows:
Alberta – Ted Kouri and Jared Smith, both 33, Incite Solutions Inc., Edmonton
Nine years ago, a shared passion for marketing led these two innovators to create Incite Solutions, specializing in marketing solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. With a strong focus on relationship-building, they have refined their approach and expanded the business into a flourishing, full-service marketing company. By combining research, planning, strategy and execution services under one roof, they are helping clients to build enduring customer relationships. Incite Solutions' success has garnered national recognition on PROFIT magazine's 2008 list of Canada's "next 100" fastest growing companies.
British Columbia – Harry Chemko, 29, and Jason Billingsley, 30, Elastic Path Software, Vancouver
With a $15,000 start-up loan as their only outside financing, this pair has built Elastic Path Software into a $10 million company which competes with software giants like IBM and Microsoft. After starting out in 2000 as a consulting business for companies wanting to get online, Harry and Jason spotted a niche that led them to develop a mid-sized e-commerce retail software solution which they then brought to market. Today, their software is used by the online retail sites of some of the largest brands in the world from Google to Samsonite. Elastic Path counts more than 180 customers worldwide, with 91 staff in two countries.
Manitoba – Robb Denomme, 31, Genuwine Cellars, Winnipeg
Robb was just 17 when he helped business partner Lance Kingma to build a wine cellar. The two started out making wine cellars on request for a specialty wine shop and as demand began to grow, established Genuwine Cellars in 1995. The design capability and quality of the craftsmanship attracted clients from Canada, the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Now one of the world's premier manufacturers of these custom-made products, Genuwine Cellars caters to an "A-list" clientele of renowned hotels, business figures and celebrities.
New Brunswick – Dan Martell, 28, Spheric Technologies, Moncton
In just a few years, Spheric Technologies' Facebook-type social networking innovations have become a hot property with Fortune 500 clients throughout North America. Dan started Spheric as a computer consulting company with a team of high-tech talent working remotely from locations across Canada. To connect with each other, the team developed extensive expertise in social networking tools such as video, podcasting, wikis and micro-blogging. Showcasing Spheric's advances in this area, Dan pursued North America's major systems integrators and demand for his team's services skyrocketed.
Newfoundland and Labrador – Matthew Hickman, 34, Kean's Pump Shop, St. John's
Since he acquired Kean's Pump Shop in 2004, Matthew has transformed the water pumping business into a flourishing, multi-faceted company. Today, the business provides water, air, heating and ventilation systems and services for municipal, commercial and domestic clients. Matthew and the shop's team, all of whom stayed with Kean's through the transition, have reduced their reliance on less profitable areas and built service-related revenues by bringing a higher standard of professionalism to customers small and large. Tapping into the fast-growing demand for home energy efficiency solutions, the company's Aire Serv franchise will expand into Halifax in 2009.
Northwest Territories – Lina Ball, 29, Bella Dance Academy, Yellowknife
In 2003, Lina took her passion for dance and built it into a thriving business that is growing by leaps and bounds. The only studio of its kind in Yellowknife, Bella Dance Academy offers ballet, tap, jazz, modern and hip hop classes as well as dancercise and classes for parents and tots. The business has more than doubled with 35 classes per week and more than 300 students. In 2008, Lina moved the academy to new larger premises to keep up with high demand for her increasingly popular classes.
Nova Scotia – Maurice Meagher, 34, Archadeck of Nova Scotia, Halifax
Opening the first Archadeck franchise in Nova Scotia in 2003, Maurice has brought a unique style to custom-designed outdoor living spaces. Archadeck designs and builds environments for outdoor living, including decks, screened porches, sunrooms, outdoor kitchens and specialized exterior lighting. Maurice and his team have established steady year-over-year-growth by offering homeowners and builders a turnkey solution. He plans to capitalize on emerging opportunities arising from proven demand for screened porches and sunrooms, ever-growing interest from custom home builders and strong potential in the exterior lighting market.
Ontario – Sidney Sommer, 33, UCIT Online, Mississauga
An ad for a digital video camera that could be controlled live over the Internet led Sidney to create UCIT Online (pronounced You-See-It-Online), today a multimillion-dollar business. UCIT Online, founded in 2002, installs these cameras on construction sites and feeds the video to a monitoring centre where an alarm alerts the centre to any trespassing. Working directly with the police, the company averages two arrests a week, a record in the security industry. The company has branched into the transportation and manufacturing sectors and launched a new service called Remote Concierge that replaces building concierges with round-the-clock remote monitoring.
Prince Edward Island – Dico Reijers, 34, InternetWorks Ltd., Charlottetown
From selling Web sites door-to-door to providing a sophisticated Web-based system for provincial tourism departments, Dico has come a long way in 12 years. A turning point came when he won a contract with Tourism PEI for an online accommodations reservation system. This led to a long-term relationship and a system that Dico has evolved and expanded to encompass all aspects of a tourism department's business in one slick package. Today, InternetWorks' innovative solution has also been adopted by the destination marketing organization that runs Nunavut's tourism industry and has sparked interest in other parts of North America.
Québec – Patrick Brassard, 34, Passive-Action, Montréal
While on assignment in Indonesia for a steel company, Patrick discovered Québec had little to offer in the field of passivation, a chemical process used to treat stainless steel surfaces for the prevention of rust and corrosion. Just eight months after returning home in 2004, this go-getter jumped on that opportunity and opened Passive-Action. In a short time, work was flowing in from major clients in Québec, the Maritimes, Ontario and the western provinces. Patrick then acquired his main competitor, making Passive-Action the largest company of its kind in Canada.
Saskatchewan – Doug Elder, 33, and Danny Elder, 27, Off Axis Boardshop Ltd., Regina
With their finger on the pulse of Regina's youth culture, these brothers have built a business that caters to wakeboarders, snowboarders and skateboarders, and also includes lifestyle events that attract big-name sponsors and young people in the thousands. A shared passion for wakeboarding propelled them to open Off Axis Boardshop in 2000. They started organizing lifestyle events which were soon attracting sponsors such as telecom companies and auto dealerships. Today, these events feature vendor villages where patrons, numbering well over 10,000, can shop for all kinds of youth-oriented items.
Yukon – Rebecca Brauen, 33, Lilli Pie Lotions Natural Spa, Whitehorse
Forced to leave her job when her daughter, Lilli, was recovering from an early childhood health condition, this single mother began making natural skin care products and selling them at craft shows. She then trained as an esthetician and opened her own boutique in 2005. Rebecca has since built her business into a thriving full-service day spa that's the only one of its kind in the region. She now plans to expand her flourishing operation by marketing her hot-selling line of Yukon Green Clay specialty products right across Canada.
Small Business Week partners
National sponsors of Small Business Week and Young Entrepreneur Awards include: Rogers, Western Economic Diversification Canada and Export Development Canada. Privileged partners are the Pan Canadian Community Futures Group and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which has been a privileged partner of the event since 1981.
About BDC
BDC is Canada's business development bank. From 94 branches across the country, BDC promotes entrepreneurship by providing highly tailored financing, venture capital and consulting services to entrepreneurs. BDC works with entrepreneurs in all industries, through all economic cycles and focuses on helping small and medium-sized businesses in their development projects, local and global. BDC manages a $10.6 billion loan and investment portfolio and serves over 28,000 clients. Small and medium-sized businesses make up 99.7% of all employer businesses in Canada.
Small Business Week is a registered trademark of BDC.
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For more information or to arrange for an interview with the YEA winners on October 21:
BDC Media Room:
604-893-7343
1-877-232-9321
After October 21:
Johanne Bissonnette
Media Relations Manager
(514) 283-7929
Contact by email
