By Darren Campbell -- Up Here Business thought it was about time we brought you the stories of some of the North’s most prominent businesswomen, to celebrate modern-day pioneers who continue to make inroads into what largely remains, sadly, a man’s world.
It’s an interesting and varied cast of characters, from CEOs of multi-million-dollar corporations to women running small businesses. Some you’ve heard of and some maybe you haven’t. The one thing they have in common is that they’re making their marks on business up here. It wasn’t hard to fill out the list. In fact, there were plenty of other candidates we could have profiled, women making immense contributions to the North’s economy and business community. We look forward to sitting down with some of them next year.
Thinking outside the cube -- Dee Enright’s a marketing whiz who has decided to call the Yukon home
For Dee Enright the businesswoman, the goal is always simple. “If I say I’m going to do something, I deliver,” she says. “And I make things happen on time and on budget.”
Dawson City’s anorak innovator -- Skookum Brand anoraks have turned heads in Canada. Now Dawson City’s Megan Waterman wants to branch out to the world.
When fashion designer Megan Waterman moved from British Columbia to Dawson City, Yukon in 1997, the toughest adjustment for her wasn’t the cold but the clothes. “I had trouble with outer wear,” she says. “It’s big and bulky and it wasn’t fun. I couldn’t see why it couldn’t be comfortable, functional and durable.”
Waterman’s solution to her problem would turn out to be the Skookum Brand anorak, a lightweight luxury jacket she designed and made for people who live in higher latitudes. Inspired by Inuit designs, Waterman created a jacket that looks good and allows you to enjoy the cold, not just survive it.
Since creating the Skookum brand in 2005, Waterman’s anoraks have garnered plenty of attention. International Polar Year has endorsed her jackets. At the 2007 Design Exchange DX Awards in Toronto, Waterman’s anorak’s won the DX Staff Choice Award, given out to the project the staff feels is most worthy of special recognition. Skookum anoraks are now sold in Iqaluit, Whitehorse, Dawson City and Yellowknife as well as in Vancouver, Toronto, Banff, Mt. Tremblant, Que., the U.S. and Norway.
Waterman’s anoraks are often adorned with wild fur. That might not sit well with some southern customers. But Waterman makes it clear her company believes in ethical fur and the humane harvesting of it. She consults with Yukon trappers and says she donates five per cent of anorak sales to promoting habitat conservation. It’s important to her to support ethical Northern trappers.
“The trapper is the steward of the land,” she says. “They have to keep it healthy so the animal population is healthy and sustainable.”
Part of the allure of the anoraks may be that Waterman doesn’t make many of them – only 500 per year. But that may change. She says she would consider a partnership with a company outside the Yukon to grow her business, which goes by the name of Northern Garments. She’s already got her eye on a new market for her anoraks, Finland, and would like to expand the Skookum line to include pants, hats and children’s wear.
“I like new things. I like stimulus. I’m a little bit restless,” she says. “I’d like to see our sales expand and become more of an established brand. I’d like the Skookum Brand to be thought of as a cold weather specialist, right alongside brands like Canada Goose.”
Waterman knows there’s more work to do before that happens. But so far, she’s off to a good start.
On challenges and chocolates -- Yellowknife’s Leanne Tait is equally at ease working on corporate ad campaigns or preparing tasty truffles.
When Leanne Tait moved back to Yellowknife in 1999 after almost two decades of living and working in the south, her plan was to stay at home with her two pre-school kids and work a bit less than she had back in Edmonton. “But then I got a really interesting job to work on and I starting taking on more and more. I get bored easily. I like to take on new things and new challenges.”
And that’s how Tait Communications and Consulting Inc. came to be. This small but mighty marketing and communications company has gone from a one-women show to a company with nine employees and a mix of government, diamond mine and other corporate clients.
Since graduating from the University of Alberta in 1983, Tait’s worked in the publishing, communications and marketing professions. She also had experience running her own business. She co-owned Currie and Gerard Communications, an event managing company in Edmonton. But when work started taking her lawyer husband, Glenn, away frequently on trips to the North, they decided to move back to Leanne’s hometown of Yellowknife.
The decision has worked out well. Since relocating, Tait’s worked with clients like the Alberta Chamber of Commerce and De Beers Canada and on the NWT government’s successful “Don’t Be a Butthead” kids anti-smoking campaign. Tait says her success as a businessperson comes from a simple philosophy. “Always take the high road. The North is too small for you not to have huge integrity. Reputation is everything.”
So is trying new things. In 2007, Tait launched another business – The Chocolatier – with partner Claudia Richea. The shop sells high-end chocolate treats. Tait says it isn’t making her rich, but she is having fun and it’s hitting its sales targets. As for Tait Communications, Tait’s keen on growing the company and developing a succession plan. “I want to develop the people in the company so I could disappear and nobody would know the difference,” Tait says.
Warning: turbulent times ahead -- As president of Canadian North, Tracy Medve is in charge of an airline that’s flying in exciting (and trying) times.
As a consultant, Tracy Medve helped the Inuvialuit buy Canadian North airlines in 1998. A decade later, Medve finds herself running the airline she helped the Inuvialuit acquire. “I had one foot in and one foot out of the airline anyway,” Medve says when asked why she took the job as president of Canadian North in 2007. “It seemed the timing was right.”
A graduate of the University of Saskatchewan’s law school, Medve got her start in the airline business by talking her way into a job as general counsel for what was then known as Norcan Air out of Saskatoon. From there she moved on to Lethbridge-based Time Air before starting an aviation consulting company with Carmen Loberg in the early 1990s. That company is the one that helped the Inuvialuit buy Canadian North.
Loberg would move on to become president of NorTerra Inc. – a holding company owned by the Inuvialuit and the Inuit of Nunavut – and when Tom Ruth stepped down as Canadian North president in 2007, Loberg offered the job to Medve.
It was a big opportunity and one that appealed to Medve. She says she always liked the idea of Canadian North, who owns it and where it operates. And now she is the public face of a company with over 300 employees, a multi-million dollar fleet of aircraft and a growing business that flies passengers and cargo across the NWT, Nunavut and the rest of Canada. In fact, the airline launched service into seven new communities in Nunavut’s Baffin region last spring – just months before the stock market crash.
“Expansion now would be tougher. But we were going to have to do it anyway,” she says. “We have to be in the North. It’s where our owners and customers are.”
As a leader, Medve says she avoids micro-managing her employees. “We have people who know what they are doing. I don’t interfere in the day-to-day stuff,” she says. “I think [the employees] look for overall guidance from me and to help them get over the challenges.”
But don’t mistake her distaste for micro-managing for ambivalence. Like any good lawyer, Medve’s up for a fight and she was quick to defend her airline’s interests recently when WestJet announced seasonal service from Edmonton to Yellowknife, starting in May. She accused the Calgary-based airline of cherry picking and vows that her company, with deep roots in the North, will thrive in the face of the challenge.
