Great news! Atlantic Canada has jobs. Lots of them. In fact, according to Statistics Canada, between April and June of this year, 11,000 jobs went unfilled in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Yet, despite high regional unemployment rates, these jobs continue to go unfilled. So what’s the problem?

There just aren’t enough skilled workers to fill the need.

The solution seems obvious enough – unemployed people need to acquire the education and skills required for whatever industry is in need of workers. But with tuition in many of the region’s universities creeping up to almost $6,000 for a year of undergraduate education, paying for school is a struggle for many.

Aaron Beale is the vice president academic and external for Dalhousie University’s Student Union. Almost daily, he talks with current and past students who are starting their adult lives with an overwhelming amount of debt. He believes that the skills and education gap could get worse as a result of these financial issues. “This could really impact student enrollment in the future. One of the biggest factors in going to school, is seeing an older sibling go,” explains Beale. “But more and more, these younger siblings are seeing their older brothers and sisters ending up crippled with debt, unable to find a good job, or having to move out west to pay off debt.”

According to Kevin Hamm, president and CEO of Halifax’s VistaCare Communications, there is another alternative: training provided by employers, designed to produce employees with the skills they need to reach company goals. As a provider and installer of communications and building security systems (including fibre optics and

communication cabling), Hamm says the only thing holding his company back from realizing its growth potential is that he can’t find enough trained people to fill the void.

Currently, VistaCare pays their trainees to ride along in their trucks. The company doesn’t see any immediate payback, but they do it because they know that in the end, they’ll have a well-trained employee. Meanwhile, Hamm is also working on creating something new: a training

program he’s informally coined “VistaCare U”.

“We would bring young people in and teach them from a curriculum which, in this case, would be everything from fibre splicing to cable structuring,” says Hamm. “We want to work with our province and local college to create a professional program with a professional designation for this type of work.” The idea is to enrol trainees in a 10 to 12 week, in-class program that equips them with the knowledge base to fill VistaCare’s needs. After the successful

completion of the program, VistaCare will have an employee with an ideal skill set, and the trainee will be guaranteed a job.

Hamm thinks this model could work for other industries too. There’s a healthy supply of able-bodied people, with or without post-secondary educations, looking for good jobs. And many of them have a strong aptitude for learning specific skills. Training this population could be the perfect way to fill those 11,000 Atlantic Canadian jobs.

— Sarah Sawler

Online extras: atlanticbusinessmagazine.com | 11

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Prince Edward Island Jennifer Vessey

Prince Edward Island Lennie Gallant

For more information about the events, how to buy tickets and how to get involved, please visit redcross.ca/humanitarian

Nova Scotia Mel Boutilier

We are proud to announce the 2013 Humanitarian Award Recipients

2013 Young Humanitarian Award Recipients

New Brunswick Arthur Irving

Newfoundland & Labrador

Bruce Templeton

Nova Scotia Cassidy Megan

New Brunswick Alisha Virmani

Newfoundland & Labrador

Ashley Gosse

Find out more

$6,000+Typical first year

tuition for 62 per cent of Atlantic

Canada universities

On-the-job trainingOne company’s innovative approach to creating its own skilled labour force 11,000

Estimated number of unfilled jobsin Nova Scotia, New Brunswick

and Newfoundland and Labrador between April

and June, 2012

VistaCare employee Jordan Taylor, in training. Photo: Dwight Naugle, VistaCare

After the successful

completion of the program,

VistaCare will have an employee with an

ideal skill set, and the

trainee will be guaranteed a

job.

make these make sense

take a walk in our parks

Maple syrup is a sweet business. So sweet, in fact, for a fifth generation maple syrup producer in New Brunswick that he turned what is typically seen as a seasonal business into a year-round venture when he opened Briggs Maples in 2010.

Located in the Fundy Chocolate River Station, a popular tourist destination in Riverview offering a great view of the region’s world-famous Tidal Bore, Briggs Maples is a combination processing plant, retail gift shop and maple syrup museum. Here, visitors can see maple syrup bottled and transformed into other sweet treats – and even sample maple taffy on snow, any time of the year. “I wanted to capture the tourist market and continue to develop my wholesale business,” says owner David Briggs.

Briggs certainly knows maple syrup. It’s one of the reasons he was selected as one of 16 state and provincial representatives to take part in a survey on new international grading and labelling guidelines. He submitted samples of pure NB maple syrup that were combined with samples from the other syrup producing states and provinces to help set new standards that will provide consistency across the producing area.

It makes sense that Briggs would know the industry since he grew up in the province ranked the third largest producer of maple syrup in the world after Quebec and Vermont – the province that is currently home to the president of the International Maple Syrup Institute (IMSI) board of directors, New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association general manager, Yvon Poitras; the province that recently hosted the joint meeting of IMSI and the North American Maple Syrup Council for the first time ever; and the province that has two of the largest maple syrup producers in the world, including the largest organic producer.

Yes, a sweet business indeed. — Trudy Kelly Forsythe

SaWeet!Cashing in on maple syrup

make these make sensemake sense

iParks Moncton

take a walk in our parks

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W10 0 NAME/COMPANY/ HIGHLIGHTS R ANKING LOCATION

35 Sydney Ryan & Cindy Roma • 123% 3-yr revenue growth Co-CEOs, Telelink Call Centre • $5-10M annual revenue

St. John’s, N.L. • 138 employees

56 Tamara Barker Watson • 17% 3-yr revenue growthCEO, Whitestone • $10-15M annual revenueDevelopments Ltd. • 76 employeesHalifax, N.S.

70 Melanie Lang • 221% 3-yr revenue growthCEO, NAKAI Group • $2-5M annual revenueMoncton, N.B. • 45 employees

78 Laura Araneda • -7% revenue growthPresident, Vic Progressive • $5-10M annual revenueDiamond Drilling Inc. • 101 employeesSussex, N.B.

88 Lilia Fraser • 15% 3-yr revenue growthGeneral manager, • $5-10M annual revenuePump House Brewery Ltd. • 55 employeesMoncton, N.B.

98 Shelley Fleckenstein • 31% 3-yr revenue growthDirector, Kings • $2-5M annual revenuePhysiotherapy Clinic • 23 employeesNew Minas, N.S.

Beat the drumSix Atlantic Canadians included in list of country’s top 100 female entrepreneurs

The 2013 ranking of the PROFIT/Chatelaine W100 top female entrepreneurs in Canada is proof, if any is needed, that innovation is alive and well on the east coast. Winners were selected by a complex formula that combines sales, three-year growth rates and profitability, with all information vetted via official financial statements. Which means that the following weren’t given this honour: they earned it.

Ship shapeGroundbreaking vessel reports for duty in Oceanex fleet

As of October 2013, a brand new custom-designed container ship, the Oceanex Connaigra, is officially on the job, providing weekly inter-modal transport services between Montreal and St. John’s. The largest Canadian f lag Con/Ro ship on the water, it has 13,700 sq. metres of available space and a deadweight capacity of 19,300 tons. Constructed by Flensburg Shipbuilders in Germany, the Connaigra already meets strict environmental regulations that won’t come into effect until 2015.

14 | Atlantic Business Magazine | November/December 2013

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Gordon Stevens, the Halifax entre-preneur behind Uncommon Grounds coffee shops and I Love Local Halifax, thinks it’s time to start celebrating the companies that helped shape Nova Scotia. “You see these graphic tees with things like ‘Bob’s Bait Shack’ on them. They’re completely made-up, but people buy them by the tens of thousands,” says Stevens. “We have something real for people to remember.” And it’s important to Stevens that people start sharing those stories.

After bouncing the idea around for about five years, Stevens decided to open Lost Cod Clothing Co., a shop on the Halifax waterfront that, ironically, bears a vague resemblance to a bait shack. Visitors can choose from a variety of vintage Nova Scotian logos, from Bluenose Ginger Ale to Bell Packing Co. Next, they pick out a hoodie or a t-shirt, and voila! Instant, customized souvenir – or declaration of Nova Scotian pride.

Lost Cod uses logos and branding that either reflect a deep history in the community, or highlight the way life once was in Nova Scotia. In some cases, the shirts tell sadder stories – about how government involvement can sometimes hurt businesses. Stellarton’s Clairtone factory is a perfect example.

Ultimately, Stevens wants the next generation to understand that “everything doesn’t come off a container in China. We used to make stuff.” He references Nova Scotia Carriages and Motor Car Co, which once made luxury cars that cost four times as much as Model Ts. He hopes that if people continue to talk and share tales about these businesses past, the stories will inspire new ideas, and Nova Scotians will start building something new from the remnants of their lost history. —Sarah Sawler

Telling talesCommemorative clothing celebrates entrepreneurial past

(L-R) Gordon Stevens and Tyler LeBlanc in the Lost Cod Clothing Co. store, downtown Halifax. The company offers customizable clothing featuring symbols of businesses past. Photo: Michelle Doucette Photography

Online extras: atlanticbusinessmagazine.com | 15

Kevin Lynch is the vice-chair of BMO Financial Group and an officer of the Order of Canada. He’s also the co-founder of 4Front Atlantic, a three-part annual that brought Atlantic Canadian business professionals together to brainstorm ways to kick-start the economy. According to Lynch, it’s critical that a way be found to keep young people in the region, and also attract young immigrants. And he believes that supporting technology start-ups is the key. “The more we’re able create an eco-system that supports start-up firms, the more we’ll increase the incentive to stay in Atlantic Canada,” Lynch explains. “It could really change the dynamic, maybe even pull people back from other parts of the country. It will also attract immigrants, which we desperately need in Atlantic Canada.”

He says that the region is already experiencing the beginnings of a technology boom. Notable examples include New Brunswick’s social media monitoring service, Radian6 Technologies, which was purchased by San Francisco’s Salesforce Marketing Cloud in 2011, as well as a number of successful ventures in Halifax, inspiring the launch of the HPX Digital conference. “We’re creating the critical mass where

science and business are coming together to create new firms,” explains Lynch. “And they’re not just trying to sell into traditional markets, they’re marketing globally.”

Lynch thinks Atlantic Canada has just about everything it needs to build a vibrant industry from this new base. With the region’s abundance of respected schools, its well-educated population, and

the growing excitement about this new technology potential, it appears to be well positioned for future growth. Mentors, asserts Lynch, are the only missing element.

“We have successful business people, but we really need them to take on young folks and give them the wisdom of their mistakes as much as their successes,” says Lynch. —Sarah Sawler

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Technology uprisingAtlantic Canada poised for explosion of technology start-ups

“ We’re creating the critical mass where science and business are coming together to create new firms.” KEVIN LYNCHvice-chair of BMO Financial Group and co-founder of 4Front Atlantic