UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA | BUSINESS ALUMNI MaGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2009 Team GREEN Sport swap! Wes Baker and Colleen Hamilton A Paralympian lighten the Olympic eco-load makes it look easy • VANOC chat +• Gaming recycled • Daring disclosures PM 40065475 PM As a CMA, you will know what the numbers mean, and how to turn them into real ideas across your company. Through the CMA Executive Program at UVic, you will strengthen your Strategy, Management and Accounting abilities to make it happen. To learn more, contact Mike Simons at [email protected] or 250.665.7212. CMA of BC.indd 1 9/29/09 9:44:37 AM UVIC BUSINESS ALUMNI MAGAZINE | UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA Contents FALL/WINTER 2009 Business Class is published biannually for: Faculty of Business Features University of Victoria 3800 Finnerty Road Victoria, BC V8P 5C2 11 Doing it right Canada 12 Black to green to gold Phone: 250-721-8264 Colleen Hamilton is shrinking the Olympic footprint, one o set at a time Fax: 250-721-6613 Website: www.business.uvic.ca 14 The anti-pollution advertising solution Wes Baker, enviro-entrepreneur and bane of ‘brand ll’ EDITOR Dianne George MANAGING EDITOR Kirsten Rodenhizer 16 Star for all seasons ART DIRECTOR Timothy R Lee Paralympic track champ Andrea Holmes hits CONTRIBUTORS Jeff Bay, Krista Boehnert, Connor Edwards, the slopes for 2010 Charlotte Ellan, Andrew Findlay, Dianne George, Cristy Hartman, Tiana Mah, Robert Moyes, Sashie Steenstra, Chris Stone, Casting a new ‘net’ Nathan Weathington, Monika Winn 19 You can’t hang your diploma on the wall EDITORIAL BOARD Dale Beckman, Krista Boehnert, Robin Dyke, Pat Elemans, Dianne George, Cristy Hartman without a nail PRODUCTION MANAGER Suzy Williamson 28 Gold-medal grads PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Kristina Borys A Q&A with VANOC’s UVic Business contingent PRODUCTION SYSTEMS MANAGER Kim McLane ADVERTISING PRODUCTION Allison Griffi oen, Miki May, 29 Postcards from abroad Chris Sherwood ELECTRONIC IMAGING Debbie Lynn Craig, Bernhard Holzmann, Laura Michaels Departments 16 SENIOR ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVE Karen Rice For advertising please contact Karen Rice at 604-205-1711 or [email protected] 5Message from the Dean Dr. Ali Dastmalchian on hard work and vision 6 Reading room Our reviews of The Poverty of Corrupt Nations and X Saves the World 7 Giving back A life’s journey leads to a business bursary; KPMG Canada Wide Media 4th Floor, 4180 Lougheed Highway, backs a student business simulation Burnaby, B.C. V5C 6A7 Phone: 604-299-7311 10 Faculty research Fax: 604-299-9188 Reporting to the world Email: [email protected] 20 Alumni in pro le CHAIRMAN & CEO Peter Legge, O.B.C., LLD (Hon.) PRESIDENT Karen Foss Karen Jawl, Jason Hennebury, Lorne Neil and Bob Aura EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Heather Parker 20 Class notes SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Millie Warren 7 SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT SALES Bruce Wiesner Kyle McMillan remembered and more VICE PRESIDENT PRODUCTION Corinne Smith VICE PRESIDENT MARKETING AND DIGITAL MEDIA Samantha Legge 24 Degree at work VICE PRESIDENT EDITORIAL Kathleen Freimond VICE PRESIDENT FINANCIAL Farnaz Riahi Steve Bocska is set to make gaming history 25 Alumni report Business Class is the alumni publication of the Faculty of Business Alumni Professional Development Conference of the University of Victoria. Your comments are welcome. Please write to us: University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2 www.business.uvic.ca Tel: 250-721-8264 Fax: 250 721-6613 26 Faculty news and notes Business Class magazine is published biannually by Canada Wide Media Limited for the Faculty of Business, University of Victoria. No part of this magazine Coach Wolfe locked in and more may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. Phone: 604-299-7311. Fax: 604-299-9188. Mail: 4th Floor, 4180 Lougheed Hwy., Burnaby, BC V5C 6A7. 30 Back of the class Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40065475. The business case for open-source software Send change-of-address notices and covers of undeliverable copies to Canada Wide Media 4th Floor, 4180 Lougheed Highway, Burnaby, BC V5C 6A7. 24 10% Cert no. SW-COC-002226 COVER PHOTO Robert Karpa BUSINESS CLASS | UVIC BUSINESS 3 Wes Baker Message from the Dean As this issue of Business Class arrives in your mandatory co-op, international exchange, integrative management mailbox, the Olympic clock will have ticked down to the final four exercises, professional development, executive mentors and executive months. After more than five years of planning, the opening ceremo- programs—to name a few—forced us to focus and examine all facets of nies are set to begin February 12, 2010, when an expected 6,850 Olym- our operation. It helped us build a strategy in line with current trends in pic and Paralympic athletes and officials will converge on Vancouver. advanced business education and containing clear deliverables. We thought it appropriate to focus on the Olympics in this issue Our priorities for the next three years include the following: because of a few connections to UVic •improving the educational experience; Business: alumna Andrea Holmes is vying •enhancing our reputation; to compete in the Paralympics and several •increasing funding and resources; alumni are working directly for VANOC or •improving student recruitment; indirectly for organizations that support •improving our connection with alumni; the Olympics. •supporting and improving our faculty It’s also because these are the first research; Olympic Games to embed sustainability •creating and preserving our organiza- as an integral part of their mission, vision tional culture; and and values. We too have formalized a •integrating our programs and research commitment to social responsibility and with the rest of UVic. sustainability into our vision, and named Several initiatives will help us reach it as an educational pillar. Within the fac- our goals. A new PhD program in inter- ulty we say, “We act our way into a new national management and organization way of thinking, rather than thinking our has been approved, with the first classes way into a new way of acting.” We did set to begin in September 2010. The new just that in the mid-1990s when two pro- PhD will have an international focus and fessors introduced the concept of social build on our existing values. It will also responsibility and sustainability into their support and improve the faculty’s reputa- strategy course and it stuck. Ever since, tion and research capacity. Another initia- education in social responsibility and sus- tive that will deliver on our priorities— tainability has been part of our values. It and help us reconnect with alumni—is is a natural fit with UVic, home to world- our 20th anniversary celebration, which renowned climate change and ocean sci- begins January 2010. ence researchers, and faculty members, Developing a strategic plan is hard students and staff who are incredibly work. Harder still is realizing that vision. committed to reducing our environmental footprint and contributing To help ensure we stay on track, we have published our educational to the improvement of society. Green strategies are now entrenched in philosophy, vision, promise, aims, priorities and key initiatives in Our student and alumni business ventures, where social and environmen- Promise 2009-2012, available on our website at www.business.uvic.ca/ tal values receive as much attention as the profit motive. In 2009, the discover/promise. I am very grateful to everyone who contributed to this faculty signed on to the UN Global Compact—a first for a North Ameri- document: our faculty, staff, student representatives, advisory board can business school—which requires us to align our operations with 10 and community members. universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the As usual, feedback on our priorities and actions, and anything you environment and anti-corruption. read about in Business Class, is welcome. Please feel free to email me Our formal adoption of social responsibility and sustainability resulted with your thoughts and comments. from our strategic planning process, where every element of our vision was examined. I’m grateful to Eric Jordan (BA ’93), our former entrepre- Sincerely, neur-in-residence, for introducing us to a one-page strategic planning ervices framework (www.gazelles.com/strategic_planning.html). Our commit- S ment to providing an experiential education that is international, inte- grative, innovative and socially responsible, anchored in scholarship Ali Dastmalchian Vic Photo Photo Vic U excellence, means that by design UVic Business is a complex organiza- Professor and Dean Photo: Photo: tion. Delivering on our values through features such as a cohort format, [email protected] BUSINESS CLASS | UVIC BUSINESS 5 | Reading room The Poverty of the reader and serves as a call to action. Corrupt Nations Cullen shares insights into the vicious Roy Cullen cycle of poverty and corruption that Blue Butterfl y Books, 2008, 228 pages exists in many undeveloped countries. He outlines several strategies for We’ve all heard it before. The rich are addressing corruption: accountable, getting richer and the poor are getting transparent governments, government poorer, especially in undeveloped watchdogs (like our attorney general) countries where a very small portion of and an independent press that can the population has abundant wealth, report balanced, unbiased views of a and the majority live in poverty, nation’s workings to its citizens. He also struggling with large families, disease argues that a reduction of trade barriers, and a lack of resources to feed, clothe sustainable natural resource management and shelter their kin. To those of us in and fair labour practices will help the developed world, it has become a developing countries alleviate abject distant and muted refrain, but author and poverty and curb corruption. former MP Roy Cullen gives us a wake- If I lacked faith in our elected offi cials, up call: if all is not well with people on it has been restored by Cullen’s breadth the planet, something must be done to of knowledge and his passion to make the improve things.