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In the nearly five years since she graduated from Algonquin College, Event Manager Rebecca Trafford has planned, organized, programmed, and fussed over everything from private events to nationally significant cultural extravaganzas. An alumna of the Event Management program, Trafford has some simple advice for students currently enrolled in the program.

“Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer!” she says.

“Get out there and experience as much as you can. It’s one thing to dream of planning (events), but you need to experience them to really know what worked and what didn’t work. That’s key.”

The Ottawa firm that hired Trafford shortly after her graduation from Algonquin, Chic & Swell Creative Meetings and Events, often solicits volunteers from the College for onsite placements related to specific events. Such practical experience meshes seamlessly with the approach of the College’s program, Trafford says.

“It’s very hands-on,” she says. “The College got us out there on the ground at the events to really experience them and gave us the opportunity to meet the different professionals that one would encounter and work alongside within the industry.”

The program goes way beyond theory, says Trafford. “It really taught you how to be a well rounded Event Manager.”

Nowhere is applied learning more evident that in the annual fundraising events students are required to produce for the Children’s Wish Foundation, Trafford says. Teams of five or six students have to create, market, and run an engaging and successful fundraiser — with no budget.

During her student days, Trafford’s group produced a masquerade benefit gala. “We had over 200 guests and we raised over $10,000 dollars.” That year, her class raised $76,000 overall, she says. Since the program began incorporating these “Wish Events” into the curriculum in 2008, it has raised over a million dollars for the Children’s Wish Foundation.

Giving back to the community in this way was rewarding, says Trafford – but so was the rich experience gained through the student project, supported by instructors. “Everything from (choosing) the theme to picking the venue, to choosing the menu, to selling the tickets, to designing your marketing, to the programming, to the decor, health and safety…. It was fully detailed on how to actually plan an event.”

This past year has been particularly busy for Chic & Swell Creative Meetings and Events. The firm has played a role in a number of Canada 150 and Ottawa 2017 activities, from a New Year’s Eve kick-off event to programs related to the recent 105^th Grey Cup Festival. If Trafford wasn’t involved in planning the events, she was assisting in supplying them with their rental needs through Chic & Swell’s sister company, LouLou Lounge Furniture Rental.

“I would say the hardest thing about event management is juggling all the different tasks,” Trafford says. “Some days I go into work with a plan in mind of exactly what I intend on working on that day, and then the emails come through with last minute event requests and the phone rings and you are sent on a completely different path.”

Mind you, says Trafford, the ceaseless variety is also the best thing about the job. “I love Event Management because it’s something different every day. I am certainly not a cookie-cutter desk job type of girl.”

“I credit Algonquin College for setting me on the path towards my achievement,” she says. “With the experience I gained, the networking I was able to do and the list of events I was able to participate in as a volunteer… I truly think it was a full package in preparing me for the real world of events.”

Graphic artists never really have to give up their designs. They can admire them whenever they want — on the side of a building, the top of office stationery, the back of a business card.

But if Ottawa’s Brendan Droppo, 2011 Graphic Design alumnus, wants to catch a glimpse of his signature artwork, he’d better not blink. It’s likely streaking by at 300 kilometres per hour.

Since grade school, Droppo has had two passions: drawing and motorsports. Now he draws racecars for a living. “One great thing about going to Algonquin was that I was able to sharpen up on all my skills,” Droppo says. “When I wanted to pursue drawing race cars professionally, I was able to go at it full force.”

He doesn’t so much draw racecars as the designs that make each sponsored car unique. It’s an exercise in sports marketing and branding as well as art, and his skill at it has caught the attention of a number of NASCAR racing teams. He’s even designed the look of cars driven by seven-time NASCAR series champion Jimmie Johnson, NASCAR Most Popular Driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott (2018) and Alex Bowman (2018).

Each of his designs, he says, is a “resume on wheels”.

“One thing led to another and now I’m designing more race cars for (NASCAR team sponsors) Lowe’s, Nationwide Insurance, NAPA Auto Parts and Hooters.”

Droppo’s portfolio includes more conventional graphic design as well – logos, brands and digital designs for schools, companies, and services. One prominent Ottawa LOGO that Droppo created when he was still in school only looks like it’s going fast: The Algonquin College swoosh.

Droppo’s role in Algonquin College’s logo redesign a few years back was entirely by chance. It happened during a six-week internship, a key component of the Graphic Arts program’s final year. “I was able to intern in Toronto at an agency and it just so happened that their client was Algonquin and I got to work on the new logo.

“It was fun to come up with the evolution of the logo. As soon as I saw (it), I knew it had to be updated, with kind of a swoosh through it with a more modern font. I was really happy that they chose that – that was really fun to cap off the three-year course.”

Maybe it was also a bit of payback for a college program he describes as “a great experience.”

“I knew what I wanted to do with my career, but I didn’t have the technical skills yet,” he says. “(Algonquin) was a great fit. I learned so much every year and I’m just so thankful that the course provided basically all the ins and outs that I needed in the industry.”

Attending Algonquin is a family affair for Droppo. About a decade after the college opened in the late ’60s, both his parents attended Algonquin – his mom studying to be a legal assistant and his dad preparing for a career in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning.

“It’s just really neat to come here almost 40 years after they did and kind of continue a family tradition, if you will,” he says.

The College gave him the tools to become a successful sports marketing entrepreneur, says Droppo. After that, it was just putting in the work. “There really is no secret. You have to pay so much attention to detail, and be dedicated to your craft and what you believe in, and (in) the product that you want to give your clients.”

Elite Ottawa renovator Steve Barkhouse is at least as proud of building community as building award-winning kitchens and bathrooms.

Barkhouse and his firm, Amsted Design-Build, are staunch supporters of the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, Habitat for Humanity and Hospice Care Ottawa. They are always ready to wield hammer and saw for a good cause – whether it’s repairing roofs at Camp Smitty, the subsidized summer kids camp, or designing and building a gazebo for a west-end seniors facility. His charitable work has earned Barkhouse many honours – including a recent appointment to the Order of Ottawa. Continue reading →