With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1296256
Since its inception in 1970, Douglas College has launched and grown the careers of more than 200,000 people. People like Melissa Coombes and Jennifer Stafford. To learn more about how you can invest in the education and future of entrepreneurs in B.C., visit douglascollege.ca/foundation. Melissa Coombes Active8 Athletics Melissa Coombes's sportswear brand, Active8 Athletics, was born to humble roots in Yellowknife in 1998, where Coombes was working as a coach and manager at a gymnastics centre. When she noticed the athletes didn't have proper uniforms, she started making them herself. More than two decades and a move to Langley, B.C. later, Coombes wanted to turn this hobby into a career – the only problem was she didn't know how. "I had the skills, the patterns," Coombes explains, "but there were holes in my knowledge on how to run a business. I needed guidance." She turned to the Douglas College Training Group's Self-Employment Program, one of the largest and most successful entrepreneurial training programs in Canada. The provincially funded program, which in just 48 weeks shepherds entrepreneurs through the stages of starting and operating a business, has successfully helped launch over 4,000 businesses since its inception in 1995 – including Coombes's earlier this year. While Coombes expected the hurdles that come with starting a business, she hadn't planned on officially rolling out Active8 Athletics in the midst of a global pandemic. Unable to sell her custom-made gymnastics suits at competitions due to cancellations, Coombes pivoted, trading in sportswear for masks as part of a community project called Operation Mask Up. She's made over 1,000 masks and counting since March. Coombes says she couldn't have got to where she is alone. "The mentorship and funding I've received through the program has been fantastic. Just knowing that there's a bit of money coming in and a community of people I can reach out to has been incredibly helpful." Douglas College's entrepreneurship training for innovators like Coombes continues to expand through initiatives like Bootstrap, a free program for young entrepreneurs, supported by RBC Foundation and RBC Future Launch. Investing in entrepreneurs 19358