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/1471305
JULY/AUGUST 2022 BCBUSINESS 47 TOP: ADELE THOMAS ter says of the inspiration behind their career. Prior to Awl Together Leather, they had sole proprietor- ship over an alteration service out of Eastside Re-Rides, a leather apparel consignment shop in Vancouver. The pandemic kept them busy enough to hire staff and start looking for a bigger space—Gobeil was one of the new hires. "When I first met Tess, I was very impressed by her approach to being another young underrepresented person in the leather industry," says Grutter. "And that's sort of how our friendship started into business." BOTTOM LINE : Both Grutter and Gobeil point to gatekeeping as an industry trend that they're looking to challenge with their business, which they opened in 2021. With older white men dominating the cobbler profession, the pair noticed a serious lack of diversity and encouragement for young people. "We combat that by doing open studio time once a week where our staff come in to make their own projects and ask us questions, maybe things they don't get to learn in regular shifts," says Grutter. East Vancouver's Awl Together Leather repairs everything from boots to jackets to upholstery goods. In their first year of business, they've served over 1,400 custom- ers, expanded from three to six staff members and generated around $300,000 in revenue. –R.R. A R I S S G R U T T E R & T E S S G O B E I L AGES: 28 Co-founders, Awl Together Leather Inc. LIFE STORY: Ariss Grutter and Tess Gobeil knew they didn't look like typical cobblers when they went into boot manufacturing. The co-founders of B.C.'s only female and queer- owned leatherwork and shoe repair shop connected on a very important note: they both felt underrepresented in the leather industry. Funnily enough, Grutter and Gobeil were pursuing higher studies in Montreal at the same time but never crossed paths until they returned to Vancouver five years later. Grutter, who immigrated to Canada from Johannesburg as a child, was shining shoes to help pay for university. And Gobeil, who's from the Fraser Valley, was mostly inter- ested in bookbinding and letterpress printing. In 2015, Gobeil graduated from Concordia University with a degree in studio arts (although she transitioned into shoe repair shortly after), and Grutter, who studied inter- national development and epidemiol- ogy, graduated from McGill in 2016. The duo's passion for leather had already crystallized by then. "I am a trans person and I also run in queer trans leather circles," Grut- J A K E M C G R E G O R AGE: 28 President, Minerva Intelligence LIFE STORY: Jake McGregor's career path feels old school—the type of trail that was blazed 50 years ago. You know the drill: university standout gets a job at a resources company right out of school and rises to the top of the ranks in short order. It wasn't quite that simple for McGregor, but the bones are there. The North Vancouver native earned a geography degree (with distinction) from the University of Guelph before coming back to his hometown and becoming a GIS specialist with Minerva Intelligence, a software company that helps embed AI into more traditional industries like mining. But it wasn't long before McGregor was climbing up the executive ladder at the business. First, he was named head of geospatial technol- ogy, then chief oper- ating officer. Last October, he became president. "I equate it to a lot of ambition, and just not staying in my lane so much," McGregor says. "Being given the opportunity to say what I think the company should be doing and being listened to by our co-founder [chief software architect David Poole], CFO [Charles Jenkins] and others in the organization. They allowed me to speak my mind about our business strategy, even though I was in a technical role." BOTTOM LINE : Vancouver- based Minerva was founded in 2017 and has just over 20 employees. Since McGregor has been part of the company's leadership, revenues have quintupled. –N.C. Tess Gobeil and Ariss Grutter Jake McGregor