Joe Baker is a multi-passionate entrepreneur within Canada's tourism, hospitality and education sectors and a vocal advocate for an inclusive, future-forward industry. Joe also worked as Dean at the Centennial College School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts where he led the most significant transformation in the school’s over 50-year history.

Joe serves proudly on the board of directors for Tourism HR Canada and Tourism Industry Association of Ontario and is currently the CEO of Joe Baker & Co., a hospitality and tourism industry consultancy specializing in thought leadership, human capital, and operational excellence.

We had a great talk about Joe’s mission to help save Canada’s tourism industry, starting with some startling statistics to help frame up an appreciation for what a major economic driver tourism is for us in Canada.

"We're changing the culture; going from a bureaucratic organization to a customer service-centric organization..."

Dan Carter is the freshly re-elected mayor of the City of Oshawa, Ontario.  This conversation was recorded within less than 40 hours of the official election results announcing his return as mayor with the goal of understanding his vision for the City for the next 4 years and his personal commitments to drive the organizational change necessary for bringing that vision into being.

Wednesday was a pop vocal group from Oshawa who, among myriad other achievements, scored a hit single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1974 with their cover of the Wayne Cochrane song (later made famous by Pearl Jam), "Last Kiss", which peaked at #34 in the USA and #2 on the Canadian Charts.  The band was made up of a group of friends who collectively agreed that once they saw the Beatles on TV, that was it.  They needed to do that.

This podcast is another one of our live, open-discussion format episodes, recorded a few weeks ago at Kops Records in downtown Oshawa. with one of Oshawa’s pioneering rock and roll bands, Wednesday.  The interviewer for this episode is music journalist, archivist, and writer, Will McGuirk.  Will also operates the art/music and culture blog, SlowCity.ca.  This discussion also features Glen from the 1950’s/60’s Oshawa-are band, The Blue Jays who adds some interesting historical highlights about what the local scene was like for area musicians gigging in the very early days of rock and roll. 

Right around the day we’re releasing this, Wednesday is receiving a Lifetime Achievement award at the Oshawa Music Awards, so congratulations to the whole band for that and now please enjoy this conversation with Wednesday…

Did you know Oshawa may have received cannon fire from an American ship in the War of 1812?  What about the fact that Oshawa's first police chief also wrote a gossip column for the local newspaper?

History often best comes to life when it's told through the stories of the people who lived it and that's the work of local artist Eric Sangwine in a nutshell.  For this episode, we convened in front of a live audience at Kops' Records in downtown Oshawa for a discussion facilitated by history enthusiast Claudio Faria, Eric, and Oshawa Museum curator, Melissa Cole.  What you're about to hear is a fun, wide-ranging and markedly non-linear telling of some niche parts of the history of Oshawa; we hope you enjoy it.  

"We’re bridging the gap for the Venezuelan legal scholar who is currently working in a Halal burger joint because that kind of brain waste makes me crazy!”

Born and raised in Oshawa, Mary K. Ritter is a Professor in the School of Professional Studies at New York University and a cofounder of NYU’s Collaborative for New Immigrant Education. As a Diversity and Inclusion Consultant, she helps international professionals and managers of global teams understand one another better.  In this episode, we discuss what it takes to help solve some of the language gap between newcomers and prospective employers/collaborators.

Derek Burleton is Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist at TD Bank.  A few weeks ago, we at the Oshawa Chamber co-presented an economic outlook webinar with Oshawa Economic Development Services and TD Bank where Derek presented an up to date economic outlook of the current economic landscape, touching on housing, inflation, global conflict and other issues that are impacting our current economy.

This audio is extracted from the webinar recording and features a brief introduction from the current mayor of Oshawa, Dan Carter.  If you'd like to view Derek's slide presentation, you can view or download from our website.  You can also watch the video of the recorded webinar on our YouTube channel, right here.

“The only time we actually grow is when we’re learning something new or when there’s a whiff of danger in the air…”

Nicholas Boothman is a bestselling author and speaker who has sold over 3 million books in nearly 40 languages.  In this episode, we pick up the conversation off the back of his recent keynote, How to Connect in Business in 90 Seconds or Less, given at the Durham College School of Business, IT and Management.

Andrew Valyear is a high mountain backcountry adventurer and guide, as well as the founder and president of the award-winning smart home company, Uplynk, his company that turns homes and businesses into high-tech work & living spaces.  In this episode, he shares the deepest corners of his journey as an entrepreneur, starting with building computers in the family business at the age of 10, through the high mountain glaciers of British Columbia, and back home again where he found himself…completely stuck.

Those who know Andrew (spoiler alert!) know that if he hasn’t totally overcome his fear-based inertia, he has certainly become highly skilled at managing his way around it and...

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.dent.global/accelerators/ - The accelerator program that Andrew says improved his focus and changed his business forever.

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly.

In this episode, we go deep into the origin story, the outcomes, the local influence on the James Bond stories, and how locals trained as saboteurs slowed the advance of the Nazis toward Normandy.

Wendy Giroux is the CEO of the Durham Region Association of Realtors, an organization of over 1,500 members set up to promote a high ethical standard for REALTORS® by providing vital services, benefits and training needed to succeed.  Wendy joins the podcast to talk about the problem of housing affordability, brought into focus by the surges in pricing but rooted in a supply issue.  But how did we end up with such a massive gap in supply, and what uncomfortable truths will we need to accept if we're to fix the problem?