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George Brown College nominates five graduates for prestigious 2008 Premier’s Awards.
The Premier’s Award is equivalent to the Order of Ontario and is awarded annually to outstanding college graduates who have excelled in six categories: creative arts, technology, health sciences, business, community services and recent graduate. The awards will be presented at a gala celebration dinner in London on Feb. 11.
The award recipients were chosen by a panel of business and community leaders. George Brown was proud to nominate the following graduates:
 Randy Morton
Randy Morton’s career has taken him from working summers at his uncle’s 401 Inn in Peterborough to his current position as President and Chief Operating Officer of the world-famous Bellagio in Las Vegas, responsible for all operations of the 122-acre, 3,933 room resort. Named 2008 Nevada Hotelier of the Year, Morton has been instrumental in making Bellagio one of the world’s most luxurious resorts and the recipient of some of the world’s most prestigious hospitality awards. Under his leadership, Bellagio was the first casino hotel and the largest hotel ever to win the coveted AAA Five Diamond Award. The resort also boasts two Five Diamond restaurants. Much of Bellagio’s success is due to Morton’s extraordinary commitment to customer service. He is currently developing and implementing a guest recognition program called Five Steps Beyond Excellence, in which every one of Bellagio’s 9,000 employees is expected to participate. Always after the wow factor, Morton has been involved in a number of impressive projects at the hotel. In 2004, Bellagio unveiled its $375 million, 33-storey Spa Tower, adding almost 1,000 rooms and suites and a state-of-the-art spa and salon. Last year, Bellagio added another stunning new attraction to the resort’s growing list – a 27-foot, floor-to-ceiling, free-standing fountain of melted dark, milk and white chocolate, which has since been officially recognized as the tallest chocolate fountain in the world by the Guinness Book of Records. Morton joined MGM Mirage, which owns and operates Bellagio, after a successful 20-year career with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, managing hotels throughout Canada and the U.S. He was hired when Four Seasons came to George Brown recruiting for its management training program. Morton maintains his connections to Ontario. He recently returned to George Brown to speak to hospitality students and industry members and he commutes every other weekend in the summer to visit his wife and children who spend summers at the family cottage on Stoney Lake near Peterborough.
 Sarah Hamel
You could call Sarah Hamel the cheerleader for Toronto jewellery designers. The Jewellery Arts graduate and entrepreneur has devoted her career to promoting jewellery artists in the city by providing them with a place to work and sell their creations. Hamel is the owner and operator of Made You Look Jewellery Studio and Gallery and its sister store, Made You Look Accessories, both located on Queen Street West in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood. The innovative venue features a studio in the back where artists can rent work benches on a full-or part-time basis to create their jewellery, and a gallery space in front where Hamel artfully displays and sells their wares. Hamel came up with the inspired concept for her business while a student at George Brown. She wanted to create a way for her classmates to launch their careers without having to deal with the problems of running their own businesses. After graduation, Hamel bought a dilapidated building in Parkdale, renovated it and set up shop, helping to revitalize the neighbourhood in the process. Six years later, it’s a stunning success, especially after Hamel expanded, buying and renovating the building across the street. A year after opening, Hamel established the Made You Look Entrepreneurial Award, presented annually to a promising Jewellery Arts graduate at George Brown. The award provides a launching pad for the recipient’s career by making a bench at Made You Look available free of charge for three months – a value of $1,350. Hamel, who gave birth to her son Simon during her first year in business, now devotes some of her extraordinary energy to breathing new life into the 60-year-old Metal Arts Guild of Canada as its current President. In addition to organizing a range of events and launching a new interactive website for the organization, she has donated space in her building to establish the first-ever head office for the Guild.
 Stephen Harwood
As a Certified Cardiovascular Perfusionist, Stephen Harwood keeps patients alive while they undergo complex cardiac surgery and organ transplants. The Manager of Cardiopulmonary Specialties and Co-ordinator of Mechanical Circulatory Assistance for University Health Network for the past five years, Harwood works primarily out of Toronto General Hospital – the country’s largest cardiovascular surgery centre and one of the world’s major lung transplant centres. As head of the largest Perfusionist department in Canada, Harwood is involved in cutting-edge research and experimentation using highly specialized medical devices, such as implantable or external devices that can take over the function of the heart or lungs. In recent years, Harwood participated in two North American firsts in the medical world. In December 2006, he played a key role in the first North American use of the Novalung, an external artificial lung about the size of a CD case that can keep a patient alive while awaiting donor organs for transplant. The revolutionary procedure saved the life of a 21-year-old mother of three and received extensive media coverage. And in June 2007, Harwood helped implant a device called the Impella in a patient’s groin, threading it into his heart so that blood could be brought out of the heart during a critical cardiac procedure. This had not been possible before without opening up the patient’s chest. Harwood is currently involved in ground-breaking research trying to develop a way of regenerating damaged donor lungs, potentially making them viable for transplant. If successful, this could have a profound impact on the critical issue of long waiting lists for donor organs. Harwood lectures extensively both nationally and internationally and has published articles in a number of medical journals. Passionate about his work, Harwood credits the Nursing program at George Brown College for laying the foundation and placing him on the path to his highly challenging and extremely rewarding career.
 Percy Lezard
Functionally illiterate when she enrolled in George Brown College in 2000, today Percy Lezard is studying for her doctoral degree. Since GBC staff helped identify the learning disabilities that had kept Lezard from being able to read or write and caused her public and high school teachers to label her lazy or stupid, her academic career has taken off. Graduating from the Human Services Counsellor program in 2004, Lezard immediately entered the third year of the social work degree program at Ryerson University, graduating with her Bachelor’s Degree in 2006. She was accepted at the University of Toronto and graduated with her Master’s Degree in 2007, then was accepted into the graduate program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at University of Toronto, where she is studying for a collaborative Ph.D. in sociology and equity studies and women and gender studies. Lezard, an Okanagan Nation Member from the Penticton Indian Band Reserve in B.C., faced a number of obstacles growing up: she was moved in and out of the child welfare system on the reserve, her bilateral hearing loss and the as-yet unidentified learning disabilities posed challenges of their own, and at a young age she realized that she was gay or “two-spirited.” While still in her teens, Lezard began fulfilling her desire to serve her community, working as a counsellor and cultural teacher at Aboriginal organizations in B.C. and California. She came to Toronto in 1998, and enrolled in George Brown two years later with the idea of becoming an interpreter for the Deaf, before her experience at the college sent her on an impressive academic path. With a new career goal of teaching, she is already a part-time faculty member in the Assaulted Women and Children’s Advocate Counsellor program at George Brown and a sessional professor in Faculty of Social Work at Ryerson. Lezard is also a part-time HIV/AIDS educator for the Two-Spirited People of the First Nations.
 Richard Boyes
Richard Boyes’ life is all about community service. As Fire Chief of the Oakville Fire Department, he is responsible for fire protection and prevention services for the growing community of 170,000 people. He is also President of the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs, advocating on behalf of public safety issues in the province. Boyes’ career as a professional firefighter came after serving 16 years as a volunteer firefighter on the Alliston Volunteer Fire Department, where he rose to become its Chief. He also ran for public office in Alliston, serving for nine years as Chair of the Alliston Water Commission. With three sons, Boyes has volunteered a great deal of time and energy over the years to coaching hockey and serving on minor hockey associations. Boyes graduated as an electrical apprentice from George Brown College in 1974, the same year he joined the fire department. He worked as an electrician and contractor for many years in his father’s business, eventually taking it over when his father died. But it was firefighting that Boyes was passionate about and in 1990, he closed down the business to pursue a career in the fire service. Relocating his family to London from their long-time home in Alliston, Boyes worked for six years with the Ontario Office of the Fire Marshall before moving to Sarnia to become its Fire Chief. After eight successful years in Sarnia, Boyes joined the Oakville Department in 2005 as Chief, where he is responsible for seven fire stations and a budget of $22 million. Boyes says his training at George Brown has given him an advantage in firefighting because he understands wiring and construction and the ways in which a particular fire may start or accelerate. Boyes has also volunteered as a qualified international judge for emergency auto extraction competitions for the World Rescue Organization and the Transportation Emergency Rescue Committee. In 2002, Boyes received a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal for outstanding and exemplary contribution to his community.
The Premier's Awards
for
Graduates of Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology
The Premier's Awards is an annual provincial awards program created by the government to recognize the important economic and social contribution college graduates make to Ontario. Award nominees receive a bronze medal and direct a five thousand dollar bursary to the college of their choice.
There are 6 categories and one graduate may be nominated in each category:
- Applied Arts: Creative Arts and Design
- Applied Arts: Community Services
- Business
- Health Sciences
- Technology
- New Graduate
The 2007 winners, from George Brown are Bonnie Stern and Elio Pacheco
The 2006 winner, from George Brown is Vicky Cheng
The 2005 winner from George Brown is Deborah
Dudgeon and Beth Jordan
The 2002 winner
from George Brown is Kevin King
The
2001 winner from George Brown is Anthony E.
Brissett
The 2000 Winner,
from George Brown College: Paul Rowan
Nominees and winners for the 2007 Premier's Award:
Nominees and winners for the 2006 Premier's Award:
Nominees and winners for the 2005 Premier's Award:
Nominees
for the 2004 Premier's Award:
Nominees for the 2003 Premier's Award:
For more information contact the Alumni Office at 416-415-5000, ext. 2106
or email
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Revised:
January 11, 2010
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