Kayleigh McDonald takes home Promising Alumni Award
AJ Aiken, senior writer
Kayleigh McDonald hasn’t got to where she is today by sitting still. McDonald—the 2024 recipient of Camosun’s Promising Alumni Award—graduated from the college in 2019 with a bachelor’s in Business Administration with a marketing major. She also obtained a certificate in Business Administration and diploma in Marketing while at Camosun. As if that wasn’t enough, while studying she started Prismatic Creative Co. as a side business and turned it into a full-time job.
“Camosun was really great because I got to work hands-on with clients for some projects in some of my third- and fourth-year courses,” says McDonald, “which was really beneficial to being able to start my own business and understand how to work with a client right off the bat from having done it in projects.”
The Promising Alumni Award recognizes exceptional alumni who graduated in the last 10 years and have demonstrated a real commitment to others through community service and career accomplishments. Being the recipient of the award has been an exciting achievement for McDonald.
“I think it’s really, really fun and exciting because… not working for a company myself, and I’m working for myself, I don’t necessarily receive those types of accolades where you could maybe get that in a bigger company,” she says. “So, having an accolade from the post-secondary institution has been really great in helping further my expertise in the areas that I was in, the field that I’m in, and just productions that I’ve put a lot of time and dedication into learning, and being the best that I can be.”
Projects were a big part of what made studying marketing at Camosun enjoyable for McDonald; helping clients get their products into new places while using strategies from class made the course fun. She also liked hearing about the instructors’ experiences.
“[I] really enjoyed hearing where they came from and what they were able to achieve with their knowledge,” says McDonald.
One instructor that McDonald found inspiring for her career was Cynthia Wrate, who is also chair of Business. McDonald’s success in business is no surprise to Wrate.
“She had energy, drive, curiosity, worked really well with other people, but wasn’t afraid at all to ask about things,” says Wrate. “She would ask questions. She would delve into topics. She just really wanted to know, and she had a passion for design; she had a passion for advertising promotions, level marketing, communication side of things. But she also had a really strong numbers capability; so, an appreciation for what it would take to run a business. I was very pleased and not surprised to see how well she had done post-graduation. I mean, she’s really built up quite an impressive business in the course of five years since she’s graduated.”
Succeeding in business has its challenges and rewards. McDonald says that the biggest challenge, and one that she’ll continue to face as she grows her business, is not knowing if she’ll succeed or fail. However, the reward is seeing what she has accomplished for her clients and the goals she’s reached. Looking back on how far she’s come is what keeps driving her forward.
“I think for Camosun students today, if they’re struggling to figure out if they want to work for a company or if they want to try and start their own business, [my advice] is to not be scared of the unknown,” says McDonald. “Because going into anything with kind of fear or any sort of hesitation can lead to a downfall quite quickly, but embracing change and embracing fear [is] a way to work towards becoming bigger and better in your professional career.”
Education in her field hasn’t ended for McDonald; she continues to strive to improve her skills.
“I think the biggest thing that has helped me after going to Camosun has been continuing education and always trying to learn and better myself so that I can be offering the best for my clients,” she says.
McDonald also recommends taking advantage of networking opportunities that Camosun offers. She says that although it can be intimidating, sometimes seem scary, or maybe feel unnecessary, it’s a vital part of making valuable connections within the business community.
“Especially in the business program, they do give you opportunities to do networking, and that’s one of the things that I wish I had have done while I was in Camosun, was do more networking events and learn while I was younger because it makes it less scary when you’re older to go to networking events and put yourself out there for your business,” she says. “So, take advantage of the opportunities that the college and that your instructors provide you that are outside of regular class hours.”
Lesley Stav takes home Distinguished Alumni Award
Mackenzie Gibson, senior writer
This year’s Camosun College’s Distinguished Alumni Award went to Red Seal chef Lesley Stav. Graduating from the Culinary program in 1988, Stav had no prior experience in any professional kitchen. In fact, Stav’s first career was about as far from a kitchen as possible—she was a long-haul truck driver.
“I was one of the first women in Canada that actually got her air brakes and her licensing, and this would have been back in the mid-’70s,” says Stav. “I drove a truck for a little over 10 years. And then my doctor said to me, ‘You need to stop doing this, because [you’re] a very small person, and your body is giving up on you’… I thought, well, I’ve been working with exclusively men my whole working career at that point, but I thought it would be interesting to work with women, and that tells you how little I knew about the kitchen.”
With the sudden change in environment, Stav found that cooking brought out a whole new side of her.
“I come from a very creative family. But I don’t sing, I don’t dance, I don’t paint, none of those things,” she says. “And I just kind of figured I was the one that missed all those things. And then I got to school, and I started to cook. To me, it was a perfect medium because there are a certain number of rules that you have to follow, which I liked, but then there was so much more creativity that you could do once you knew what the rules were. And that’s the part that I really shone at and really loved.”
Within those rules, there are infinite possibilities, and Stav was eager to explore every one of them. That’s what has maintained this love for so long.
“The fact that I can do it differently every time, it doesn’t ever have to be the same. There’s always something more you can learn with it. There’s another layer you can make to it, you can do it in a different style,” she says. “Even if you take something as simple as noodles, I mean, how many millions of ways can you cook noodles and serve them… And that’s it. It never gets old, it never gets tired, because there’s always a different way of looking at something.“
With Stav’s longstanding career beginning at Camosun, she’s excited to be recognized by the institution where her skills first took root. And she’s also quite pleased about breaking new ground by receiving the award.
“It’s nice to have that acknowledgment. It is nice to have it from a place that you originally just started from. It’s always nice to be able to go back to something like that and say, ‘Hey, I did it. I made it.’ But I would say, equally strong, in my mind, is the fact that this is the first time that anybody from the culinary trade has received this award. And to me, that’s even more important because then it shows other people that, yes, you can be in this industry for that long, you can survive. Because people hear all the bad things about it. But there are a lot of good things, and you can really make it work and make it successful as well.”
While Stav is being honoured for her skills as a chef, that’s not all that got her the award. Over her years in a variety of kitchens, she’s gained a reputation for being a guiding light to the next generation of chefs.
“I started to be that person that would be called in and say, Oh, well, if you want something done, you know, call Lesley, or if you need to make connections, phone Lesley… I now walk into rooms and I see the people that want more. And I always say that, you know, I can open the doors for you, but you’re the one that’s going to do the work. You’re the one walking through, but I can make the connections for you. Because that’s what people have done for me.”
And for Stav, the award is a reminder of what she learned at the college.
“One of the things that I told my instructors when I left Camosun is that I thanked them for giving me a set of tools to work with, because it will always be there whether or not I chose to stay in the cooking industry,” she says. “I would not ever lose what they had taught me.”