MASTER OF MULTI-TASKING
If managing a business and raising two teenagers wasn’t daunting enough, MacNaughton co-chairs an annual ringuette tournament every March break that draws 2,000 girls to Moncton. She “loves” to scrapbook and spends a few hours each week teaching classes at her husband’s business (MY GYM Children’s Fitness Center). She is also taking a correspondence course from the New York Institute of photography and “sneaks off” to the gym three times a week.
SAGE ADVICE
Chief among the wisdom that guides MacNaughton is the phrase: ‘make business decisions, not emotional decisions’. “I learned this from my financial consultant Charles Gaudet and I have never forgotten it when I am making big decisions.” Asked if she has other advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, she responds: “Don’t be afraid, think big. If you have an idea and you have done your research and it all makes sense, go for it, all the way!”
Brenda vanDuinkerken President, Duinkerken Foods | Charlottetown, PEI
TURNING POINT
In 2000, Brenda vanDuinkerken weighed a mere 97 pounds. Six years earlier, she had been diagnosed with celiac disease (an intolerance to wheat protein for which there is no cure or medication). Once she adopted a strict gluten-free diet, however, her health recovered and her weight returned. Still, she missed breads and sweets and the gluten-free products on the market were “tasteless”. She decided to make the gluten-free diet more enjoyable for herself and other disease sufferers. Today, the company she founded has a 2,700 sq. ft. facility in Charlottetown, employs six people full-time and produces bread, muffin, cookie, waffle and biscuit baking mixes, plus a line of vitamin-enriched flours.
EXPANDING MARKET
Since Duinkerken Foods was incorporated in 2005, the gluten-free market has exploded. “Gluten-free is one of the fastest-growing markets in specialty foods (internationally),” she says. The reason for this surge in growth is better awareness and diagnosis of the disease, with one in 100 people now having some form of the disease. LUCKY BREAK Her first customer was Cisco Foods, which introduced her products to hospitality and nursing facilities throughout Atlantic Canada. “That opened the door for a lot of other business.” She then approached the top grocery retailers in Canada and the U.S. to try her products. “They were as anxious as I was to get the products on the shelves.” Today, Duinkerken mixes and flours are sold in most of the leading supermarkets and specialty stores throughout North America. “It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s been rewarding for sure.”
FOOT IN THE DOOR
Earlier this year, vanDuinkerken became the first woman business owner in Atlantic Canada to receive WeConnect, Canada’s Women Business Enterprise Qualification, an international standard that opens access to contracts with Fortune 500 corporations in Canada and around the world. “It’s going to open a lot of doors,” she says “and a lot of times that’s all we (businesspeople) need.” Indeed, her company has experienced a significant boost in product sales since becoming certified.
Michele Stevens Owner, Michele Stevens Sailoft Ltd. | Lunenburg, NS
IN HER BLOOD
A seamstress who operated a quilt and drapery store before opening her Sailoft in 1994, Michele Stevens is a fourth-generation sail maker and the first female to continue her family’s century-old tradition. Nestled in Nova Scotia’s scenic Second Peninsula, near Lunenburg, her year-round operation employs three full-time sail makers who handcraft and repair cruising sails for private and commercial boats of all sizes, from dinghies to yachts.
CLAIM TO FAME
The Stevens family has a storied history of sail making that began with her great-grandfather Randolph during the glory days of “wooden ships and iron men”. Randolph crewed as a sail trimmer on the original Bluenose when the famous schooner wore the crown of “Queen of the North Atlantic”. That’s why her largest contract to date (to build the foresail, mainsail and fore gaff-sail for the Bluenose II) was so significant. Three generations of Randolph’s descendants (Stevens, her father and grandfather) worked side by side to create the 4,150 sq. ft. mainsail for the magnificent ship’s reincarnation, which is recognized as the largest working mainsail in the world.
