Homegrown Internet Business Adds Value.

From J.D. Booth, Lambton Shield.

It was mid-2014 when members of the senior management team at Bluewater Power first began scoping out the creation of a homegrown internet service business, part of what has become the “group of companies” strategic direction that not only adds value for the municipally owned enterprise but positioned Sarnia-Lambton for future growth.

Part of that was a visit to Stratford, Ontario, a community that had become one of the first in the nation to leverage its local electric utility into a powerhouse of digital connectivity.

While Bluewater Power may have differed from Festival Hydro in its ownership structure—the Stratford utility was and still is wholly owned by one municipality, not the six here in Sarnia-Lambton—that was seen to be largely minor.

But what caught the attention of members of the Bluewater Power team was the individual that arguably had orchestrated the creation of Rhyzome Networks, the Festival Hydro subsidiary the visitors from Sarnia-Lambton were hoping to emulate.

Paul West is the son of a lawyer who had originally attended Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo with that path in mind.

Link to the rest here.

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College Forges Ahead With Confident Leadership.

From Troy Shantz, Sarnia Journal.


As a young high school teacher in the 1980s, Judy Morris got her bus-driver’s licence so she could take students from low-income and immigrant families on field trips.

To the dismay of school administrators at Bramalea Secondary, however, baboons set upon her school bus during a well-intentioned trip to African Lion Safari, and the curious apes stripped it of mirrors and trim.

“You can imagine,” Morris said with a laugh, “how thrilled the high school principal was with me.”

That kind of enthusiastic leadership has characterized Morris’s tenure as president of Lambton College over the past seven years.

Under her direction, Lambton has undertaken $35 million worth of expansions and renovations, and is now ranked the #1 applied research college in Canada.

Her team has attracted nearly 1,000 international students, and empowered student entrepreneurs to create a middle class in parts of rural Zambia.

Link to the rest here.

Image. Courtesy of Judith Morris, Lambton College.

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College Welcomes Thirty-Three Hundred Students With Expansion.

From Paul Morden, Sarnia Observer.

Lambton College opened two-thirds of its $47-million expansion this week as it welcomed 3,300 full-time, post-secondary students to a new semester.

The initial student total is a 5.7 per cent increase over last year but students can still apply until Sept. 18, said college spokesperson Cindy Buchanan.

There were 906 foreign students enrolled at the Sarnia campus as of Wednesday. That’s up from 617 last year.

“There are more than 20 countries, our students are coming from,” Buchanan said.

When part-time students, apprenticeship students and students at its campuses in Mississauga, Toronto and China are added, “we’re over 13,000 students, worldwide,” she said.

The college broke ground in 2016 on major construction work stretching across three projects at its Sarnia campus.

The Centre of Excellence in Energy and Bio-Industrial Technologies was created by renovations to the south end of the college’s main Sarnia campus building, as well as an addition.

An official opening ceremony is set for Sept. 20 but students and staff moved in this week.

Link to the rest here.

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