Skip to content

Honouring our community builders

BY KEITH LACEY [email protected] In creating one of the largest mining equipment manufacturing and supply companies in Canada, Robert Lipic has had to travel the world extensively for four decades. It hasn?t always been easy.
BY KEITH LACEY

In creating one of the largest mining equipment manufacturing and supply companies in Canada, Robert Lipic has had to travel the world extensively for four decades. It hasn?t always been easy.

Honoured for their achievements in making Greater Sudbury a better place to live were (front left) Maureen Lacroix, Susan Alcorn MacKay; (back left) Dr. James Grassby, Tammy Frick, Robert Lipic, Alain Dupuis, John Lindsay, Joe Drago and Sylvia Barnard.
?I?ve been shot at, I?ve been kidnapped and I?ve been beaten up. It takes a lot of skill to learn all of the intricacies of international travel,? said Lipic, president and CEO of Mining Technologies International (MTI) Inc. and winner of the 2006 Community Builders Award for Economic Development.

Lipic?s humorous stories about international travel received the biggest laughs of the night Wednesday as more than 500 people gathered to honour this community?s movers and shakers at the third annual Community Builders Awards of Excellence banquet inside the Palladium Room at the Radisson Hotel.

Laurentian Publishing president Michael Atkins said honouring citizens, organizations and businesses that truly make a difference in this community is an event he looks forward to every year.

?I?m delighted you have supported us the way you have,? said Atkins. ?We thank you for making this community a better place to live and we thank you for making it a more compassionate and caring place to live.?

Lipic, 61, said he?s proud of the 230 employees who have helped make MTI a major player on the international mining scene.

Cinefest: Sudbury?s International Film Festival was honoured with the CBA in the Arts.

What started out as a three-day festival showing a handful of films has grown into a one-week extravaganza that showcases more than 100 films.
Sudbury?s Cinefest is now Canada?s fourth-largest festival.

Long-time director Tammy Frick said she realized the local festival was gaining credibility in the business when, in 1991, she was invited by Dreamworks Studio to attend a gala film screening at Toronto?s International Film Festival.

?That?s when I knew Cinefest had arrived,? she said.

Cambrian College?s Glenn Crombie Centre for Disability Services was honoured with the CBA for Education.

Susan Alcorn MacKay, director of disability services, said the man who the centre is named for deserves most of the credit for making the centre internationally renowned.

?Glenn Crombie was a man of vision who put together a team and we put together a plan,? she said.

Since opening in 1996, the centre has grown from operating out of one room and serving 230 students, to a full-service 20,000-square foot
operation serving more than 760 students, said Alcorn MacKay.

The Minnow Lake Restoration Group was honoured with the CBA for Environment for more than 25 years of working to restore the large inner-city lake.

Founding member John Lindsay said a lake given up for dead is now alive and well, as is the neighbourhood that surrounds it.

Maureen Lacroix, a founding member of the Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre (NEORCC), was honoured with the CBA for Health Care.

Before the cancer centre was built, northerners with the dreaded disease often died without getting any treatment.

?People sometimes didn?t go (for treatment in southern Ontario) because they didn?t want to leave home,? she said.

Joe Drago, who has dedicated his life to education and minor hockey, was honoured with the CBA in Sports and Recreation.

He was a good hockey player who earned a scholarship to Clarkson University in New York State, where he was able to obtain a teaching degree, said Drago.

Teaching kids through sportsmanship and the wonderful game of hockey has been just as big a part of his life as teaching them in the classroom.

Alain Dupuis, who managed to maintain a 95 percent average while volunteering on numerous school organizations at Collège Notre Dame, was honoured as the CBA Junior Citizen of the Year.

?The past four years of my life have been the most memorable of my life,? he said. ?This award is not for myself, but for all of the teenagers I have worked with who have spared their time to help others.

?If I have one message for young people out there, it would be to work hard and get involved.?

Dr. James Grassby, who has dedicated more than 42,000 hours of his time to community organizations, was honoured as the latest inductee into the CBA Hall of Fame.

Grassby called himself ?an agitator and disturber? who credits his late wife Aileen for making him the dedicated community person he became.

?Sudbury is my community,? he said. ?I don?t own it, but it is my community. I have spent 70 years working for the common good and nothing is going
to stop me now.?



Comments

Verified reader

If you would like to apply to become a verified commenter, please fill out this form.