About and History
Program history
Late 2008
- Lieutenant Colonel (Ret’d) John Appleby, chair of the Advisory Board for the Centre of Excellence in Sustainability, Infrastructure and Transportation Economics at the School of Business and Treasurer and on the Board of Directors at Honour House Society, approaches the School of Business.
- Appleby proposes BCIT students could help returning Canadian Forces reservist Afghanistan veterans with making the transition back to civilian life and work after deployment abroad through military skills identification and transfer.
March 2009
- BCIT's Human Resource Management diploma program takes on the proposed skills transfer and career path development project as a graduating directed studies project. The project is known as the Reservist Re-entry Project.
September 2009
- The program becomes a pilot project heavily reliant on dedicated faculty members, recent graduates, and current students to donate their time to the project in addition to their daily responsibilities.
- Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE BCIT), joined the program to provide dedicated volunteers to provide a number of services including volunteer interviewers and entrepreneurship business consultants.
- Interest from current and former members of the Canadian Forces grows and nearby local 39th Brigade units get involved.
February 2010
- BCIT School of Business assumes operational responsibility for the program.
September 2010
- BCIT admits its first full time and part time students through the Reservist Re-entry Program into BCIT diploma and degree programs
- The Reservist Re-entry Program is a feature highlight on several local and national print and broadcast news, including CTV National News, the Province Newspaper and the West Ender newspaper.
December 2010
- The program rebrands as the Honour House Skills Conversion Program to better reflect the diversity of the program participants as well as encompassing the primary services that it provides
February 2011
- The program starts to use the World of Work Inventory (WOWI) online career assessment tool as an additional tool to help identify the best fit educational programs and civilian career opportunities.
March 2011
- Collaboration begins with the University of Washington and the Washington National Guard to develop a similar program to support their local veterans.
September 2011
- The Royal Canadian Legion BC / Yukon Command agrees to become the sole major external sponsor of the program and the program rebrands as the Legion Military Skills Conversion Program
- The program trims its focus to military only participants and begins preparation on a similar, but separate program solely for first responders including fire fighters and paramedics, to be revealed in late Fall 2011.
Program team
Dr. Kevin Wainwright
Kevin started with the program in March 2009 when approached by fellow faculty member Fred Mandl. He is actively involved in the strategic development and direction of the program at the institute level, as well as a joint collaboration project with a consortium of American universities on making the educational transition for military veterans.
Kevin is currently the program head for the Bachelor of Business Administration program at BCIT and the coordinator for the SITE Center of Excellence, as well as a lecturer for both BCIT and Simon Fraser University. He has his B.A, M.A, and Ph.D of Arts all in Economics from SFU and is also a member of the Canadian Economics and Western Canada Economics Associations.
Natalie Condrashoff, CHRP
Natalie has also been involved with the program since its directed studies beginnings, then as a Human Resource Management student. Since September 2009 she has been the "front line" of the program; Natalie works directly with the program participants along their chosen pathway(s) and can be regularly seen at Canadian Forces units and events. At the institute level she works with BCIT diploma and degree programs to develop advanced placement pathways and educational equivalencies for program participants.
Natalie has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Victoria and a Diploma in Human Resource Management from BCIT. She attained her CHRP designation in 2009 and is a member of BC HRMA.
