This award celebrates thinking differently. These businesses leveraged the circumstances of 2022 to push boundaries and operate their business differently. Some shifted focus, others expanded, and all applied a new way of thinking to their offering in reaction to the challenges and opportunities of this past year.

Check out how our 2022 Boundary Pushers adapted to meet customer demand in their own words.

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Catalyst Health Solutions

“Catalyst Health Solutions Inc. (CHS) is adaptable to the ever-changing circumstances of the world.

CHS originally aided in Covid-19 swabbing for Eastern Health and other organizations. Seeing the need, we received Accreditation for our own Diagnostic Laboratory, which aided in easier access to PCR testing with processing happening onsite within less than 24 hours, and expedited options to receive results within 3-4 hours. This has greatly aided the companies for which we provide services allowing them easier and quicker turnaround times on travel, continuation on worksites, and aided Long Term Care homes, retirement homes, and assistant living facilities, which ease their mind with our quick and accurate Covid testing and processing.

Another service we have been developing has finally launched this summer. It is our Concierge Medical Individual/Corporate Membership. As the need for Family Doctors and lack of Health Care professionals has been affecting our province, Catalyst went ahead and found an innovative way to aid the public to avail of our services. As we are a private clinic, the charge for the membership was taken into great discussion in which we have concluded a monthly rate that is cheaper than one Nurse Practitioner visit.”
 
Easter Seals Newfoundland and Labrador

“Most societal infrastructures have not been designed with the disability community in mind; hence, when it comes to accessing tools one can use to facilitate health improvement, people with disabilities face a clear and present inequity. Physical activity helps boost one’s overall well-being, yet recreational spaces are usually inaccessible to those using mobility or other daily living aids. Similarly, having connections with one’s community is paramount to maintaining social and mental well-being, yet most general community groups are ill-equipped to include people with disabilities. Easter Seals NL strives to disrupt this inequity. We provide a space that is inclusive and accessible, where people with disabilities can participate in active and creative recreational programs, avail of career and educational services, socialize comfortably, and more, all while having adequate support to meet their needs.

Easter Seals NL has recently launched a new Build Your Skills Program for our adult population. The Build Your Skills Program is designed for adults looking to improve and maintain life skills and activities. With both recreation and education sessions participants get to try new activities and skills they will use in daily living. During the education sessions, the group will use interactive learning and presentations to learn about topics such as goal setting, nutrition, communication, hygiene, safety, and more. During the recreation sessions, participants will have hands-on experiences with cooking, science experiments, fitness, arts and crafts, and opportunities to try programs offered at Easter Seals NL such as Wheelchair Basketball, Boccia, Music, and more.”
 
Heave Away Waste Management

“Historically, the outlook on commercial waste management in the province has been about garbage disposal and making money. Waste Management companies didn't typically work with clients on sustainable solutions and held businesses in long term contracts with little to no way out. Our owners and employees have grown up, are raising our families, and make our living here in NL. We wanted to give local business owners a better option. That's why over the past year, Heave Away has been committed to ensuring local, reliable, and sustainable waste management here in our community.

As part of the Heave Away core values of reliable, sustainable, and local solutions, we are focusing our efforts on performing Waste Audits and creating Waste Diversion Programs such as weighing and measuring waste to prevent unnecessary trips to the landfill to help businesses improve their waste management and reduce their carbon footprint. Waste Audits are the first step to help identify areas of improvement for businesses to turn their waste streams into environmentally sustainable programs. By analyzing samples of your waste, we identify what is being thrown away, what could be recycled or diverted through other means, and the amounts of each waste stream by weight/volume. Once the data is collected, we make recommendations on how to reduce, reuse, and recycle to help divert unnecessary waste going into our landfill. 60% of our waste is from offices, job sites, and schools and we plan on working with business owners to reduce that number significantly. We also invest in the most innovative software to ensure efficient solutions for our operation. We have a cutting-edge dispatch system that digitally enables Route Optimization, Asset & Activity Tracking, Flexible Schedule Maintenance, Secure Information Storage, and an easy-to-use Customer Portal.”
 
Horizon Maritime Services Ltd.

“There is an increased expectation for energy efficient operations and lower Green House Gas (GHG) emissions for all types of businesses. This is particularly important in the marine industry. Environmental stewardship and the recruitment, retention and safety of workers is paramount for business success.

These trends, combined with the recently approved Bay du Nord project (the furthest offshore project at approximately 200 miles from St. John’s into the North Atlantic), provided a unique backdrop for Horizon Maritime to seek new approaches for transportation of workers to and from production facilities and truly revolutionize Passenger Transfer in the Canadian Offshore.

The traditional approach for the movement of workers to and from production facilities has been to use helicopter transportation. However, for this form of transportation, there are constraints depending on the distance of travel and oftentimes encounter weather downtime and technical delays resulting in disruptions, added costs and logistical impacts. Horizon, recognizing an opportunity, reached out to its partner Ampelmann Canada - a joint venture company based in St. John’s, NL, in which Horizon Maritime is a 51% shareholder. Through this joint venture, Horizon installed the Dutch companies walk-to-work (W2W) technology on the Horizon Arctic to determine the workability of the W2W system in the unique metocean conditions offshore Newfoundland. This involved testing for the Grand Banks, training, and employment opportunities for residents of Newfoundland and Labrador.

With the W2W system installed on Horizon’s offshore support vessels (OSV), workers and organizations will benefit from lowered GHG emissions, greater crew transport predictability, lower crew anxiety, enhanced safety for workers in downmanning/emergency evacuations, reliability and workability through minimizing crew change delays and maximizing shore leave, minimizing fatigue associated with delayed crew changes and costs saving and safety benefits for operators.”
 
Port of Argentia

“Port of Argentia, like many businesses in any number of industry sectors, was impacted by the global pandemic as the normal workplace ground to a halt during the lingering effects on the economy due to widespread lockdowns. The Port’s senior management team and Board of Directors used this time effectively to research opportunities beyond its core competencies and evaluated ever changing trends in traditional services and key industry sectors, namely the Oil & Gas Industry.

Learning more about the global trend in energy transition, the Port strategically focused on targeting opportunities being presented in renewable energy. This tactical approach was necessary given the global demand to rely less on energy produced from fossil fuels and more on discovering new opportunities in the emerging green economy and transition to renewables. The Port realized that it could use its key advantages in offering its benefits of infrastructure and location to global companies in the renewable energy space. This re-focus was necessary and proved to be beneficial as the Port captured the attention of any number of global renewable energy companies and through collaboration and productive negotiation, secured key partnerships and contracts to support the transition to renewable energy.

Guided by global trends towards renewable energy and being mindful of ambitious emissions reductions targets by Canada and the United States, Port of Argentia embarked on an aggressive marketing and promotional campaign to attract renewable energy companies, highlighting key strategic advantages of its location and promoting Argentia as a viable location for onshore wind energy development and support to offshore Northeastern US wind energy. These efforts paid off as the Port was successful in attracting a partner for development of a proposed 1.2 Gigawatt wind energy to green fuels production facility. This development on Port lands is expected to require capital investment in excess of USD $4B and generate over 1000MT/day green ammonia for export.

The Port also secured a significant contract to become North America’s first marshalling yard in support of US offshore wind energy. To execute this contract, site improvements and construction at Argentia will generate upwards of CDN $65M in economic activity.”
 
Studio VERSŌ

“In 2020, Emily Hickey and Maria Snow began the wild journey of opening an independent fitness studio in St. John’s, NL. Despite not having met until 2020, Emily and Maria shared the same drive to go against the status quo and open an inclusive fitness space in their hometown. VERSŌ evolved from a shared vision to bring spin and row into one studio, coupled with the pair’s desire to offer a safer, healthier, and happier space for the community. Having grown up in a city that emphasizes the impact of intentional communities, the two young female entrepreneurs embarked on a journey to create a safer space for self-expression through music and movement.

In their early days of business, prior to having a location, equipment, an exercise program, staff, or even the name Studio VERSŌ, conversations were had and learning took place centered on the importance of inclusion, equity, diversity, and accountability. The approach taken to each of these values was one of innovation. Studio VERSŌ opened its doors October 30th, 2021 with the goal of bringing new perspectives to the group fitness industry. With the challenge of entering into an existing market, VERSŌ knew it had to think different and it had to be different. Pushing boundaries has been second nature. It’s been a requirement for VERSŌ‘s success.

As a brand new business, VERSŌ constantly asked itself: What currently exists in the industry? What can be done to elevate this? How can we push the bar higher—for ourselves and for other businesses? And finally, why not? The idea that we should explore any idea with the mindset of why won’t it work? Why won’t it be successful or beneficial? Before saying “we can’t” we said “why can’t we?”
VERSŌ believes in investing in the community, the people, the individual uniqueness and energy being brought into the studio environment. When a business invests in people, it allows and invites individuals to take ownership of their participation and belonging, and to take pride in the way they show up to the community.

… at Studio VERSŌ’s core is innovation. Over the past year VERSŌ has had the unique advantage of entering a market with a diverse team of thinkers and doers. VERSŌ operates to push the status quo, to think outside the box, and to elevate the industry. Studio VERSŌ, in its first year of operating, has placed great value on innovation and utilizing fresh approaches and ideas in all aspects of its business. VERSŌ has shown its ability to push boundaries and elevate the bar for itself and challenge other businesses to do the same.”
 
The Leaside Group

“We have been thinking differently for years, we are constantly re-evaluating who we are as a business and adapting to market conditions – it’s a way of doing business for us.

Core to our business has always been real estate holdings. We operate most of our space instead of renting it out. This opens us up to the volatility of the market conditions and forces us to constantly look at our utilization factor of the various spaces. The effects of those market conditions on Hospitality, Spa and health care has been varied. We focus a lot on what our customers or potential customers need, and adapt. Coming through the pandemic we identified a number of different areas that could do better:

1. The work camp at the Arnolds Cove Inn 2
2. Unutilized space on the Hotel side of the Monastery
3. Unutilized space in Riverside Therapeutics, Compton House

By keeping track of the utilization factor of your space it forces innovation and constantly thinking of new ways to make it better. Each new pivot or addition creates a new learning opportunity and changes how we look at who we are as a business. That constant reinvention is exciting. Add that to continuing to run what has proven to be successful. That same thought process carries its way down to each individual therapist and making sure they are successful in their own right.”
 
Whelan Wellness

“This year I continued to stay one step ahead of my potential client’s needs. We continue to smash every barrier an individual may face in terms of successfully improving their personal wellness. As the world continued to change this year we thrived in the online space while also expanding into speaking engagements, retreats, and other live events.

In my 15 years as a coach, I have always seen people face frustrating barriers such as cost, accessibility, scheduling, timezones, need for child care, and more. I work to assemble a team of wellness professionals that cover all aspects of health and wellness - physical, mental, and emotional. Together we create a community based on quality access and unending support, at a low cost.

For too long, people viewed fitness as wellness, when in actuality fitness is just one piece of the whole picture. The diet industry preys on vulnerabilities and convinces people they need fixing. I am here to teach people how to love and accept who they are in order to grow and progress into their best possibly selves. I am changing minds to change lives.”

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Come celebrate these and many other amazing nominees at the Business Resilience Awards Gala on November 24! 
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