“As soon as I realized blacksmiths made all the armour, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

As a teen, he discovered that one of the top blacksmiths in southern Ontario lived down the road, and he offered classes: Thak took one and built himself a forge at home to practise.

Thak, who’s now 41, kept asking if he could work in the shop. He asked about four times before the blacksmith caved in and let him start sweeping floors for $5 an hour.

Over the next four years, Thak got his basic training as a blacksmith. He married young and had kids, and those were “lean years,” he recalls.

So he quit to sell insurance.

That did not work out. After a year, he got a night job at a factory and did blacksmith work by day at the shop he’d set up on his parents’ farm.

For six years, he honed his craft and built up a reputation. “These are not skills you learn over six months. It takes several years to get the hand-eye-coordination and the larger design and proportions right.”

Finally, he was able to quit and rent his own shop. A few years later, he began sharing space with his father-in-law, who ran an auto repair shop in Floridale, a tiny village near Thak’s home in Elmira. Eventually, his father-in-law moved to another location and Thak bought the building.

Now, Thak works from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m. six days a week. He takes Sunday off to be with his family (who also often help out in the shop).

Thak makes metal creations — mostly using steel, but sometimes copper and brass — ranging from small doorknockers to large, elaborate railings that sell for around $30,000.

His tools include a forge, which is a small and very hot furnace, a hammer and an anvil (yup, the thing Wile E. Coyote tried to drop on the Road Runner).

He heats up a piece of steel to around 2,000 F, which makes it as mouldable as clay. He has about a minute to use his hammer to shape it. Then it’s back into the forge, and more hammering. The shape of the anvil is helpful as a tool to bend the steel in various ways.

Thak and his on-staff blacksmith work at the forge for about three hours a day: It’s hot, exhausting work. For every two hours at the forge, a piece needs about three hours of additional work, including sanding, soldering and painting.

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

Limoges, 59, is planning to retire next year.

Her other gig, meanwhile, will probably start taking up even more of her time.

Originally from Ontario, Limoges moved out west with her first husband in the late 1970s. They got a Doberman together and after the divorce, Limoges took the dog.

She met her second husband at a dog show; he was a policeman who was also a Doberman owner. When her show dog ran out the door one day and ended up at pound, she decided to do some obedience training.

She and the dog enjoyed the challenge. With her next pet, she began doing tracking.

Then, a tornado hit Edmonton in 1987. Observing how important the search and rescue efforts had been during the disaster, Limoges and a group of five other dog owners decided to try it.

They got hold of the training standards for a group in British Columbia and began learning.
Every Sunday, they’d meet at a semi-demolished building in downtown Edmonton. They’d hide friends in the rubble and send the dogs to find them.

When the dogs found their targets, they’d get their favourite toys to play with as a reward.
Along with the weekly group session, Limoges and her dog would go out many nights of the week, doing training exercises.

The group began calling itself the Search and Rescue Association of Alberta and became a non-profit organization. As the secretary for the organization, Limoges spends part of her evenings — after she’s been out training — doing emails and writing newsletters or guidelines.
The group now has good relationships with local police and the RCMP and get invited out to real searches in the Edmonton area.

It’s often to search for a senior with Alzheimer’s. In recent years, Limoges and her group have been training for human remains recovery — her dog Parquetta has a knack for this.

At the search, the police hand out maps, and Limoges uses a compass and a GPS to orient herself. She and her dog take frequent breaks and can go for hours. Some searches are out of town; one lasted two days.

The group gets called about a dozen times a year.

Calls can come anytime. Limoges has an understanding with her employer and will leave if she’s not in the middle of an important event.

“I’ve had lots of parties and things ruined. We do all this training, so when the call comes I say, sorry, I gotta go.”

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

After getting married and having two kids and settling in nearby Waterloo, Schultz decided she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. When her youngest was three years old, in 2005, she went to a Tupperware party at a friend’s house, after which she agreed to hold her own.

Her first party raked in $1,000 — a success — but when a salesperson offered her a kit to run her own parties, she only halfheartedly agreed:

“I was a bit embarrassed at first. It wasn’t cool. I’d done things in my life. Me, a Tupperware lady?”

She began hosting parties a few nights a week. The time demand was minimal and the products sold themselves: Along with plastic containers, the company offered knives, kitchen linens, teas and pots and pans. But she often lost heart and wondered how anyone ever made real money at the job.

About 10 months later, and after almost giving up a few times, she realized that she could be a lot more successful if she didn’t just focus on selling Tupperware, but tried as well to recruit new salespeople.

Schultz’s sales force grew and soon she began getting rewards from the company — including trips to Disney World and Argentina, as well as a new convertible.

She now has 60 sales representatives who pay her a portion of their sales. Some she recruited from parties, others through her website, many of whom live far  enough away that she’s never met them.

For those who do live nearby, she holds regular meetings to offer selling tips. Schultz also regularly meets and talks with other Tupperware salespeople to keep her own skills sharp.

Her workday begins at 9:30 a.m., when her kids are at school. At least three nights a week she’s out to run parties or attend meetings. It adds up to about 20 hours a week, which suits her and her kids just fine: “Every time I do something on the weekend, it bothers me.”

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

Such is the focus of music therapy, which Rachael Finnerty, 35, has been practising for the last decade.

Growing up, she played piano in her spare time, and completed grade nine with the Royal Conservatory of Music. But she was also fascinated by human interactions.

She thought eventually she’d become a speech therapist when she left her home to study psychology at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She was in second year when she came across a book in the library about music therapy. “I was just in seventh heaven,” she recalls after realizing she could combine her passions.

Since there were no graduate programs in music therapy in Canada at the time (there is one now, at Sir Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo, Ont.), Finnerty stayed in Europe after studying in France for her final year of university, volunteering at music therapy clinics.

She applied and was accepted to the masters program at Cambridge University. After finishing the 12-month program — which included theory and plenty of hands-on work — she returned to Canada in 2001. She set up a private practice and began working with autistic kids, people with brain injuries and older adults with dementia. She then also worked part time at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, working with seniors.

In 2007, Finnerty and her growing family moved to nearby Hamilton, a city that fortunately for her had few music therapists. Finnerty found numerous clients right away and in early 2010 opened up her own studio offering music, creative writing and art therapy, and other services such as speech language pathology and Reiki.

Finnerty sees few clients herself, but devotes most of her time to running her clinic, teaching at McMaster University and Laurier, and teaching music classes for kids with special needs.

When Finnerty does a session, she often begins by singing a simple song while playing guitar. For clients who struggle with speech, she encourages them to sing a line. She’ll then have her client strum a string on the guitar, play the piano or pick up a simple instrument . Over time, she may encourage a client to compose music on the spot, or rewrite words to a familiar song to express feelings.

For the client, it’s all fun, but Finnerty is always thinking about building their confidence, working on hand-eye-coordination or assessing someone’s condition. “If we make great music, that’s lovely, but that’s not why we’re in session.”

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

For Edmonton social worker Terri Cooper, it’s a powerful but simple technique that helps people change things in their lives.

Cooper, now 43, was always a natural at counselling others. “I was one of those teenagers that everyone brought their problems to.” She went on to study social work at the Edmonton campus of the University of Alberta.

For more than a decade, she worked with families in crisis. It was difficult work, especially since few wanted her advice. “It’s hard to work with people who don’t really want to see you.”

Cooper wanted to help people in a more empowering way. While she was flipping through the want ads six years ago, she saw an advertisement for a two-day course on hypnosis.

The basics she learned showed her the technique had a lot of potential — and made her realize she needed to learn more. So Cooper began taking more courses in hypnosis and a psychotherapy technique called neuro-linguistic programming.

Cooper then quit her job and opened a private practice, offering hypnotherapy and social work counselling.

Most clients come to her with a short-term goal of changing a behaviour like quitting smoking, improving body image or increasing their confidence.

Cooper begins with an assessment to find out her client’s goals and to make sure they don’t need more intensive therapy for a serious mental health issue.

At the first session, Cooper tries to get her patients to talk about what they want. She gives then homework, asking them to put these plans into writing.

Session two involves actual hypnosis. To induce the relaxed but aware state, she varies her technique, depending on the person. Some don’t like to close their eyes, so she uses what’s called a waking hypnosis. Many find fixed-eye induction works best: They stare at something for a long time, listen to Cooper’s voice, and count backwards.

Once hypnotized, Cooper incorporates the words her client has given her to suggest a change in behaviour. She often makes CDs of her suggestions so clients can use it later at home. She also sells hypnosis MP3s on her website.

Cooper believes the hypnotic state is not magical or strange. We do it all the time when we concentrate or when we’re driving. Since our minds are highly suggestible in this state, it is an important time to suggest to ourselves new ideas.

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

Early on, Beagle, who’s now 50, learned that these creatures make a mess. His job was to scoop up the poop from the backyard. He didn’t mind.

But he did mind being bored. So when the Toronto-born Beagle first went to university and found the courses too similar to those in high school, he dropped out after a year and worked in security.

And met up with dogs again. During a training session, his new bosses suited him up in protective gear and put him in a cage with vicious dogs. He learned that they’d run if he ran away, but would cover if they advanced on the dogs. (The skill came in handy many years later.)

Beagle began working in the hotel and restaurant industry, where he learned a lot about working with people.

But he longed to work outside, and work for himself. He came up with the idea of scooping dog poop out of backyards as a business. He asked his friends and family if they thought it was a good idea. “Nobody would ever pay for that,” they said.

Undeterred, he got friends to ask around and soon found a few busy families who had no time for their dog poo.

Beagle went to work in 1985, scooping in yards in the daytime and working in restaurant and hotels at night. After raising his rates (it used to be as low as $6 a week) and getting some media coverage, five years into his business Beagle was able to quit his other job and focus entirely on Super Scoopers.

He works five days a week, and begins his day by checking his email and dealing with bills and scheduling. He then heads out in his truck with his bichon frise Boo Boo. Beagle goes directly into a client’s backyard and uses gloves, a scoop, a paint scraper and a bucket for the job.

Beagle stores the dog waste in the back of his truck and then in freezers in his garage. He disposes of it every few days at a waste disposal station or sewage treatment plant.

He can clear a yard he’s familiar with in as little as five minutes. “I already know the hot spots.” Boo Boo sometimes helps find the hidden gems.

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

The kiln is tiny and Carnes, 45, keeps a fire extinguisher nearby. He’s never had to use it.

He’s using it to create jewellry in an ancient technique called mokume gane, which means “wood-grain metal.” Few in Canada use this technique, which was invented in 17th-century Japan.

Carnes was born in Los Angeles, and grew up in Hawaii. He liked to paint and draw, but gave up art as a teen to focus on playing bass. Back in California after high school, he became a full-time musician.

That craft took him to New York in 1993 where he played jazz, big band, reggae and funk. But he tired of the lifestyle and decided to explore art again.

Living in Woodstock, N.Y., at the time, he set up a studio in his attic and began taking courses in jewelry making.

Eight years later, he heard about mokume gane. He was teaching jewelry making and his students encouraged him to figure it out — they wanted to learn too.

On his own, using copper, silver and inexpensive Japanese alloys called shakudo and shibuichi, he taught himself. Since his jewelry style was minimal, the wood-grain look of the style suited his work, and set him apart. “I realized what a nice little niche this was.”

In 2005, Carnes and his wife at the time moved to Toronto. He began doing his jewelry full time — along with some music on the side.

The process begins with sheets of metal — he uses the Japanese metals, silver and red, white and yellow gold — cut into small rectangles. Carnes clamps the sheets together, heats up his kiln with a jeweller’s torch, and puts them inside. They get very hot, and just before the melting stage their molecules move around a lot. The metals fuse and the colours blend.

The temperature has to be just right. “They all have different melting points. It’s difficult, and I’m doing this all visually.”

Carnes then starts twisting and drilling into the block to create patterns with the fused colours. When that’s done, he uses his traditional jewelry making equipment to roll out the metals, file and form the piece of jewelry.

Carnes does mainly custom ordered rings and sells them through his web site and high-end stores across Canada. “There are not many others doing this work. You have to get good enough to not worry about melting a thousand dollars worth of metal in your lap.”

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

Alice Chu sees next season’s popular colours.

Chu was good at art as a child and worked hard to get better so she could attend university. She was born in Shanghai and moved to Taiwan with her grandparents to escape communism (her parents and sister stayed behind); getting into school was very competitive.

By the time she’d finished her degree, both her grandparents had passed away. With nothing to keep her in Asia, she went to Columbia University in New York for a masters in art. But being a fine artist wasn’t for her. “I thought to myself: ‘If I just paint, it’s not a career that can provide me with a job and money.’”

A summer job at a graphic design firm solved that problem. After she met her husband, she moved with him to Boston, then to Montreal after he got a job at McGill University. Since graphic design work was often sporadic, she decided to do her teaching diploma at McGill in 1972.

She began teaching in the visual arts department at Dawson’s College. Then a job posting at Ryerson in 1977 caught her eye. She moved to Toronto, seeing her husband every two weeks and during the summers. (Her son, now an adult, eventually moved to Toronto too.)

Chu was a bit unsure at first: the job was teaching basic design, but in the school of fashion.
As the years passed, Chu became increasingly interested in fashion, and in particular, colour.

She observed how strong coloured, fashion-forward garments pull people into stores, but they often purchase conservatively hued pieces. She wondered about favourite colours: do people like certain colours because they’re appealing, or because they look good in them.

Chu began writing about these issues and discussing them with her students. In the late 1980s, she joined Color Marketing Group. This US-based non-profit has members from a range of industries, including interior design, that meet twice a year to discuss which colours are popular and to guess what will be hot in upcoming seasons.

It then publishes the group’s predictions. Fabric manufacturers and paint companies then use these colour predictions to help formulate new products.

To develop her own theories of what’s the next hot colour, Chu’s always observing what’s going on in pop culture, politics, the economy and big events. She’s always looking at fashion magazines and what people are wearing whens she travels.

Chu’s not always spot on. She says guessing colour trends is like predicting the weather. “If you’re right 80 per cent of the time, you’re OK.”

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

But Robert Tang, now 46, was already on a successful career path, having got his MBA, when his parents sidetracked him with ballroom dancing.

The Tangs entered their first ballroom dancing competition when Robert was 25. They’d always danced for fun with friends, and his father had done lessons back in Malaysia many years before.

Tang was impressed with the event: The dancing looked fun, he liked the music and his parents made the finals. Plus, he met a dancer named Beverley that day who was looking gorgeous in a turquoise ball gown.

A few weeks later, the Tangs’ dance teacher asked if Robert wanted to dance. A young dancer at the studio needed a partner her own age.

Those first few weeks were difficult. Tang struggled to master and remember the steps and keep up with his partner.

But just seven weeks later, Tang and partner Tracey did their first competition and actually did better than Tang’s parents.

The pair moved quickly up the amateur ranks. Then Tang’s teacher arranged a most appealing switch: Tracey went pro with a male dancer while Tang took a new partner. That was Beverley, whom he’d met before.

Tang and his new partner began dating and married three years later, in 1993. But life was busy. Tang had a demanding job with a software company and travelled frequently to the United States. Meanwhile, the couple flew as far away as Europe for training and all over Canada for competitions.

Their hard work paid off: they won the Canadian amateur championship three times and the North American championship twice.

After a decade of dancing in their spare time, the couple decided to make it a full time job. With the help of an investor, they started the studio DanceScape in 2000.

In the early years, Tang taught from noon until 10 p.m. Classes are one hour with either a group of up to 40 students, or one-on-one lessons.

He helps his students set goals, and then shows them both the dance steps, and more subtle things like how to lead and read a partner’s signals. Later, he began teaching instructors too: How to identify learning styles, see ballroom from both the male and female roles and learn the business side.

These days, Tang spends more time in the office planning new programs for the studio and marketing and promoting it. He just teaches private lessons and a beginner class along with his wife.

The couple now just dance at community events, but always set high goals for themselves for those showcases. “We can’t get it out of our systems to be the best.”

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

Arrigo liked art enough by the end of high school to enrol in a college program for graphic design management. But he dropped out of the program and started taking odd jobs.

He was loading trucks when a former girlfriend — whom he’d long ago painted a jacket for — told the restaurant where she was working about Arrigo. They wanted a wall mural and offered him the job.

He covered the four-foot by four-foot wall with a jazz-themed scene, and the owners loved it. Soon, he was getting mural commissions all over Toronto and within a few months quit his other job.

Around this time, Arrigo picked up a mural painting book in an art supply store. “I got a quarter way through it, and then I tossed it. I can do my own thing.” He still refuses to look at art books.

In 1999, he convinced staff at Wayne Gretzky’s restaurant to let him paint a massive mural. Around the time he finished the 80-foot by 30-foot piece, Gretzky announced his retirement and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Arrigo was asked, at the last minute, to do a mural for the induction ceremony.

Arrigo proved himself by whipping off the piece in 30 hours (the paint was barely dry for the event). That soon led to a commission to do an 18-foot by seven-foot mural of the Leafs that still hangs in the Air Canada Centre today.

A huge hockey fan who began skating at age three, painting hockey greats and other sports scenes was no problem for Arrigo.

He’s now gone to two Olympics — including Vancouver, where he painted all the gold medal winners — numerous Super Bowls and NASCAR races, among other events.

Meanwhile, about three years ago, he painted his first goalie mask for Mike Smith of the Dallas Stars. The helmet covered with the Grinch (it was the holiday season and the Jim Carrey movie had just come out) worked out well. He’s now done masks for 14 NHL goalies.

Whenever he’s hired for a job, Arrigo does a rough sketch of what he plans to do. Once he’s working on the mural, canvas or mask, he photographs his work at every stage and sends them to his client.

Arrigo uses acrylic paints to minimize fumes — he’ll wear a mask when he’s in his studio. But he often paints in public at sports event so passersby can watch him wield his airbrush and turn his favourites sports ideas and icons into art.

He had no idea he’d make a career of it.

Thorson played goal and quit the game at 17 — he’s now 50 — since he simply wasn’t that good.

But his friends were, and they played on the University of Calgary team while he was studying physical education there. The team needed some trainers — people to care for equipment, do first aid and help out in the locker room— and they encouraged Thorson to volunteer.

Two years later, the Calgary Canucks of the Alberta Junior League had issues with one of their trainers while going into the playoffs and called on Thorson. He ended up staying for the entire next season too. And he realized that this was something he could do as a real job.

“The more I did it, the more I learned. The more I learned, the more I liked it. There’s lots worse places you can spend your time than in a hockey rink.”

After graduation, Thorson got a paid job in Victoria, then Moose Jaw. Back in Calgary, he began splitting his time between working with Canada’s national hockey team and working in a sporting goods store where he became an equipment care and repair expert (his boss was a former shoemaker). After five years, he got hired as the full-time equipment manager for the national team.

In 1999, the Calgary Flames called, and he’s been there ever since.

Thorson works with four other trainers: They’re all in by around 7 a.m. most mornings. If the players are to skate at 10:30 a.m., that gives them time to stock the bench with socks, jerseys, pads, tape and water bottles. Then there are skates to sharpen, sticks to organize and last-minute repairs to do.

Then, it’s cleaning up after a practice. On game days, the locker room must be stocked by 4:30 p.m. Before a road trip, there’s packing to do.

And while he’s a pro at equipment repair, he now spends more time ordering custom equipment for his players, and making sure he gets the size and specifications just right.

“The biggest part of my job that’s changed is the amount of equipment we’re ordering. The way they make stuff now, it’s easy to break in, but it breaks down faster.”

And while his wife and kids get to see the Flames whenever they like, they don’t see much of him until summer.

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

Her technical prowess showed up again when, as an adult, she worked at a bank and showed all her coworkers how to better use their computers’ software.

When the bank got bought out by a larger one, she took a buyout and went back to college to study computer systems management.

After graduation, LaRocque — who is 45 now and was in her 30s when she changed careers — got hired by Vancouver Coastal Health in its information technology department. She enjoyed implementing new hardware and software, but not leaving staff to learn things on their own.

“The training was scant, if you gave any at all.”

She helped the company set up its executives on BlackBerrys in 2001. But everyone had questions. “I was inundated every time I left my office with ‘How do you do this?’” recalls LaRocque. A year later, she booked a boardroom and invited the 400 users of BlackBerrys at the organization to a lunch-and-learn session.

She was shocked when 200 said they’d like to come.

LaRocque began running classes every two weeks. “They were full classes and everyone raved about it.”

In 2007, convinced that training on the mobile device was so badly in need elsewhere as well, LaRocque quit her job and started Swirl Solutions out of her home.

Through her contacts, LaRocque found businesses to hire her for two- or three-hour workshops on basic, advanced and money-saving BlackBerry skills training.

She spends her days teaching around Vancouver, but also travels to cities like Toronto and Chicago. Most of her sessions are offered through workplaces, but she’s doing her first open-to the-public course in Vancouver this April.

She’s also started offering webinars on her website. And when LaRocque is not teaching, she’s keeping up-to-date on all the latest in BlackBerry technology.

That means reading news on the web, checking out apps (with upwards of 800 of them, she admits she can’t learn them all), and reading manuals, which she actually enjoys.

Diane Peters once hawked magic pens at the Canadian National Exhibition. She’s now a writer and part-time journalism instructor.

She started out studying nursing, but wanted more of a challenge. She switched to general science and then did a medical degree at McMaster University.

Then King, who’s now 54, studied family medicine at the University of Calgary and worked as a family physician in the small northern Alberta town of Fairview. “I did about 25 years of medical practice in five years,” says King. In her large catchment, she dealt with everything from childbirth to heart disease to farm injuries.

She noticed just how many accidents and illnesses among her patients could be prevented — and she wanted to be part of that. “I felt I needed to do training in public health.”

So she did a masters in health sciences with a specialty in public health from the University of British Columbia. The degree taught her how to look at health not just from an individual perspective, but based on a larger population.

After graduation, she worked as associate medical officer of health for Burnaby, B.C. She did a few other jobs in B.C., including working for the province’s Centre for Disease Control before she landed in Ottawa working for Health Canada on infectious diseases. She acted as the technical lead for the agency during the SARS outbreak.

Last fall, after ten years in Ottawa, she was named chief medical officer for Ontario.

The job started out with a bang: That’s when H1N1 came along. She’s been kept so busy with the flu strain that she’s still being briefed on some aspects of her job.

Primarily, her job entails keeping Ontarians informed about current public health issues. So far, that’s meant speaking a lot about H1N1 to the media, other medical professionals and regular people in the province. She aids in communications between the Ontario Ministry of Health and the new Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion. She spends a lot of time talking with other chief medical officers — cities, provinces and Canada itself all have one — so that means lots of conference calls and face-to-face meetings.

King’s days start out with reading the paper on the subway: She needs to know what’s going on in public health in the news. She also reads a lot of medical journals, particularly to find out the latest in infectious diseases. Then, like many of us, she’s on email most of the day, and in meetings, talking about health to anyone who needs to know.

Malamed began his career with a business degree at York University and a stint as a business owner. Then he and his wife both went back to school to study accounting at Ryerson.

While there, he took a course in forensic accounting and loved it. “In terms of accounting, this is the most exciting thing I could do.”

The couple got jobs at the same large accounting firm and Malamed soon got transferred to the forensic unit. His boss spent a lot of time teaching him the unique craft. “Are you comfortable working outside the box?” he’d ask.

Malamed was, and kept upgrading his education so today he now has an investigative forensic accounting diploma, a certified fraud examiner’s course and certified fraud investigator’s course.

New investigations start with a call from a client — usually someone new, Malamed doesn’t get a lot of repeat customers — who’s just discovered something bad has happened. Usually they’ve been scammed or an employee has stolen money.

The person or representative from a business is often pretty upset and wants to know what happened, how it can be prevented again and, ideally, get the money back.

Malamed immediately starts asking questions. “We’ve got to work pretty fast. We’ve got to find out if it’s something live or old. And if it’s live, do we need to control it, shut things down?”

After shutting down bank accounts or the like to stop any more losses, Malamed comes up with a work plan on how to track down the missing money. He looks through documents, financial statements, bank accounts, emails, computers and cancelled cheques. He interviews the people involved — some of these people may eventually be charged with a crime — to find out if their stories match up with how funds moved around.

Often the police are involved. Malamed has even joined them in visiting a crime scene. They bang on the door, walk in with their guns. When it’s all clear, Malamed starts collecting files and computers.

And while he’s working for a client, his goal is to chase down the facts, not just take the client’s word for what happened. That’s because his investigations can end up as evidence at a trial or for an insurance settlement, so he cannot be biased.

Investigations can take a week or years. He sometimes works 40 hours a week, but if he’s in the middle of an intense investigation, his phone can ring day or night and he can suddenly be putting in 100 hours to get the job done.

Being exposed to all this food diversity eventually influenced Kacker’s career choice, but as a young person she wanted to become a doctor.

Kacker, now 32, studied nutrition and nutritional sciences at the University of Guelph, and followed it with a master’s in human philosophy and nutrition, thinking she’d go to medical school.

But then she took a course in product development as part of her degree. “This is exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life,” she thought at the time.

A friend working in the food industry hooked Kacker up with her first job after graduation. She helped a small gourmet food company develop things like tapenades and flavoured oils for high-end food stores.

Two years later, she got a job interview at Loblaw’s — where Kacker dreamed of working. It was an intensive interview process that included tastings to assess her palate. She got hired in 2005 and is still with the company.

Kacker has worked on a number of different food categories over the last five years. “Now I have the best category,” she says, creating frozen entrees, pizza, frozen fruits and vegetables, ice cream and beer.

Kacker works on a team with a product manager and a quality assurance expert. The food development process starts with an idea, which can come from the numerous books and magazines she reads, other retailers, eating out, Loblaw’s customers, staff and the manufacturers the company works with. And travel: Kacker recently went to Mexico to taste authentic local cuisine and to London to check out packaged foods.

After an idea is proposed and gets basic approval, Kacker starts cooking, either in the test kitchen or with staff at a food manufacturer’s plant. She’ll create numerous versions of the dish and share them with the company’s other product development teams during daily tasting sessions. (If she works on anything Indian she’ll often pass it by her mom to make sure it tastes authentic.)

When the team gives its okay, Kacker will take her recipe to the factory and they’ll do a pilot run of a large batch.

When a product makes it this far and is ready for production, staff that deal with packaging and marketing take over.

And then, for Kacker, it’s on to the next great food idea.

“These are cultivated blueberries,” she said over the romantic dessert, and went on to explain to him how wild berries are much smaller and less uniform in shape.

Years later, he’s used to being sent back to the grocery store, having bought French vanilla ice cream when she asked for natural vanilla bean. “Go and buy it yourself,” he often says.

Chui, now 46, was passionate about food long before it became her job. But it was only after the Hong Kong native finished a degree in biochemistry and microbiology at the University of Westminster in the U.K. that she figured out how to blend her science skills with a job in food.

After her degree, she heard about a masters in food science at the University of London and thought it would suit her perfectly.

Back in Hong Kong, Chiu got her first job at a flavour company. She spent her days in the kitchen experimenting with natural and artificial flavours in ice cream, muffins, pop and gum.
When the Hong Kong Polytechnic University decided to add a food science program, they asked Chiu to help create the curriculum.

But in 1992, Chiu and her father decided to immigrate to Canada because of the impending changeover of power in Hong Kong, and the fact that the food industry is much larger here. Chiu once again got a job for a flavour company, working on ice cream, frozen yogurt and other treats, and later worked for another company making prepared foods.

At her jobs, she spent her days taking recipes developers and chefs and making them suitable for mass production. That meant establishing precise measurements for things like salt, sugar and flavour, so the food was the same when the recipe was scaled up.

Chiu would do a lot of tasting throughout the day. So she’d make a dozen or more prototypes of the recipe, taste the results, and move onto another food product later to avoid burning out her taste buds.

When she wasn’t cooking and tasting, she was taking meticulous notes on measurements and food costs.

Chiu worked in the food industry in Canada for eight years. In 2005, she got hired by George Brown College to work with culinary and students and teach them how to integrate food science into great cooking.

But Jeff Simpkins has travelled with the flame for thousands of kilometres across Canada and back.

As one of just five torch escorts working the entire relay, this police officer knows how lucky he is. “It’s pretty amazing. It’s neat to see Canada this way.”

Simpkins, 48, is from Belleville, Ont., and thought about joining the police force as a young man. He studied chemistry and worked in research for a few years. Then, about 23 years ago, he walked into a police station in his hometown and applied. “I walked in in October, and started in March. And I’ve never looked back since.”

Working for the Ontario Provincial Police, Simkin’s been stationed across the province, and has been based in Orillia since 2001. He currently works with the Aboriginal Policing Bureau.

On his own time, Simpkins is a runner. He began long distance running when he was in grade 10 and also has never looked back. He does ultramarathons now: Races that go for 50 kilometres or more.

“Most people know me as a bit of a running freak,” says Simpkins.

That’s why one of his senior officers ask him,  many months ago, if he would work with the RCMP to escort the flame across Ontario. He accepted, and while doing a training camp for the job, filled out a form that asked if he’d be interested in acting as a commander for the entire run. “I, like most people, said yes, thinking it wasn’t going to happen.”

A week after he got home, he got an email telling him he’d been selected.

He started his job on Oct. 30 in Victoria. His days begin as early as 4:15 a.m.. Simpkins and his team are primarily responsible for the safety of the flame and the bearers. His work varies between running alongside the torch (he can cover as much as 45 km a day), assisting torchbearers, dealing with small tasks that need to be done and riding in the convoy as it drives to the next town.

Days end around 7 p.m. By the time he eats dinner and spends an hour or so planning the schedule for the next day, it’s time for bed by 11 or 12.

He gets little rest and just a few days off here and there, but he’s not exhausted. He knows his last day of work is Feb 12, and then he flies home the next day. “Then it’s back to normal work.”

But the 63-year-old former police officer isn’t as keen on how the show plays fast and loose with science (there’s often a nugget of truth in what they do, but little more) and makes death seem glamourous. “Real life isn’t like that. Seeing somebody murdered isn’t sexy.”

Spencer himself was drawn to police work as a young man because of his father, who was a cop in their hometown of Garson, just outside Sudbury, Ont. “He was an honourable man, I suppose I wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

He moved to Toronto after high school and applied to the police force. He was accepted — the process was less competitive and stringent than today, and all you needed was good eyesight, good morals and some references — went to the Toronto Police College, and got to work.

He did a few jobs on the force, and soon became a first-class constable. As a hobby, he began doing photography. That helped him get a job in forensics.

After being hired by the crime scene team, he was sent back to college for training, then began photographing crime scenes, making moulds of shoe prints, analyzing blood spatters and doing lab work such as comparing fingerprints.

The job alternates between field and lab work. Some crime scenes, like a break and enter, take less than an hour to investigate. But a homicide can take weeks of work on the scene, and then many more following up in the lab.

Some cases end up in court, and that takes preparation and an ability to explain yourself clearly so a jury can understand.

Spencer later got promoted to homicide, and then became superintendent.

Now, he teaches at Humber, using the school’s new forensics lab, leading them through simulated investigations and even participating in mock trials.

Spencer also does forensic work as a freelancer. He doesn’t visit crime scenes much anymore, but he consults with lawyers and private investigators abut how to understand and utilize forensic evidence for their own cases and investigations.

While many of us follow recipes on a regular basis, Koniuk, 53, gets paid to cook from them for her family, and the food is included.

Early on, Koniuk developed a passion for cooking and loved to read cookbooks and food magazines. Her entire family had a sweet tooth, so there was a lot of demand for her cookies and brownies and her mother’s amazing pies.

Toronto-born Koniuk studied English literature at the University of Western Ontario, and began working in publishing. She stopped to have three kids.

Twelve years ago, a friend of hers became editor of a grocery store food magazine. She came in the door one day while Koniuk was making sushi and asked her to test recipes for the magazine.

Her very first recipe, a pie, was a disaster. She made it three times, but it just wouldn’t work. Eventually, the recipe developer realized he’d made a fundamental measurement error. As the years passed, Koniuk got more contacts in the food industry and now tests recipes for magazines such as Today’s Parent, Chatelaine and Homemakers. She also develops recipes and does product development for a grocery store chain. Testing makes up about a quarter of her work week.

When she tests, she starts by sitting down with a cup of tea and reading the recipe in close detail. Koniuk sometimes uses a technique a colleague created and mimes out the act of making the dish as she reads. Then, she makes a shopping list and heads out to her local grocery story before returning to cook, following the recipe to the letter.

“Persnickety attention to detail is really important.” She writes on the recipe as she cooks, noting things like the clarity of instructions, the accuracy of the measurements (she keeps a scale in her kitchen), whether it needs less seasoning or more and if she gets as many servings as promised.

But halfway through her degree in visual arts at York University, Charlotte McGhee, now 34, decided being a starving artist wasn’t for her. She transferred into cultural studies, hoping that would lead to a career.

It did. After graduation and a year teaching English abroad, she came home and found posting for a research assistant at a Toronto company that appraised art and antiques for insurance.

“I just have to get this,” McGhee told herself. Her knowledge of art got her hired on the spot.
For seven years, she learned on the job. Senior staff members would go out and look at a piece of china, art, furniture or jewelry, and come back with photographs and notes. McGhee’s job would be to compare their information to the materials in the company’s extensive library, and write up a report for an insurance company on the object and its estimated value.

As the years passed, McGhee got quicker and more knowledgeable, and soon was doing field work too.

In 2006, the Canadian Antiques Roadshow on CBC needed a fine art expert, and called her in. She worked on the last two seasons of the show.

Around that time, she left her job and started M&G Appraisals (the G is for her husband Wade Gaudette, who helps her out sometimes but mainly works as a chef) out of her home in Orillia.
She does appraisals for insurance purposes, but also to help settle estates when someone has died, and to divide assets in a divorce. Sometimes, people are just curious about the value of their possessions.

Once or twice a week, McGhee attends auctions, mainly to keep herself current on the latest fads and prices. As well, she collects herself and sells a little too, so she’ll often buy.

She divides the rest of her time between visiting client’s homes to either do on-the-spot appraisals (“I have a huge database in my head, I can give pretty accurate quotes”) or to take photographs and notes. Then, at home, she consults her library of books and the various electronic databases she subscribes to find comparable items to aid her in writing a report about the item and its estimated value.

Being around all these antique treasures all the time has its pitfalls. “In my house, there’s not an inch of wall that doesn’t have art on it. I have closets stacked with art: I don’t know what to do with it all.”

But her career started in a workplace where how you looked was not so important. After graduating with a degree in criminology and political science, the Vancouver resident was recruited by Corrections Canada for a job at a federal penitentiary.

Layoffs three years later led her to become an immigration investigator, where she got the chance to travel while helping to locate and arrest major criminals.

But losing her old job “made me realize no job is secure.” Encouraged by her father, she decided to start up a business on the side for extra income, and to fall back on if she ever got laid off again.

Her current job satisfied her love of working with people, but it wasn’t creative. In her teens she’d loved to paint, draw and experiment with makeup.

So Reynolds took a diploma in makeup artistry on evenings and weekends. After she graduated in the spring of 1990, she began doing makeup for weddings.

But the makeup didn’t always make her clients feel beautiful, not matter how great they looked.

“It’s not just a surface thing, you literally had to shift how they thought about themselves and transform them.”

So Reynolds kept learning: She took courses in advanced makeup, colour analysis and image while reading widely on everything from fashion to self-esteem.

In 1996, she quit her job and incorporated her business. “There came a point where I couldn’t do the work anymore. My mind was on my business,” she said.

As part of her initial consultation, Reynolds has image makeover clients fill out an exhaustive series of questions about their values and goals. Then, she spends two full days with them, getting them a new haircut, more stylish glasses, new makeup and new clothes.

But Reynolds also spends time talking to her clients about their internal side and helps them with leadership, time management, networking skills and self image.

Her clients include men and women climbing the corporate ladder who feel their look doesn’t reflect their work goals and divorcées wanting to start dating again. She recently helped a single mom who was off work because of depression.

When Reynolds is not working with clients, she’s marketing her business by attending events, making calls, doing online networking, and writing — she pens articles and is working on a book.

As for her own image? She used to wear long, artificial nails. Now, she keeps her nails trimmed with no polish, wears comfortable but current clothes and light makeup. “My look is very simple and clean and polished.”

McTavish, 67, got his first gig as Santa five years ago when organizers of a Christmas party in Bala, near his home in Ontario’s Muskoka region, needed someone last-minute.

Word soon got around that McTavish “does Santa,” and it took off from there.

This, of course, is not his first career. He started off in business, and worked in senior management for a various retail chains. Twenty years ago, he left corporate life and started up his own real estate brokerage for business clients.

Eight years ago, he moved from Toronto to Muskoka, renovated his dad’s old cottage and was reconsidering his career options — the real estate business was slowing down — when the Santa work started.

“I was looking for something to take up the slack,” says McTavish.

The jobs working parties and parades fit his schedule: it takes up much of the early winter while real estate gets busy in the spring.

In between, he swims, snowmobiles, travels and goes to the theatre.

Two years ago, he got a big break. One of the Santas at Santa’s Village in Bracebridge passed away. McTavish now spends his summers there — and probably will for years to come.

“I’m reasonably young. I know another fellow who’s 86 and he’s been doing it for sixteen years. This is a long term position.”

This year, McTavish began working in malls. “I’m developing my Santa business just like I developed my real estate business.”

It’s harder work than parties and parades: the days are long and often run late (McTavish likes to rise early so he’s beat by 8 p.m.).

And, surprisingly, his business experience helps with his new job. “I was trained in retail where I learned you have to treat the customer with incredible respect.”

He often spoke in front of crowds for his job and he doesn’t get stage fright.

At parties, he roams the room chatting with kids and adults, making sure everyone’s happy. For parades (where he wears good quality long underwear), it’s the most fun when he has a mike and can chat with the crowd.

At the village and at malls, it’s all about one-on-one chats with kids, getting them to talk about what they want, what they’re interested in, and getting into casual chats about cookies, Mrs. Claus and reindeer.