“I think I was born to care and be a nurse,” reflected Collier, noting that she originally wanted to be a teacher but an ill friend changed her perspective.


“I remember when I decided to be a nurse — there was no looking back. I was going to do the best job I could.”


Over the years, her most memorable time in nursing was the 27 years she worked in the Emergency Room at Medicine Hat Hospital.


“The experiences, what I did, it was one where you had to think, it was a very fast moving department,” she said. From there she worked in a doctor’s office through the PCN. “Retirement” from the PCN lasted only a few months before she swung into working homecare with AHS.


“It’s so much a part of my life, I thought I was finished —but no,” said Collier. “It’s being with people, I missed patients, I missed caring for them.”


“Working in homecare is certainly a different kind of nursing,” she said.


It’s client-based, helping with chronic care management, education — and enabling seniors to hopefully stay in their homes and continue to live where they want to live. It’s not just bedside nursing.”


And over the years, the best parts for Collier were some of the wonderful nurses she met, who become both mentors and friends, as well as working with the doctors.


It’s also a profession that has kept her learning —updating her education, taking new courses, even adapting to using computers.


It’s a challenging but rewarding career she said — a lot of hard work, dedication and long hours, evenings, weekends and holidays.


But it’s a career she wouldn’t change. “It’s who I am,” she said. “I think it’s what you’re made up of.”


DAVE AND TAMMY MULDER Building a small family-owned business builds dream homes.


That's what Medicine Hat College Alumni Dave and Tammy Mulder have with their local business, Mulder Builders.


“I think it was in my blood,” said Dave about why he headed into the realm of building homes, as his father and uncle were both in the housing industry.


“It was always nice at the end of the day — you could always see what you’ve accomplished," said Dave.


Dave attended MHC from ‘88-’91 for computer aided drafting and business courses, and went on to earn his carpenter's ticket. In '95, he and his father started up Mulder Builders, doing framing work and a few custom homes.


Meanwhile hailing from small town Saskatchewan, Tammy attended MHC for general studies from ‘91-92, and is a Rattlers alumnus for volleyball — being Rattlers is how Tammy and Dave first met.


While Dave's father has since retired from the business, Tammy and Dave have continued on.


Eighteen years later, the business has grown and expanded, now focusing on creating custom homes with a few spec homes from time to time.


Medicine Hat College alumni Tammy and Dave Mulder met while attending the college. They now own and operate Mulder Builders.


92 | 2013 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA


It's a business they enjoy, said Tammy, and over the 18 years they've built more than 200 homes, plus renovated others.


Dave's favourite part? “It’s certainly the design process. Meeting a new client and designing a new home to their needs,” said Dave.


“Starting from pencil drawings to a house in the end is really neat,” continued Tammy.


Most recently this design includes taking a client's vision of an eco-friendly home and turning it into a reality with a green build, Tammy said.


Or it's also designing houses that fit into the lots in already established neighbourhoods in Medicine Hat.


“We really love the in-fill type projects as well — it’s always neat to plop a house down,” said Dave. The family's own home is an infill one in the Riverside neighbourhood, the same neighbourhood Dave grew up in.


In the 18 years, the business has changed dramatically, noted Dave, from the products and technology used to build these custom homes. And while the family business is now just Dave and Tammy, they try as much to support other local businesses in the community — whenever possible they sub-hire and use local tradespeople, and work with fellow family-run businesses within the community.


“The Hat has treated us really well,” he said. “The clients we meet, the friendships we make, keep us building.”


LYNDON WESTER


Tucked away in the small village of Tilley, Wester’s Garage is solving some complex car problems.


"It doesn't get old. As vehicle technology changes, everything changes and you have to keep up with it," said shop owner and MHC alumni Lyndon Wester.


Heading into mechanics was a natural route for Wester, who was born and raised on a farm near Tilley.


"I've always kind of been a car nut," he said. " And it was usually fixing a lot of stuff on the farm, it was automotive related, just kind of ended up going that way."


Earning both his provincial journeyman's ticket for autobody and automotives by '95, he spent seven years attending MHC, driving back and forth every day, running the shop and even farming.


"But I was younger then," he said with a chuckle.


The shop has migrated away from the usual repairs and into the realm of car computers.


"Most of my work is in the performance industry. So we program vehicle computers and they're shipped all over the world," said Wester, a focus that came when facing a repair problem.


"We actually had a couple of vehicles here that we just couldn't fix and we realized the problem was in the software, it was the way GM had written their software," Wester explained. "That's where it originally started from, just started reverse engineering problems back in the early 90s and kind of went from there."


The job is a rewarding one, he said, solving a lot of problems people have with their vehicles.


"We have a pretty big customer base. We do tuning for over 70 different performance shops, so it's been good. It's challenging. It's not the simple stuff like swapping out air filters and doing oil changes, it's complex stuff."


But Wester attributes the instructors and MHC with being keen, being up to date, and being the “first big piece of the puzzle.”


"The old days where you had carburetors, three transmissions made by every manufacturer — now there's over 100. This trade has changed so much there's just no way you can be a backyard mechanic and survive. You’ve got to take the training."


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