Automotive News Canada - July 2020 - v2 - 14

14

* JULY 2020

She breaks the mold to help Canada's mold makers
By JIL McINTOSH

working in conjunction with
the board. She works out of
rented offices in a high-tech
logistics centre and a trade
school, and she brings students
in to encourage them to consider the field.
"We show them the new
technologies and new cars.
They think you must have
a degree, but I say no, every
opportunity is around the corner. I knew nothing about the
job but said I'd try it, and look
where it took me."

OSHAWA CORRESPONDENT

DIANE DESLIPPE

PUTTING CANADIAN SUPPLIERS
ON THE GLOBAL MAP

AUTOMOBILES HAVE
plenty of plastic and composite parts, and many of those are
made in molds from Canadian
companies.
As executive director of the
Windsor, Ont.-based Canadian
Association of Moldmakers
(CAMM) and its Automate
Canada trade association arm,
Diane Deslippe makes sure
those businesses are noticed.
"We do a lot of lobbying
around the world to help with
exports. Most [members] are
small to medium shops, and
they need help with trade
shows and a global platform.
We bridge the gap
so companies can
expand their businesses into other
countries."
Deslippe, 64, studied sports sciences
but initially got an
office job at steel producer Algoma Steel.
She coached gymnastics in her spare
time, which became
full time with positions in New Brunswick and
Saskatchewan. Returning to
Ontario, she began at CAMM
in 2004.
"I had no experience with

Diane Deslippe does "a lot of
lobbying around the world"
to help CAMM members
boost their export business.
PHOTO VIA DIANE DESLIPPE

mold makers, but I did with
steel. And I had 15 years in
sports associations, so I knew
how not-for-profit worked and how
to keep the members happy. I spent
a lot of time in their
shops learning what
the products were.
"I work with governments on different things. Right
now I'm chairing a
COVID report that
will go to government, to help them
understand what our needs are
going through this process."
Until she recently got
an assistant, Deslippe was
CAMM's sole office employee,

IAN SOUTTER

A BROAD BACKGROUND
GIVES THE ABILITY TO SWITCH

AT GM CANADA IN
Oshawa, Ont., he's in charge
of developing partnerships
and solutions as senior manager of EV Charging and
Infrastructure Canada.
But when COVID-19 struck,
Ian Soutter, 54, was given a
different responsibility: turning part of Oshawa's shuttered
assembly plant into a mask factory.
"I was aware of [the coronavirus] early on because my
wife is a pharmacist, and she
knew it wasn't going to be a
short-term issue. I was a supporter of GM having a role to
play."
His father worked at GM,
and Soutter initially came in
as an engineering co-op student. He started as a controls
engineer, and over the years
his positions included mainte-

Bhu Kapur, president of MediaFleet Canada, manages the
press vehicles for several automakers. He got his start as a
part-time driver for another media fleet company.
PHOTO: JIL MCINTOSH

competency. I can get people to achieve more than they
thought they could."

BHU KAPUR

SEAT TIME IS EVERYTHING
TO SELLING A VEHICLE

When the pandemic took
hold, GM's Ian Soutter
"switched gears" and used
his manufacturing-setup
skills to get mask production
under way at the former
Oshawa Assembly plant.
PHOTO: LARYSSA HULCIO

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nance, production and labour
relations. In 2016, he was the
project lead when the Oshawa
plant switched to assembling
pickups from building the
Equinox.
He said the plant's closure
was "tough and emotional,
but it led to opportunity. Life
throws you curves, and it's
what you do with them that
counts. I moved from manufacturing into the growth of our
business, which is the charging
infrastructure rollout and the
move to electrification."
GM's facility in Warren,
Mich., had set up a mask operation, and he called on his contacts there for guidance.
"I took the skills I had
learned setting up manufacturing operations and switched
gears to building masks. We
took some of Warren's designs
and put it together. It was the
fastest-moving project in my
career: three weeks and one
day from the first purchase
order for equipment to start of
production."
His degrees in engineering
play a role in his success, but
"I'm a team builder, and that's
critical. I assemble a team to
take advantage of everyone's

EMAIL YOUR PICKS

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A MAJOR PART OF
publicizing a vehicle is getting it into the hands of automotive writers, and that's the
point of MediaFleet Canada in
Mississauga, Ont.
The company manages
press fleets and assists with
events for companies including Ford, Hyundai, Nissan and
Maserati, and it works as "a
marketing arm for the automakers to provide extra coverage and information," said
President Bhu Kapur.
"We schedule the drives,
clean the cars and provide a
more effective method of getting cars to the end users. For
the high-end cars, we'll do a
'white glove' service, delivering it with a full walk-through
like the new-buyer experience
for journalists or social media
influencers."
Kapur, 52, grew up in
British Columbia and Ontario.
He got a degree in physiology
from the University of Toronto
and then worked as a computer
systems analyst.
"I got bored and left to
become a photographer, doing
weddings and portraits. I was
self-taught in photography by
taking pictures of cars."
In 2011, he began as a parttime driver for BHG, a media
fleet company run by founder
Richard Pickering.
"I was burning out from
photography and preferred the
cars, so I got more involved in
that. Richard didn't have the
technology, and I helped create the computer systems and
[brought] the company online.
Then Richard got ill, and he
asked me to run the business."
Pickering died in 2017, and
later that year Kapur launched
MediaFleet.
"I think we're good at this
because we built good relationships with the end users and
the manufacturers, and we're
a bridge between the two. We
have a good reach, and we're
reactive and mobile. If somebody wants a car tomorrow, we
can do that."- ANC
http://www.JoeVerde.com/grownow
Automotive News Canada - July 2020 - v2

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