Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 1

BSST COPY AVAILABLE tespect The1 playoff scores mwMiTBI at last for Aerosmith lop uimxim JB II VI J.J The Edmonton Partly -VO sunny High 7 Accu-Weather C12 QJJ Monday, April 19, 1993 50 Cents Metro Only WW2 -J 1 1 i rra r-m f-y I I 'I GOD 3 ffi F) LB Grit and determination have helped some people prosper in tough times Closure plan worries alderman MARILYN MOYSA Journal Staff Writer if i need! Uo ft i( ADRIENNE TANNER and MARINA JIMENEZ Journal Stafl Wafers Edmonton would want the service. Today, Wilk stands in a downtown office, slipping a three-foot by four-foot map into something resembling a giant ith a card- Armed bo oard sign, photocopier while he proudly explains the process. Electronic scanning converts maps, blue Bob Meekison's desperate job hunt was rewarded "I'm concerned because our unemployment rate is already unacceptably high at almost 1 1 per cent. With the AGT layoffs and more provincial government talk of downsizing, I'm worried we will see more unemployment instead of a reversal. Aid.

Michael Phair Concern over fate of downtown Bay storeB1 est in the proposed deal. Four of the live Woodward's stores to shut completely across Western Canada are in Edmonton. The fifth to close is in Coquitlam, B.C. Finn said Edmonton is suffering the most closures lecause it has more Zellers and Bay stores than other cities in the West. "When they did this deal, the Bay and Zellers were thinking about their position in British Columbia," said Finn.

"Woodward's has many good locations there and Zellers and the Bay are not in a strong position in the market there already." But in Edmonton, "the Bay and Zellers were aggressive during the '80s and as a result, they have as many stores as the market can accommodate." For instance. West Edmonton Mall already has a Bay and a Zellers store, "so you don't need two Bays or two Zellers there." P'inn said that even converting into Zellers at Westmount may be a risk because it will have to compete with an already successful Zellers store at nearby Kingsvvay Garden Mall. Please see STORESA2 Edmonton Almost 600 Woodward's workers across Edmonton could lose their jobs if the Bay buys out the 101 -year-old retail chain, says an Allerta retail analyst. "I would imagine at least 80 per cent of Woodward's people in the city will end up without jobs," University of Alberta business professor Adam Finn said Sunday. A Woodward's marketing manager has estimated there are between 500 to 700 full- and part-timers currently employed throughout the city in the retailer's six stores.

The figure doesn't include employees at Woodward's service and in-home cleaning centres. Creditors and shareholders of the Hudson's Bay Corp. must still approve the plan, which would see four Woodward's stores close at West Edmonton Mall, Southgate Shopping Centre, Mill Woods Town Centre and N'orthwood Mall. The corporation, which votes on the plan next month, also proposes to convert the Edmonton Centre Woodward's to a Bay store and the Westmount Shopping Centre store to a Zellers. "I'm concerned because our unemployment rate is already unac-ceptably high at almost 11 per cent," said Aid.

Michael Phair. "With the AGT layoffs and more provincial government talk of downsizing, I'm worried we will see more unemployment instead of a reversal." Finn predicted about 40 to 50 per cent of the 200 jobs at Woodward's Edmonton Centre store will be preserved if the Bay moves from its smaller site on Jasper Avenue to the larger four-storey location at Edmonton Centre, as expected. "But only about five to 10 per cent of the employees in the other stores could be absorbed at most through transfers to the Bay or Zellers." he said. Edmonton is being hit the hard- Bob Meekison hit Edmonton streets and spat square in the eye of the recession. In just four hours, he got five full-time job offers, winning the war against unemployment.

Today he's working at Dominion Carpet Cleaning, earning between $25,000 and $30,000 a year. He turned down offers to work in construction, sell health food snacks and drive a delivery truck for beauty supply company. "I could have run a job agency off that corner," he says with a chuckle. The 37-year-old asbestos remover broadcast his talents on the street after a two-month conventional job search failed. He'd had no luck answering classified ads or chasing job postings at the Canada Employment Centre.

"I decided the best way was to get out and let people know I was unemployed. "It's a tough thing to do stand there like that. But once people came up and started honking the horn, it worked out pretty good. I was actually having fun after about an hour." Sheer "moxie," as Meekison calls it, brought him a solution to the devastating unemployment problem facing thousands of Albertans. It's not the answer for everyone.

But heaping doses of Meekison's grit and determina Jim Cochrane, 77ie Journal His; sheer 'moxie' brought Bob Meekison a solution to the devastating unemployment problem facing thousands of Albertans. Journal reporters Marina Jimenez and Adrienne Tanner spent a month tracking the new underclass, following their slippery slide into unemployment and poverty. iii prints and other docu-ments to computer images that can be sent across phone lines. It saves companies time and makes editing easier. Gone are the searches in dusty archives for old blueprints.

Now they're seconds away on a computer disk. "It was a big risk, we needed to raise a lot of money to buy the computer equipment, worth close to $1 million," says Wilk, who emanates energy and confidence behind his big desk. "I'm not afraid of anything." ScanTech now has a staff of five, serving clients as far away as Kuwait, as well as Canadian municipalities and utility companies. Wilk's success is partly due to the industry he chose telecommunications, one of today's boom areas, along with computer technology and services. In many industries these days, smaller is better.

Major corporations react slowly to market changes, says Chuck Charlton, stockbroker and owner of Charlton Securities in Calgary. He points to the boom in small oil companies. They are succeeding, while giants like Amoco Canada Petroleum Company languish. "There are no sacred cows any more," Charlton says. Laid-off engineers and geologists are being picked up for a song by smaller companies.

Other oilpatch professionals are starting their own companies, developing low-value properties and wells that majors such as Petro-Canada and Esso won't touch. "The success in Calgary especially is extraordinary. It takes you back to the enthusiasm and growth of the oil boom," says Charlton, who believes small and mid-sized businesses will create Jimenez Tanner tion have helped some prosper amidst the bankruptcies and layoffs in Alberta's new economy. Laurie Reid's exhaustive Job search finally pays offB3 Advice for Job hunters! B3 Many of those who are suc -a iTrjjr-TrTi'-'i 'ft" -t jjwteoMjij ceeding today also have vision they identify growth industries and capitalize on a good idea before others get wind of it. jobs and lead Canada out of the recession.

have been given the golden handshake, says Hardy, an entrepreneur who at 30 is part-owner of Two young business school Take Peter Wilk, the owner graduates are capitalizing on this three other businesses. Canadians get a hero's welcome and founder of Edmonton's ScanTech. new interest in small businesses. Middle managers have both Four years ago. Wilk, 32, was an English graduate who dreamed of writing a novel one day.

He couldn't tell a Macintosh from an IBM. But he knew the paperless Journal News Services Srebrenica Within hours of a Serb-Muslim ceasefire early Sunday, about 150 Canadian UN peacekeepers entered this eastern Bosnian town, military spokesmen said. Ham radio operators here said the Canadians received a hero's welcome, complete with hugs, kisses and applause. The Canadians' mission will be to monitor the ceasefire, demilitarize Srebrenica and provide security for medical evacuation flights, Canadian Maj. Brett Bou-dreau said from Daruvar, Croatia Complete storyA5 expertise and money and prefer to take over someone else's business rather than start up one of their own.

Companies are also out shopping, hoping to take over a beleaguered competitor or client. Foundation, with three employees and four consultants, says it's doing well because it's a good time to buy. Please see SOLUTIONA7 Dan MacNeill and Dave Hardy set up Foundation Business Brokers two years ago to help people buy and sell small and mid-sized companies. From an underwear shop to an art gallery, Foundation has 21 businesses for sale and a list of 1,500 people looking to buy. Many of the interested buyers are middle managers from AGT, the oil patch or government who office was the wave of the future So when he heard about elec tronic scanning, he read every magazine and book on this hightech field, sure that companies Flash-in-the-pan memories take the cake recalled Graylor.

"It's a neat nov- JEFF HOLUBITSKV The New Beat if Money A 10 Obituaries C2 Opinion A8 People A2 Ron Chalmers A10 Sports D1 Television B5 Weather Wonderword 86 World A5 CLASSIFIED ADS Bus. to Bus A11 Employment C3-5 Legais C'2 Peal Estate C5-8 Wheels C8-12 Aiberta A7 Ann Landers C2 Births C3 Bridge C6 Canada A3 City 81 Comics B6 Crossword B6 Dr Dononue C2 Entertainment B4 Greg Kennedy B4 Horoscope C5 Jonn Brown A8 Letters A9 Liar Faukjer C1 Life CI Lotteries A2 Hall first began using a Sweet Art machine when she went to work two years ago at the Jasper Gates Safeway on Stony Plain Road. Hall had been decorating cakes for about 10 years in the traditional manner. Edmonton Judy Hall reproduces tasteful photography, as 100-year-old Elizabeth Clifford can attest. When relatives and friends recently joined Clifford to celebrate her birthday at the Hardisty Nursing Home, her eyes sparkled when i son Russell showed her the cake Clifford out unwanted trees or telephone lines in the customer's photo.

Soon she was reproducing everything from team portraits to cartoons on cakes. "I told myself to make it a game. I thought if I make this fun, it's going to be that much easier to learn." As her skill grew, so too did her client list. She has printed company logos on cakes for the Royal Bank and the Bank of Nova Scotia. The Oilers had a team picture printed for a party and a veterinarian had pictures of his prized German shepherds painted on a cake.

Bill Graylor of St Albert remembers surprising his lifelong friend Leonard Cole with a picture birthday cake. Cole, of Hamilton. "had never seen anything like it before," elty." But for anyone considering a lasting keepsake, forget it. Putting the cake in the freezer ruins the picture. Only two supermarkets in Alberta have the $25,000 Sweet Art machines.

One in Calgary can paint in color. The one Hall uses reproduces its pictures in a monotone, although that one food coloring can be black, red, blue or yellow. Sizes can also vary', from the small $7.49 round cakes to the larger rectangular birthday cake that sells for $13.99. The photo process adds another $5 to the price. The Edmonton store currently only sells a dozen or fewer computer-painted cakes a week, but Hall expects that to change.

"For now I think it's a novelty but I think could become a big part of the bakery' as more people become aware of it" 2 2 decorated with a photo taken of her near Drumheller in the early 1920s. "It's a really nice idea," her son said of the cake and the computer that reproduces photos on icing using food coloring. Until now. cake decorating has been a handicraft, something done with sugar flowers, a piping bag and a spatula. Then her boss told her she had to learn something new.

"It came as a big surprise, I didn't know anything about it," said Halt recalling her nervousness over her first encounter with computers. If the picture was too dark, she learned to lighten it with the touch of a finger on a sensitive computer screen. She discovered how to edit Soutrarti "PJoum Bmcr'tr Ana, T5J 2S6 Second Cass mat regfrafrion numW0566. Brian Gavriloff The Journal Elizabeth Clifford's birthday cake featured a picture from her youth 5.