For over 40 years, the Ontario Colleges’ Marketing Competition (OCMC) has become a rite of passage for college marketing students. After months of intensive training with faculty coaches, competitors put their learning to the test among the best and brightest from across the province.
For the second time in Terri Champion and Malcolm Howe’s 26- and 28-year careers at Niagara College in the School of Business and Management Studies, the pair took the reins to host the 2019 OCMC in Niagara Falls with over 250 participants from Ontario’s 26 colleges.
Champion and Howe, who have coached students and been active members of the inter-college planning committee for many years, had a clear vision for the competition: to focus on education and make it the most technologically advanced yet.
With the help of NC’s Broadcasting – Radio, Television and Film program students, they recorded over 130 videos of student pitches. In previous years, just one of ten events were recorded. The benefit? Each competitor would be able to see how they performed, and compare their performance with a video of the winning team.
Howe insists that the OCMC is an exercise in confidence-building. “The students who sign up to compete are voluntarily saying: I’m going to work like crazy for a little trophy. But it’s not about that. It’s about all the work they do to prepare. They raise their level of expectations and push the limits of what they’re capable of.”
For over four decades, the OCMC has been the capstone experience for career preparation for College students across Ontario. Through their unwavering passion for supporting students’ growth and coaching them to career success, Champion and Howe have created a legacy of innovation with the OCMC in the true spirit of Niagara College’s DNA.
Read more about the dynamic duo below.
Malcolm Howe
Entrepreneur-turned-educator helps students build their confidence
Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Malcolm Howe grew up in the small business world, pitching in to help his father run tourist attractions on Clifton Hill. The trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship were always part of Howe’s world and helped to guide his education and career path in marketing research and strategy, economics, and consulting along the way to becoming an instructor at Niagara College.
“I never took a marketing course until my MBA, but I was involved in business from the time I was 13,” said Howe. “My first business was selling sunglasses, t-shirts and temporary tattoos out of a hole-in-the-wall on Clifton Hill in the 1980’s.”
Howe, program coordinator of the Business Administration – Marketing program, has been teaching in NC’s School of Business and Management Studies since 1992. Over the past 28 years, he has coached thousands of students to prepare for careers in the industry, planned two province-wide college marketing competitions, been a champion of the College’s recruitment efforts, and served as faculty research lead with NC’s Research and Innovation division on the Business and Commercialization Solutions team.
I get to see students raise their level of expectations, what they’re capable of, and what they should expect from themselves, and it’s great to see.
From A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls, Howe went on to earn an Honors Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Brock University. After beginning doctoral studies in Economics at Western University, family ties drew him back to Niagara to take over the family businesses – the Guinness Museum, Movieland Wax Museum, and Tower Ride – after his father passed away.
“I got the businesses back to where they needed to be,” said Howe. “But I grew up in them so didn’t see myself doing it forever.”
Howe returned to Western University’s Ivey Business School to earn a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing Management before pursuing teaching throughout Canada, the United States, Peru and China.
“Somewhere along the way I realized that teaching is pretty fun. Students are at a great place in their lives. Every time I teach a course I can play around with it, experiment, and do it a little differently to see what works.”
Reflecting on his career as an educator and coach, Howe cites building self-confidence as vitally important to student success. As a coach to NC students who compete in the annual Ontario Colleges’ Marketing Competition, Howe has clear advice for his students:
“Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” Howe tells his students that their ability to take feedback is a powerful tool to help them grow and take on the challenges of the business world. “I get to see students raise their level of expectations, what they’re capable of, and what they should expect from themselves, and it’s great to see.”
When he’s not teaching, Howe has melded his passion for cycling with his entrepreneurial spirit.
“Cycling is my meditation,” said Howe, who is the author and publisher of mountain bike guidebooks and a regular contributor to Canadian Cycling Magazine. Howe leads a group of friends on cycling trips through Ontario, B.C. and Utah each year.
Terri Champion
Championing the next generation of marketers
Before Terri Champion was a professor, accomplished author, and program coordinator of the Business – Sales and Marketing program, she was an undergraduate student who won first place in a national marketing case competition. Little did she know that, years later, she would go on to plan the Ontario College’s Marketing Competition on behalf of NC and coach students of her own.
Champion reminisces about her experience competing. “It was exciting, our professor was so thrilled that we won, so I totally understand what students go through in terms of the level of preparation, angst and stress. But I also know what they get out of it in terms of career preparation and networking with judges and sponsors.”
Growing up in Niagara Falls and later calling St. Catharines home, Champion earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from Brock University before working in sales and marketing for Ford Canada’s corporate office in Oakville. All the while, Champion kept one foot in the education world, teaching at Brock as a seminar leader.
“My colleagues at Ford would ask me, how do you do that – drive back and forth from Oakville to St. Catharines – to teach,” said Champion. “I asked myself, why am I doing this? I realized I really liked teaching and I began toying with the idea of going back to school.”
“Ford was very supportive – they allowed me to take a one-year sabbatical to explore teaching. In the end, I decided to pursue teaching full time,” said Champion.
Champion went on to work for the school board at the New Enterprise Store, a government-funded initiative to support adults with starting their own businesses.
“Two of the individuals I consulted for are still in business today,” said Champion, who is passionate about supporting Niagara’s local businesses.
In 1994, she heard about an opportunity at Niagara College. After just a year as an instructor, Champion became program coordinator, a role she’s held ever since.
Writing and research has been a great experience, and I’ve had the chance to profile local businesses including Regatta Sports in Port Dalhousie and alumnus Chris Sinclair of Brand Blvd.
Champion applied to Brock for her Bachelor or Education – Intermediate/Senior Entrepreneurship, Marketing and was faced with the choice of whether to leave her corporate job.
Champion has accomplished greatness of her own over her years at the College, from co-authoring seven textbook editions on small business, entrepreneurship, marketing and management principles for both Pearson and Nelson Education, serving as faculty lead on the Business Commercialization team with Research and Innovation, and planning two Ontario Colleges’ Marketing Competitions.
“Writing and research has been a great experience, and I’ve had the chance to profile local businesses including Regatta Sports in Port Dalhousie and alumnus Chris Sinclair of Brand Blvd,” said Champion.
Between juggling teaching, coaching, researching and writing, Champion finds time for her passions: travel, photography, and spending time with her children ages 21 and 23. Champion says she’s learned a lot about other fields through her daughter who is in public health, and her son in media production and a hip-hop artist.
“They get their communication abilities from being around me.”
