Posted by John Borst on Apr 26, 2018
One of the customs of a Rotary Club is for a new member to give a talk on their vocation. Such short speeches have become known as a “vocational talk”. Although members are expected to focus on their “work,” there is a large autobiographical component to most talks.
 
Bob Macdonald and Donna Pollock gave their talks at the April 11th meeting.

Bob MacDonald

 
Bob came to Dryden as Vice-President of the Goliath Gold Project at Treasury Metals replacing Rtn. Norm Bush.
 
Bob was raised in Kirkland Lake a mining town similar to Dryden. Both communities have seen economic cycles of prosperity and tough times typical of small towns based on natural resources.
 
MacDonald is a graduate engineer from Queens University. He has worked away from home for nearly twenty-eight years mainly in the operational role.
 
Mining has given Bob the the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. He enjoys mentoring young people in the mining industry. He says “joining Rotary has allowed him to meet more people in Dryden.
 
Bob is married to Ursula, the Health and Safety and Wellness manager at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. They have a daughter Stacey who is in Year two at Western.

 

Donna Pollock

 
Donna Pollack grew up in Southern Ontario where she met her late husband. Together in 1985, they created a small plastics business in Markham, Ontario. Donna worked as a corporate legal clerk by day and at the business on weekends.
 
In the meantime, Donna began a family, and took accounting courses at York University which in turn lead to employment with the York Region District School Board.
 
However, in 2004 her husband was diagnosed with cancer and died five weeks later. Pollock resigned her job and took over the business as a single parent with two teenage children.
 
Five years later she met a fellow from a place she had never heard of, namely Dryden. She was quite startled upon her first visit when at the Thunder Bay airport she was directed to the Bear Skin departure lounge on the first floor, with no security and an attendant just checking off names, and eating a sandwich as she went outside and boarded the plane from the tarmac.
 
Once she got in the air, however and saw the view from the air took her breath away and she instantly fell in love with the country. As fate would have it, during that first visit she changed upon an ad for Patricia Area Community Endeavours (PACE) conveniently open in the local newspaper The Dryden Observer.  She applied and got the job of business development coordinator, a position she held until 2016, when she was promoted to General Manager.
 
Donna has been involved with boards and committees of the Museum, Library and Chamber of Commerce. She also started TOAST, a women’s networking committee that meets once a month. She is now working on creating a similar network in Ignace with a goal of having their inaugural meeting later this month.
 
In her spare time, she uses her entrepreneurial skills as a consultant for Rodan and Fields skin care products which you can access in the advertisement on this page in the column on the right.
 
Pollock is also an avid golfer and is looking forward to joining the senior golf tournament in Dryden.
 
Donna is and her husband Bill Pollock have four children between them.