SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARDS.

• Position: Businesswomen - Brief Article

NOB introduced its Special Recognition Awards to acknowledge and thank the ongoing support of our Alumni, sponsors and supporters who have helped promote women's economic development and the IW mission throughout the North.

Maggie Milne, a 1998 IW Alumni and promoter of the Influential Women of Northern Ontario initiative, recently said that her research into how "influence" is built and retained has developed into a toolkit for communication training and community capacity building and has become part of her business.

Milne never misses an opportunity to promote what she believes in.

That is one reason why she was selected to receive the inaugural Special Recognition Award from IW this year. Milne, who is a keynote speaker, writer and entrepreneur, uses her influence to consistently promote the Influential Women of Northern Ontario program, its mission and its mandate.

It was Milne who recommended to PARO, a Northwestern Ontario Women's Community Loan Fund, to partner with IW in Northwestern Ontario this year. The partner ship would provide delegates to PARO's Get Up and Go conference access to networking opportunities, to be inspired by the success of the IW Award winners and to make connections that could help them in their own pursuits of economic initiatives.

Milne uses every opportunity she has to promote the IW mission in other media, at various functions and through community channels she has developed.

Her firm, MMI, has a reputation for zealous, highly interactive programs with a twist of ingenuity. Milne is known for her expertise as a seasoned speaker who relies on more than theory to get her point across. Milne has developed stimulating connections with audiences in the mud huts of Ghana and executive boardrooms in Canada and Australia.

This year the Atlantic Speakers Bureau honoured her as their "Consummate Speaker of the Year."

Milne also has many firsts in her resume: first woman to be hired on contract with the Canadian Grain Elevators, founding member of the Multicultural Association of Northwestern Ontario and the Ontario Prevention Network, founding director of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, editor of Rural Connections, photographer with the family business, community development consultant and entrepreneur.

As director general of FedNor (the Federal Economic Development Agency in...