It was a little over 10 years ago that I joined Robert Kelle to take an exit ramp from my planned career journey onto "MAPLE Avenue" as we co-founded a brand new Canada-U.S. business council promoting bilateral trade, investment and entrepreneurship opportunities between our countries based in Southern California.
And now as I look ahead to a new path forward in my retirement, let's call it the on ramp to "Armstrong Avenue", I would like to take a moment to share my appreciation to everyone I've had the pleasure to meet, welcome as a member or partner, or to help connect with fellow leaders across so many sectors across Canada and the U.S., through our work at MAPLE® Business Council (MAPLE).
My first thank you is to Robert Kelle who took the initiative to boldly launch our organization at the encouragement from the Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles. Rob is not only a proud and dedicated Canadian but an accomplished executive and a "MacGyver" of a co-founder with the skills and tenacity to tackle any challenge or need in scaling an organization. Thank you, Rob for your partnership and friendship.
The greatest pleasure of growing and leading MAPLE for me has been the incredible people I've had the pleasure of meeting along our journey on "MAPLE Avenue". A special thank you goes out to all who have joined our team as a Board Member, Advisor, Chapter Executive Director, unofficial ambassador/advocate, partner, and vital resource contributor. Often it was only for the pride of celebrating our 'home and native land' and our adopted homes in the U.S., together with the opportunity to reach across geographic and sector borders to connect businesses with opportunities, that so many have given so much of their time in service to our cross-border mission. Thank you all.
To our members, past and present, thank you for investing your time and energy into our community. For being responsive to fellow members. For sharing your insights and expertise through articles, interviews, presentations, videos, and delegations. For making our mission possible to sustain and grow over a decade. MAPLE is a community of doers, visionaries, and enablers from Canada, from the United States, and for anyone with an interest in pursuing opportunities in our two great nations.
To our partners, it has been an honour to come together officially and unofficially in service of each other's missions. Economic development takes a village built on mutual capability, respect and trust.
A couple of partnership moments that stand out for me are signing our MOU agreement at the LA Clean Tech Incubator with Stephen Cheung, CEO of World Trade Center LA at the time, and signing our partnership agreement with the City of Long Beach as part of a special day when we toured the Port of Long Beach. We later had the privilege of bringing a Long Beach delegation to Vancouver which included a very special evening at the home of then U.S. Consul General Katherine Dhanani. There was such energy in the room that night!
Covid tested our community and our grassroots executive model of bringing people together which was to host three back-to-back events in Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego over two days each quarter. I still can't believe we executed this for many years and that we survived all the schlepping of meeting materials event after event!
But not only did we make it through the pandemic but we grew as a community as we pivoted to online programs and even launched chapters in New York and British Columbia.
Life has also tested us.
In 2018, we lost Richard Dozier our friend at Riverside County Economic Development Office who had joined us for one of our quarterly pan-Southern California event series and in 2023, we said goodbye to our dear friend and board member, Anna Innis of Air Canada.
I would like to thank our government partners/members for their support and collaborations over the years from cities including Los Angeles, San Diego, Irvine, Santa Clarita Valley, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montréal, Ville St. Laurent, Ottawa, Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge; the Counties of Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, and Los Angeles, the Provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Québec and the great states of California, Colorado, and New York.
At a federal level, thank you to the teams at the U.S. Commercial Service and Small Business Administration, the U.S. Consulate General offices in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto and the Global Affairs and Consular teams at the Canadian Consulate General missions in New York, Denver, San Diego and especially, Los Angeles under the leadership of Consul General Zaib Shaikh. The dedication and expertise that the men and women of these organizations give to businesses seeking to grow across borders and in their communities is phenomenal. It has been an honour to stand beside you.
MAPLE is now poised for an amazing second decade.
Thank you to Kim Walker for signing on to lead our community forward as our new President. It is very special for Rob and me to welcome you having first met when you and your husband James Villeneuve opened the doors of Canada's Official Residence in Los Angeles during his term as Consul General to warmly welcome MAPLE. Your support of our community then was key and now we've come full circle together. You will be a great MAPLE President.
Our Canada - United States friendship, partnership and allyship is precious and needs to be nurtured, leveraged, and celebrated. It will always be tested too and what's important is how we respond to the challenges that our nations face together.
I believe passionately in the power of fellowship through networking and storytelling which are the pillars of our community. I am proud to have launched our second website, www.maplecouncilinsights.org, which is an online library of market and sector insights curated from our special content platforms over the years. It now offers over 200 articles, interviews, and videos as reference material for tomorrow's businesses to leverage.
Early on in MAPLE, I wrote a blog entitled, "The Arc of a Border" that described my relationship to Canada as a marketing executive who left Canada to work in the United States. Canada was in my rear view mirror for part of my life as I pursued my career goals and then like a boomerang it came back into focus as I connected with fellow Canadian expats living in Southern California.
MAPLE began as a passion project and then grew into a full-time commitment - one that I could never have foreseen earlier in my life. And it is equally a celebration of two countries, two homes and the partnership and love that binds our countries together. Integrated supply chains make be part of the business case underlying our ties, but the relationship is much stronger and goes much much deeper. The power of a handshake across our border is part of the glue that binds us together.
With so many incredible memories and special relationships collected from the last decade with MAPLE, I just want to say thank you for the privilege to be part of this community.
Wishing everyone a very happy holiday season and much success and happiness in 2025 and beyond!
Together "We are MAPLE".
Stephen Armstrong
Co-Founder/President
2014-2024.
10 years ago, opportunity led me to “MAPLE Avenue”!
And now turning the corner onto the next chapter!