Entrepreneurial Commerce Grad Charts Her Own Course
Five years ago, Bachelor of Commerce graduate Avery Sheppard’s life changed dramatically during a dinner table conversation at home in the town of Mindemoya on Northern Ontario’s Manitoulin Island.
Her mother had been encouraged by a local businessman to open a restaurant in an iconic lighthouse-shaped building overlooking the water in nearby Gore Bay. Denise Purvis Sheppard told her husband and kids that she wasn’t interested.
“So I asked my mom if I could do it,” recalls Avery, who was just 18 at the time.
“She thought I was joking, but I wouldn’t let it go.”
“If you can figure it out,” her mom said, “go ahead.”
And if you think it’s foolhardy for a teenager to jump into a notoriously challenging industry with virtually no experience, you don’t know Avery Sheppard.