- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

At the beginning of our conversation I asked Luke Den Tandt what he wanted to do when he finished his business degree at McMaster. By the end of our visit, I realized I had asked the wrong question.
For Luke it is not about what he wants to do – it's about who he wants to be.

Luke is halfway through his second year at McMaster and he's eager to get out and put it all to the test in real life.

When a sheet of paper came around his class asking who was interested in "student management" he added his name. Whatever it was about, he was willing to find out.

It turned out it was about Student Works Painting, a 36- year old Canadian company whose business model involves recruiting and training young entrepreneurs to spend their summers building a team and doing as many painting jobs as they can find. Student Works has a good reputation, with solid reviews from both customers and former employees.

Their recruitment process was lengthy, but by the end Luke was in a room full of driven twenty-year-olds like himself, all ready to absorb every facet of a successful business. He's been learning everything about paint and painting of course, but also sales and cash flow, and effective recruiting, motivating and maintaining employees.

When it came to choosing where he was going to run his business, the decision was easy.

Luke came to Owen Sound when he was 9, so naturally he wasn't given a lot of choice in that move. But his family has deep roots in the area and this quickly became home. He made firm friends at West Hill Secondary and is counting on some of these to form the base of his summer painting workforce.

Job one is marketing, and Luke is back in town knocking on doors every weekend, looking for leads on painting jobs and offering estimates. He is also hiring – he's looking for coachable, enthusiastic people to find him leads (for which he will pay) and if those leads turn into estimates, he'll pay even more.

Luke has seen business from the employee's side – he learned about hard work stacking ice cream in a ̵ ­40° freezer at Chapmans Ice Cream and he watched other employees start and quit.
"People are the real assets of any business - so why shouldn't they be enjoying their work and rewarded for doing it well?" He wants to make that possible for his employees.

The actual painting will begin at the end of the school term, May through August - "when the birds are chirping and the sun is shining". And when they aren't – those are the interior painting days.

"My name is on the line. Referrals are everything," he says of the Student Works business. Luke already feels he is part of an impressive team including the student managers in the adjacent territories of Meaford and Hanover, and the previous manager in our area was a very high achiever. Luke considers that both an asset and a challenge.

This work is going to pay for school, but far more important for Luke is the hands-on experience.
"I'm paying a lot for my degree – my credential – but this opportunity to learn is priceless and I'm open to making the most of it. I want to run a professional, high quality business, and then take the skills I learn and build on them in whatever field I ultimately choose.
To be honest, I don't want to work for anyone. I want to be the one to make things happen."

For this year, the answer to the "what will you do" question is settled. It's all about the painting.

You can reach Luke at 519-372-5096  or [email protected]

This is the first in a series about what Owen Sound students are doing for the summer. Thanks Luke, for going first.

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