Annals of Cindy Burton

About 7 years ago I was standing in the lobby of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. I was in Toronto as part of an ill-conceived provincial prospecting trip. The ill-conception mostly involved bringing me along, for my ideas about valuable prospecting activities were at odds with those of my colleagues.

My cell phone rang. I believe this may have been the first time my cell phone had ever rung outside of Prince Edward Island, so it was exciting. On the phone was Cindy Burton. She explained that her company, Rainforest Publications, based in British Columbia, was looking at moving to PEI; they were looking to move, and apparently Enterprise PEI had offered up some carrots. Cindy was looking for some pointers to ISPs and other technology types in Charlottetown, and I spent a couple of minutes on the phone pointing her in the right direction (I think I told her to call Kevin O’Brien, which was about as right a direction as you could get back then).

Fast forward a bit, and Rainforest was located on the Island. Fast forward a bit more and they were called iWave, and were a public company. And a bit more into the future and Cindy was out and Jamie Hill was in.

To this day, I’ve never met Cindy, but I recently stumbled across some of her recent endeavours, and they look interesting.

Her new corporate hat is Big Dog Solutions, which, says her website, “specializes in helping both non-profit agencies and start-up companies reach their fullest potential.” (see also here).

Cindy is also starting a dog-focused resort called Cool Dog Ranch (“Think of it as “club med” for you and your dog!” says the website) at an undisclosed location on the Island.

And she’s helping Junellen Claushiede open a retreat in Valleyfield called The Hearth that will “combine the best in organic cuisine and Island hospitality.”

And she’s leading a group called “The Catalyst Consortium” in some sort of mystery “exciting and innovative program” up west involving “five of PEI’s top consultants.”

Bravo! It’s good to see someone with energy and enthusiasm putting her talents to creative use here. I never could have imagined this, sitting on the end of a cell phone in the lobby in Toronto.