Mohawk College Celebrates Alumni Who Make a Difference.
Congratulations to the 2024 Alumni of Distinction recipients.
The Alumni of Distinction Awards recognize graduates for their career achievements and community contributions that provide an exceptional source of inspiration for future generations.
In honour of every recipient, the Alumni Association supports a bursary with a one-time donation of $500 to Mohawk College to support current students in achieving their goals.
There are ten award categories: Affinity, Business, Community Services, Creative Arts & Design, Entrepreneur, Health Sciences, Mohawk College Employee, Recent Graduate, Skilled Trades/Apprenticeship and Technology.
If you would like to nominate an individual, please fill out the Nomination Form
Deadline for Nomination: Friday, February 14, 2025 (11:59pm).
Momentum will feature each Alumni or Distinction 2024 award recipients throughout the coming weeks.
Janine Gaunt
Award Category: Affinity Award
Year: 2024
Program of Study: Recreation Leadership
Graduation Year: 1988
Senior Manager, Recreation Operations, City of Hamilton Assistant Basketball Coach, Mohawk College
Janine Gaunt is a long-time volunteer in the Hamilton sports community.
A graduate of the Recreation Leadership program, today she is the Senior Manager of Recreation Operations at the City of Hamilton and an assistant basketball coach at Mohawk College.
Since 2004, Janine has been a volunteer basketball coach for house league and rep programs at Blessed Sacrament Basketball, Soldiers JUEL and Ontario Basketball Talent Identification Camps. She has a Level 2 National Coaching Certification and well as training in Safe Sport. Along the way, she has coached and mentored many girls and young women from the ages of 3 to 19. In 2024, Janine was awarded the Bernetta Scime Assistant Coach of the Year Award for her contribution to the Women’s Basketball Program at Mohawk College.
Her volunteer sporting contributions also include over 20 years as an official with the Hamilton Board of Approved Basketball Officials, where she served as treasurer as well as the Secretary for the Ontario Universities Association (OUA) West Panel of Officials. Janine championed a path for female officials on local, provincial and national courts, and officiated high level events like OFSAA championships, OCAA championships, OUA and CCAA championships.
Janine has also volunteered as a coach and chaperone for three International Children's Games competitions. She served on the organizing committee for the Hamilton event in 1994 and 2000, and is now a Director and Secretary with the Hamilton chapter of the International Children’s Games.
Her other volunteer activities have included the World Basketball Championships in 1994, the World Road Cycling Championships in 2003, as well as many other events across the city. She has been part of the efforts to bring events to Hamilton including the Commonwealth Games, Ontario Seniors’ Games, International Children’s Games and Ontario Summer Games.
She was a contributor to the creation of The City of Hamilton’s Recreation Master Plan in 2022 and was a recipient of a 2016 Employee Spirit Award.
Janine was a part-time faculty member in Mohawk’s Recreation and Leisure Studies program and in the Special Events graduate certificate program.
In her 34-year career with the City of Hamilton, Janine has developed and trained hundreds of youth in the recreation field and has influenced many recreation programs and partnerships in the community. In her current role, she provides guidance and leadership for recreation centres, indoor and outdoor pools, seniors centres, seasonal programs, camps and city-wide standards for the Recreation Division.
Through programs that Janine has coached or collaborated on, many athletes have continued the sport at higher levels including OCAA, OUA and NCAA. Janine is an advocate for women in sport and leadership roles and truly embraces the concept “if you can see it, you can be it”.
Stacey Hill
Award Category: Community Services
Award Year: 2024
Program of Study: Harness Horse Technician
Graduation Year: 1988
Indigenous Liaison Officer, Hamilton Police Services
Stacey Hill is the first Indigenous liaison officer for Hamilton Police Services and a long-time advocate for and within her Indigenous community.
Her liaison role, which she assumed in late 2022, is meant to build stronger relationships between police and Indigenous communities, which have often been strained and fraught with distrust.
Members of Hamilton’s Indigenous community held a traditional welcoming ceremony for Stacey in April 2023. At the ceremony, she was presented with an eagle feather, a high honour in the Indigenous community meant to represent the good work she has done and will do moving forward.
She has worked for HPS for more than 25 years serving as a patrol officer in the east end, along with stints in traffic, fraud, recruiting, and crime prevention, among many other postings.
Stacey is an Indigenous awareness trainer/presenter, has Level 3 training in crime prevention through environmental design, is a scene of crime officer, a crisis intervention team officer, a domestic violence officer and has training in behavioural interviewing and background investigations.
She works closely with Hamilton’s newly formed Indigenous Consultation Circle to assist Indigenous people navigate contacts with police.
She said her approach to policing has always been based on the Seven Grandfather Teachings and trying to help people rather than just simply always arresting them. Everyone has a story and talking to people to learn how they got to where they are can lead to solutions that makes things better rather than worse, she said.
About 12 years ago, Stacey led training at HPS for all officers and civilians to teach them about Indigenous people and their histories, including colonization, systemic racism, the Sixties Scoop and residential schools.
Though the new liaison role has been 20 years or more in the making, it took on great urgency after the violent arrest and stomping of an Indigenous man at a Hamilton gas station in 2022. An HPS officer was charged with assault and pleaded guilty.
Following the assault, the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre (HRIC) made several recommendations to improve relations between police and the Indigenous community, including the use of mandatory body cameras, the creation of a committee that would implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action and the liaison position that Stacey now occupies.
Stacey has a long history of volunteering and community advocacy. Along with OPP officer Monty Kohoko, Stacey formed the original Hamilton Aboriginal Advisory Board that served the city for more than 10 years. She served as a liaison between HPS and First Nations members during the dispute over the construction of the Red Hill Valley Parkway, served on a committee dedicated to race relations and missing Aboriginal women with the HPS and was a mentor on behalf of the HPS at the Niwasa Head Start Daycare.
She has served with the Hamilton Urban Indigenous Leadership consultation circle called Circle of Beads.
As a teen, she was Miss New Credit, an ambassador role for Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and she conducted tours of the Mush Hole, the notorious former Mohawk residential school that is now the Woodland Cultural Centre.
Andrew Moles
Award Category; Technology
Award Year; 2024
Program of Study: Architectural Technology |
Graduation Year: 2009
General Manager, PCL Construction Canada Inc.
Andrew Moles is leading the rapid expansion of renewable energy projects for Canada’s largest construction company. Today, Andrew is the general manager of PCL Construction’s solar division.
Throughout his career, Andrew has overseen the design and construction of 55+ ground-mount installations with more than 8 million solar modules. These projects produce enough energy to power more than 600,000 average homes and businesses across North America and Australia. That amounts to $5.7 billion worth of solar facilities, As a utility-scale Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) solar solutions provider, PCL manages the entire project life cycle: estimating, design, performance analytics, solar-specific technology, project execution and in-house commissioning, operations and maintenance.
Andrew is credited by PCL leadership for pioneering the expansion of PCL Construction's renewable energy division across Canada, the United States and Australia.
Over the years, Andrew has served as a board member on the Canadian Solar Industries Association and as a board member and vice-chair of the Utility-Scale Solar Division of the US Solar Energy Industries Association. He is recognized by the Canadian Construction Association as a Gold Seal certified project manager and is a LEED accredited professional.
In 2021, he was recognized by On-Site Magazine’s Top 40 under 40 in Canadian Construction and in 2015, received PCL’s prestigious Robert Stollery Construction Leadership Award.
The Travers Solar project in Vulcan County, Alberta, completed in December 2022, not only represents the largest solar project in Canada to date but was also the first of PCL Solar’s projects to surpass 1 million megawatt hours of production. In just 16 months, the project also offset more than 472,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
Andrew began his career at PCL in 2007 as a co-op student where he worked with the team who oversaw the $3.5-billion new terminal development project at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Outside of work, Andrew is committed to mentoring at-risk youth, serving as a co-developer and facilitator of the CityKidz Roadmaps to Dreams program in Hamilton. The program helps young people in grades 11 and 12 develop the skills, tools, and strategies they need to transform their dreams into reality.