Your Future @ Culture Core Group
🎓 Who: Open to current UFV students from all programs
📅 Day: Tuesday March 4, 2025
📍 Location: A225 (Building A)
🕐 Time: 4pm to 5:30pm
🍕 We will have free pizza to students attending!🍕
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The Centre for Experiential and Career Education is excited to welcome our guests from Culture Core Group (a Chilliwack-based IT business since 2007)! They will share their rebranding under a new name, journey as UFV alumni, how they bridged the gap between UFV academics and the job market, and what they look for in an ideal new hire.
📌Plakilla Sandell (EA + HR Director)
📌Isabelle Schmidt (vCIO + AVP Projects)
📌Sam Wolfe (Software Development Lead)
📌Curtis Hildebrand (Pod Leader)
See below for their bio:
Plakilla moved from Mumbai, India, to Canada in May 2014. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Management. A proud alumna of UFV’s Human Resources program, she currently holds the SHRM-SCP® and CPHR® designations. Passionate about building strong, lasting business relationships, she fosters trust and confidence in every interaction.
As the HR Leader for the Culture Core Group of Companies—Kerkhoff Technologies (now improvingit), Crafty Penguins, and TopLeft—Plakilla oversees the entire employee lifecycle, including recruitment, employee relations, training, benefits, and strategic HR initiatives. She aligns HR strategies with business objectives to cultivate a people-centric, high-performing culture.
Outside of work, she enjoys reading, gardening, and cooking. Some of her favorite books include The Bible, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters. She lives in Abbotsford with her husband and their two dogs.
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Isabell was born and raised on the side of a mountain in east Chilliwack. As the child of a Broadcast Engineer and a freelance reporter (who worked from a home office for clients all over the world... in the 80's), technology has always been a part of her life. The earliest memories of computers involved the likes of a CoCo2 (which ironically was connected to a B&W TV), Tandy 1000, 2/3/4/86's, etc. etc. on through the years. Isabelle and her brother were often left with previous generation hardware to work with as they saw fit.
As a family of early internet adopters in the 90's, a strong interest in web design and development sent her to college for such. While in college she got on the startup bandwagon of the late 90's and tried her hand at a web design and hosting company with a group of fellow students. It was here she developed a greater interest servers and networking, which would ultimately see her shifting carriers. Over the next decade she would work for MSP's, an art studio, open a computer store, eventually settling into the IT role with a local manufacturer. After years working primarily on her own, the desire to once again be a part of an IT Team led her to KTI.
Today Isabelle works with improvingit (formerly Kerkhoff Technologies) as fractional CIO. With over 20 years of experience in systems design and management, primarily with Microsoft solutions with a focus on emerging solutions, she helps clients navigate the complex world of technology, and look the big picture while still paying attention to detail.
Outside of work Isabelle spends most of her time with family (wife, daughter, & 2 step sons) enjoying activities such as camping, kayaking, & gardening/yard as the weather allows. When the weather does not allow, some gaming or working on her latest IT project at home.
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Sam originally found his love for computers due to his fathers interest in computers, but lack of ability to use them. Whenever there was an issue he did not understand (which was often), the typical phrase: "Its got a bug in it" would be used. So by "debugging" his fathers problems (read: explaining how things work), a desire to work with technology was born.
Sam originally attended UFV for a bachelors in CIS in 2009, but due to personal and financial difficulties, was unable to pursue this with much success. After a few years of running a computer repair shop out of his friend's printer ink refilling business, and with the support of his family and Fiancée, he went back to classes in 2016, with positive results.
After Sam and his team placed 2nd in the Chilliwack Hackathon in March 2017, he participated in the first UFV coding-bridging program which lead to a CO-OP position at Culture Core Group’s Crafty Penguins. Currently Sam works as Lead Software Developer for TopLeft (the SaaS company within the group of companies).
Other than saving up money to travel the world, his hobbies include drawing/painting, and PC gaming. Sam has recently quit smoking, so if you see him with a cigar, feel free to slap it out of his hands.
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Curtis was born in Manitoba and grew up playing on his families Commodore 64, Atari2600. When his dad bought an IBM XT, he was fascinated and wrote a grade 4 (I think) essay paper on computers. (I still have the C64 box and essay). After graduating high school, Curtis wore a few working hats--the significant ones being a youth worker with skateboarders and then a commercial photographers assistant. In between there, he took one year of Computer Science but switched to photography. However, he kept on playing with Linux--breaking things and then learning how to fix them. Curtis eventually finished his BCIS degree at UFV with a concentration in Computer Security.
Curtis participated in the first UFV coding-bridging program which lead to a CO-OP position at Culture Core Group’s Crafty Penguins back in March of 2017.
Today Curtis is Pod Leader and leads a group of engineers in Linux focussed projects. He specializes in system audits for security, stabilization, and migration of infrastructure due to system growth.
Curtis and Nancy have three kids (Lillia, Caleb and Asher) who keep them very busy. Nancy works for Parks Canada as the Coastal BC Field Unit Communications Manager. They are very active with outdoor activities and go hiking regularly. Curtis is an avid Mountain Biker and Nancy volunteers with a few trail running groups. Other personal interests include studying the formational history of Christianity and the Tannaitic period of Judaism, home coffee roasting and playing electronic music.
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Culture Core Group - We've been in the IT business since 2007, but if you were to ask our CEO, Wim, why he started this journey, he'd tell you it was because he always wanted to create a place where work could actually be fun—a company with a great culture, amazing people, no bureaucracy, and zero toxic relationships. improvingit (formerly Kerkhoff Technologies Inc), Crafty Penguins, and TopLeft are three unique companies with different specialties, yet we're all united under one banner: the Culture Core Group.
improvingit - We believe that technology plays a critical role in helping businesses achieve their mission. Our goal is to help our clients leverage the latest technology to enhance their impact and advance their cause.
Crafty Penguins is a leader in Linux consulting and server support, driven by a passion for technology and a commitment to excellence. With over two decades of experience, our team offers expert IT solutions to a diverse range of clients.
At TopLeft, we work together with like-minded partners who can give you the support you need to adopt Kanban practices, improve MSP methods, and shape your MSP tools to their full potential.
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"Your Future @ ..." is UFV CECE’s employer information session series for organizations to inspire their future workforce at UFV and for UFV students and alumni to envision their future career opportunities.