Tim Lukkarila:
CLASS OF 1974
Lasalle Secondary School Class of 1974
Sudbury, ON
Tim's Story
I was with Playtex in Calgary for five years, with them transfering me to Ottawa in 1985. Stayed another year and then had the opprtunity to open a company, Maureta Investments Ltd. . I look for franchises that cost nothing and build them up and resell them. The first was a Solarium company from Calgary that had a great product but could not get credit from the banks. Based on my sales they could get the credit for 60 days long enough to purchase the material build the solarium deliver it and get paid for it.
I got married in 1987 to Jeanne Gallagher and have been happily married , yes happily ever since. Jeanne works in overseas development and was posted to Swaziland in Southern Africa for two years six months after our wedding. I travelled back and forth for about 10 months, long weeknds, but it was getting a little exspensive so when the Company asked if I wanted to sell my franchise back to them I jumped at the chance.
So off the Swaziland we went for almost four years. I was the United Nations HIgh Commission for Refugee's business advisor in two refugee camps for South African And Mozambican refugees. It was a great experience that changed my life. I went from worrying about making money to realizing you only need what you need to live. Came back with a life time of experiences as well as tick bite fever and hepatitis A but it was well worth the experience.
On returning we purchased a house in Chelsea in the Gatienau hills out side of Ottawa on the Quebec side. We had a daughter Tayl...Expand for more
or Olivia Gallagher Lukkarila who is now 16 going on 30. The Solarium franchise I sold was not doing well so on my return they hired my company to revitalize it which I did and was up the the same sales within two years as when I left. Jeanne was then asked to go to Botswana, again in Southern Africa but she turned it down at first since my business was doing so well but I said the hell with the business and off we went to Botswana for over three years.
There I did the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, gave away Canadian tax payers money like you to womens groups. It was a descetionay fund the Canadian High Commissioner had to spend so since he liked Animals I funded and took part in a Cheeta translocation from the middle of the Kalahari desert where it was trapped and moved it by air to a game park in the latgest diamond mine in the world Orapa. I also was able to Dart and put radio collars on lions in the Okavango Delta.
Botswana was great as the north is still wilderness and in travelling we had to stop for lions and elephants to cross the road.
On our return I went to Bosnia after the war with the United Nations as an election trainer an monitor.
I then worked designing and selling post and beam houses for a few years and finaly returned to Solariums eight years ago with a company from Montreal, Zytco Solariums. Maureta Investments has been marketing the product for them in Eatern Ontario and Western Quebec since. I have two show rooms one in Gatineau Qc. and the other in Ottawa.
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