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Steven Noble
Editor, Internal Publications
p. 403.440.5692
e-mail: snoble@mtroyal.ca

Fred Cheney
Media Relations Officer
p. 403.440.5195
e-mail: fcheney@mtroyal.ca

 

Mount Royal University alumna Lesley Dovichak might have been enjoying the hot sun and beaches of Florida last spring but all she could think about was the cold, snowy days of the Winter Olympics.

Lesley Dovichak, a MRU alumna, is working with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

As the coordinator of inventory with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), Dovichak looks back on the six months since her Mount Royal convocation in June and shakes her head in disbelief.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” says Dovichak.

“From my very first day with VANOC, I'm just constantly trying to pick stuff up and absorb it as fast as I can. You literally have to hit the ground running. There’s kind of a saying around here — you have only worked here for a week, but you feel like you’ve been here forever.

“It’s been crazy at times, but it’s exciting. It’s a once in a life-time opportunity.”

After graduating from Mount Royal with a Bachelor of Business Administration, Dovichak celebrated her accomplishment with a relaxing trip to the East Coast with her best friend.

Dovichak was anything but relaxed, though.

Graduates around the world were struggling to find work in a catastrophic economy and she had yet to hear back from her main lead for a job. She had been through a series of telephone interviews with VANOC and had been promised an answer, one way or the other.

“It was unbelievable…The entire semester I had been sending out resumes, looking for jobs, trying to work through all my networks and it was hard.

“I was beginning to get worried I might not find anything.”

A light at the end of the tunnel

While on vacation, Dovichak checked her voicemail on a daily basis.

There was nothing sweeter than waking up half way through the week, flipping open her phone and receiving the message that VANOC wanted to make her an offer.

An offer she couldn’t refuse.

In the game One particular aspect of Lesley Dovichak’s Olympic experience that she never imagined was discovering the world of Gamers. Gamers — A group of people who build their lives around working at different athletic games such as the Super Bowl, Commonwealth Games, Paralympic Games and Olympics. They travel from one athletic game to the next living in different cities, working as long as they can at a particular game before hunting for the next one.

“To finally get that phone call was unbelievable.”

The job offer was sweet vindication for the former president of Mount Royal’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), after waiting through VANOC's five-month-long application process.

The application and interviewing process may have dragged on, but getting started on the new job was anything but slow.

Getting down to business

Dovichak had a short period of time to arrange accommodations, pack up her things and get to Vancouver for a June 1 start date.

“Probably the biggest challenge was coming right from school and adjusting from student mode to work mode.

“I’m used to working at my own pace, getting numerous projects done at one time, when in the real world things take longer because there are different processes things have to go through, different approvals that are needed and it doesn’t always happen when you’d like it to.”

As coordinator of inventory, Dovichak is in charge of keeping track of VANOC assets ranging from tools to the victory medals.

While such an immense job with so much responsibility could have been overwhelming to some, Dovichak credits her education with preparing her.

“It’s a great feeling to be told what is needed as the end product and to just be able to run with it. That’s been great too, to jump in and be prepared like that.”

She never could have dreamed that when she first wandered down Mount Royal's Main Street where her journey would lead her.

From getting the actual phone call, to moving to one of the most popular cities in the world, to visiting the Olympic venues like the ski jumps in Whistler and the Speed Skating Oval in Richmond, she says the adventure has been incredible.

Be sure to catch Dovichak’s exclusive first-person account of the Olympic experience for Face Time’s special Winter Olympics edition, due out in early February.

— Steven Noble, Dec. 10, 2009

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Olympic Series

This story is the second of Face Time’s Olympic mini-series. Check out the first in the series — about professor David Legg — to discover other Mount Royal connections to the Winter Olympics.