b'CCAB RETROSPECTIVEKey players in the development and growth of CCAB. From left: Paul Summers, former CCAB Co-Chair; JP Gladu, former CCAB President & CEO; and Ron Jamieson, former CCAB Co-Chaircentralized organization to make better use of the limited resources available to them. It was very difficult to super-vise and control organizations so far removed, says Jamieson. You cant see them every day. You dont know whats going on in the various provincial offices, and we didnt have a lot of money to support them. It was tough. We thought it would be more expedient to do it from Toronto.LEGACY MILESTONE CCAB in the mid-1990s was an orga-nization that faced challenges both externally and internally. It was almost insolvent and was being held together by a handful of dedicated volunteers, Summers and Jamieson among them. In 1996, however, things would take a dramatic turn when CCAB hired its first female CEO, Jocelyne Soulodre, a Mtis from St. Boniface, Manitoba, whose vision would shape the organization as it moved into the future. The hiring of Jocelyne was a watershed moment for CCAB, Summers says. Summers recalls how this hiring came about: When the organization was looking for a new CEO, a lady named Jocelyne Soulodre called me up and asked if I would hire her to be the new president and CEO. Jocelyne was on a committee for Northern Telecom. I told her, Well, wed love to do that, Jocelyne, but we have no money. She kept coming back, saying, I really want the job. Eventually, we had more finan-cial support. We were paying off our debt. We finally agreed to hire Jocelyne as the new CEO. Soulodre was a fresh face with new ideas, which is exactly what CCAB needed, 24A CCAB PUBLICATIONSpring 2024'