Fred Jansen, the new director general of Catholic Community Services (CCS) on de Maisonneuve west will be working until midnight and starting early for at least another three weeks.
“My feet haven’t hit the ground yet,” said the Pointe Claire resident, half-way through his third week on the job at the NPI meeting in LaSalle last week. “Centraide’s ask is December 15 and I’m also implementing the constituent management software, the Raiser’s Edge.”
Jansen will lead a team of 30 employees and 679 volunteers who serve vulnerable families and seniors across Montreal. The organization also runs three seniors’ centres (St. Antoine, Almoge, the Teapot); three summer camps (Kincora for families; Trail’s End for children and teens, Positive for people living with HIV/AIDs); and a home for men recovering from mental illness, homelessness or other trauma (Nazareth House).
The former Dawson College development officer replaced Bruno Mitol, who is now the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at McGill University. Jansen started his new position so quickly that he agreed to finish integrating some software for his former employer; that job will probably take another 45 or 50 hours before he’s finished, he says.
Still, the excitement of working for an organization he’s known since attending Camp Kincora 35 years ago keeps the former entrepreneur moving strong. “This is a community that I love,” he said. “What we do is very important.”
In the meantime, Jansen isn’t finding his two milieu’s as different as he thought he would. “I came from an area where I worked with students and my first two weeks were negotiations with senior citizens,” he said. “Both say inappropriate things at times.”
Note: This article appeared on p2 of the city edition of the Suburban on Wednesday, November 2, 2012.
