The Maritime Business College (MBC) Business Office Administrative Assistant instructor has worked in private career colleges since 1993.
In addition to MBC, he has worked for CBBC and CompuCollege, which eventually became Eastern College. His work hasn’t been limited to the classroom. He was responsible for developing and launching new programs at Eastern College and for a time was a campus director.
The father of two and avid lover of classic rock music, has taught business, IT and professional development courses.
Prior to becoming an instructor, he spent a decade in retail before returning to school for a Master’s in Business Administration from St. Mary’s University. He then worked for the Irving Group of companies in New Brunswick and for Kent Building Supplies as an inventory analyst and assistant manager of the Yarmouth store.
A career as an instructor happened “100 per cent by accident.”
LeBlanc wanted to relocate to Halifax. He had a contact who owned a private career college and pestered him for an instructor opportunity.
He took a one-month contract to teach a business law course. This was supposed to be a short-term opportunity on the way to something more serious in a business environment.
“I looked up and it was 17 years later,” said LeBlanc. “I instantly loved it.”
His time with Maritime Business College began in the winter of 2016, lasted until 2019 before returning in 2022 and remaining here since.
In 2015, LeBlanc had a “midlife crisis,” decided to embrace his entrepreneurial spirit and bought the Bud the Spud food truck.
For seven years, he ran that business seasonally and then would return to the classroom for the winter. In 2021, he sold the truck and went back into instructing full time.
“It was interesting to see how some of my academic training landed in the real world,” said LeBlanc. “Even in a microbusiness like that. It was interesting to see how reality can be different from what’s in the textbooks.”
Those real world examples in the corporate and entrepreneur worlds enhanced how he instructs his current program.
“It just helps me relate more to the students with some nitty gritty real life stories,” he said.
LeBlanc employs a relaxed and comfortable teaching style with well-structured classes that are agenda and schedule driven.
“I want to work in a relaxed comfortable environment and I suspect my students want to come to school to a relaxed comfortable environment,” he added. “If you’re stressed or afraid of anything it’s not a good way to learn.”
The time he spends with the students is what he enjoys most about instructing. He has never had a class of students where he has failed to learn something from them.
That includes the perspectives of younger students keeping him mentally young, a more flexible attitude towards culture change, and not judging a book by its cover.
The comfortable environment and possibility of a positive surprise happening in the classroom each day is what keeps him coming to work.
“I’ve been asked by friends if I ever get bored doing the same thing over and over, but I say no because it’s never the same thing,” he said.
Success stories of his former students include one having a successful IT career and another having a successful entrepreneurial career where they owned a chain of retail stores.
“To me more of the success stories are the great group of students in a variety of programs who went on to a variety of jobs,” he said. “A lot of those students came from difficult situations. It was a struggle to complete their education for a variety of reasons and I think those are the real success stories.”
“It was a dramatic difference to the quality of their lives and I am very happy to have played a small part in that.”
