Mike Konkin is an instructor in the Entrepreneurship and Business Administration programs who brings real-world experience into every lesson. With experience as an entrepreneur in the Kootenays, he shares practical knowledge and firsthand insight into what it takes to run a local business.
Mike shares how the region’s thriving entrepreneurial community creates unique opportunities for students through mentorship, local success stories and meaningful industry connections.
Five Questions with Mike
*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What do you do here at Selkirk College?
I’ve been an instructor in the School of Business since 2006, teaching senior-level courses in accounting, financial management, taxation and performance management.
Outside the classroom, I wear a few other hats: I run a small chartered professional accountant (CPA) practice in Trail, I was chair of the board of Kootenay Savings Credit Union for four years, and I founded and ran Trail Beer Refinery, a craft brewery and distillery right here in the Kootenays, for seven years.
I try to bring all of that—the numbers, the governance, the late nights figuring out payroll for a startup—back into the classroom with me.
What inspired the School of Business to launch the new Entrepreneurship Program, and what gap does it fill for aspiring entrepreneurs in our region?
The Kootenays run on small businesses. Drive down any main street in Trail, Castlegar or Nelson, and almost everything you see is owner-operated. But a lot of people with great ideas never get started because they don’t have a practical roadmap: how to test an idea, finance it, price it and actually open the doors. And many of them can’t step away from work or family for a four-year degree.
The Entrepreneurship – Associate Certificate fills that gap: it’s a focused, accessible credential built for people who want to start something real, here, without leaving the region to learn how.
How will students gain practical, real-world experience developing and launching business ideas?
You don’t learn entrepreneurship from a textbook—I can tell you that from experience. When we launched the brewery, the real education started the day we bought the building. In this program, the goal is to bring real examples and cases for students to work on and get mentorship from instructors who have been in the trenches, so to speak.
The students build real skills they can use to launch their own venture.
How are local businesses, organizations and mentors involved in shaping the student experience?
One of the advantages of building this program in a region like ours is that the entrepreneurs are right here, and they pick up the phone. Local business owners come into the classroom as guest speakers and mentors. Students get to work on real challenges facing real local businesses.
Organizations that support entrepreneurship in the region help connect students to financing, advice and networks.
Having founded a business here myself, I know how generous this community is with its time. People genuinely want the next generation of local entrepreneurs to succeed.
How does the program leverage local strengths to prepare students for success in today's business landscape?
The Kootenays are essentially a living laboratory for entrepreneurship. Our economy is built on people who can wear many hats—the brewer who also does the books, the retailer who runs their own marketing—and that’s exactly the skill set this program develops.
Students study local success stories, learn from owners who’ve navigated the realities of doing business in a smaller market and build relationships they’ll carry with them long after the program ends.
My hope is that graduates don’t just leave prepared for today’s business landscape, they leave ready to add their own business to a main street in this region.