Jamie Parker & Mike Wenzlawe | Top 40 Under 40 2024

They created a local coffee roasting business that has gone national, while remaining dedicated to conservation initiatives.

Jamie Parker (left) and Mike Wenzlawe. Photo by Jared Sych. Location: Centennial Place.

Age: 34 (Parker); 35 (Wenzlawe)

Occupation: President (Parker), Vice-president (Wenzlawe) and Co-founders, Canadian Heritage Roasting Company

It’s tough to overstate the impact that working as wildland firefighters had on Jamie Parker and Mike Wenzlawe.

Parker was on the rappel team for four years and helped rescue people stranded in High River during the flood of 2013. Wenzlawe grew up playing water polo, including several years on the national team, but his season on the fireline in 2015 was the biggest physical challenge of his life.

The job instilled in the pair a sense of perseverance and a reverence for nature, two defining elements of their Canadian Heritage Roasting Company (CHRC) brand. “It was one of the first times where I truly understood the power that I had within myself to execute on things, be confident and to take those risks and leaps and trust the unknown,” Parker says.

The friends first “locked eyes,” as they describe it, in 2011 at an orientation for leaders of Mount Royal University clubs — they reasoned they could host events and fundraise more effectively as a team.

The duo harnessed that same chemistry in the fall of 2015 to start a coffee roasting business. They pooled their $10,000 in savings from wildland firefighting and moved into Wenzlawe’s mom’s house in Cougar Ridge, roasting beans in the garage. The first few years were tough: to keep afloat, Parker drove a school bus and Wenzlawe worked as a server and fitness instructor.

Today, CHRC employs a dozen people, the brand’s coffee beans are available in 1,200 grocery stores across Canada, and their bricks-and-mortar café is celebrating five years in business. The friends donate to a variety of conservation efforts, and CHRC funds the planting of one tree for every bag of coffee sold (that’s 129,000 trees and counting).

“If there’s one thing that people need to know about CHRC — and us — is that we’re just getting started,” Wenzlawe says.

Thank yous
Jamie Parker: “My late grandfather Bud Rowswell for instilling “dedication” into my core values from a young age; my wife, Dr. Joline Bohne, my greatest supporter, mentor, and inspiration; Tyler Rygus,
Jennifer Carlson, Melissa Gunning, Jim and Marg Yaremko, and my family; my friends, Michael Phelan, Kyle Mayr, and Mark Muller; past and present staff (Ali Sullivan-Lapp, you have been the best thing since sliced bread); and my business partner, Mike Wenzlawe, for taking the leap with me, and standing by steadfast.”

Michael Wenzlawe: “My beautiful and supportive wife, Georgia; my friends and family (especially my mom, Pamela, Dad, Alfons, and sister, Danielle); my business partners Jamie and Ali; our five-star staff; and all of our amazing customers.”

 

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Learn more about the people and organizations moving Calgary forward with Avenue's Innovation Newsletter.

This article appears in the November 2024 issue of Avenue Calgary.

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