St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron has always followed her dreams.
The microbiologist-turned-mayor got her start at Paul Kane more than three decades ago when she graduated with the Class of 1986. Her classmates went on to carpool, study and socialize together at university, and some of them are still friends today.
"It didn't end at Grade 12 – friendships remained all the way into (university)," Heron said. "I still see some of them. I find that happens a lot – if they move away, they come back to St. Albert."
Heron's career path has taken sharp twists and turns over the years. Now at the helm of the city, her advice to those who are just starting out is simple: be able to adapt, and embrace change.
"I know there is a lot of sadness about missing a traditional grad. But at the same time, this grad class will be the only one to ever have an untraditional (grad)," she said.
"Those that will succeed and move forward are those that are adaptable. This group of grads, because they've lived through (a pandemic) at an adult level, they can be well prepared to handle it the next time and lead through it ... I think there's lots of opportunities there."
Long before she began pursuing a career in politics, Heron fell in love with microbiology. The science whiz had graduated high school with the top mark for biology – 99 per cent on her diploma exam – and found herself fascinated by the history of viruses, bacteria and parasites and how they interacted with humans.
"I understood it. It came easily to me," she said.
"I loved learning about plagues, smallpox, Spanish flu, all that stuff, because of the history. It's a story for me, more than a science."
Heron went on to achieve a science degree with a microbiology specialization, followed by a diploma in medical laboratory sciences from NAIT. She graduated into a world where jobs were scarce during the Klein era.
"It was hard to get a job – it really was. I was working at Kasper Labs in the microbiology department, but I ended up taking a buyout from them and I went and got a job at an environmental lab ... and that's kind of where I finished my science career," she explained.
That lab, Enviro-Test, had her doing very different work from what she was used to. As part of the underground storage tank division, she was responsible for gathering samples of soil or water and testing for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylenes) – contaminants that could leak out of these tanks and into the ground. She also got a crash course in mechanics so she could run various spectrometers.
Simply put, "it was fun," she said.
But things changed, as they always do. Heron stayed at Enviro-Test until she became pregnant with twins.
"I had every intention of going back, but in 1999 you only got six months maternity leave," she explained. "When the twins were six months, I was not ready to go back."
She spent the next 11 years raising her kids and volunteering as a Girl Guides leader and for Roots of Empathy, a program that brings babies into schools to teach kids about empathy through the eyes of a child.
She also began getting involved on city committees, which eventually led to her trying for a council seat.
"I just got heavily involved and I really enjoyed it. And it's kind of a natural jump, when you're so involved anyway, to jump into council," she explained.
In 2010, she won her first term as city councillor. In 2017, she was elected mayor.
The rest, as they say, is history.
