Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 22, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba B4 MONDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 2025 ● BUSINESS@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM BUSINESS WPG Local Cleaners started as way to support founder’s education, now supports flexible work opportunities for others ‘Leap of faith’ lands with strength F OR Kayla Curtis, a clean break led to a clean slate that resulted in a cleaning business. The Winnipegger was a few months into her first year of medical school when she called off her engagement and lost her only source of financial support. She had no income and no- where to live — and she was deter- mined to continue her education with- out interference. Starting a business seemed like the best solution. It had to be something that fit her demanding schedule, had virtu- ally no startup costs and could turn a profit almost immediately. Cleaning people’s homes was the answer. Curtis posted an ad on Facebook and started booking clients for her new venture, WPG Local Cleaners Inc. The response was so great, soon she need- ed to hire help. Before she knew it, the company was a year old and doing six figures in sales. A year-and-a-half after Curtis start- ed WPG Local Cleaners, the business completes more than 200 cleans per month, supported by two managers and 15 cleaners — all of whom are women. The company has grown with no paid advertising. It’s just been word of mouth and community support, Curtis says. “It’s been a roller-coaster,” the 27-year-old says, “but when I sit down and think of it, I’ve come a long way since I started this business.” Curtis has wanted to be a doctor ever since she was a child, but says self- doubt kept her from applying to med- ical school after finishing her under- graduate degree in nutritional sciences. She moved to Toronto after gradua- tion, where she ran a small meal-plan- ning business and worked as a server. Lockdowns during the COVID-19 pan- demic gave her time to reconsider the path she was on. “When I sat down and really assessed what I wanted for my future, it was medicine,” she says. “So I thought I would take a chance and try to get in.” Curtis moved back to Winnipeg in the summer of 2023 and entered the Uni- versity of Manitoba’s Max Rady Col- lege of Medicine. She started WPG Lo- cal Cleaners in early 2024, just in time for spring cleaning. The company’s home services in- clude ongoing home cleaning, moving in/out cleaning and one-time cleaning. Commercial services are available for small offices. The majority of the com- pany’s nearly 150 ongoing clients live in the St. Vital neighbourhood of River Park South, but its services are avail- able all over the city. Curtis declines to disclose what WPG Local Cleaners charges clients, but in her estimation it’s one of the most affordable in the sector in the city. She wants to keep services accessible to families across different socioeconom- ic backgrounds. “It’s very important to me that people in the community are able to get extra help when they need it,” she says. “It makes me sad to see that not everyone can afford that extra help.” Curtis’s vision is to make cleaning a respected profession. The subcontract- ors are experienced and undergo back- ground checks. “I think cleaning, for a lot of people, is a flexible work opportunity — new- comers, single mothers and students like myself,” Curtis says. “I wanted to offer basically consistent opportunities for work that would allow cleaners to maintain their autonomy while still re- ceiving fair pay.” Curtis and managers Atlanta Ellison and Desiree Grace aim to create an en- vironment that supports the cleaners. “I’m a strong believer that if you take care of the people who work with you and treat them well, they’re going to offer a more consistent and enjoyable client experience,” Curtis says. At first, Curtis didn’t tell her peers or professors she was running a business. She feared they would think she wasn’t taking her studies seriously. “My medical studies are my priority, but when you are in a situation where you need to focus on survival, that has to come first,” she says. Once she became financially stable, she started opening up to people. She describes the first 12 months of running the business as one of the most difficult years of her life. She was keep- ing on top of her studies while manag- ing a dozen people and handling more than 100 ongoing clients. Challenges included non-paying clients and unreli- able subcontractors. But the business has given her the fi- nancial independence to continue med- ical school. Curtis doesn’t come from an entrepreneurial family and says meet- ing business owners in Toronto inspired her to start WPG Local Cleaners. “You learn it’s just about taking a leap of faith,” she says. “You don’t have to be the smartest or the richest or have in- vestors or money to start a business. It’s honestly about taking a risk and doing it and thinking, ‘If they can, why can’t I?’” Now in her third year of medical school, Curtis’s confidence has grown significantly over the last 18 months. Running a business has shed light on her weaknesses and forced her to grow and adapt quickly, she says. Accepting that she’s not perfect and will always have goals she’s striving to- ward has built her confidence and led her to believe in herself — no matter what the situation. “I absolutely want to become a doctor, I think it’s what I was meant to do,” she says. “But I also want to continue grow- ing businesses.” To that end, Curtis is preparing to launch a luxury scrubs brand called MediLuxe. Once anxious about pursu- ing business, she now believes tending to interests outside of medicine will only make her a better doctor. She invokes the physicians’ pledge she recited on her first day of medical school. It reads in part: “I will attend to my own health, well-being and abilities in order to provide care of the highest standard.” For Curtis, attending to her own health and well-being means making time to explore her non-medical inter- ests and strengths. Getting to know the women that work for WPG Local Cleaners has inspired her to find more ways to help women outside of medicine. “I started this business to support myself,” she says. “Now I don’t really care about that. It’s more about what this business does for others.” aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca AARON EPP PHOTOS BY MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS ‘I wanted to offer basically consistent opportunities for work that would allow cleaners to maintain their autonomy while still receiving fair pay,’ says Kayla Curtis, founder and CEO of WPG Local Cleaners Inc. MADE IN MANITOBA The back story of homegrown business success stories Atlanta Ellison (from left), operations manager; Curtis; and Desiree Grace, associate manager Electric vehicle makers line up at Europe’s only rare earths magnets site EXECUTIVES from Europe’s electric vehicle industry are trekking to the continent’s sparsely populated north- eastern parts to queue for something they struggle to find outside of China: rare earths magnets that are essential components in EVs. In Narva, an Estonian industrial town that sits across the river from Russia, Canadian company Neo Per- formance Materials has built a US$75 million magnets plant that opened on Friday. Neo’s initial output will supply components for as many as one million cars annually. “Rare earths are on the top of every government’s list of critical materials,” Neo CEO Rahim Suleman said at the ribbon-cutting, which was also attended by Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Mi- chal and representatives from General Motors Co. and parts suppliers Robert Bosch GmbH, Schaeffler AG and Mahle GmbH, among others. Bosch, the world’s biggest auto- motive supplier, has reserved a “sig- nificant” share of the plant’s annual magnet production, Neo said in a state- ment on Friday after signing a multi- year memorandum of understanding with the German firm. The plant in Estonia is offering a chance to lock in supply chains at a time of global trade tensions, includ- ing over rare earths with China. Eur- ope and the world’s vulnerabilities were exposed earlier this year when Beijing in April heavily restricted the export of some of its rare earths in retaliation against U.S. President Don- ald Trump’s decision to hike tariffs on Chinese goods. European Union companies in- curred seven production stoppages in August because of shortages in rare earths, and an additional 46 are ex- pected this month, the EU Chamber of Commerce in China said Thursday, without specifying the scale or nature of the affected facilities. Neo’s Estonian plant manufactures neodymium magnets, one of the prod- ucts restricted by China. The mag- nets convert the electricity stored in a battery into motion, helping rotate the wheels of EVs. They are also used widely from smartphones to wind tur- bines and fighter jets. A shortage of rare earth magnet supplies earlier this year forced Ford Motor Co. to idle production of its Ex- plorer sport utility vehicle in Chicago for a week. Neo — which is also active in chem- icals and metals and has 10 manufac- turing plants globally, including in the United States and China — made the decision to build the new factory in Estonia in late 2022, months after Rus- sia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine dis- rupted Europe’s economy. Neo man- aged to complete its site on time and within budget, Suleman said. “With the exception of Neo, there is no EV traction motor magnet manu- facturing capacity in the West,” Mar- vin Wolff, an analyst at Paradigm Cap- ital, said in an Aug. 12 report. The plant will initially produce 2,000 tons of magnets per year, about a tenth of the demand in Europe. The factory will source its own raw materials from Australia. Neo has signed “multiple” five- to seven-year contracts in the range of US$50 million to US$100 million, Sule- man said, adding major deliveries are set to begin in 2026. “This is the most important critical materials project happening in Europe today,” Suleman said in an interview ahead of the factory opening. Neo plans to triple capacity there after an expansion that could begin in 2027. It would cater to soaring de- mand fuelled by European carmakers, who are pivoting toward EVs ahead of a 2035 deadline to ban the sale of new vehicles with combustion engines. While there are signs the EU direc- tive may be watered down — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last week backed a bid by his country’s car- makers to soften the rules — the re- gion’s direction of travel toward more EVs isn’t in doubt. — Bloomberg News OTT TAMMIK ;