Melissa was born and raised on Lake Helen Reserve, an hour Northeast of Thunder Bay, ON. She is married to Paul Giles and a mother to 3 adult children. She is a graduate of Executive Office Administration and Human Resource Management. She has several years of experience as a Senior Administrator and as a Human Resource Practitioner. Her interests have included kickboxing, marathons, mud runs, women’s cycling team, yoga and most other athletics. In addition to owning/operating two businesses, she spends her ‘spare’ time, as a volunteer in the Kidsmin at Redwood Church, a Committee member of the Wake The Giant, a Board Director of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, a member Anti-Racism Accord – Chamber working group and a National Board Member for Frontier College. ORIGIN is also an active member and is also the first Indigenous business to become Procurement Champions with the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. Melissa and her husband Paul started Hardy Giles Consulting, a First Nations consulting and training company over 13 years ago. The company specializes in developing “outside the box” innovative approaches and solutions for training, planning and other specialized projects. They built on that experience to create ORIGIN, a company that innovates the way people connect to career and culture. Their approach is to design, develop and deliver leading-edge technology solutions that improve access to employment and culture opportunities across diverse industries and sectors.