About Colleen
Background
Colleen is the eldest of Walter and Shirley Hardwick’s four children. Raised in Kerrisdale, Colleen attended Maple Grove Elementary where her grandfather, Walter H.W. Hardwick, was principal for 17 years. Her Grandmother, Iris Hardwick, was a NPA Parks Commissioner from 1957-1960. Colleen attended York House School in her middle school years, and graduated from Magee Secondary in 1975.
Colleen grew up inside Vancouver politics. She was 10 years old when her father, Dr. Walter G. Hardwick, co-founded TEAM and was first elected as a Vancouver City Alderman in 1968. As a child, she developed an early understanding of the City, marching in protest of freeway development, studying city council agendas, and hiking through derelict False Creek squalor. Graduating a year early, Colleen followed her father into UBC’s Geography Department. Her first job was working on the Urban Future’s Project, a key research document which led to the creation of the Livable Region Strategic Plan.
In 1976, the family moved to Victoria with Dr. Hardwick’s appointment as B.C. Deputy Ministry of Education. While studying at the University of Victoria, Colleen married Paul Nystedt in 1980. During that time, while completing her degree, Colleen worked with her father on research in connection with the Knowledge Network, which he was instrumental in creating. She worked briefly for the City of Victoria Planning Department before graduating in 1983, just before the birth of her first daughter, Kathryn.
Film Industry, Politics and MovieSet
In 1983, Colleen’s life took a dramatic turn when a film company used the Hardwick family home in Victoria as a filming location. This twist of fate eventually led to two successful decades in the motion picture industry. But in 1984, when Pierre Trudeau stepped down as leader of the Liberal Party, Colleen immediately joined the Party and was elected as a youth delegate to the leadership convention. With baby Kathryn on her back, she flew to Ottawa in support of Don Johnston’s candidacy. Her presence shone a spotlight on the needs of mothers and infants in public places. She continued to participate in Liberal organizations, notably as Policy Chair of the Women’s Liberal Commission.
The juxtaposition of new motherhood, the film business and national politics was not lost on Colleen. She came to believe that media was key in changing collective value systems. Having literally grown up at City Hall, Colleen initially applied her planning skills in the nascent B.C. Film Industry as a Location Manager, where she developed organizational systems which were to become the established norm. She applied the social science model to studying the impact of the Film industry from the Downtown East Side to Shaughnessy. She understood that Vancouver’s neighborhoods are the natural resource of the Film Industry and must be nurtured. And in between her second daughter, Shannon, was born.
In the years that followed, Colleen continued to demonstrate a powerful leadership presence in the entertainment business. She joined the Director’s Guild of Canada, and served as both National Production Representative and National Secretary Treasurer from 1989 to 1992. During her tenure she laid the groundwork for a federal-style financial structure which helped diffuse the internecine fighting between the National and District Councils. Since 1990, Colleen has been a member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and in 1995 joined the Canadian Film and Television Production Association. She is an active member in the B.C. Motion Picture Production Industry Association.
In 1992, Colleen shifted her energy to building her company, New City Productions, and her first film, “City Boy” was nominated for an Environmental Media Award for raising environmental awareness in a TV Movie. Throughout the 90s, New City produced dozens of pictures for clients including Universal Pictures, Paramount Studios, MGM, CBS, NBC, ABC, USA, Showtime and Lifetime networks. In 1994, Colleen was the first Vancouver producer to sell into the US market with “The Perfect Mother”, for CBS, based on a true story.
In the mid-90s, Colleen represented the rapidly growing film industry on the Vancouver Board of Trade Film Advisory Task Force, and Industry Canada’s Small Business Advisory Council. She pioneered indigenous labour negotiations with the Council of Film Unions. She was nominated in the Entrepreneurship category for a prestigious YWCA Women of Distinction Award, named one of the “13 Most Important People in the B.C. Film Industry” by the Financial Post, and received a “40 under 40” Award from Business in Vancouver magazine.
Personal life
Throughout building a successful business, and giving leadership in her various communities, Colleen has raised two beautiful daughters, who currently attend college in Vancouver. They live on Kits Point in their family home, where Colleen is a member of the Kits Point Resident’s Association. Colleen is also a life-long member of Fairview Baptist Church in Kitsilano, and a third generation Keats Island resident. She is also a member of the UBC and Geography Alumni Associations.
Placespeak
In 2010 Colleen founded PlaceSpeak; a location-based community-consultation platform designed to advance public participation. Many people believe that there is no meaningful consultation over location-based issues, and Colleen’s mandate is to fix that problem. PlaceSpeak allows people who have verified their identity and residential location to voice their opinions on issues submitted for discussion by governments and other organizations. Colleen came up with the idea last summer while looking at a Google map of the Arbutus corridor. Colleen now has many people working together towards the success of PlaceSpeak, which she has been self-funding with the help of research grants.
Through PlaceSpeak Colleen has also been pushing residents of Metro Vancouver to get more involved in their local politics. The ‘Metro Vancouver Votes’ program is a series of PlaceSpeak Pages that offer information and discussion forums regarding individual municipal elections for 2011. Colleen’s view is that “A more informed—and engaged—resident is a more likely voter.”
Currently Colleen is following in the footsteps of her late father’s work by creating a third iteration of the Urban Futures Survey; this survey will provide decision makers in Metro Vancouver with invaluable longitudinal data once the results are cross referenced with the 1973 and 1990 iterations. Other projects that Colleen has undertaken through PlaceSpeak include running a public consultation regarding the Gibson’s Harbour renovation initiative and a ‘Tag your Hood’ initiative whereby residents submitted logos for their neighbourhoods and the winners were hosted on the City of Vancouver’s website. In addition the City of Vancouver also hosted pilot projects regarding transportation and housing options and Strathcona’s school board is using PlaceSpeak as a medium to help discuss the renovations and upgrades being done to the Strathcona Elementary School.