Jean-Charles Cachon

Biography

Born in Ivry, South Paris, Jean-Charles Cachon has been teaching Organisational Strategy at the Laurentian University Faculty of Management since 1983. He has lectured and given conferences at numerous foreign Universities in Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Scotland, U.S., U.K.  He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon Business School (Monterrey, Mexico). He is the past Honorary Consul of France in Sudbury(2002-2023), under the authority of the Consul General of France in Toronto. He has been listed in the Canadian Who's Who since 2008.

He has worked and consulted extensively for over 100 businesses and organizations throughout his career, including:

Technical Reports and/or training – Clients - Rapports techniques et/ou formation – Clients: Groupe L’Oréal Paris, Gordon Brothers Limited (Boston, London, Berlin), Aubin Insurance, Cochrane Enterprises, Gosselin Lumber, Lecours Lumber, Levesque Plywood Limited, United Sawmill, Expert Garage, Newaygo Lumber, Normick Perron, Dubreuil Brothers, the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, the Municipality of Greater Sudbury, the Sudbury and Manitoulin Workforce Partnership Board, CGA Canada, Sudbury and Manitoulin Community Health Access Centre, Fuller Industrial, ACFO du Grand Sudbury, Carrefour Francophone, Salon du Livre de Sudbury, Regional Business Centre, Avalon Group, Canadian Council on Racial Relations, Théâtre du Nouvel Ontario, Éditions Prise de Parole, NO Communications, Société de développement économique de Baie-Comeau (Québec), Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Nortox Forensic Laboratories, Laurentian University Indigenous programs, Fenicem Minerals, Guelph University - Advanced Agricultural Leadership Programme, Direction Jeunesse, Association pour l’intégration communautaire de Nipissing, Media Concepts, 50 Carlton, Women of the Future- Femmes de l’Avenir, Femmes en Sciences et Génie, Management Development Centre-Centre de développement en Gestion, Conseil de Planification Sociale, Réseau de Santé du Moyen-Nord, Sudbury Regional Hospital – Hôpital Régional de Sudbury (Horizon Santé Nord), Centre l’Alliance de Nipissing Ouest, Hôpital Régional de Nipissing Ouest, Conférence des recteurs des universités du Québec, Programme d’Apprentissage pour la Jeunesse de l’Ontario PAJO-OYAP (Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program), Sudbury Social Planning Council, Université de Sherbrooke, Industrie Canada-Industry Canada, Human Resources Development Service Canada, Wallbridge and Wallbridge Law, Ateba Mines, Business Development Bank of Canada, Mosquito DMZ, Sudbury Counselling Centre – Centre de Counselling de Sudbury, Health Canada – Santé Canada, Professions North-Nord, Orion Printing, Care Link Independent Living Nature’s Aid, World Multiverse MMO - Lukasz Blaszczyk and Szymon Klapa Online Game Designers (Krakow, Poland) – West Nipissing Chamber of Commerce – ABL Lights Group (Mosinee, WI, USA) - TESC Integrated Construction Services – Kemerid (France) – Coralis (France) – CMD Gears – Easy Cube 4 – EPC Explosives Group – Kohler SDMO Generators – Newrest Camp Management. - Corporation of the Township of Dubreuilville (Ontario).

As a union leader and social activist, he has been recognized by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations with the OCUFA Service Award in 2018. See citation: https://ocufa.on.ca/ocufa-awards/winners-service-award/

Professor Jean-Charles Cachon and First Nations

While teaching at Hearst University from 1977 to 1983, he took twelve credits of Cree language courses with Mrs. Shirley Cheechoo from the Constance Lake First Nation. Upon arrival in Sudbury, he visited Manitoulin Island and was exposed to the paintings of the Woodland School, which he started collecting. During visits to the island, he met artists such as Leland Bell and Blair Debassige, as well as community members in Wikwemikong and M’Chigeeng.

Following the Oka crisis of 1990, he visited the Kahnawake First Nation in February 1991 and spent several hours with Chief Arnold Goodleaf, a community elder who taught him about the traditional ways and government of the Six Nations and gave him a copy of the Iroquois Constitution as well as other related documentation. In 1997, with the help of a First Nation research assistant, he conducted the first face-to-face survey of small businesses located on four First Nations between North Bay and the Sault-Ste-Marie, publishing the results two years later with the help of Chief Ovide Mercredi.

In 2000-2001, he prepared the French version of a survey from the Coalition for the Advancement of Indigenous Studies (CAAS), which was completed by 31 students at Laurentian University. The survey was measuring awareness, attitudes and knowledge of facts about Indigenous Peoples' histories, cultures, worldviews and current concerns. 519 students across Canada responded to this 12-page survey. A report was published in 2002 titled Learning About Walking in Beauty: Placing Aboriginal Perspectives in Canadian Classrooms.

In 2004, when a high school group from France visited Sudbury, he participated (as French Honorary Consul for the Sudbury region) in an official welcoming ceremony as head of the French delegation and was officially welcomed as the representative of France in the region by the Chief and the Elders of the Whitefish Lake First Nation (now Atikameksheng Anishnaabek). As president of the Laurentian University Faculty Association (2000-2004), he has spearheaded the inclusion of language specific to Indigenous Faculty members and Indigenous teaching and research in the collective agreement of Laurentian University. He also made sure that Indigenous Faculty from Laurentian would be involved in national conferences organised by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) on a regular basis.

He has also organised the development of courses geared for Indigenous students within the Faculty of Management at Laurentian University since 2006. In the summer of 2010, he attended UCLA to participate in an intense entrepreneurship teaching course to become certified by the New York based Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). From September 2010 to April 2012 he taught the first two Indigenous business courses forming the Dual Credit Program. This pilot program, funded by the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative (MAEI), allowed Indigenous (mostly adult) students to earn high school credits as well as University credits. The contents of the program involved the preparation of a business plan, a valuable skill students can use for the rest of their life. The two years of the pilot program were a success, as a significant proportion of participants started a business and/or kept pursuing a higher education.

According to Professor Cachon, teaching skills to Indigenous people is no different than teaching to other human groups. However, one must recognise that business subjects tend to be presented traditionally with an assumption that students have already been immersed in the peculiarities of the Western culture, which involves a desire for personal gain, for individual success, and for exclusive personal property rights. During a trip to New Zealand in 2007, he was confronted with the Maori culture, as exposed to him by Maori researchers at Waikato University in Hamilton. For these scholars, what they considered fundamental to their teaching as well as their research was what they called «Marae research», meaning research centered upon the basic teachings coming from the core of Maori society, which include knowledge from legends intertwined with knowledge about one’s genealogy, specific skills (designing and building the long houses or «whare» forming the marae, carving trees to build long boats), and learning socially acceptable Maori behaviours and rituals.

Professor Cachon translated this learning into developing an Entrepreneurship course rooted into a multidisciplinary approach to teaching Indigenous students. In order to relate to them, he travelled extensively in Ontario as well as elsewhere in North America to visit ancient sites and dwellings of First Nations. Places visited include reserves in Ontario, Sheguiandah, M’Chigeeng, Wikwemkong, and Aundeck-Omni-Kaning on Manitoulin Island, sites in British Columbia, Washington state, Mesa Verde (Colorado), the Navajo Nation, Taos (New Mexico) as well as monumental sites such as Teotihuacan, Cahokia, and other larger settlements. Course content was enriched by learning recent knowledge from archaeologists (Patrick Julig in particular), anthropologists (Kathryn Molohon), and historians (Gerard K. Kennedy), as well as his own research.

Education

• Maîtrise ès Arts Économiques, Paris
• M.A. Marketing (now M.Sc.), Sherbrooke

• Doctoral studies Entrepreneurship 1986-95 University of Durham Business School/Stirling University (Scotland)

• English-French interpretation diploma     1974                      S.P.L.E.F.  Paris

  (Diploma recognised in Canada via  L'Institut de traduction - The Institute of Translation, 1947. Affiliation to l'Université de Montréal, 30 March 1944. Accreditation agreement recognizing mutual diplomas between the University of Montreal Institut de traduction and the SPLEF, Société pour la propagation des langues étrangères en France, May 1947. Associate member of the Association technologique de langue française d'Ottawa, today Association des traducteurs et interprètes de l'Ontario, 1950. http://www.archeion.ca/fonds-institut-de-traduction;rad?sf_culture=nl)

• Diploma di Lingua e pratica commerciale italiana     1973   Camera di Commercio Italiana – Paris

  2 courses in Cree language 1978-1980            Université de Hearst

  Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) Certified Entrepreneurship Teacher 2010 NFTE - Los Angeles (UCLA - Univ of California Los Angeles)

  Lancaster House – Toronto  2005 - now                   Labour Law training seminars (ongoing)

Academic Appointments

Laurentian University (School of Commerce, now Faculty of Management) since 1983 - Full Professor since 2001

Declared Professor Emeritus in 2021, currently sessional professor

Visiting professor:

Stirling University (Scotland) 1988

Universidad Contemporànea (Querétaro, Mexico) 2005

Universitas Gunadarma (Indonesia) 2017

Assistant professor (full time):

Université de Hearst 1977-1983

Research Assistant:

Université de Sherbrooke - professeurs Yvon Gasse and André Théoret 1975-1977

On The Web

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nX5HezYAAAAJ&hl=en