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But it was a government program which helps entrepreneurs hone their skills -- while paying them a modest living wage -- which gave Calvert the nerve to really take her web design and public relations company, Lucid Communications, to the next level. "If it wasn't for that program I would not be doing this," says Calvert. "I wouldn't have had the courage to go out on my own."
Since completing the Self Employment Benefits (SEB) program a little more than a year ago, she has opened an office in downtown Toronto and hired her first employee. And her business is booming.
Ten years ago, Calvert would have been the last person to predict this career. She'd trained all her life to be a dancer, and she entered York University for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance. While there, she took a course in multimedia for fine arts, which introduced her to graphic design and website design. It took her by surprise. "I discovered I really liked something other than dancing, which was a first for me."
She started building websites for an eclectic mix of companies, including small dance companies, choreographers and tattoo artists. And she was so captivated that when she graduated and was offered a position with the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation school in New York City, she decided to head in the completely opposite direction… to Los Angeles. "I knew there was no modern dance there, so there wouldn't be any temptation.," she says.
In L.A., she studied multimedia and marketing at Los Angeles Mission College and simultaneously started up a business called Lucid Medium -- helping her musician friends develop websites and promote their bands.
When she came back to Toronto three years ago, she continued to design websites, but she also wanted to get a taste of public relations. She worked with a marketing company and a PR agency, and fell in love with the field. "I liked seeing the direct results of your work. Listening to your client, positioning them to the media, getting stories written and seeing them published. I found it rewarding thinking of creative angles to position companies."
But the corporate end of things wasn't really her cup of tea; she preferred to work with smaller companies and envisioned choosing her own clients. "I wasn't sure what to do," she says. "Should I get a job with a boutique company? Go back to school to do a postgrad in PR? I was kind of lost."
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