Welcome to LINK’s first fully digital edition!
Thank you for joining us online.
Our Spring 2026 edition continues LINK’s long-standing tradition of bringing you unique SAIT perspectives on timely topics — with a few surprises along the way.
The digital edition will help you access LINK’s award-winning content on any device, anywhere and at any time, with the added benefit of keeping you connected with SAIT and with each other through a more environmentally friendly format.
We hope you’ll find that LINK still looks, reads and feels distinctly SAIT, with great content from our established roster of skilled writers and outstanding photographers.
If you haven’t already, be sure to update your email address so you’ll never miss an issue.
On behalf of the entire LINK team, I hope you’ll enjoy the Spring edition!
Nancy Cope
LINK Editor
In this issue
In this issue, you’ll find a feature story exploring SAIT’s culture of support for WorldSkills and another sharing a surprise SAIT connection discovered in a tiny mountain hut. Learn about innovative research involving spider webs, gain tips on making AI work for you, and get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of SAIT’s new Cyber Range.
FEATURE
The legacy of the Castle Mountain hut
How a surprise discovery high up on Castle Mountain lets us glimpse a group of SAIT apprentice students from more than 60 years ago.
FEATURE
Built to compete: Inside SAIT's culture of support for WorldSkills
As five SAIT competitors train to attend WorldSkills 2026 in Shanghai this September, LINK looks back to 2009 — the year these “Olympics of the skilled professions” came to Calgary and cemented a culture of support across campus that continues today.
PROFILE
Reaching new heights
With a talent for trades, the savvy to start his own business, and a boost from the Bissett Bursary Program, Nick Rak’s path has taken him from the lows of addiction to building a highly successful roofing company.
PROFILE
Hard work and heritage
With his family connection to SAIT reaching back 80 years, Travis Gallup prizes long-standing values of working hard, protecting people and the environment, and paving the way for the next generation of student success.
ON THE JOB
On the job: Sonjaa Schmidt
SAIT Electrical Engineering Technology graduate Sonjaa Schmidt shares behind-the-scenes glimpses of her journey to making history as the first Canadian woman to win a U23 world title in cross-country skiing, and to making her Olympic debut this year.
INNOVATION
Understanding Alberta wildlife
How SAIT grad Olivia Zamrykut prompted the creation of SAIT’s new Environmental DNA (eDNA) lab — and then mentored the students who followed in her footsteps.
PROFILE
Storytelling, sound gigs and the creative power of saying "Yes"
At SAIT, Mitsufumi Okamoto is a Research Assistant producing video that’s making research from the Green Building Technology Access Centre more engaging and accessible. Beyond SAIT, he’s active in the local film industry, plays a mean bass and stands always at the ready to make something cool.
PRO TIPS
Making AI work for you
Frank Bergdoll, SAIT’s AI project lead and creator of a YouTube channel on learning and technology, shares four steps to treating AI like a partner and using the technology more effectively.
HANDS ON
SAIT Downtown Cyber Range
With cybercrime incidents in Calgary rising 54% in 2024 and Canadian businesses spending $1.2 billion on recovery efforts in 2023, this tech-infused training hub lets students, corporate cybersecurity teams and IT professionals practice tackling real-world cyberattacks with no risk to actual digital systems or data.
LOOKING BACK
Looking back: 2007
As SAIT hosts five convocation ceremonies this June, LINK looks back at a graduation celebration from nearly 20 years ago.
Contributors
Frank Bergdoll, JChu Photography, Nancy Cope, Danielle Erickson, Tom Fransham, HarderLee Photography, Peter Hoang, Kokemor Studio, Nicole Larson, Kate Laverdure, the Lofthouse Collection, Nathaniel Mah, Zachary Robertson, Eric Rosenbaum, Sal Sawler, Julie Sengl, Lisa Tahn, Giselle Wedemire, Adison Wiberg, Michelle Woodard, Olivia Zamrykut
In the spotlight
In every issue of LINK, we introduce readers to a fellow SAIT graduate whose work is featured in that edition. For Spring 2026, we're featuring not one but two graduates who together make up HarderLee Photography.
Trudie Lee (Journalism '84)
Brian Harder (Photographic Arts '83)
Photographers for Reaching new heights and Storytelling, sound gigs and the creative power of saying "Yes"
When HarderLee Photography got the call for two LINK photo shoots on the same afternoon, the duo packed their most nimble kit for moving quickly from an outdoor location to an indoor setting.
“The trick for our Nick Rak photo was conveying his roofing business without upstaging Nick or making the background too busy,” Lee says.
The key, Harder continues, was using a long lens. “That offered compression and gave Nick separation from the background. Your lens and POV have more to do with a great shot than probably any other factor.”
Then there’s the ability to quickly pivot from outdoors to indoors, again while asking, what’s the story within the shot? To show veteran sound and video producer Mitsufumi Okamoto in his work environment, they switched from low to high ISO (film speed) and used a wide-angle lens to capture an interesting angle.
Specializing in commercial and industrial photography, the couple also blends their formidable skills for performing arts and high-end portraits of everyone from Sophia Loren to the late Queen Elizabeth.
“I believe when you photograph people, it is a performance art,” Lee says.
Oki, Âba wathtech, Danit'ada, Tawnshi, Hello.
SAIT is located on the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the people of Treaty 7 which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina and the Îyârhe Nakoda of Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney.
We are situated in an area the Blackfoot tribes traditionally called Moh’kinsstis, where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. We now call it the city of Calgary, which is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta.