The North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce has named eighteen finalists for its 2026 Evening of Excellence Business Awards, a list running from a solo podiatry clinic to a drill bit manufacturer that ships equipment around the world. Winners will be revealed Oct. 20 at the Davedi Club, in a gala presented this year by Cogeco after years under sponsor Bell.
“We’re incredibly proud to highlight the passion, innovation and resilience of our local business community,” said Donna Backer, chief executive officer of the North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce, in the announcement naming the finalists. The roster doubles as a snapshot of how far this city’s economy has spread beyond its old government, forestry and mining identity, pairing first-time entrepreneurs with a company that has made drilling equipment in North Bay since the Cold War.
Eighteen Finalists, Eight Categories, One Gala Night
The Chamber runs its Evening of Excellence across eight categories: Young Professional of the Year, New Business of the Year, Not-for-Profit of the Year, two tiers of Small Business of the Year split by staff count, Business of the Year for companies with sixteen or more employees, Innovator of the Year and Workplace Excellence of the Year.
Three of those categories map cleanly onto this year’s eighteen finalists. Young Professional of the Year comes down to Bethany Desmarais of Northern Podology, Chinmay Patel of Designed Roofing and Yeshi Ramloll of The Dipped Moose. New Business of the Year pits Blais and Sons Electric, Fresh Italian Eats and North Bay Sport Medicine against one another. Not-for-Profit of the Year is a three-way race between 7N1D NoahStrong, Clean, Green, Beautiful North Bay and the Rotary Club of North Bay.
The Chamber’s announcement did not break out which of the other five categories the remaining nine finalists fall into. Their names still say plenty about who is competing this year.
From a Solo Podiatry Clinic to a Global Drill Maker
North Bay built its reputation as a government and resource hub for the surrounding mining and forestry region. The finalist list still has room for that history, but it also has room for a sport medicine clinic, a roofing contractor, a coffee roaster with a campus outlet, a tutoring franchise and an accounting firm based in the neighbouring township of Callander.
Then there are two names that would not look out of place in a stock exchange filing: Boart Longyear and Fabrene Inc. Both are finalists this year, and both are manufacturers whose customers live far outside the Chamber’s own membership rolls.
Boart Longyear’s North Bay Roots Run 136 Years Deep
Boart Longyear traces its history to 1890, when Edmund J. Longyear sank his first diamond drill hole on Minnesota’s Mesabi Range. Its Canadian arm started with six employees in 1931 and grew steadily, and when a global mining downturn forced the company to close its historic Minneapolis plant, North Bay became its main production site in 1985. The company shifted headquarters to Salt Lake City three years later, where it remains today as a company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
The North Bay connection never really left. In January 2025, the company put its name on the city’s hockey arena, home of the Ontario Hockey League’s North Bay Battalion, through a five-year, $485,000 naming rights agreement with the city. Company executives said in a joint statement that Boart Longyear has been “a proud member of the North Bay community for almost 100 years.” The company says it employs nearly 200 people locally, part of a drilling services division that operates across the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, Europe and Africa.
Fabrene and the Machinists Rounding Out the Field
Fabrene Inc. runs its plant on Dupont Road in North Bay, making woven and non-woven polyolefin fabrics used in construction wrap, geomembranes and industrial packaging that ship to customers on multiple continents. Corporate ownership has shifted over the years, most recently to the U.S. packaging group Berry Plastics, according to a 2016 report on the plant’s workforce, and the site has employed anywhere from roughly 200 to 500 workers depending on the year and the source.
The remaining seven finalists round out a list that touches nearly every corner of the local economy:
- Callander Accounting and Consultancy, based in the township just south of North Bay
- Oxford Learning North Bay, a location of the Canadian tutoring franchise
- Twiggs Coffee Roasters, entered for its outlet on the Canadore College campus
- North Bay Machining Centre, a precision machine shop
- Rahnmet
- Source for Sports, the local outlet of the national sporting goods chain
- Orchard’s Fresh Food Market
Somewhere in that group sit the Innovator of the Year, the Workplace Excellence award and both Small Business tiers, though the Chamber’s release did not specify which finalist belongs to which.
How Does This Year’s Field Stack Up Against Last Year’s Winners?
Last year’s winners were chosen at the Chamber’s 130th anniversary gala in October 2025 and ranged from a retirement home to an equine therapy practice. None of this year’s confirmed finalists in the three mapped categories repeat a 2025 winner, meaning fresh names will claim at least those three titles on Oct. 20.
| Category | 2025 Winner | 2026 Finalists |
|---|---|---|
| Young Professional of the Year | Parker Sproule, First Gear Grinds | Bethany Desmarais, Chinmay Patel, Yeshi Ramloll |
| New Business of the Year | Aura The Psychotherapy Centre | Blais and Sons Electric, Fresh Italian Eats, North Bay Sport Medicine |
| Not-for-Profit of the Year | North Bay and District Humane Society | 7N1D NoahStrong, Clean Green Beautiful North Bay, Rotary Club of North Bay |
The other five 2025 titles went to Barclay House Retirement Living (Business of the Year, sixteen or more employees), Nurse Next Door (Small Business of the Year, six to fifteen employees), Horse Ability Equine-Assisted Therapy (Small Business of the Year, one to five employees), Your Sales Company (Innovator of the Year) and Gincor Werx (Workplace Excellence of the Year). Whether any of this year’s nine unmapped finalists are chasing those same titles will not be clear until the October ceremony.
A Chamber Turning 130, Under a New Presenting Sponsor
The Chamber describes itself as the voice of business in North Bay since 1894, and it spent much of 2025 marking that milestone: a coffee-and-cupcakes open house in January, then a gala on Oct. 25 formally billed as the Bell Evening of Excellence and 130th Anniversary Gala. This year’s edition drops Bell as presenting sponsor in favour of Cogeco, though the Chamber’s language about a 130 year legacy has carried over into the 2026 announcement unchanged.
Milestone anniversaries paired with awards galas are not unique to North Bay. A business school’s Business Night marked its own 65th year with a $122,500 mentorship and awards pool earlier this year, a similar formula of longevity and recognition wrapped into one evening.
The North Bay Chamber counts more than 550 members across every sector it serves, from single-employee startups to Boart Longyear’s manufacturing floor. One award sits outside the eighteen-name finalist list entirely.
- Betty Alcorn Memorial Award – given each year to a Chamber board member as Director of the Year, separate from the eight public categories. Geoff Richardson won it in 2025 and Carrie Girard in 2023.
That award, like the rest of the program, will be handed out at the Davedi Club in October, closing out a year in which the Chamber’s own finalist list did more to describe North Bay’s economy than any of its press materials tried to.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are Evening of Excellence finalists chosen?
Nominations open to Chamber members each spring. In recent cycles, the nomination window has closed in early May, roughly two months before finalists are publicly announced and about five months before the October gala.
How many award categories does the Chamber run, and is that new?
Eight, currently. The Chamber expanded from six categories by adding Innovator of the Year and Workplace Excellence of the Year, both introduced ahead of the 2025 awards cycle.
When will tickets go on sale for the 2026 gala?
Ticket details for the Oct. 20 event at the Davedi Club had not been released as of the finalist announcement. The Chamber said pricing and sales information for the Cogeco-presented gala would follow in the coming weeks.
