Be your own MVP
By Steve MacNaull

Entrepreneur and motivational speaker LuAn Mitchell-Halter wears her pink MVP jersey to promote her upcoming book The Woman MVP Who Set You Free: Play Quarterback with the Big Boys and Win.

There are no skeletons in LuAn Mitchell-Halter's closet.

She's as upfront about the daughter she gave up for adoption at age 17 and the controversy she sparked at the Miss Canada 1984 pageant as she is about turning a $1 million company into a $1 billion company.

"I'm maybe not proud of everything I've done," Halter told The Okanagan Saturday before speaking at the annual Okanagan Business Students Association banquet this week at The Grand hotel in Kelowna.

"But I'm not ashamed. All of us have a background and I believe without the hardship I've encountered I wouldn't have been able to achieve what I've achieved."

Halter made her mark on the business world by helping her first husband, Fred Mitchell, take modest pork processor Intercontinental Packers from a $1 million a year company into a $1 billion company under the name Mitchell's Gourmet Foods.

After Mitchell died in 1998 after suffering from cystic fibrosis for years, his wife took over the business despite being told she couldn't do it with three small children.

But she built up Mitchell's Gourmet Foods even more and was named Canada's No. 1 woman entrepreneur by both Profit and Chatelaine magazines in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

In 2001 she was also named one of the 40 leading women entrepreneurs in the world by the U.S.-based Star Group.

Halter is now out of the meat business and concentrates on writing and motivational speaking.

Her first book Paper Doll: Lessons Learned from a Life Lived in the Headlines is autobiographical, but also full of lessons on making goals and moving, confidence and moving on after life throws you a curve ball.

Her new book The Woman MVP Who Set You Free: Play Quarterback with the Big Boys and Win is due out soon as is the CD Eye of the Tiger. Another book – The Emergence – will also be out soon.

It was four years ago at a writer's conference in Hawaii that she met forest biologist Dr. Reese Halter and married him two years later.

She, her children and Halter now all live in Palm Springs.

"I'm big on balancing home and work," said LuAn.

"My writing allows me to work at home, but I do have to go on the road for my speaking."

Before coming to Kelowna she was in Cancun as the keynote speaker at the U.S. Construction Association conference.

Her talks are entertaining and funny because LuAn has had quite the life.

But the underlying message is simple and inspiring: "Build your own wildest dreams. Be your own MVP."

As Miss Saskatoon at the 1984 Miss Canada pageant, LuAn made quite a splash when she broke out of formation in the swimsuit procession because she was unhappy about the rule to wear pantyhose under the swimsuit and jumped into the pool.

For the talent portion of the competition, rather than do gymnastics or cheerleading (both of which she was good at) she decided on speech about people who broke the mold and questioned why the contest was called a beauty pageant.

"It went over like a lead balloon," she remembered.

"I have a rebel streak. But I guess it was the start of my public speaking career."

The Okanagan Business Students Association event Halter spoke at was the 26th annual.

The banquet sees students and businesspeople come together to network and each businessperson also goes home with a booklet of resumes of students that will soon be graduating and looking for jobs.