Meet Shann
Despite earning his living in the tech industry for nearly two decades, Shann Bosnell (pronounced Shawn) wanted to forge a new entrepreneurial path when he decided to strike out on his own in December 2016.
“I was looking at perhaps starting up another IT business on the side, but I had a bit of IT business burnout, so I was looking for a different motivator,” says the former vice-president of product management at CareWorx, a Kanata-based IT solutions firm.
If Shann's job was helping customers manage technology, his passion was coffee. Shann had been roasting beans in his Gatineau home for several years on a small 1 lbs drum roaster, supplying friends and family with java. The decision to jump into the coffee-roasting business was a natural evolution and Brown Bag Coffee Roasters was born. Shann now runs the company with his wife Dana and daughter Kianna, 17, who is in her last year of high school and eagerly learning the trade from her father.
"The family part of the business is super important to me for sure,” Shann explains. “Everybody in my family really enjoys the business ownership aspect and learning the different aspects of it.”