NEWS: Swim and Track alumni make Ottawa’s Forty Under 40 list

Roberto Aburto and Kevin Brennan are two of Ottawa's Top 40 Under 40 for 2021, as selected by the Ottawa Business Journal and the Ottawa Board of Trade. The award recognizes business accomplishments, professional experience and community involvement, and the pair have Gee-Gees experience on their resumes.

Aburto is a partner at Gowling-WLG, having graduated from uOttawa's Faculty of Law in 2010. He was an assistant coach with the Gee-Gees while pursuing his law degree, from 2008-2010, following his own career as a student-athlete at Wilfrid Laurier University. At Gowling, he practices municipal law and civil litigation, and is the regional representative for Eastern Ontario on the board of directors of the Ontario Expropriation Association.

Keeping his connection to the pool, Aburto serves on the board of directors for the Lifesaving Society (Ontario Branch) as the corporate secretary/legal adviser. He is also co-chair of Gowling WLG's National Diversity and Inclusion Council and is committed to promoting principles of diversity and inclusion. He hosts a podcast on diversity in the legal market, Diversonomics, and in October 2020, he was an Excellence Award Recipient for the "Pro Bono Gender Markers Initiative" at the Canadian Law Awards.

Kevin Brennan is general manager at Cavanagh Concrete, and is a Project Management Professional. He earned a Bachelor of Commerce, Marketing from uOttawa in 2010 and competed on the track and field team as a middle distance runner from 2006-10. He was a member of a team record setting 4x800m relay team in 2008, and competed at the OUA Championships for two seasons.  

His career began at Lafarge and has quickly accelerated. He joined Cavanagh in 2017 as Operations Manager before moving to General Manager in 2020. Cavanagh Concrete has attained ECO Gold Status in Ontario, and supports local charities, cultural events, educational programs, and amateur sports.

Ashleigh Kennedy, the co-founder of Neurovine, was also selected to the list. She trained with the Gee-Gees track and field team while completing her PhD in Human Kinetics at uOttawa, having used her eligibility during her undergrad at Stanford where she earned All-American status and set a school record in the indoor 400m. At Neurovine the focus in on concussions, using real-time data and machine learning to aid recovery. 

The Ottawa Forty Under 40 awards for 2021 are sponsored by the Telfer School of Management Executive MBA, and an online and television broadcast is planned for Wednesday, June 23 at 8 p.m.