08/16/2026
COWORK COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT:
At CoWork, our members reflect the incredible people and organizations that make Hamilton such a vibrant community. Entrepreneurs and small businesses and organizations working to create meaningful change in the lives of others.
STAC Hamilton (Steel Town Athletic Club) is one of those organizations —At the heart of STAC is its founder and Executive Director, Vincent (Vince) Kuber.
Born in Fiji and raised in East Hamilton, Vince’s commitment to supporting equity-deserving youth comes from lived experience. His understanding of the barriers young people face — and the transformative power of community, mentorship and opportunity — is deeply personal.
Sport has always been part of Vincent’s life. When he’s not working with STAC youth, you can often find him out on the trails around Hamilton, training for his next race. That personal passion is woven into everything STAC does: athletics isn’t simply about competition. It’s a way to bring people together, build confidence, develop resilience and open doors.
STAC uses athletics as a catalyst for helping young people develop skills that extend far beyond the playing field. Through programs in basketball, track, running, cycling, and hiking, youth build friendships, develop confidence, and learn from coaches and mentors who are invested in their success.
But ask Vincent what STAC is really about, and he’ll tell you: sport is the door, not the destination, a starting point and not the whole story.
“That’s where STAC’s career-building work comes in — and it’s some of the most exciting programming happening inside our walls.”
STAC has built out mentoring programs that go far beyond coaching kids to run faster or shoot better. Youth in STAC‘s programs gain exposure to many careers in sport — the professionals who work behind the scenes to make athletics possible at every level.
A prime example is STAC‘s mentorship stream in media and marketing. Youth are paired with mentors working in these fields and given hands-on opportunities to learn how sport gets told, sold and shared — from content creation and storytelling to branding and promotion. For a young person who loves sport but may never have considered it as a career, this is often a revelation.
STAC builds pathways for youth to understand the broader business of sport — the employment options and career roles that exist alongside athletes themselves: coaching, event management, sports business, communications, and more.
Coaches and mentors help youth connect the dots between their passion for sport and a future career they may never have known existed.
It’s a deliberate strategy. By showing youth the full ecosystem around sport — not just the field or the court, but the offices, cameras, brands and businesses that support it — STAC widens the aperture on what “success” can look like. A kid who may not go pro as an athlete might find their calling behind a camera, managing a brand, or running events. STAC makes sure that door is visible and open.
Education runs alongside all of this. Coaches and mentors encourage youth to think about their futures, explore post-secondary opportunities and understand the possibilities available to them. STAC has supported young people in practical ways as they manage school applications, including helping with application fees when financial obstacles stand in the way.
Life skills are woven throughout the programming, too — financial literacy, communication, decision-making, and resilience — tools that serve youth long after they leave the court, the studio, or the mentorship session.
“The goal was never simply to help young people participate in sport. It’s to help them build the confidence, skills and professional networks to create their own futures — whatever shape those take,” says Vince
One of the things that makes STAC particularly special is the relationship between its coaches and mentors and the young people they serve. STAC has four main coaches leading its various programs, and several of those coaches were once participants themselves.
They know what it’s like to be part of STAC. They understand the value of having mentors, coaches and a community behind you. And now they’re giving that experience back to a new generation — including guiding youth toward the same media, marketing and business-of-sport opportunities which shaped their own paths.
It creates a powerful cycle: youth are supported by their community, develop their own strengths, and grow into people who give back — sometimes as coaches, sometimes as media professionals, sometimes as entrepreneurs in their own right.
At the heart of STAC’s work is a belief in equity and inclusion. As a BIPOC-led organization, STAC prioritizes serving BIPOC and other equity-deserving youth who may face financial or systemic barriers to athletics, career exposure and post-secondary education.
But inclusion is paired with high expectations. STAC believes young people deserve excellent programming, excellent mentors, and real opportunities to aim for excellence — on the field and in their careers. At the same time, the organization recognizes that achievement isn’t only about performance. Social, emotional and physical well-being, resilience, friendship, play and belonging are all part of helping young people grow into healthy, confident adults.
For Vincent, being at the Cotton Factory carries a particularly meaningful history.
When Vincent’s family first came to Canada in 1987, his mother worked as a seamstress at the Cotton Factory. Nearly four decades later, Vincent has brought STAC into that same building.
The story has come full circle. The Cotton Factory was once a place where Vincent’s mother worked as she and her family built a new life in Canada. Today, it’s home to an organization founded by her son — one that’s helping young people build their own futures, on and off the field.
There’s something powerful about that connection. A building that has witnessed generations of people working, creating and building lives continues to be a place where opportunity is created.
At CoWork, we believe a workspace is about more than desks, Wi-Fi and meeting rooms. It’s about the people who share the space and the ideas, energy and purpose they bring with them.
STAC represents so much of what we value about our community: collaboration, inclusion, mentorship, creativity, opportunity and giving back. Their work shows us that building a stronger community isn’t always about making something for ourselves — sometimes it’s about creating the conditions for someone else to succeed, whether that’s on a track, behind a camera, or in a boardroom.
We’re proud to have STAC Hamilton as part of the CoWork community — and we’re excited to see the young people they inspire, support and empower.
This is who our members are. This is our community.
