Stuart Whitehead:
CLASS OF 1964
Central Peel High SchoolClass of 1964
Brampton, ON
Stuart's Story
Best to begin my story at my first job after school. That was at the old Northern Electric plant in Bramalea in the drafting office. They had me in the electrical drafting section - not to my liking since I was trained in mechanical drafting, so it was time to move on.
Next stop was out in Rexdale at a company (Chromolox which no longer exists) that manufactured industrial heating equipment. For a while, two of my Central Peel classmates worked with me in the drafting department - Gary Edwards and Bob Murray. Stayed there for two years and grew restless again. Applied and secured a position at SPAR Aerospace in Malton in the engineering research department that was the original birth place of the Canada Space Arm. That's were I met June in 1967 (long time ago). We got married in 1968. June and I celebrated our 53rd anniversary on August 3rd this year. Since the company didn't like married couples working together even though we were told there would be no problem, they asked me to leave so I had to move on again.
A company called Collins Radio was my next stop (another company that is long gone). Stayed there for 5 years and achieved the position of senior electromechanical designer. The commute was a bit much - driving from Mississauga to Scarborough on the other side of Toronto each day was tiresome. So I hung out my shingle again a looked for something more local. During this time I hooked up with a contract agency that would parachute me in to companies that needed design help on a short time basis - interesting work, but we were expecting our first child by then and I needed something more permanent with benefits.
The next chapter: My agent found a contract position at Litton Systems that could lead to a permanent position in the Advanced Programs Division. The company did extensive work with the Canadian and US military. Projects included satellite based advanced data link positioning systems, mobile anti-tank defense systems, cruise missile guidance systems and the updating and modernization of Canada's Tribal class destroyers among others. Seeing the work was sensitive, we had to have company security clearance and in my case NATO secret clearance that had to be reviewed and renewed every 5 years. The department grew to the point that I was managing up to 40 designers and graphics per...Expand for more
sonnel. Unfortunately, peace broke out and the cold war ended and so did a lot of the projects. Time to move on after 15 years.
This is when I started to switch gears and concentrate on graphic design and technical writing. I attended night classes at Humber College to get certificates in technical communication and graphic design.
The next company (PROFAC) was in a different field altogether - facilities management. This included all the interior and exterior maintenance necessary to run a building - heat, AC, electrical, cleaning, landscaping, security. etc. My job was to prepare responses the request for proposals to obtain new work. I was a one man department - writing, editing, graphics, proposal management, printing and making sure the submission was delivered on time. While working there, one of our competitors called me up and made me an offer to come work for them (made and offer I couldn't refuse - more money, a home computer system and my own office with all the latest computer toys and software). Stayed with them for 5 years until a headhunter came knocking. I always kept an updated CV on line just in case something good came up.
One night we met at the most Canadian of places - Tim Hortons. He made his spiel, told me the company really wanted me, I could write my own ticket, yada, yada, yada. Now, we were still living in Brampton at the time (Histon) so the last thing he told me was that the company was located in Collingwood! After conferring with June I decided to take the offer - wasn't too difficult since we wanted to move out the the crowded Brampton environment anyway.
During all this moving around and changing career paths I was doing, we managed to send both our kids (Grant and Kathryn) to university.
Grant went to the University of Waterloo to study environmental science. He achieved a BA and MA and now works at Stantec in Kitchener. He could have gone on to do a PhD (in BC interestingly at the University in the interior), he had the money from winning scholarships but after 7 years of study he said it was enough. Kathryn went to Brock University and came out with an Honors degree in business.
So we moved to Wasaga Beach where I spent the last 15 years of my working career at the Ainley Group - a civil engineering firm in Collingwood. Finally retired after 51 years of working!
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