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I was teaching school, general curriculum in North York Ontario when I got a call from the faculty of Environmental Studies at York University to join them and obtain their masters' degree.
While I was enrolled at York, I studied with noted architects, environmental scientists and others concerned with human habitation. I was also cross-appointed to study at the University of Toronto where I met and studied for two years with Dr. Marshall McLuhan, whose concerns centered around the effects produced in all of us by the media we introduce into our universe.
My childhood hobby was architecture, and I became fascinated by the idea that the appearance of an edifice can act as a formal cause in the behaviour of passers-by. I "hung out my shingle" by placing ads in an active retail neighbourhood claiming to be able to re-design the facades of storefronts to literally draw in more customers. As luck would have it, my first client wanted the prototype for his Galaxy Donuts chain, and after producing it, I stayed in architecture for more than fourteen years until a major recession closed the profession down in Toronto.
Because I had not formally graduated in architecture, I had a steady supply of referrals from architects who were not permitted --either by their Association or their professional liability insurance carriers-- (Association member architects will know what those referrals imply) to take on the commissions they passed along, and from city building inspectors from each of the then "Metro Toronto's" Borroughs; as well as from a stream of building contractors and owners for which I did design work and quantity surveying.
During those years, I also partnered in a succession of three contracting companies, where I learned many of the skills that I up until recently employed as a Handyman; I earned a "Construction Site Supervisor's" designation from the Ontario Construction Safety Association; and also owned and operated a reasonably successful small advertising agency on the side.
When I left the practice, closing an office with two employees (a structural engineer and an architectural student), I went back to school to study Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture. After graduating, I worked independently as a Naval Architect for a local yacht importer and also designed a luxury trimaran and a new variety of cargo vessel. It didn't produce much of a living, so I accepted a job as Vice President of Engineering and Industrial Sales with a Brampton company specializing in pollution abatement devices.
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