Business History
Having graduated from McGill University in 1938, I started work at Lake Shore Mines in Kirkland Lake, and followed by a year in highway construction in Quebec.
The early beginnings of my career was suddenly put on hold due to World War II. My brother, Jack Easton Pidcock, was killed in a military training mission flying for the Royal Canadian Air Force. I immediately enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy and began by taking part in patrols of the North Atlantic, then Torpedo Boat action in the Mediterranean and finally anti-submarine work in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
In 1945, Germany capitulated and I found myself en route to Montreal for demobilization.
A meeting at McGill with the Director of Mining, Leigh Bladon, provided a tip to apply at Johns Manville for a job and this turned out to be a start in design and construction of asbestos milling machinery. This vocation lasted 35 years and took me to eight countries, including Russia, Italy, China, South Africa, India, Australia, USA and Yugoslavia.
First job following war at Canadian Johns Manville, Asbestos, QC in 1945
Paul Pidcock, second row, third from the left, the last surviving member of this McGill graduation class of 1938 in Mining Engineering.
An important element of successful marketing is ensuring your client is so interested in your product that they neglect your competition. This was accomplished by bringing the foreign project managers to Canada for very interesting tours of our superior equipment and advanced mill design facilities!
We assisted Russia in the design and supply of equipment for their construction of the largest asbestos mill in the world at Asbest in the Ural mountains.
The second major project was engineering and equipment supply for General Mining of South Africa for their plant at Msali.
Asbestos Mill at Msauli, South Africa.
Our third project was built in Australia near Sydney and a forth in northern Greece. In the meantime, major projects were underway in Canada and the USA and we provided equipment to plants in California and Alberta.
In 1976, I went into semi-retirement and provided consulting services to Canadian engineering companies. In 1980, I moved to Timmins where I built and operated a major greenhouse facility for production of trees for the Ontario Government. I chose a highly efficent heating system which used a by-product fuel source of wood pellets.
Inside greenhouse in Timmins, Ontario, Canada.