Happy Birthday Bob – in thinking about this milestone birthday and past memories, there are too many to put in this greeting.
I recall well coming for my interview with you in October, 1974. I had applied for a new position through Drake Personnel, and secured an interview with you. You were looking for an Office Manager for your first location of Canada Business Centers outside of Montreal. What I remember most from that interview was our conversation about your family – Greg was 11 and Alison was 9. That so impressed me to hear someone speaking about family, as I was coming from the advertising industry, and my experience as a young person starting out, was that family morals were not really a thing. I also remember your talking about a dream of having branch offices across Canada with this new concept of “an instant office”. Your vision and entrepreneurial spirit made that dream a reality, thus providing meaningful and challenging work for many people throughout the years.
My second important memory is the conversation we had (I think I was at a pay phone at Yonge and St Clair), was your offering me this position, (with a significant raise in salary). I remember saying to you that I wasn’t sure if I could do this job, as I was a good Secretary but wasn’t sure about being an Office Manager – I remember clearly your response: “Oh Laurie, you can handle this with one hand behind your back!”.
And that was the attitude that continued over an amazing 15-year career, as we continued to grow the company together to 16 branch offices across Canada. In that period of time, you can imagine how many memories I still have – travelling across the country opening new offices, helping to hire and train new employees, learning how to purchase equipment for our Centres (IBM Selectric typewriters, AES Word Processing systems), understanding telephone systems, learning about “marketing” and how to make “cold calls”, etc. AND the all expense-paid trips to your beautiful condominium in Grand Cayman, which today is still my favourite Caribbean vacation spot. This all gave me an excellent spring board to another challenging career as a Computer Applications Instructor.
Thanks for the memories and for staying in touch this many years after I left Canada Business Centers, which provided a firm foundation from which I could grow, for many years.
I hope sharing these few memories will help express my thanks to you, and help you to know the impact you had on my career life.
Have a great celebration, and we will continue to stay in touch!
Laurie
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