C. D. Howe - Engineer and Businessman

Engineer and Businessman

In mid-1913, Howe journeyed to Northwestern Ontario to take up his new post. The Board was headquartered in Fort William, Ontario, where Canadian wheat was transferred from rail to ship. The Board sought to build a series of large terminal grain elevators, which could process as well as store grain. The project would increase both capacity and competition—grain elevator companies had been accused by farmers' interests of charging excessive prices. The first such elevator for the Board was raised in nearby Port Arthur, Ontario, and was acclaimed as one of the best grain elevators ever built in Canada, and one of the cheapest. Over the next two years, Howe traveled the West, supervising the construction of terminal elevators near major cities and ports. The capacity would be needed, as Canadian farmers increased production during the First World War.

In late 1915, Howe traveled back to Massachusetts to court Alice Worcester, daughter of the head of the company he had worked for in the summer at MIT. After some surprise at the attention from a man she barely knew, Worcester eventually accepted him, and the two were married in mid-1916. The same year, he resigned from government service to go into business with partners as C. D. Howe and Company, whose major business was initially the construction of grain elevators. Both the company headquarters and the marital home were in Port Arthur. Howe's first contract was to build a grain elevator in Port Arthur. In December 1916, a massive storm destroyed the half-built elevator, wiping out Howe's assets. Had his bank not come to his assistance with additional funds, he would have been ruined. When Howe turned over the completed elevator to the owner, the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association, he was asked how badly he had done on the contract, and stated, "I lost my shirt." The Association voted him a bonus to make up his loss.

Over the next several years, Howe's business expanded into engineering consulting and, much more profitably, general contracting. His firm came to dominate the construction of grain elevators in the West, as the Saskatchewan and Alberta wheat pools gave him much of their construction business. This made him unpopular among private wheat companies: his firm did not receive any contracts to build terminal elevators for private corporations in the 1920s, but exceeded the number built by all other contractors combined, thanks to business from those cooperatives. Howe's elevators were built more quickly, were better designed, and were cheaper to construct than those of his competitors. He worked to add to their efficiency; the Dominion-Howe unloader he helped design emptied a grain car in eight minutes, needing only two operators; the same operation had previously taken an hour for a crew of 20 men.

In the early 1920s, Howe turned down several requests that he stand for alderman in Port Arthur. He did agree to seek election to the school board in 1921, and headed the polls at his first attempt. He served two 2-year terms on the board, spending the final year as its chairman. Early in their marriage, Clarence and Alice Howe had decided to separate their roles, with Alice Howe having full responsibility for their domestic lives. Howe took no interest in his home life; as an often-absent father he had only a small role in the upbringing of his five children. In the same manner he did not involve his wife in his business (or, later public) life. During his ministerial career, he replied in response to an opposition question hinting at nepotism, "I don't like to discuss my family in public. Members may have noticed that my wife never appears on political platforms."

In October 1929, the firm completed a huge grain elevator, with capacity of 7,000,000 bushels (246,670 cubic meters), at Port Arthur. The Depression, however, devastated the grain industry, with falling prices and little demand for exported grain. There was no demand for more grain elevators, as the existing elevators contained unsold grain, further driving prices down. Howe's company managed to survive on pre-existing government contracts, but these eventually expired and the staff of 175 had decreased to five by 1933. On the first business day of 1934, Howe's sole remaining partner resigned from the firm. Although Howe remained a wealthy man, his business prospects were few, and he decided to seek another line of work.