Early Business Career
Bennett opened his own hardware store in 1927, in partnership with another man, and married soon afterwards. Bennett sold his interest just before the 1929 Stock Market crash, fled the tough Alberta economic conditions, and soon moved to Kelowna, British Columbia where he opened his own hardware store, Bennett's Hardware. A successful merchant, he served as President of the Kelowna Board of Trade from 1937 to 1939.
In 1932 Bennett, Giuseppe Guezzi, and Pasquale "Cap" Capozzi established a wine-making company to produce wine from the vast surplus of Okanagan apples going to waste during the Depression. Three years later Bennett and Capozzi, both teetotalers, concluded that there was no market for their apple wines and switched to making wines from California grapes. In 1936 they established Calona Wines, the name a phonetic spelling of Kelowna. Bennett departed the company in 1940 to enter politics.
Read more about this topic: W. A. C. Bennett
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