 So, I'm just going to start with a few simple questions, but first we are beginning our interview with Mr. Jacques McKay and the interviewer as usual will be William McCrae and we are located in Burlington at the moment. So for the first question, could you just please state your full name? My full name? My real name? Your real name. Your real name. Jacques is a nickname. That's not my real name. Everybody knows me by Jacques. Okay. My real name is quite fancy, John. And my mother gave me a very nice middle name. She thought maybe I was going to open up a fancy store or something. It's Carlton with me. So, John Carlton McKay. John Carlton. Nice name. But I don't like it. I like being Jacques McKay, which is a nickname my father gave me. Is that because John is too common? No, he had an uncle that he really liked. His name was Jacques. And he died as a young man. I don't know how that would have affected my dad. But he wanted me to be a Jacques. My mother wanted me to be a Jones. Compromise. She won officially and he won with me. And what's your date of birth? February the 20th. This information may be not very good. Well, let's say 1931. 1931? Yeah. Okay. Say if I say, you know, the actual month from day, maybe that'd be... No, of course, it does appear on the Internet or some place, I guess. February the 27th, 1931. There we are. Excellent. You got it out of me. Excellent. And where were you born? In Rossman, British Columbia. British Columbia? Yeah. And when I was born, they nicknamed me Sheriff. Sheriff. A little Sheriff. How so? Because my father was the local constable. And there was two constables in town. He was the senior constable for this massive city called Rossland. How many people? Oh, God, I don't know. Not very many back then. 1931, no. That's a good person. As a kid, I wouldn't know. I left there when I was four and a half years old. Okay. Where'd you go to? We went to... That was a policeman. So every few years we have to move. So we moved to Mallardville. Just outside New Westminster. And stayed there about a year and a half. Then we moved to Conticton. We were there for almost five years. And then we moved to Cranbrook. There for several years, like four or five years. And then moved to Philadelphia. And on there, I went to university in Vancouver. So as a child, what did... Well, they moved a lot. What did you do for fun? Were your interests... Well, I presume you want my interests that relate to science. Sure. But as a child, be honest. What did you do? And we'll get into the... Into your actual background. I think my favorite thing was mixing chemicals. Okay. Well, there you go. Like what? Anything I could get my hands on. My mother's hand lotion, the kitchen, you know... Making potions and stuff. Making potions, vinegar. Anything that would start bubbling. And I, of course, learned that you put baking powder and vinegar together. It got nice, interesting stuff. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So this is all done on sneaky. I didn't know I was playing around with chemicals. But they must have known because I think it was in grade six. They gave me a Christmas present, which was a chemistry set. I was a static. I never had a better present in my life than that chemistry set. It wasn't long before I was making gunpowder. So gunpowder became a passion. I had the brain, so not to see what... I mean, containers of gunpowder were different things than fireworks or displays. Okay. Pyrotechnic displays. They were not only a chemist but a pyro maniac. Yeah. The other thing I liked doing was observing ants and see what they did. Things like watching ephids, milking their ephids. And then I wanted to see them take ants and put them in with spiders in the chair and see if they could win. The ants win. Yeah, the ants are strong. The world spider was scared to death. I didn't know the strong animals. Any colony animal, insect, I find fascinating to watch. Well, they're very clever. So I wanted to see what they're doing. And then one of the teachers in high school let me come in on Saturdays with the one microscope we have. And I told me how to use slides and so on. So I used to entertain myself with that. Okay. Well, so already very science-oriented. Very science-oriented, I think. Yeah. But, you know, I played other games. High jumping was one of my sports. Oh, yeah? I didn't like hockey because I didn't have the padding. I got hit by a machine with it. The puck and all that. That was it. There's not my game. I don't have broken legs. Yeah. You know, we didn't have much money. So buying all the fancy gear kids have today. Yeah, hockey is expensive. Very expensive. So your father was a constable? And he was up finding staff searching. He was chief of police and training. Okay. And did your mother do anything or was she at home? She was at home. Okay. So really the science was you? Yeah. It didn't come from you? Yeah. When I was in grade three I heard it was a scientist's business. So I thought that's what I want to be is, you know, discover things. And then I think I love grade four. I saw a movie with, it was, it was a cut of our brain things. Edison. Oh, yeah. It was a movie, Edison. And there was a problem there. And some had need in operation. And then all they had was these gas lamps. And in fact, I think it was a carousel lamp. Which gives up very little light. And as a kid, you know, in grade four I was showing, it's a little electric light, it's a little electric light. You know, pretty simple-minded. And then in grade six I was worried about, you know, I'd better grow up fast and memorize this stuff because nobody will know how to make electric lights. They won't be around. I mean, how will we get this information? Very tidy, but, yeah, well, so it was stimulating. And then in high school I think it was about grade 11. A very good teacher, chemistry teacher. And I said to him, is there anything left to invent? It was a big deal. I go in to science. There's nothing left to do. So he drew a big box on the bike path like this. And that's fine. So this is all there is to know. Then he took a little dot in the corner and said, that's what we know today. Wow, there's space for me. I got a place to go. So that was very encouraging. Because maybe they invented everything. There's nothing more to know. So it's a bit, he helped you kind of go into it. And I realized that that was dumb. I found it hard to believe that we knew so little when I thought we knew so much. So you went into sciences at? I went into UBC. I took engineering, metallurgical engineering. Why specifically metallurgy? Why not chemistry? My brother was a mining engineer. And I'm here in the trail. And he recommended to go into metallurgical engineering. And I did very early on. And my parents also did a molding set where we could make lead soldiers. My brother and I. And so I had an interest in it. And then in grade seven I had manual training. And they had a forge in there. I was making knives. And also the wife wanted to start making alloys. So instead of doing woodwork, I was busy in the forge. The other was in the forge except me. So I had predisposed towards metals. And chemistry. So metals and chemistry is called metallurgy. Yeah. So it goes together. So that was your bachelor's? What were your, let's say your strong points or the classes you really liked versus the classes you disliked if you did dislike it? Well, I liked light, physics light. I did very well in that. And I also liked finance. For some reason I got my two best marks well into the nineties. So that's probably why I like it. Because you were good at them. I didn't do well in civil engineering, which I didn't like it. And so I didn't do well. And I think the professor also had a very strange question. And I overthink the question. I put more into it than he intended. And so I got bogged down on the question. Sometimes it's the broth that makes or breaks the class. You know, it's silly things to distract a slicker ladder. And it has so many rungs and the rungs are in the ladder and it's glued. Well, I don't know the values for that. The strength and so on and so forth. His intent was keep it simple stupid. And I didn't know simple stupid. I was trying to compute the strength a little bit with that break. I didn't do very well in my professor, Bill Armstrong, went ballistic. He said, no more metallurgists are going to your course when you give exams like that. And I was his pet. So he didn't like his pet getting a little mark. And after your bachelor's, what did you do? I got, I had my last year I had appendicitis. I was in the hospital and Bill Armstrong, Professor Armstrong came to see me. And through a piece of paper on my chest, he says sign this. So what the hell is it, Bill? The job with Stalco. I said, I don't know where Stalco. He says, a steel company in Canada. It's located in Hamilton, Ontario. Where's Hamilton? I didn't know. He said, well, never mind. The important thing is there's a genius in Stalco that started working there. And you should work with him and his research team. I said, great. So I have a job. And so I went to Stalco. Found it on the map. And so my wife, I was married in my last year of school. And so we look forward to it. Saw this big lake there. And if I made this swimming there, it would work. Good place. Yeah. That's when kind of your memoir starts where you arrive at Stalco. So can you talk a bit about Stalco? I guess, yeah, even the first day and the first period of your work at Stalco. Well, so I was rather crazy. My first day at Stalco was at the employment office. And they're letting people go. And so I went up to Calder and said, my name's Chuck McKay. And immediately the manager came up. And he says, you're Chuck McKay? I said, yeah. He said, well, come on in. I went to his office. And then he heard your name from our shop. I guess so. And then I got up treated. There was a limousine to get me around town. They had already rented a place for me to stay. And so I got my own place. And then the manager just came and works. And I asked him, I thought, well, I'm going to have to be a laborer for a while. It's been my way up. And I said, what do you want? He says, what you're wearing a suit? You know, sports coat. OK. Well, it's different than I thought. So then I went the next day to the metallurgical office. And I met my, this genius called George Sabaccas. And this genius was, I was introduced to him. And he stood there, clipped his heels. And I said, shot his hand up. But this is Naziism. This guy must be German. But I know he's Russian. So that was my first introduction to the genius. So then in the first assignment, I couldn't understand what he was saying. Because he put his hand over his mouth. He put his hand over his mouth. He put his hand over his mouth. And I don't know what he was saying. And also he was speaking a thick accent. And in addition, we were in a room with next to a gas fire, a gas heated ovens. And they make an awful noise. So I was in panic state because I didn't know what he asked me to do. I hung around his office until I finally heard what he wanted. He was telling somebody else who was quieter in there. And he didn't have his hand over his mouth. Why did he speak like that? Well, he had rotten teeth. He had been a prisoner during the war in Ukraine. He had been picked up from there. And because he spoke German, he was put on a farm to help some German farmers, which was great for him. But there's no way he's going to get teeth fixed. So he hadn't been working in Stelka long enough to afford the cost of getting a teeth fixed. So that was the reason. And now he was working for Stelka. Why was he known as the genius? What had he done so far? He had a PhD in equipment from Russia. And he was an expert at thermodynamics. I concur he was a genius that I really enjoyed working for him. He could be a very painful man. I became very close to him like a father. The day before he died, I went to visit him. And he held my hand. He said, Jock. His wife told me at the funeral that that's the last word he said. So we were close. Even though I could punch him in the nose sometimes. That's often how it goes with friends and coworkers. So when you started with him, what was your position? Very, very, very junior engineer I was told. Okay. For R&D? It was called development and special duties. I think we're called the department actually. And that word research was a dirty word in Stelka. Nobody, but nobody could use that word. How so? Well, I know it was just a dirty word that they were proud of their blacksmith approach, trial and error approach. Okay. Kind of more blue collar terminology. Very blue collar. Okay. I'm trying with me. I'd work in Smelters and I could swear up with the best word. No trouble. Don't mess with me because I know all the words. Then so. So I used to work in a lumber yard actually. I learned some slang to you. So what was your first considerable or great project that you worked on? I saw several little ones to begin with and then they landed me at Danny. I was brought into the office of the chief manager just for the works. So it works in the churches. And George was there too. George Savagrin. And they said there's a new unit that's coming on the world scene. The fastro had one which was continuous and easy. This is where they take fin strip, much like the thickness of containers, cans, you know, we call it template, but it's a steel strip. And when it's rolled down into thin sheets, it becomes very hard to break. And so you have to anneal it. And the way the anneal was put it in a big roll like this, stack several rolls on top and put it into an oven and leave it there for a couple of days. Now, continuous annealing, a little different to it. Big roll is still there. Put it at the end of, I don't know, doesn't matter. They peel off the strip with high speed, going three, four, five hundred feet a minute and into a chamber with heating and then cooling and then it's wrapped up the other end. And so it's done very, very rapidly. Every piece of steel sees the same temperature regime. And so whatever regime you have in there, that's what you're going to get at the end. The only problem is nobody knew what was the surface cycle you could use because now we're facing a situation set of days, we're facing a few seconds. Also, the heating's up to temperature, which is, say, 1,250 degrees Fahrenheit, seven seconds to get there. And then how long do you hold it up, 1,250? And is it a minute or two minutes or what is it? Well, I had to do, first of all, I didn't know how the hell I was going to measure the temperature of the strip. I knew that U.S. steel was building a pilot unit to find the shortest cycles because it's very expensive. These buildings, the three stories high, half a block long sort of thing. Is that how long the trajectory? Well, you're going at high speed. Now they go over a thousand feet a second or a minute, I should say. And so even 25 seconds takes up a lot of space. Yeah. No. So I am long story short, I found a way of measuring the precise temperature of coupons and then from that I deducted by heating and cooling the different rates of some of the exact thermal cycle, which turned out to be 25 seconds over 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. And then the cooling rate was surprising, 25 seconds down to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. And after that it didn't matter how fast or how slow it cooled. I'm not going to get into the detail because no one will understand me. But then they built the unit based on my cycle. And I was asked to do the calculations for the heat up, which I did. Which Stefan Boltzmann's Law and so on. So it would be easy today with the computer, but I had to use a Marshall and Calculator. And this went, this was very tedious. Trial and error, trial and error, trial and error. And then when I got the input and the heat output match, I knew I had the right temperature and then I go next to it, next to it, next to it. So that finally I gave the computations to the designer and he was happy because then he knew exactly what was happy and could design from that. Including when there was the cooling stage, that calculation. So the day had started up and there was a big gang of brass there, a little old me. And they started up and I set the cycle. And I said, okay, take a test coupon, take a test coupon. And it was a great smack on what I said it would be. And I felt pretty good. And about half an hour later, I was the only one standing there. He said this would never see a startup like this. And I saw this world, you know, he's a young fellow. So quite pleased. And then the next time what happened is he wanted to publish a paper on it. So I wrote the paper. And the chief metallurgist thought it's not only just in charge of metallurgy and his works, but all the other works that Stelco had. And he had his name on the paper. But I put an acknowledgement to myself in the back of the paper. I didn't mind because that was the standard procedure. It was obvious to everybody in the company and probably elsewhere there's no way he could do all that research. Three years of cheating on another chance. So I had a big plaque in his desk and he was very proud of it. I remember he was a director of research from BHP in Australia. A big company came and he wanted to talk with Anita. And of course, Huggy Mori, who was the chief metallurgist, had another clue. He called me and answered all his questions. And I looked at the plaque up there. He takes a lot of, I don't know what, indifference or gall or something to not tell this fellow that the guy that did all the work and wrote the report is sitting right here. But I think he guessed because I was answering all the questions. Okay. Well, it must have paid off within Stelco, though. Well, I was well aware of that. Yeah. And from there, did you, what were the other positions? Was it because that was still when you were a junior engineer. So afterwards. Junior for not very long, about one year. And George Sabaccas says, you want to be my assistant. I said, I don't know. And a whole bunch of young technologists came from Ryerson and places like that. And they were in the same. I created another office called the office. And I found a place where I could stack all these people. One of the buildings that wasn't being used. Excuse me. And they were busy doing nothing. So I said, I haven't been exercising my position and hadn't been forming an office. So I just asked them, would you fellows like to work for me? Yeah, they wouldn't. So I put them all to work. And I signed them jobs and what have you. And that's how I started them eventually. I think my five years in. Oh, prior to that, the works miller just said, we can't give you a title. I said, why? I said, well, it'd be unseemly to rise so fast in your organization. It's not done. I said, okay, no problem. Just increase my pay. Yeah. But after five years, the, we have been so successful at a number of things that the president actually, the vice president of operations was very keen to have a research group. So he decided on having a research group. So they did. Now they had the word research. They have now the word research research and development. And they had no longer dirt because we had the work we had done in the blast furnace had double the output and lower the amount of co-consumption by 15%. So this is staggering. It may not seem staggering to you, but we started on a furnace, a very tiny furnace. Fortunately, we had a small old furnace that was about to be destroyed. It only produced 600 tons a day. It went to the superintendent of that, well, of all the boss, for instance. And we told him what we wanted to do. And he said, well, what do you think you're going to get out of doing that? I said, well, I think we'd get over a thousand tons a day. And he started laughing. He called and he called his assistant superintendent and he says, come on in here and listen to these, these long-haired bastards. Well, the boss had practically evolved. He kept his hair cut short. And I had practically a crew cut. So we had long-haired bastards. But I guess it was a flattery because it would be referred to Einstein. Oh, OK. I had to put the two together. And we went ahead and we practically doubled the output. And then the president of the company didn't believe it. He had been a superintendent of the class, for instance, one time in his life. And so he had the accounting department go check it day after day after day. And then he finally got convinced and we had done the impossible. How had you changed it? We had changed the nature of the beast. We had made it more permeable. He had taken out all the little findings. We had changed the composition of the input, which we call self-flux center. So there's no need for a fluxing stone. It was fluxed in the ore itself. And it was pre-calcined. So there's no work of that necessary in the furnace. And then eventually we did some other things to increase the permeability. So the gas, the carbon monoxide rising up the stack, permeated through all the ore. Whereas usually they had channeling, and they would just go up on the sides or maybe just channeling on the sides. There's a lot more uniform. So it was more uniform and more efficient. So they greatly increased the efficiency of the unit. That's in brief. Do you want to detail? Would you say his second name George? His actual name is Yaroslav. Yaroslav. When he arrived in Canada, he said, Yaroslav and the immigration guy said, Okay, George. So his name is George. Okay. So would you say Yaroslav was your greatest mentor? Yes. In your life? Yeah. Definitely. And out of your entire career at Stalco, was there ever, I guess a job or a project you worked on that you could say was dysfunctional? Okay. I'm not talking about anything that's dysfunctional. No. Okay, then maybe... I'll be talking for hours. For hours? Yeah. I will not talk about it. Do you have like one specific? No. What about some challenges? What's one very challenging job that you had to do? They're all challenging. More than others? Is there one that stands out? Being a bloody director of research in Melbourne is very challenging. But it's not the one I liked. I liked doing research, not being a director of research. Because I often had to do things that had nothing to do with research. It was called to be in this committee, or that committee. One that really was annoying was the salary, the valuation committee. And I knew I had served five years on that. So I suffered that. Because there's no researchers. I did some... Yeah, you were more than the administrative. Yeah, I got administrative. And the five years was up. I had about a six-month repeat when they said, you've got to go back again for another five years. I said, no one ever goes back for two stints. They said, well, you do. Because you're representing all the technical people, the engineering department, the metallurgical department, and all the other subsidiary ones, like environmental, to look after them. And you know them all. And nobody else does. But yeah, I have a wide range of knowledge. And I was well-liked by the salaried department. So I've stuck to it for a second term. Yeah, and then when that was over, the boss said, I want you to return. I got vitriolic. But after I blew my stack, I went back. All right, really? There you go. How so? If there's so much of that job that wasn't the sinus. So why go back? Because you're told to go back. I'm an employee, after all. OK, that's right. Director of research is still an employee. So is a present employee. So you did a good job and they wanted you back every time. And you kind of had to say yes. They were comfortable with me. OK. I guess that was it. I never asked. But you never thought there was an option to say no? I used to see compression. I had no options. I see. I don't think people would have fired me, but certainly be displeased that they didn't. I was asked to do that. Because after all, it was only once every year, for half an hour, or half a day, or a full day, a month. OK. But I resented the loss a little bit. That little work to do. Yeah, I believe it. I don't want to. It had a spin-off advantage, though, because it was a group from across the company, all senior people. And so I got to know them on what basis, even to a point where I told one general manager that he ticked me off so much, I said, look, I'm going to put your feet in concrete and dump you into the lake. And I really meant it. They all started laughing. I had blown my top. But that same thing could bring us. It was just that moment of irritation. It happens. What would you say would be your fondest memory professionally? Is there a specific... I think the one I did tell you about the first one, because it's like, you know, continuous eating. OK, yes. It was your first. I wouldn't have said that to you, except in doing my memoir. It dawned on me that that was a very... The kid that did it, or got mad at the origin younger, I was only in my early twenties, had done a fantastic job. And how he knew all the research steps to take to make sure David was accurate, impressed me as a director of research. Had I known him, I would have hired him and promoted him because he was doing it all right with makeshift equipment. Somehow he overcame all of my problems. Now, I know how he did it. But I'm impressed that he had the intuition. He wasn't at the training and research, but he had the intuition of what to do to overcome problems of variability in data. And I did everything, and I'd still do the same way to overcome fluctuation in data that you're going to get very, very careful about that. So I'm impressed with that guy. Very well done. And also, when the paper was published, it won the best paper ever. And I saw it subsequently translated into Japanese and Russian, maybe into other languages. But I saw those two. That was the same paper where you were acknowledged? Yes. Very circumspect. So did the metallurgists have to present the paper? I wasn't allowed to go with the American Iron Steel Institute. It's all the Mucky Mucks from across North America that go there. And if you aren't Mucky Muck, then you can't go. And being a very, very junior engineer, there's no way that they could allow him to go. Throughout your career, did you join any professional organizations? Yeah. A little too many. A little too many? Yeah, too many. I need to have a piece of paper over here. Go for it. Let's see. Those are my awards. Those are my positions. General Committees, Government Committees, and British Lease, Justice of Honor, Industry Wings, and somebody here. Greenness, Civic and Personal Activities, Continuing Education courses, Education and Teaching. Okay. American Society for Metals, C-I-M-E, I still could put me on that. I paid the fee, which was kind of missing. I don't know. What's the difference with me? So there's a lot. What's... Okay, let's see the C-I-M. What was your role in the C-I-M? Just a member. Okay. And there was MetSoc, a Metallurgical Society. They made me a honorary life member. Oh, and I won an award from C-I-M. The Area Award. The what's one? Area Award. What grounds, what... Oh, because I... called my hair the right way. Mr. McCabe received this honour in the Metalurgical Society of Canadian Institutes of Learning and Metalogy and annual conference banquet in Winnipeg, Manitoba, August 25th, 1987, in recognition of his significant contributions to the production advancement of ferrous metallurgy, which was both at the corporate and national level. There you go. There you go. Who wrote that? And throughout your career, what social activities were you involved in? What was the go-to thing to do? Well, running a department, and we had social secretary to build teamwork. So we did a lot of different things, dances, parties. We've been involved with kids. Chris and Barry for the kids. And then we bring in kids from... that don't have parents. Foster was one of our things, so it's nice. Yeah, there were more and more people I talked to in either the mining metallurgy in those domains. They seem to have worked really hard at building the community within that company or within that trade. It seems very close. I guess because a lot of them can quite often be isolated as well. Well, I wanted my staff to feel that they're working together. But I also did something rather unusual. I don't know if any other director has done it. I'd give every six weeks, call the department together for an hour or a priority afternoon, the last certain hour of the day, because I knew they're doing buzz-a-long anyway. And filling in the company. I had access to an awful lot more information than most superintendents did because of my level and my location. Well, I had access to everything. I don't believe in transparency and even though a lot of it, there was no value to them whatsoever. It did make them feel there were no longer a number. It made them feel that we're working for a large corporation and that the corporation was moving in this direction and in that direction. So I'd tell them what's on the order books and cash flow and all kinds of stuff that just flow over their head, but still. At least they were in the room. I've made sure that there was free coffee and donuts and there was no obligation to attend. You don't have to attend. It's only if you want to attend. I got pretty much a full house. Right after you didn't want to. Yeah, coffee and donuts. Free donuts. I think that's what they came for. I know they did a lot of laughing because I kept it late at times too and allowed them to call me on time. So there's a lot of interaction. So they end up calling it, I didn't call it, they called it jock talks. Jock talks. It's catchy. It's catchy. Yeah, I had a very large screen behind me. So I also could project data. And I had a microphone, so put everyone in the back row right here. And outside of work completely, did you have any or time for any other pastimes or social activities? No, really not. No hobbies outside of work? Not until, well, yeah, I ended up doing very, again, like research. I did genealogy. And back then it was not as easy as it is to do. There was no computer, so I had to actually do the research and go to different archives like in Ottawa and find the information. But again, it appealed to me. You see, I was being an administration, the genealogy allowed me to do research. And so I was happy. Yeah. And anytime I can pull things together, sort them out, I like doing my videos, but I'm doing now, it gives me pleasure. I'm in that case. You always have to have something on the go. It has to be technical. It has to be searching. I remember we were down at Myrtle Beach and I was happy in a pool and in a big book I was reading. There was a guy sitting beside me. He didn't know who he was. And he said, oh my God, what are you reading that for? I said, because I enjoy it. It was a textbook on DOS, Discard Reading System. Well, I enjoyed it. I'm with him on that. He thought it was a nutcase. I didn't see it that way. I've been reading technical. And I still do. Well, it keeps your... I can't help it. It keeps your brain away. And wires your brain away. Yeah. And this... I was called a walking encyclopedia one. A walking encyclopedia? Yeah. It's not a bad thing. I don't know. It's meant as an insult. Yeah. That's a compliment. Yeah, why not? I call a lot of other things too to be honest. You can imagine. Well, as the boss, I mean... You're bound to. You're bound to be called something. This is a question, I guess, that spans your entire career and has changed, I assume. But how present and or absent were women in the workplace? And what were their roles then and now? They were essentially absent from the beginning, but it wasn't until some time that women started going into engineering and then actually wanted to put it in practice like going into research. And finally, I got older. DeBecky was very bright. She was the top of her class. It was Minzer. And I was thrilled at getting something that brilliant. And I had to take her husband, too. He was a good guy, but not at her level of intelligence. But first, it was very astonishing to have a woman speak our language, our language. It was almost like our personal language. I thought it was on the front, but she could come in into our domain and talk our language. Oh, my goodness. And then I got used to it. And I was happy to say it promoted her. And now she's in... I'm bothering two statistics that she has excelled at it. She was really in stress and strain of metals that I could see in her that it was a better fit with statistics. And I needed someone to teach my staff statistics. And she ended up creating a little department of her own, which was in the quality control for the company. And now she soon became sort of like an expert. And she gets jobs all over the world at a very high pay. And she's doing so working. Have you traveled a lot with work? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, one of my... Around the world? Yeah, yeah. What's your... Well, what's one of your most memorable trips or areas? I liked South Africa. I'm not the first to say that. Quite a few have mentioned South Africa. Yeah. And Pretoria was very nice. The time here, the one first at sick time was there, the Jacaranda trees were in blossom. And the petals were coming down because I walk and I was walking through these petals. The purple petals. Very, very nice. And then I didn't want to go about the... I didn't call it peasant, but the head of the Iscultry Iron Steel Company of a corporation. And I wanted me to go to Cooper Park. And this is a huge park hundreds of miles long and up against Mozambique. I went there and we were in various camps. So we went to one camp for another. Each day we went to a different camp. And you were locked into the camp until 6 a.m. in the morning. And then you have to get back to the camp at 6 p.m. at night because otherwise you get locked out. So you can't get out and you can't get in if you go over the curfew. Why were they locked? Anonymous are free and you are in the cage. Landsome, you know, daggers, elephants, you name it. A lot of beautiful animals. I was so impressed. I had not expected... I thought like a zoo or something. I'm really interested to do it because they want me to do it. And I thank them for forcing me into it. Four days and Cooper Park will never forget it. Do you have any holidays? Yeah. I've heard a lot of amazing things about South Africa. I saw a lot of great companies particularly in Japan. I want to go to Japan as well. In Kyoto. But I have the advantage of a big corporation in Japan looking after me. So I had an interpreter, I had a guy, and I went to places where I was very close. But the steel companies in Japan at the time read through me. Because they were so far advanced. They were way ahead of where Stalker was and the faster ones and so on. We were just like dumbbells compared to their operations. I had heard I was speaking with Mr. Hepburn. He's still alive. Yeah, 95. I saw him yesterday. And he was telling me about his relationship with many Japanese companies back in the day. You're saying on a lot of grounds they were more advanced than in North America. No question about it. I saw some backward countries too. But Japan was certainly out there. They had been ridiculed by the meaning of American research. And they were mocking the Japanese for coming over and look at their plants and have a bunch of people that have cameras and one thing that I thought was very, very funny. I didn't because I had already been aware of the excellence of some of the work coming out of Japan. But these guys are, they can be directors of research. They're obviously not reading the international literature. They're probably reading their own papers. You don't learn anything from reading your own paper. You have to work around the world and be aware of what your competition is doing. That's certainly Japan's big competition. Could you tell me a bit about your work as co-founder and former director at the Canadian Steel Industry Research Association? Oh, you picked that up from my memoir? You wouldn't have. I think that was CIN helped me out with that. The guys were on that. Well, the universities in Canada had some excellent people to do research. And I felt it was a waste of resource because there was no interaction between the steel industry and the universities other than what I did, which I thought, no, it shouldn't be the whole industry. We are in a competition with each other, but perhaps even more with Japan and Germany and any place that had higher technology. And so I thought these brains should be put into work. And so we formed the Sierra Canadian Institute of Research and I forget about it. You got it written down there? Yeah, Canadian Steel Industry Research Association. They won me as the president of it. I tried to get them in after five years and now they want me to stay again. Yes, they did. But finally, I absolutely insisted. So it was we would go, I'd phone up a university may we come and we'll give a talk and we'll expect you to give us a talk. Show us around, see what research you're doing and tell you and try to make an interaction. And at one stage I was very keen on promoting Cheers. I had already approved the Cheers at McMaster and I wanted UBC. It's done before me but I had to keep approving it every summer of the years. And the one at UBC I created that and then I wanted the Sierra to create another and they did a search and they came up with the name John Jonas, whom I didn't know and so when they said okay and they called the different presidents they still couldn't produce how much they could hand in to make it possible. I went to see John Jonas on the most impressive and John was working on a metallurgy of aluminum. I said, well John this chair is for steel, the steel industry is paying it. I think it would be prudent to switch over to steel and bless him he did any research really smart guy with respect for him. Did it did Sierra also did it work at pushing students towards those jobs or maybe co-ops and stuff like that or? Well the idea was that we would have access to the professors and the professors could assess us and decide if we were going to encourage students to go to the steel industry or the aluminum industry and would you guys offer maybe like summer positions or after their bachelors? One year I took about 10 and give them a taste of research and be simple nothing difficult because you're not going to be there long enough to complete a good program. Nonetheless gets you learning exactly what you like We even arranged for a group of Canadian professors to go to Europe together where we didn't join them and they came back and they told me that the French Canadians and English Canadians found they were closer together and had a two approach than in any of their counterparts in Europe I think one guy had been born in Belgium they called it Polytechnique and he said closer to the guys master UBC than I am with anybody in Belgium I said they didn't know how close we were and how we thought the same way of behavior in a certain manner we have more than the near Canadian and you probably have to I like to think so I didn't know until I thought going around the world I believe it we're different but it's hard to put your finger on what it is Yeah well especially with the Canadian identity and so that's our identity is that we're so different and open and multi-pillatural We are different if this might be a tough question and maybe it's the one you answered a while ago but what would be the proudest moments of your life My children of course Good answer Good answer I got five children Very successful Very proud of them Good answer I think that's my own real my wife and I the five kids and professionally what would be your proudest moment Is it your first big project? The others there was many others the blast furnace one won the award on that as well not again a lot of them by name I finally got one that was in my name for the blast furnace work Robert Hunt Silver Award I was first Canadian there so I felt not a good one but I don't have my heart's not in that one as much as it was with Canadians and eating Well it's like your first kiss for the six everything's subsequent to that It's not as special Well especially as a director you direct you're not there at the bench and so you lose several degrees from natural research which I found here to took me five years to get used to the concept that I wasn't to do research I was to to do the administration And this is this is probably my favorite question if you were to speak to someone much younger like me or a student what would most important piece of advice or life lesson you could give them Life lesson is to always study never give up because the world is changing you can be in research unless you study routinely take courses and self-training read textbooks read articles, the latest articles that come out in magazines otherwise in seven years you'll be obsolete yeah technology now you cannot afford to be obsolete you want to keep on doing it that includes the director he's gotta keep he's gotta keep reading DOS oh that was private that's amusement well to some people alright thank you is there anything you'd like to add if you were to share with me I'm sad that the handling of the steel industry in Canada part of the blame on the individuals but also on the green government because there should have been an amalgamation of Stelco and DeFasco and some of the others but that was always blocked that we and bigger and better in the steel industry they've had DeFasco Stelco being able to join and not that they maybe would have because one had union, one didn't have a union that it would be a better and healthier company so it would be strong DeFasco is a very good company but you know it's no longer in the hands of Canadians because the company that bought other companies and many many of the steel companies or Canadian companies and you have to be no longer ruthless and you have to be right on top of the techniques that give you the lowest cost the best quality yeah and if you're going into engineering remember the difference between an engineer and any other scientist is the dollar sign so you better understand dollars and cents this kind of cash flow which are valued and all that sort of thing so that may be part of your vocabulary so that you can make good choices financial choices between two or three projects which one do you do so that's not what most engineers are told but I would tell them that that's where you get it economics and finance alright you're not going to do the right thing so it's not financially worth watching it's been a lot of money well thank you very much you're welcome, much appreciated