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-Bob Shaw
Saturday 24 March 2001
Shaw engineered Expo 67's success
Robert Shaw staked his and the country's reputation on the outcome of Expo 67. "It was an incredible challenge," he said later, "because our critics kept saying it couldn't be done. Well, we did it."
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Robert Shaw, who presided over what he called "Canada's happiest hour," as deputy commissioner-general of Montreal's Expo 67 world's fair, died Thursday at Montreal General Hospital after a lengthy illness. He was 91.
Pierre Bourque, now the mayor of Montreal, supervised all the plantings at Expo and was one of Mr. Shaw's employees.
"Every Montrealer and all Canadians owe him a debt of gratitude," Bourque told The Gazette. "He was an imposing man, really impressive, and highly respected.
"Because of him, many of us had the greatest summer most of us will ever see."
Robert Fletcher Shaw was born in Montreal on Feb. 16, 1910, a banker's son. He was raised in Revelstoke, B.C., where his father had been posted. Mr. Shaw enrolled in McGill University in 1929, expecting to obtain an engineering degree and return to British Columbia.
"That never happened," he said. "I got the degree in 1933 but I never made it back to B.C."
He married Johann MacInnes, the daughter of a Toronto banker, on Dec. 24, 1935. Their only son, Robert Jr., a commercial-airline pilot, was killed in a plane crash in 1966 at age 23.
Mr. Shaw learned engineering from the ground up. During the 1930s, he worked as a labourer and also worked as a steel-erector with Dominion Bridge. He was a foreman with Janin Construction and was a manager with the engineering firm Duranceau and Duranceau before he joined the Foundation Co. of Canada as an engineer in 1937. He rose through the ranks to become its president.
In 1951, C.D. Howe, Canada's minister of trade and commerce, hired Mr. Shaw's company to amalgamate Canadian defence-construction contracts. Mr. Shaw did so well that he continued to obtain government contracts for public works. His company worked on the Distant Early Warning defence system in the Arctic and built military airfields for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Italy and Norway.
But Mr. Shaw's biggest challenge came in 1964, when the Soviet Union canceled the Moscow world's fair, which had been been scheduled for 1967 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau made a successful bid to take it over.
Mr. Shaw was named deputy commissioner-general of the international exposition and staked his and the country's reputation on the outcome.
[April 2001 will be 34th anniversary of the opening of Expo]
When he took charge, one consultant told him the Expo 67 site could not be completed in the required 31/2 years.
"I did the only thing sensible," Mr. Shaw recalled. "I had the consultant fired."
He admitted he once had doubts as to whether the job could be completed on schedule.
"Twenty-one months before the opening, I knew it would happen, but 21 million people thought otherwise. Twenty-one weeks before the opening, those same people knew it would happen but, after all I had been through I was skeptical," he admitted in an interview 25 years later.
"It was an incredible challenge, because our critics kept saying it couldn't be done. Well, we did it."
The fair, which opened April 27, 1967, expected 35 million visitors. By the time it ended 185 days later, more than 50 million had passed through its turnstiles.
Mr. Shaw's boss was the former Canadian ambassador to France, Pierre Dupuy, who died in 1969. Dupuy was estranged from his wife when Expo opened, so it fell to Mr. Shaw's wife, Johann, to became the fair's official hostess. As a result, she outranked her husband on the protocol list.
Dupuy was the fair's chief salesman, Mr. Shaw the man who got it off the ground. Yves Jasmin, head of Expo's public relations, often attributed the fair's success to the chemistry between Mr. Shaw and Mr. Dupuy.
"Shaw was the solid guy with two feet on the ground; Dupuy was the dreamer," Jasmin said.
"Expo would not have been the same without one or the other. Two Dupuys, it would have been a disaster; two Shaws, it would have been dull."
Mitchell Sharp, who was the federal minister of trade and commerce initially responsible for building Expo, hailed Mr. Shaw as "a great businessman who approached life with energy and enthusiasm."
"As the government minister in charge, I had to have all expenditures for Expo approved by cabinet and, of course, most of it was expensive stuff," said Sharp, a longtime friend of Mr. Shaw. "Robert was at the centre of it all.
"There was no nonsense about Bob. He undertook to do the things that had to be done, and they were done. He had to create the Expo site and get it built in three years.
"All of his talents came together; he knew the field so well. It is a great tribute to him that he did so enormous a task in so short a time with no hint of scandal."
After Expo, Mr. Shaw served as vice-principal of administration at McGill until 1971, a time of student unrest.
"He was a truly extraordinary figure," said lawyer Julius Grey, who at the time was president of the McGill Student Union. "He was not an academic, but he displayed extraordinary common sense during the McGill Francais riots. He had an extreme tolerance for the students, and he could empathize for the most radical, most marginal. I learned from him.
"And his personal courage, to overcome his son's death and carry on through Expo, was exemplary."
Mr. Shaw then went to Ottawa to become Canada's first deputy minister of the environment during the Trudeau years. In 1975 he became president of the Engineering Institute of Canada. He retired in 1985, and spent most of his winters at the family vacation home in Hawaii.
Mr. Shaw was made a companion of the Order of Canada in 1967.
Once asked what he considered his greatest accomplishment, Mr. Shaw replied: "I don't think I could name any one particular event. What did I achieve? God, I had a lot of fun."
The family has arranged a private funeral. A public memorial service is to be held later.
MONTREAL CBC- The man who called Expo 67, "Canada's happiest hour" has died. Robert Shaw was 91. He presided over the world's fair as Deputy Commissioner General. Shaw had been in hospital with a lengthy illness.
Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau made a successful bid to take the fair over. When Shaw became Deputy Commissioner General, a consultant said the Expo site could not be finished in the required 312 days. Shaw says he did the only sensible thing he could think of. He fired the consultant.
Expo 67 commissioner saved the fair
Canadian Press
Monday, March 26, 2001
MONTREAL -- Robert Shaw, who presided over what he called "Canada's happiest hour" at Expo 67, has died at 91. The deputy commissioner-general of the 1967 world's fair in Montreal had been in hospital for a lengthy illness.
"All Canadians owe him a debt of gratitude," Mayor Pierre Bourque said Friday. He said thanks to Mr. Shaw, many people had "the greatest summer most of us will ever see."
Mr. Shaw, who died Thursday, was born in Montreal and raised in Revelstoke, B.C., where his banker father had been posted.
Mr. Shaw enrolled in McGill University, expecting to obtain an engineering degree and return to British Columbia.
"That never happened," he once said. "I got the degree in 1933 but I never made it back to B.C."
He joined the Foundation Co. of Canada as an engineer in 1937 and rose to become its president.
In 1951, C. D. Howe, Canada's minister of trade and commerce, hired Mr. Shaw's firm to amalgamate Canadian defence-construction contracts.
Mr. Shaw's biggest challenge came in 1964, when the Soviet Union cancelled the Moscow world's fair, which had been been scheduled for 1967 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau made a successful bid to take the fair over.
When Mr. Shaw became deputy commissioner-general, a consultant said the Expo site could not be finished in the required 312 days.
"I did the only thing sensible," Mr. Shaw recalled. "I had the consultant fired."
The fair began April 27, 1967, planning for 35 million visitors. By its end 185 days later, the figure had hit more than 50 million.
Mitchell Sharp, the federal cabinet minister initially responsible for building Expo 67, praised Shaw as "a great businessman who approached life with energy and enthusiasm."
Mr. Sharp, a longtime friend, said, "There was no nonsense about Bob."
"He undertook to do the things that had to be done, and they were done. He had to create the Expo site and get it built in three years."
After Expo 67, Mr. Shaw served as vice-principal of administration at McGill University until 1971.
He then went to Ottawa to become Canada's first deputy minister of the environment, working in the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
In 1975 Mr. Shaw became president of the Engineering Institute of Canada. He retired in 1985.
When asked about his greatest accomplishment, he once replied: "I don't think I could name any one particular event. What did I achieve?
"God, I had a lot of fun."
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