January 3, 2015.
In 1994, restructuring a losing operation such as MBI was no easy task. It involved 19 hour work days, and ridiculous family sacrifices, but Greg was focused, determined and willing to drive his ambition to measurable success. He happened to be in the right place at the right time and his bold and extremely risky purchase was shockingly successful. Orders started to roll in, and the geo political game attributable to NAFTA began. As orders rolled in, employees were hired and the warnings of failure Greg had been given by financiers and 'experts' soon were invalid. The history of MBI over the past thirty years had been that MBI could expect to build the maximum of 300 grimmets per year, in the best of years. MBI began shipping grimmets to American customers and many people in Hamilton looked foolish for letting a golden nugget slip through their fingers.
Initially we shied from publicity as the new management of MBI (Greg) could have failed and made all of the predictions of failure come true, but as the business flourished, it seemed rude and against our breeding to brag and flaunt success openly. Every dollar that was re-invested to rebuild a crumbling facility was spent quietly, and every new job created was a direct result of financial decisions made by Greg. He had loved construction and business since he was a little boy in Ryerson Public school, in fact, when scolded by his mother for not sharing the building blocks with his kindergarten classmates, he defended his actions saying "Mom, I need all of the blocks, the other kids build junk". MBI gradually was improving its manufacturing capability, which had been ignored for decades, and modesty continued to prevail. The building of junk is a subject of great curiosity as the Peach will explain.
Oddly enough, the Hamilton I had known as my hometown was a mere shadow of its great past. Vic Copps was gone, and so were all of the promises made to our generation. None of my childhood friends remained in town, they had moved on. I had attended Loretto Academy from kindergarten to graduation. Where once stood a beautiful Georgian building, constructed of 'Flemish brick', sat an empty city block. Familiar places had vanished. It had become fashionable in many cities to tear down structures in the battle with City Hall to reduce property tax bills, a strategy that didn't seem to sound any alarms with visionaries, city officials, or property owners. My stories about childhood days started to sound ludicrous as every sentence began with 'once' and 'there used to be' and the take home lesson for me, at age forty, was that time did not stand still and my children, Natalie and Karina, were not interested in 'once upon a time' any more. Hamilton had become Pottersville. Hamilton was every town. Our city had not lived through the race riots seen south of the border, but something similar had infected these communities: Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Hamilton -- they were all in shock. Real sociologists and economists will have to discuss the crazy days of the sixties. The last Studebaker rolled off the line in the Hamilton plant in 1966. I was 12 and Greg was 16 then, and all of the baby boomers were busy with the Beatles and homework and different things. Jobs were of little concern for us at the time as we worried about getting into University and the limited spots available. Jobs had been disappearing steadily -- global market forces, even back in the sixties, but it was of no concern to anyone.
By 1994, it was no small wonder that MBI was for sale. Thirty years of decay had happened, and I write 20 years later, so the saga of job loss is not a consequence of the last election cycle. Our entire continent suffers from memory loss. I repeat, I am no expert, but I can say confidently that, by 1994, there were few entrepreneurs in Hamilton willing to bury money in a factory, a manufacturing plant. Word was out by then that industry had moved off shore. The one man I knew who was willing to take a chance didn't want to be a hero and didn't want publicity, nor did he have time on his hands to pontificate and posture in front of a camera.
Also, Greg did not want publicity because once restructuring had started at MBI, hate started to come out of the woodwork, and he faced death threats. Shortly after, we also received threats to harm our daughters. You just don't know who your enemies are when you get anonymous threats delivered to your home and community support is absent. And that is how we decided to keep a low profile.
