George Moennich first encountered DCL while working for Atlas Construction at Camp Gagetown , New Brunswick . He joined the Corporation officially in 1968 in Lahr , Germany , and retired in 1995 .
• The station ’ s centralized hot water heating system was the largest in Canada at the time .
• The camp was officially opened on July 1 , 1958 , with a building and infrastructure cost of $ 37 million .
Camp Gagetown was a very interesting project in that it started from scratch — we helped to take it from bushland to a full Army base , recalled Joe Bland , adding that it was like building a small town . It was the whole works , right from the ground up .
While DCL was assisting DND with the contracting process at Gagetown , it was also working on other Army bases across the country , including Valcartier , Petawawa , London , Winnipeg , Edmonton and Calgary — collectively , known as the Home Station Development Program , because each location became the geographic and philosophical “ home ” of one of Canada ’ s major Army units .
Introducing DCL … Camp Gagetown , 1954 — George Moennich Atlas Construction , whose headquarters were in Montreal , had been awarded the contract for constructing roads , area grading , and installing underground services for the first quadrant of what was to become Camp Gagetown . My job as the ( Atlas ) “ office engineer ” was to prepare the field books of our five field engineers , with all of the survey information required for them to do the layout work .
While preparing the field book with the layout information for a large , sweeping , close-to-90-degree curved section of the service tunnel that was to house the heating lines emanating from the Central Heating Plant , I came to the conclusion that the survey details shown on the drawings didn ’ t add up … the information on the drawings must be wrong . Unusual ! As I made my way to the DCL Field Office , I noticed that it was already past their quitting time , but I thought I would take a chance on someone still being there . ( I must admit that I was always a bit envious of their 8 a . m . to 5 p . m . day .)
BREAKING NEW GROUND DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA
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