Despite the initial potential of any fledgling business, there must be an original idea as well as an individual with the motivation and drive to carry it out. So it was with a 26-year-old by the name of Norman Wade. Recognising a potential market for higher quality reprographic services and diazo products, with the assistance and support of his wife Betty, Wade established a company in 1945, and within a year sales totalled close to $30,000. The organization, located today in Scarborough, Ontario, was never to look back.

Since its formation, the Norman Wade Company has grown significantly from a local reprographic house into a national organization featuring a diverse number of products. Throughout its remarkable record of growth, the company has remained a wholly Canadian owned entity. With over 450 employees, one hundred times the original employee base, the company has established a coast-to-coast branch network of manufacturing, sales and reprographic facilities; 18 in total.

This is not to say that unforseen problems and setbacks did not arise. On December 2, 1951 the Norman Wade Company suffered a major fire at their new, larger location on Yonge Street in Toronto. Though many assumed the company would go out of business, the same newspaper edition which carried the story of the fire also listed an advertisement with the header, "Business as Usual". The Wades relaunched the company with the help of assets which the fire could not destroy; an established name and respect in the industry, good credit and sound finances, and employees who shared the Wades' confidence in the future.

A landmark event in the company's history took place in 1964, with the design of the unique Radius Tension Adjustable Drafting Station. The Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry awarded this design the Design Canada Award for Excellence as a classic case study of Canadian corporate growth based on a creative design effectively made and marketed.

The Norman Wade Company competes in six well-defined market sections; drafting furniture, drafting equipment/supplies, surveying equipment/ supplies, drafting media, reprographic equipment/ supplies and reprographic services. Clearly it is Canada's largest engineering, drafting and surveying supply company and also the only coast-tocoast operation of its kind in North America.

In tune with its past accomplishments, the company is at present carrying out research programmes in the "High-Tech" area, as applied to the drafting and geodetic fields. The objective of this move is to form a secure posture to introduce the new, efficient developments technology offers. Norman Wade Company Limited supports various community organizations, ranging from the recreational to the cultural, on an ongoing basis.

The Wade family, continuing in the traditions set by its founder, is proud to lead the Canadian architectural, surveying and drafting supplies industry, and looks forward to an exciting future.