Ships of Steel - Rilegato

Thomas Arthur McLaren (1919-99) was the son of Scottish shipbuilder William Dick McLaren, who, in search of new opportunities, brought his family to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1928. WD became managing director of West Coast Shipbuilders, established on False Creek at the outbreak of World War II. Arthur joined the company in 1941 after graduating in mechanical engineering from the University of BC. He had always wanted to build ships, and in 1948 he launched his own company, Allied Builders (later renamed Allied Shipbuilders Ltd.)-against the advice of his father, who suggested a business with "more future." Over the next half century Arthur went on to build more than 250 vessels, always leading by the example of common sense, honesty and hard work. He served as president of the Association of Professional Engineers of BC and was a fellow of both the Society of Naval Architect & Marine Engineers and the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, among other professional and public activities. He and his wife Dorothy raised three sons, James, Douglas and Malcolm, who continue with Allied Shipbuilders. Vickie Jensen has built her writing career around the importance of documenting and validating work. As editor of Westcoast Mariner magazine she travelled on coastal tugs, charter yachts, dredges, ferries and water taxis for nearly four years, interviewing skippers, crews and owners about maritime work. She is the author of Saltwater Women at Work and Working nese Waters, and coauthor of the childre@s book Build Your Own Underwater Robot and Otber Wet Projects. Her interest in writing about work extends to dry land, as well. Vickie spent several months with a Nisgda totem pole carving crew, a collaboration that resulted in Totem Pole Carving. Bringing a Log to Life and the childre@s book Carving a Totem Pole. For three decades, she and her husband Jay Powell have worked with First Nations elders to produce more than thirty schoolbooks, documenting a variety of Native languages spoken on the Northwest Coast.

Book by McLaren TA