Cornie - Shop Foreman and West Park "Senior"

Cornie is the last of our "senior" members to be introduced.  He also began working at West Park in the fall of 1968, when West Park was opened.  Cornie was a technician until 1973, then the Shop Foreman, and in 1977 became the Service Manager.  Several years later, when many things were becoming more computerized and less hands-on for the Service Managers, Cornie realized he preferred the more hands-on work.  He made a switch back to Shop Foreman, working together with the technicians to solve challenging problems.  Some of these solutions have since been implemented across the country by GM. 

After being at West Park for this many years, Cornie has seen many changes take place in West Park as a business and also in the vehicles that come through the shop.  He is always eager to continue learning in order to stay current in new technologies, tools and procedures.  During the warmest months of 1973, when our vehicles were not ordered stock with air conditioning, Cornie installed 23 air conditioning units!  After the realization of air conditioning's quickly growing popularity, in 1974 about 80% of the vehicles West Park stocked came with air conditioning and West Park became the first air conditioning repair shop in Southern Manitoba.  Even working on ignitions has changed many times throughout the years, from points ignitions, to high energy ignitions, to computer controlled ignitions.  Some of the vehicles that stand out in Cornie's mind when he thinks of the evolution of vehicles over his career are gravel trucks, beet trucks, school buses, CSP Foods trucks, and Freightway trucks.  Even the price of vehicles has changed immensely! Cornie chuckles, "The first GM vehicle I ever purchased when I was just 17, was a 1964, red, hard- top Impala for $2495. In 1966 I bought a new Pontiac Grand Parisienne for $3800.  I got married that year and used this car for my honeymoon. It was one of only two like it in Southern Manitoba.  In 1971 I bought my next vehicle for $4100 and my vehicle after that, only 4 years later - the price doubled!"  With the evolution of vehicles there have also been many changes required in the tools used at the shop.  For example, when Cornie started working in the shop there was only 1 hoist and it was used primarily for service jobs and tire repairs.  All other repairs were done on jack stands.  Today we have a total of 8 hoists in our shop which are used for almost all types of service work. 

Some of Cornie's highlights from his years at West Park are the staff and family Christmas weekends in Grand Forks years ago, the ever changing work in the shop and the many people that he has meets while working at West Park. 

Since we've come up with a "retirement project" for our other "senior" employees, it only seems reasonable to come up with one for Cornie, too, that is IF we ever let him retire!  We're dreaming of a finely tuned, late 60s muscle car and we need someone who has first- hand experience to get it running the way it did when it rolled off the assembly line.