Presenter: Bill Reist, Friends of Grain Elevators, Board of Directors

This webinar will be presented in person and virtually.

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Join the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society and our partner the Friends of Grain Elevators as Bill Reist presents the fascinating construction of the twin Bawlf and Stewart grain elevators simultaneous construction in the summer of 1923.

Bill Reist is a retired Structural Engineer. He graduated from McMaster University in 1963 and came to Port Arthur to work for C. D. Howe Engineering in the fall of 1964. His experience with C. D. Howe included a great deal of design and construction work with grain elevators which were the core expertise of the company.

He was directly responsible for concept development, detailed engineering design and construction of an inland terminal grain elevator in Indiana, a waterfront terminal elevator in Windsor and many maintenance and remedial projects in Lakehead elevators.

The collateral expertise related to elevators includes marine structures to address shipping, foundations of heavy industrial structures, slipforming procedures unique to silo-shaped structures. He supervised the construction of a dock and breakwater in El Salvador which consisted of a series of slipformed concrete caissons and included ship handling features for berthing and mooring as well as providing protection for the port from strong ocean swells.

The C. D. Howe Company was sold on the 1990’s and Bill took his experience in construction to the mining field during the expansion of Lac des Iles mine in 2000.