Hartung Glass Canada announced the retirement of HGI employee and Canadian glass industry veteran, Scot ‘Rory’ McDonald.
“On behalf of the Hartung Canada team, I’d like to congratulate Scot and thank him for his service," says Bruce Butler, general manager of Hartung Glass Canada. "You have made Hartung a stronger company and the industry a better place to work. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and leadership with the entire Hartung team. Scot’s tremendous industry knowledge will be sorely missed. Scot is not just an industry icon, he’s a class act and just a great human being. I will miss that the most.”
Scot McDonald was born in St. Anne, Manitoba, and grew up in Giroux, Manitoba. McDonald moved to Winnipeg when he was 25 in 1979 and got his first job in the wholesale glass business running inside sales at Bogardus Wilson. “After transferring to work in outside sales at Bogardus Wilson in Edmonton in 1981 the ’82 recession hit and I was transferred then to the Burnaby location. I stayed there till 1985 and then I joined Tempa Glass where I was in sales and sales management for 17 years until 2002.”
McDonald then moved to Garibaldi Glass from 2002 to 2009 before making his final career move to Hartung Canada. McDonald says that two standout periods of time during his career were Expo 86 and the 2010 Olympics. “The economic growth,” says McDonald. “Thousands of different jobs. I was one of the first salespeople in western Canada to start selling wholesale glass across the border into the United States eventually selling from Seattle down to San Diego.”
“It's always going to be a tough decision to retire,” says McDonald. “But it’s time. There is life to live. The glass business was good to me and gave me a good living for 42 years. I saw a lot of changes over the years. From the introduction of [low-emissivity] glass in the early 80s all the way through to what we're doing now with large sizes and different coatings. There’s been a lot of technological progress over my career.”
McDonald would tell young people considering a career in glass that the business is attractive. “We need to increase the exposure. My advice to anyone new is to work hard. Learn your craft. Continuous learning is very important as the industry changes. To stay current, you have to keep improving all the time.”
