“WANTED: 150,000 Engineers – The Waterloo Plan,”
It was an outlandish statement but coming from its author it captivated the imagination of the small group of community leaders that met at the Rotary Club one summer day in 1956.
Ira Needles was the president of local tire manufacturer B. F. Goodrich and a well regarded, forward thinking community leader. He believed that Canada and the region were in desperate need of literally thousands of professional and skilled workers in order to maintain their position as leaders in manufacturing. The growing demand for new products in post war Canada would require designers, engineers and skilled technologists. It was an enormous challenge but the community had spawned and attracted people of vision and determination in the past and through creativity and innovation had built a prosperous economic and social foundation. Needles was one of those visionaries and he had a plan that would change education in Canada forever.
Needles’ long time colleague and friend, Gerry Hagey, had left Goodrich to become the first layman president of Waterloo College. The challenges they faced were many but the big hurdle was that Waterloo College was operated by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada, and it was ineligible for provincial funding. The scope of the need and their plan demanded they find a way to access provincial funding. The answer was found in establishing a separate corporate entity which was associated with Waterloo College but separately governed and therefore able to access the provincial funding they needed. A lot of skilled negotiation was required to get everyone to the table. Hagey, and Needles in particular, relied on flexibility and a keen ability to listen and deduce what were the important issues for each group. When necessary, they revised their plans but for the most part they infected others with enthusiasm for the vision which made cooperation appealing and mutually advantageous. Ira was trusted and regarded in the community and he had a gift for uniting people around a common goal – the traits of a true leader. Together, they had an intensity of purpose that all the stakeholders believed in without reservation.
Much of the work of getting everyone on side was in selling Needles’ unique approach to education. It was carefully devised and constructed to improve efficiency – something an industrialist was concerned with. His plan was to integrate study and intern work terms in order to almost double the number of students they could teach at one time. The semestered system would have the facilities in full operation 12 months of the year. It had been done before in the US but it had only been modestly successful to say the least. The idea was new to Canadians and it was met with skepticism and a flurry of “concerns”. Needles, however, saw the potential of the system to quickly expand the student population and increase revenue, making possible higher salaries and thereby attracting the best teachers. The plan would also provide for more research time and private study for the faculty. This would be a key component in defining the University as a leader in science and engineering.
On July 1, 1957, one year after Needles’ speech to the Rotary Club, Waterloo College Associate Faculties (soon to become the University of Waterloo) launched a profoundly world impacting educational endeavor with a class of 74 engineering students.
The dedicated work of Needles and his team revolutionized education in Canada. They have trained hundreds of thousands of students which has contributed to the economy of our region, our province, Canada and the nations. The “Waterloo Plan”, as Needles called his innovative ideas about education, was the foundation from which the University built its reputation as a world leader in science and technology. Through its success, it has become a centre for innovation and creativity in technology which has led to the founding of numerous world class high-tech companies in our region. The University has brought prosperity and recognition to our community as visionary leaders; and it has brought people from all over the world to enrich our lives and our country with their talents and culture. Even for a forerunner like Needles, what the University of Waterloo has accomplished was beyond his wildest dreams.
Needles, by the enthusiastic claims of his colleagues, was the spark plug that led to action. He was the statesman who took the high road and whose guiding hand, integrity and respect made a new way of thinking about education viable. He was an innovative thinker and a skilled leader. He won the trust of his team, the community and politicians and because of that he was able to lead us all into a new era. He didn’t seem to care who got the credit for the team’s accomplishments but as a skilled forerunner I suspect his greatest pleasure was in seeing his dream come true. Ira Needles was born in Iowa, but became a Canadian citizen. He died in 1986 at the full age of 92. The community has recognized his contributions in many ways, the most notable in the naming of Ira Needles Boulevard. Ira Needles was a forerunner who saw what could be, and with the help of other visionaries, built this dream for everyone’s benefit.
For more information about Ira Needles and the University of Waterloo, see: “Of Mud and Dreams” – James Scott, and or “Waterloo – The Unconventional Founding of an Unconventional University” – Kenneth McLaughlin (available at the Waterloo Public Library).
Paul Weigel
