Although he was only just shy of five years old, Campbell Black still vividly recalls boarding the Cunard passenger liner Ascania and sailing with his mum to a new life in Canada. “It was the beginning of my love of boats,” he said. “The world got turned on in technicolour, even though it was a terrible trip with violent weather. We arrived in Montreal three days overdue.” It was 1952.
A Worldly Beginning With memories of the Second World War when his dad worked in Glasgow’s Rolls Royce Merlin engine factory—a frequent bombing target—the Black parents opted to follow their romantic dreams of the North American Wild West and emigrated. “Dad left first,” said Campbell. “My mother said she’d come when there’d be a house waiting for her. The house was located in Toronto.”
Perhaps moving from Scotland to a new continent was the source of Campbell’s curiosity about the world: he loved geography. In his teens, when not canoeing for weeks with his buddies in Ontario’s far-flung lakes, he listened to a 1957 military surplus radio—actually a tank transmitter/receiver. After returning home from school, he’d don his headphones and listen to such international stations as Radio Hilversum in the Netherlands, Radio Moscow and the Voice of America.
“These broadcasts helped shape me,” Campbell said. “I listened to chilling events like the unfolding Cuban missile crisis, the disastrous Bay of Pigs. I was a bit geeky.” To prove it, he tells me that original radio is in the basement along with others he’s collected.
After high school, he earned a bachelor’s degree in geography, cartography and geomorphology at Waterloo and also met his future wife, Linda, there. In the late 1960s, the couple caught the wanderlust stirring many young folk and hitchhiked to Victoria. Campbell worked on a mapping project with the Canada Land Inventory tallying up B.C.’s resources. “Fun,” he said, “but not my career.”
Moving Down Under The travel bug still far from satisfied, he and Linda spent six months in New Zealand and then gave Australia a try. While in a Sydney pub, he was offered a job teaching geography, geology and drafting at a boys’ private school. “But I know nothing about drafting,” he protested. “Never mind. You’ll learn on the job,” was the response.
His three years at the school—to this day, he’s in touch with some of his students—cemented his penchant for learning and education, an affinity that has shaped his professional and personal life.
Of course, living in one of the (other) great boating locations of the world, he needed a boat—perhaps even one to live on. He set to work on a lifeboat from the Australian aircraft carrier, Melbourne. “It had already been converted into a sloop with a hewn-pine on oak frame. “We thought it would take six weeks to re-rivet the lapstrake hull. Six years later, we were still at it. But, with Chappelle’s Boat Building as my bible, I learned something important, the language of boating.”
To earn a living, he teamed up with a motorcycle guy to create after-market parts. “It’s how I learned about plastics,” Campbell continued. “I dealt with fibreform casting, polycarbonates and acrylic. These are strong materials needed in the tough Australian environment. To develop a market for motorcycle accessories was a struggle. But I discovered I could work with people and that I could learn something completely new.”
Again, though, he switched careers. After selling his partnership, he became the education officer for the State of New South Wales affiliate of Oxfam, called Community Aid Abroad. “It was exciting working with many different groups, dealing with international visitors. I was also involved in the East Timor crisis. What an eye opener! It taught me much about politics.”
Back to Canada After the birth of two daughters, Campbell and Linda pondered if they’d stay in Australia. Eventually, they chose to move back to 48 North and settled in the Victoria area in 1978.
Campbell searched for cartographic employment, but as a stopgap, ended up working for Philbrooks Boatyards building Bill Garden’s Fast Passage sailboats. That stopgap determined his next career. When the early 1980s recession hit, his layoff led to the founding of Blackline Marine, a pleasure craft composite repair and finishing shop at Canoe Cove.
This business too, had low seasons, so he scouted around for a product to create. He transferred his motorcycle plastics knowledge to vacuum molding kayaks in partnership with Brian Henry, of Ocean River Sports. “The Current Design kayak was a sideline but working together with Brian was a natural fit,” said Campbell. “We had an order for 30 boats and lost money. It took 10 years before I broke into profit. Today, Brian’s company is one of the premier paddlesport shops with customers throughout North America.”
The Training Program As he built his company, he recognized it was difficult to hire staff with the broad knowledge required for boat repair. “Boat manufacturers had on-the-job training programs, but in the boat service area, we had a huge training hole,” he said. “The standards were abysmal. It was a small industry with a dearth of trained staff. Boat repair wasn’t high status and had the highest need for change.”
He checked out formal apprentice programs but quickly learned that the multiple boat repair skills required—composites, structural, rigging, electrical, electronics and finishing among others—couldn’t attract enough students to create a financially viable curriculum at a public college.
What to do? Campbell drew on his people and persuasive skills and, aided by Linda’s organizational talents and the support of eight other marine companies, he developed Quadrant Marine Institute, a broad-spectrum training program with special skill development in the workplace. He showed me a fat binder separated into sections: each contains a competency, including such topics as osmosis, composites, woodwork, systems installations, boatyard safety, tool use, electrical, painting and business practices. “I spent years with Peter Dahl to write this book,” he said. “I’m very proud of the four-year program. I sold the idea to others and they believed in it. Everyone expected me to deliver, so I did. I had an interest in the education and development of other people. In my life, others influenced and taught me. Now I wanted to do it for others. Experts in the industry teach the courses, which are held in the evening.”
The first two years, the program received little recognition but then received the Employer Award for Technical Staff Training from the BC Industry Training and Apprenticeship Commission. “Recently, the curriculum was picked up by a boat training group in Nova Scotia,” Campbell said with great satisfaction.
Brent Jacobi who, along with Keith Swinney and Matt Schinbein, is now a partner in Blackline, said that Quadrant wouldn’t exist without Campbell. “For such a program, it needs a champion. Campbell is a visionary guy. He’s the glue in the industry here that keeps people communicating. He’s in it for everybody and not for the money or personal glory. He’s the reason the marine industry is so tight in B.C. He pushed me into teaching rigging and steel fabrication. It was amazing. Teaching taught me so much.”
A Man of Many Interests Campbell continues to head Blackline Marine. His daughters have other interests so his younger partners are the “sons” of his succession plan. Recently, he’s taken more time to pursue his myriad of other interests. His work with motorcycle accessories led to a love of that mode of transportation and last year, he and Linda cruised 16,000 miles to Nova Scotia on their BMW bike.
For decades he has collected antique charts and maps. He showed me one of his treasures, an 1846 edition entitled Treatise on the Steam Engine, in Its Application to Mines, Mills, Steam Navigation and Railways, a tome he studies for its history. His early love of geology still fascinates. He’d picked up a stone called Dallasite (a breccia made of quartz and metamorphosed lava that is named after Dallas Road in Victoria), cut and polished it so it resembles a gemstone puzzle.
Everyone who knows Campbell speaks of his communication skills and his capacity to think of others. Brian Henry, who worked with Campbell to build the Current Design kayak brand, explained it this way.
“For many years, Campbell Black was my partner and we supported each other through thick and thin. He always looked at the bigger picture and put our staff ahead of everything else. Campbell is humble, talented and supportive all at the same time. His love is teaching and that is what he’s doing now through Quadrant, passing on his knowledge and skill to others.”
And those statements encapsulate Campbell Black’s life.