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Alberta Online Encyclopedia

Permanent Staff

The size and activities of the Board, particularly after amalgamation in 1959, justified the hiring of full-time staff to handle its day-to-day activities.

The first employee of the Multiple Listing Bureau was Grace Forbes. She was the secretary and manager of Elmore Pointer's insurance business, which was located in the Wallace Building. When the Multiple Listing Bureau took over Pointer's office, Grace Forbes was hired to manage the daily activities of the Bureau.

The daily operations of the Bureau when it began involved the preparation of the Daily Bulletin. Initially, the Co-operative Listing Bureau contracted out the photography of the buildings to McDermid Studios while the Cooperative Listing Bureau prepared information cards on the property. When the photographs were received they were attached to the information cards and copied for distribution to the membership.

Delays in obtaining the photographs from McDermids ended when Gordon Whiddon was hired on January 1, 1957. His duties at that time consisted of photographing the new listings in the morning and typing the listing information onto paper stencils in the afternoon. It was Whiddon's responsibility to run off the Daily Bulletin on the Gestetner using tear sheets, which preceded the current catalogue's style.

Tony Hamilton is a thirty-year veteran of the Production Department. When she joined the Board on July 15, 1966 Tony's first duties with the Board involved the preparation and printing of the Daily Bulletin on a Gestetner machine. She also assisted Gordon in the preparation of the plates used to produce the listing sheets. With the move to the building on 142nd Street, she became part of the production department which is responsible for the printing of the Board's publications such as the Daily Bulletin and a weekly newsletter. The production department now uses the most advanced press to meet the needs of the Board.

In 1959 Kelly Haugen became executive secretary following the death of Henry Flewwelling. Kelly Haugen was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1910 but his family moved to Canada when he was six weeks old. After graduating from Camrose College and the University of Minnesota he joined the RCAF in 1940. He was discharged with the rank of Squadron Leader on October 1946. After World War Two he worked for the Soldier Settlement Board of Canada, helping to resettle veterans on land. In 1955 he left government service and sold real estate in Edmonton for Alex McCrae and Administration and Trust. Kelly Haugen served as executive secretary from September 1, 1959, to March 31, 1976, when he retired from the Board.

Norm Winterburn had been president of the Board in 1972 and 1973. On April 4, 1974, he was hired as assistant to Kelly Haugen until Kelly retired on March 31, 1976. He was the executive vice-president of the Edmonton Board until March 31, 1982. During his term he introduced a pension plan for EREB staff.

Another past president who joined the Board as an employee was Max Kaplan, who had served as president in 1967 and 1968. He was assistant to Norm Winterburn from 1976 to 1982. He played a major role in supervising the construction of the building on 142nd Street.

This article is extracted from John Gilpin, Responsible Enterprise: A History of Edmonton Real Estate & the Edmonton Real Estate Board. (Edmonton: Edmonton Real Estate Board, 1997). The Heritage Community Foundation and the Alberta Real Estate Foundation would like to thank John Gilpin and the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton for permission to reproduce this material.

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