An engineering genius and perfectionist with unbounded energy, he started the company to pay off debts after arriving in Canada with just $25 and a letter of introduction from Albert Einstein
As a young man in Germany just after the Second World War, Robert Schad trained as a tool and die maker and began studying mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe. But after just two years, he dropped out.
“He was not the easiest man to work for,” said Mike Urquhart, who began working at Husky in his late 20s and stayed for 33 years, ending up as a vice-president of sales. “He was demanding but he got tremendous loyalty from his employees. People either got fired or quit in their first year or else they stayed for life.”
To pay off his debts, Mr. Schad opened a tool-making shop in the back of a garage in suburban Toronto. By the 1960s, Husky was making high-speed machines that would spew out plastic PET soft-drink bottles, coffee cups, margarine tubs and plastic parts for a range of consumer products. It later made machines for producing auto parts such as plastic bumpers.
“Money was never an important driver in my life,” he said. “I built a new machine that was faster than anything else. I built a company that was different.” Mr. Schad was 78 when Husky was sold to Onex but he refused to retire and within a year had set up a new company in the same business. “He tried to retire,” his wife, Elizabeth Schad, said. “But after 50 years in the industry, he could not stop designing machines. So he started another venture.”
“It was basically bankrupt and couldn’t make its next payroll,” said Peter Kendall, executive director of the Schad Foundation. “Robert took over as chair, provided financial support, hired new management and even got down to the level of helping hang pictures on the wall.” The Schad Foundation currently has an endowment of $85-million.
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