LAURIE CASHIN, 67: CONSULTANT AND ADVOCATEHe was the fix-it man of Newfoundland and LabradorPossessing a natural genius for thinking around corners, he was described by his Grade 4 teacher as 'a most excellent boy.' He later proved to be a consummate problem-solver
J.M. SULLIVAN
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
MAY 22, 2008
ST. JOHN'S -- Laurie Cashin was Newfoundland's fix-it man. He could conclude any negotiation, solve any problem and repair any gadget. With careers in private business and public policy, he also pursued personal interests that led to breakthroughs in such diverse fields as emergency planning and aids for the hearing impaired.
His achievements can be traced to an innate skill in all manner of mechanical and electronic gadgets that went far beyond the level of a hobbyist. He did everything from mending small toys to importing Canada's first closed-caption television decoders to manning an emergency centre set up in St. John's in anticipation of a possible Y2K meltdown on Jan. 1,2000.
Laurie Cashin was the younger of two boys born to businessman Laurence Cashin, from Cape Broyle, and Anna Hearn, of Bay Bulls. The Cashin family was most prominent in Newfoundland commerce and politics. His grandfather, Sir Michael Patrick, served as prime minister of Newfoundland in 1919, while his uncle Peter John was a First World War veteran and a politician who later became premier Joseph Smallwood's most ardent and determined opponent in the fight against Confederation. His father, meanwhile, ran several successful businesses, including the Bennett Brewery (later bought by Carling O'Keefe) and distribution rights for the conglomerate that became Gulf Oil.
By contrast, Mr. Cashin may not have made headlines, but he knew how to make things happen. Ever an inquisitive young fellow man with a natural genius for thinking around comers, his Grade 4 teacher described him as "a most excellent boy." He attended St. Bonaventure's College in St. John's and graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a science degree in 1962. After that, he went to Harvard to earn a master's degree in business administration. In addition to studying physics and chemistry, he had the instincts and insights of a trained engineer.
"He was always very focused on intricate technical things," said his brother, Richard Cashin, a St. John's lawyer, politician and labour activist. "Even as a boy, he had his own darkroom. "
From a young age, his projects included making his own television set as well as the usual model planes and boats. (He also made furniture and hooked a mat). He wired his own house and would turn up at family dinners, toolbox in hand, ready to cure various electrical maladies.
There are many stories of his aptitude for effecting mechanical repairs. For example, in 1974, the Fogo Island Co-operative Movement asked him to review their finances. While there, he went aboard a fishing boat and noticed it had a bad knock in the engine. It had been there since the boat was purchased, he was told, and the manufacturer had tried and failed to mend the thing. Mr. Cashin requested a set of old clothes, went down in the bilge and set the motor to rights.
A few years later, on another boat, he saw that the radar was not working. The technician had visited five times, to no avail. Mr. Cashin asked for the manual. He soon realized the compass was set to the vertical and not the horizontal, and had it working in no time.
His other positions included working with Labatt's Brewery in Manitoba as assistant to the company president, and then in Toronto with Atlantic Fish Processors Ltd. In 1966, he returned home to St. John's and it was there that the first of his three boys was born. By that time, Mr. Cashin had joined the provincial department of regional economic expansion, where one of his major accomplishments was to oversee the 1984 sale of Bowaters pulp-and-paper mill in Comer Brook to Kruger Inc. of Norwalk, Conn. He was also the key person who managed the tricky, prickly process of transferring the U.S. naval base at Argentia to Canadian hands.
While Mr. Cashin was, in one way or another, a consummate fixer in his career, there was one thing he was unable to fix in his private life. His eldest son, Anthony, was born deaf, a fact that wasn't discovered until he was a year old. A visiting aunt remarked that the child was unusually quiet. When Mr. Cashin fired a pistol, Anthony made no response. While Anthony's condition could not be fixed, Mr. Cashin resolved to do his best to remove all man-made impediments. From that moment on, he engaged his considerable energies in improving the lot of the deaf ommunity.
Over the next four decades, he helped found, or served on, such groups as the Newfoundland branch of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Organization, the Canadian Co-ordinating Council on Deafness, plus a provincial service that trains sign-language interpreters. And, while a text-telephone device (TTY/TDD) already existed for hearing-impaired telephone users, there was no equivalent to 911, so Mr. Cashin pressed the provincial government to assume mancialliability for one. Not content with that, he also got the RCMP to set up a national 1-800 emergency service for all TTY/TDD users.
He later arranged for a cable-TV company to provide closed-caption (CC) service on a special channel for the deaf. In 1981, he went one further and saw to it that CTV and CBC provided CC service. However, technology was still required to make it all work. To this end, he organized the importation of Canada's first CC decoders and persuaded Sears to sell them.
All the while, he pursued a variety of educational enhancements, including the 1987 relocation to new facilities of the St. John's School for the Deaf. Long after his own soon had left elementary school, he made sure students from remote areas - some as young as 5 - got home to their families. He raised funds to finance a charter bus that took them back on weekends. However, this still left some students stranded, especially those from the south coast, where settlements clutch against the rocks and are inaccessible by road. In place of a bus, he arranged for donations of helicopter time by the likes of Don Jamieson, a local MP who became minister of transport, and Craig Dobbin, CEO of CHC Helicopter Corp. At Christmas, and during other holidays, students flew home in grand style. Sometimes, Mr. Cashin went along for the ride.
He was completely at home with any technology. In his retirement, he became a serious amateur radio operator. At the height of the Y2K fears, he manned a fully equipped radio station supplied by the federal government. "He was there in case everything crashed," said his brother Richard Cashin. "We were in good hands. I slept well."
The work on Y2K led him to the attention of Public Safety Canada, which was in the process of setting up an emergency network against the day when satellite-based communications might fail. As it turned out, he based the new system on the ham radio network already in place.
"It has proven itself many times over. It's been adopted all over the country," said PSC regional director, Len LeRiche, who added that none of it could have happened without Mr. Cashin's input. "We relied on him quite heavily. His analytical skills and his ability to problem solve were quite considerable."
As was his forthrightness. "Laurie never minced his words," Mr. LeRiche said. "His biggest frustration was with the pace the government operates, which is very slow."
By all accounts, Mr. Cashin even assembled the radio kits himself, all the while working as a management consultant and senior public servant across Canada.
Forced to take early retirement in 1991 because of a heart attack, his health deteriorated nine years later when he was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary thrombosis. In 2004, he underwent a lung transplant only to learn that he had cancer in his other lung.
But this did not stop his advocacy. In 2005, he was awarded the Governor-General's Caring Canadian Award. It was in his character to keep trying to make things work and make them better.
LAURENCE CASHIN Laurence Martin Cashin was born in St. John's on Nov. 25, 1940. He died in St. John's on March 8, 2008. He was 67. He is survived by his wife, Carmel, and by his sons Anthony, Peter and Martin in Halifax. He also leaves his brother Richard.
