The Ontario Road Builders’ Association (ORBA) has inducted industry pioneers Ted and Elgin Armstrong, who founded Armstrong Brothers Company south of Brampton in 1929, into the Ontario Road Building Hall of Fame.
The brothers launched their careers hauling stone and performing simple grading work for Peel County Roads. The company ultimately became Armbro Construction, one of the largest road building contractors in the province. It now is part of the Aecon group.
“They (Ted and Elgin) have both passed away but their legacy of innovation, quality and success is with us forever,” ORBA executive director Rob Bradford told the association’s recent 85th annual convention.
The brothers, who grew up on a farm just south of Brampton, got started in business with six dump trucks.
During the 1930s, the company was doing work for four levels of government. The brothers’ first federal job was on the Welland Canal. By the mid-1930s, they had completed their first section of highway involving ditches, culverts, road bed and gravel surface.
Beginning in the 1940s and through the war years, the brothers saw opportunities in airport runway construction to support the Commonwealth air training plan, a massive military aircrew training program. They completed projects in Toronto, Montreal, Trenton, London and Goderich.
In the late 1940s, the Armstrongs bought 95 acres of farm land in Brampton “and discovered it was a major source of gravel,” Bradford said. This was the beginning of the company’s aggregate and materials business.
During the infrastructure boom of the 1950s and 1960s, Armstrong Brothers built more than 100 miles of Highway 401. The company also built Highway 27.
“It was the first job the company built with the assistance of computers and it was finished 10 months ahead of schedule,” Bradford said.
In the early 1970s, the company became Armbro Construction.
Speaking at the president’s dinner during the convention, Bradford said the brothers were known for innovation. In 1971, they introduced a slip-form concrete paver that could lay concrete to a depth of 15 inches and a width of 25 feet without the use of forms.
Bradford said Ted Armstrong, “the engineering genius of the pair,” was constantly developing and modifying equipment design to improve worker safety.
The brothers were the 15th and 16th inductees into the hall of fame, which was established by ORBA in 2006 to recognize individuals who have contributed significantly to their companies, the association and the industry.
“The brothers put together and continually expanded a group of faithful employees that they relied on to perform work of the highest standards,” said close friend and long-time Armbro employee Bruce Carruthers.
“At the same time, accident prevention and employee safety were top of mind.”
Although the Armstrongs worked in most provinces, Ontario was always home base, Carruthers said.
“While the brothers both passed away in the late 1970s, their legacy remains in the many highways and heavy construction projects (that they built) across Canada,” said Carruthers who accepted the ORBA award on behalf of the Armstrong family and current and retired employees of the company.
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