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HAVE YOU MET . . .?
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Charles J. Castle
Chief Inspector, Province of Nova Scotia
IIf public service had a face, it would undoubtedly resemble
Nova Scotia Chief Inspector Charles “Chuck” Castle.
“After 39 years as a civil servant,” the National Board member
offers with a smile, “I’m exceptionally proud of having dedicated
my career to helping and protecting others.”
Admittedly, Charles says public service is not a profession most
people aspire to. “It all depends on what a person wants to get
out of a career,” he emphasizes.
Growing up in Carroll’s Corner, located about 35 miles north of
Halifax, the Nova Scotia official recalls no early childhood
epiphany that would have led him down the path of becoming a
chief inspector. But he vividly remembers enjoying a number of
adolescent diversions that went along with growing up in a
small river village where the living was slow and easy.
“I spent most of my free time skating and swimming,” the
provincial official explains. “Our school was actually one of
those one-room rural schoolhouses that were pretty typical
back then,” he recalls.
Becoming a teenager gave Charles a new perspective on life and
some ideas on what professional direction he might want to
pursue. At the tender age of 17, he left Carroll’s Corner to
become a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
“I took a battery of tests during the first two weeks only to be
told that they wanted me to become a navigator,” Charles
reflects. It was not what he wanted to hear. “I figured that if I
couldn’t fly, there was no reason to stay.”
And so, after six months, he obtained an honorable discharge.
But not before spotting a Royal Canadian Navy advertisement
NATIONAL BOARD BULLETIN/FALL 2003
announcing an apprenticeship program that would allow him to
pursue another professional interest: mechanics.
“I always had an interest in mechanics,” Charles admits while
stroking his graying, neatly combed beard. “In school, I scored
particularly high in the subject on my aptitude tests.” Now
focused on becoming a machinist, the 18-year-old enrolled in
the Royal Canadian Navy civilian apprenticeship program.
After subjecting himself to tests administered by the Navy to
determine his placement, Charles was interviewed by a trades
board that examined his rationale for wanting to become a
machinist. “They laid out for me the duties of the job in a way
that was not quite what I expected,” he notes with a look of
concern. But what did appeal to him at the time was a description
of another job that would “allow me to perform a larger
variety of mechanical tasks.” That position: boilermaker.