Understanding risk goes with Charlie Perry’s trade. As a Canadian engineer, he belongs to a guild that wears a constant reminder to be careful. Members have rings akin to wedding bands that commemorate the collapse of a sloppily designed Quebec bridge under construction in 1907 that killed 75 workers.

His father, David, also wore the iron ring. By upbringing and training alike, Perry is professionally incapable of trying to kid anyone – and especially not himself – that he is onto a sure thing with his most recent venture. He is making a foray into a complicated cultural business that marries retailing with scholarship – from geologists to lawyers and managers.

“It was a moment of madness perhaps,” he says in describing the impulse that led him to resurrect DeMille Technical Books. His upbringing predisposed him to see possibilities in combining the sciences and liberal arts. His father’s role as an engineer was to manage historical restoration projects for the federal government, such as the magnificent Louisburg fortress on Cape Breton Island. On weekends, lunch breaks and during dawn and early evening hours between duties as a consulting engineer, he is rebuilding an old mainstay supplier of knowledge to the professional community.

The store is a household name spread by word of mouth far beyond its Calgary location. A visiting Kuwait industrialist, for example, made a DeMille’s gem into an instant international bestseller by technical literature standards. The globe-trotting browser spotted Handbook for Riggers and immediately ordered 500 copies of the privately published, pocket-sized illustrated manual by construction veteran W.G. (Bill) Newberry.

Set aside the commercial hazards – high downtown retail space rents, big-box stores discounting prices, Internet competition, steep advertising costs –
and the enterprise makes great sense. “Every company I work at has a library of stuff that came from DeMille’s,” Perry says.

“Everybody needs their knowledge. Nobody should be without their books,” says the 54-year-old veteran engineer and fledgling retailer. “The integrity of industry depends on education and learning.”

DeMille’s inventory and a special order service requires highly developed research skills, and rule out hiring inexperienced minimum-wage employees. Manager Cindy Chem is an engineer and an MBA. Sales associate Jocelyn Villanueva is also an engineer.

Apart from minor differences in layout, Perry’s version of the high-end knowledge emporium recreates the original store’s atmosphere of a friendly reference library and second home for highly skilled occupational groups and authors. The service includes keeping in touch with master professionals such as Alan Murray, the National Energy Board’s engineering director who with industry veterans Mo Mohitpour and Hossein Golshan wrote an international technical bestseller bible of pipeline design and construction.

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