Len Gertler (1923-2005) was a planner, administrator, author, and university professor, whose areas of study included planning, and public policy. Gertler was born in Montreal, Quebec, and was educated at Queen's University, McGill University, and the University of Toronto. Throughout his career he held a wide variety of positions. Len Gertler served as Director of the Edmonton District Planning Commission, and also held the position of Deputy Commissioner of Planning for the City of Toronto. In 1966 he became a professor at the University of Waterloo, establishing a new program in Urban and Regional Planning. He was also involved in establishing the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Environmental Studies, and became the first Director of the School of Planning. Gertler was the coordinator and author of the Niagara Escarpment Study in 1968. His international work included assignments in Indonesia, Jamaica, India, Japan, and Uzbekistan. Gertler was a member and Vice-Chair of the Ontario Environmental Assessment Board, from 1990-2001. The Canadian Institute of Planners' Award for Planning Excellence in 2001 was named in honour of Len Gertler.
Walter Moos was born in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1926. He was educated at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Geneva (graduated 1946) and at the New School for Social Research, New York, from 1948 to 1951. Moos moved to Toronto from New York in 1959, having become acquainted with the city through visits with his brother, an engineer, who lived there. He married Martha Wegmuller in 1962, and had two sons, Michel André and David Alfred. The Moos family has a well-established history as gallery owners. Walter Moos is a founding member of the Art Dealers Association of Canada, and served as its president from 1971 to 1978. He was the chairman of its appraisal committee from 1972 to 1989. He served on the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council from 1972 to 1982 and is the founder and past trustee of the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation.
Gallery Moos was opened by Walter Moos in May 1959 at the corner of Avenue Road and Davenport Road in Toronto. Early in 1963 it moved to Yorkville Avenue, becoming one of the first arrivals in what was to become a significant gallery district of the city, and subsequently prospered there for some 30 years. In July 1992 the gallery moved to its current location at 622 Richmond Street West.
The Gallagher and Whatmough families have histories that are closely intertwined. The Gallaghers migrated to Hamilton, Upper Canada in 1836, then lived in Rochester, New York for four years before settling in East Flamborough, Upper Canada. Two Whatmough men, Charles and Isaac, came to Upper Canada in 1858 and 1863, from the area around Manchester, England. Their parents and other family members seem to have moved back and forth between the two counties, with most settling in the Toronto/Burlington/Hamilton, Ontario area. The Gallaghers appear to have been farmers, in the main, while the Whatmoughs produced a number of architects and businessmen. Howard Gallagher (1897-1987) was active in the Flamborough and Waterdown Agricultural Society, Gordon Gallagher (1900-1985) was on the town planning committee which prepared Burlington’s first Official Plan, and served as deputy reeve and reeve of Burlington. Percy Gallagher (1901-1987) was a builder and developer who registered the White Oak Manor commercial and residential development survey, Plan 1124, in 1958. Charles T. Whatmough (1837-1885) opened a hardware business on King Street East in Toronto. Arthur Edwin Whatmough (1884-1971) was an architect who designed residential buildings in Toronto in the Arts and Crafts style until the Great Depression (1931). His son, Grant Alan Whatmough (1921-1999) was a naval architect and designer of private houses throughout southern Ontario. Isaac Abraham Whatmough (1842-1911), the second in his family to emigrate, worked in Toronto and Simcoe, where he joined the Norfolk Rifles, and spent some time in Chicago during the Civil War before returning to Toronto to work in his brother Charles’ hardware store.
The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA) was established in 1859 as the Fruit Growers' Association of Ontario, making it one of Ontario and Canada’s oldest farm commodity organizations.
As the voice of Ontario’s fruit, vegetable and greenhouse farmers, the OFVGA is a nationally recognized not-for-profit association that advocates on behalf of Ontario fruit and vegetable farmers and the edible horticulture industry, and represents its members provincially, nationally, and internationally.