Date: Saturday, February 6th at 2:00 pm. Location: First Alliance Church, 3250 Finch Avenue East, Scarborough.
Bob Thistle passed away over the weekend at the age of 77. As founder of Robert E. Thistle, he became one of Canada’s most-important figures in distributing printing technology over the past few decades.
Bob Thistle began his career in printing back in 1953 when he was hired as a Toronto-based service technician for AM International, where he worked until 1969. At that time, he decided to attend a seminary full time but continued to service equipment on evenings and weekends to support his family.
Then in 1972, Thistle started his own equipment company, under the name Offset Machine Services, to repair and rebuild Multilith presses. Within a few years, his brother Harry and eldest son John, joined the company as it grew by leaps and bounds. They needed to open up a machine shop to build parts for all of the Multilith presses they were servicing. While still a teenager, Steve Thistle joined his father’s operation, which soon after purchased the Multilith inventory from AM International’s bankrupt Canadian division.
In the late 1970s, Steve and Bob Thistle developed the Thistle Dampening System for small-format offset presses. This technology was sold across North America through various manufacturing channels. Later, they also introduced the Smart Plate CTP system to Canada.
Then in the late 1990s, Steve Thistle began steering Robert E. Thistle to focus on the distribution and servicing of finishing technologies. In 2006, Steve purchased the business from his father, who was starting to wind down his career. Maintaining the strong brand name built by his father, Robert E. Thistle around 2006 moved to its current location in Markham, Ontario. Today, Thistle is a major distributor of CP Bourg collators and perfect binders, as well as Challenge cutters and folders, among other finishing technologies.
Bob Thistle passed away peacefully early in the morning on Saturday, January 16, while in residence at the Mount Hope Centre long-term-care facility in London, Ontario.
Bob Thistle service information