By 1965 Colin and Irene now had 2 children, and prospects in architecture were bleak.  Hearing that there was a need for architects in Canada, Colin communicated with the R.A.I.C., (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada) confirming that there was a lot of work for architects.  He secured a work permit and started work in Toronto in May 1965.  He rapidly decided Toronto was too large a city, and moved to Calgary.  At the time Calgary had a population of around 300,000, was close to the mountains and had a trout river running through it.  Ideal!  He settled into his work there, also joining a tennis club and renting a piano for his leisure time.  Immigration authorities finally granted his family their landed immigrant permits, and they arrived in Calgary on a snowy day in November 1965.

From 1965 until 1972 Colin worked as an employed designer at a succession of architects’ offices.  Meanwhile he and his family became Canadian citizens and Colin became a registered architect in Alberta.  In 1972 Colin started in private practice, first with a partner, and then on his own.  Although he had enough work to put food on the table, income was uncertain, and vacations could never last over a week.  When a position was advertised for a staff architect at the City of Calgary in late 1974 Colin got the job.  The job involved the design, maintenance and restoration of city-owned buildings (arenas, indoor pools, firehalls, police stations, pump stations, etc.), with some involvement in pedestrian overpasses and sound barriers.  There was a lot of in-house design and even more supervision of outside architects doing work for the City.

Once the children, Charlie and Marie, had reached high-school age, Colin returned seriously to painting.  First he took an evening course at the University of Calgary, then a watercolour course with Susan Woolgar.  He became a member of The Group in 1982, and of the Calgary Artists’ Society the following year.  Over the years he took workshops with Rick Grandmaison, Stan Blodgett, Zoltan Szabo, Mike Svob and a large number of other recognized artists, learning as much from watching the instructors’ methods of setting up as from their demonstrations and words of wisdom.  Colin sold his first painting in 1981.  In 1984 he plucked up the nerve to approach a gallery, and had his first show in 1985.  In 1994 Colin retired from the City.  He joined Irene in her translating business when she was offered a major translation for a pipeline tender in Ecuador. They have now both retired and Colin divides his time between painting, hiking and travel.  He periodically instructs workshops in plein-air sketching and painting. 

His work is in private, corporate, and public collections in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.