New HQ named Edward Drake Building

CSE's new headquarters complex finally has a real name: the Edward Drake Building.

Edward Drake was CSE's first boss, serving as Director from the agency's inception in 1946 (when it was known as the Communications Branch of the National Research Council) until his death in 1971.

According to this notice on the CSE website, which seems to have quietly appeared in May, the official naming took place on February 26th.

Some of you out there may recall that CSE already had a building called the Edward Drake Building, the former CBC headquarters at 1500 Bronson Avenue, which CSE bought in 1997 and occupied in 2000. (For further information, see the Edward Drake section of this post.) Evidently the Building Formerly Known as Ed no longer has a name.

CSE is moving out of (or has already left) all of its buildings in Confederation Heights, including the Sir Leonard Tilley Building, the first headquarters building built specifically for the agency.

Ed Drake's mother's name was Tilly Katchoryk. I like to think that's why it was Leonard Tilley, rather than one of the 35 or so other Fathers of Confederation, who ended up with his name on that particular building.

Now (for the second time) Ed Drake has his own name on the headquarters building.


Hat tip to Ron Deibert for pointing out the name of the new headquarters building. I'm going to have to start paying more attention to the CSE website if they're going to be putting something newsworthy on it every couple of years.