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Greater Boston Plumbing Legends!

ED DUGGAN II
Master Plumber #5466

Ed Duggan has indeed been one of the great competitors and success stories of the Boston plumbing industry. In fact, the Duggan plumbing business may go back further than any other in the Boston area. In 1991 the Duggan Company was already celebrating its 100th Anniversary. It is a company that is looking forward to its fifth generation of leaders.

E.M. Duggan Co. was started by Ed Duggan’s grandfather. In 1891, founder Edward M. Duggan arrived in the big city, and opened the doors of his shop in the South End. The country had survived the Civil War, and an economic depression in 1870s. Things were booming again in Boston. It was a time when a young man with a skilled trade, ambition, and an eye for business could establish himself.

Edward M. Duggan did not realize he was creating an institution that would prosper in three separate centuries. But as the entries from one of his old financial logs prove, the first Ed Duggan was a man who had a very keen understanding of business. He tallied his costs to fractions of a cent.

Ed Duggan II, grandson of the founder, will turn 80 within the year. He still serves as the Chairman of the Board of the company, and he apparently inherited his grandfather’s talent with numbers.

“I was born in 1925, grew up in Canton, and went to Canton High. I was good at math, lousy at Latin, lousy at French—and I couldn’t speak English!”

In fact, Ed Duggan is an unusually articulate man, a man who is precise with both his words, and with his numbers. He also possesses an exceptional memory. He can tell you the exact number of fixtures he installed in various jobs forty or fifty years ago. Like many of the successful people in our business, he has succeeded by paying attention to the details.

“I was interested in the trade from early on, and I wanted to go to Boston Trade, but my parents said, ‘If he goes there, he’ll become one of those rough Boston characters.’

“But by the time I was 14, I was driving the company truck around the South End, delivering stock. Of course I didn’t have a driver’s license, and the cops would stop me. But we became friendly. I can even remember that they would help me unload stock.

“My grandfather ran the business, and I worked in the shop on Shawmut Ave. I remember once I asked him “Where in Ireland were you born?’ My grandfather said, ‘My good man, I was born in Spencer, Massachusetts.’

“He dressed and acted like a banker. He arrived at the shop at noon. But he was very exact. He would put on his accountant’s shades, and then he’d slip behind a Lally column to cut himself a plug of tobacco. And he never spit.

“He’d work late into the night, calculating everything. To save money he would cut up old lead pipes, so that they could easily fit into a lead pot for re-melting. He had an adding machine, but he would have me sit by him, and check all his numbers by hand. He was conservative with his money. He always said to me, ‘I pay you $1 per day. That’s five dollars a week, including Saturday.’ ”

Ed’s dad, William, also worked in the business. While young Ed was a teenager, the three generations worked together at their small non-union shop on Shawmut Avenue. After he graduated from Canton High School, Ed’s parents agreed to let him attend Boston Trade’s night school.

“In 1942, my grandfather died. World War II was on, and I wanted to serve, but I had lost vision in one eye when I was a kid. A neighbor was using a wedge to split a telephone pole, and a piece of metal flew out and hit me in the pupil. The Army took me into limited service, and I was in England. I ended up doing more calculations, converting dollars to pounds, things like that.

“When I got back from England, I could see that the South End was changing. It was the war that changed it, bringing all the military people to South Boston, and to Charlestown. Those were days when I was really starting to learn the business, and I worked with some wonderful people. There was a guy Fred Ripley, from the Pipefitters Union. He became an estimator for Conley Supply in the South End. He was a man who taught me so much, so much about radiation and heat and estimating. He treated me like a son.”

Like others in our business, Ed has clear memories of those who helped him along the way.

“By that time, my brother and I wanted to get into the union, but for some reason the guys in Boston weren’t interested in us. But we were able to get into the Quincy local, which eventually merged with Boston.

“The rules for running a union shop were very strict. The Master Plumber was not allowed to work with the tools. But I was young, and our shop was very small. I remember one time we were way out in Bellingham, the very furthest town in the Local 12 jurisdiction. I’m down in the trench doing a tie-in, sixty-four miles from the union hall, and I look up and there’s the Business Agent, Paul Madden! I said, ‘Jeez, Paul. What do you expect me to do!’ ”

From the late 1940s Ed’s business continued to grow. Like some of his contemporaries, he would often do his estimating at night, at home. He tells another familiar story.

“My late wife, Eileen, was a great estimator. I’d always be looking at my book, trying to figure things out. But Eileen already knew all of the formulas.”

Increasingly Duggan focused on industrial and commercial work, and did major housing projects throughout Massachusetts. He built a shop in Canton, and in 2005 that building will expand yet again. Its walls are lined with photos of prominent projects accomplished over the decades, everything from International Place, to major hotels and pharmaceutical jobs.

The company still maintains much of the close-knit feeling that Ed Duggan cultivated. At the annual company outing, a special award is presented, “The EDDIE.” The award is given to the ‘Employee who best Demonstrates Dependability, Ingenuity, and Enthusiasm.’ The award is both a tribute to Ed Duggan, and to the people who have helped him build his company.

Looking back, Ed Duggan is a man who seems to have a modest attitude but deep appreciation for all that he has accomplished. There is enthusiasm in his eyes when he sums up his feelings for the trade in a single sentence: “I loved the business.”

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