Charles Fleetford Sise

He was also part of its first board of directors, and that of the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company (later known as Nortel), the telephone company's equipment manufacturer, from 1895 to 1918.

He had formerly been a "hard nosed" sea captain before being commissioned as an agent by the newly formed National Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, to help lead its incipient Canadian division.

From 1880, when he was hired as an agent of Bell Canada, until his death in 1918, he played a major role in the company's development. During this period he oversaw Bell's divestiture of operations in the Maritime Provinces between 1887 and 1889 and later in the Prairie Provinces between 1908 and 1909. His leadership helped shape the company's management and organization, and several of his associates remained in senior positions until the 1940s.