He organised a merger with its competitor Crichton creating Crichton-Vulcan shipyard, which grew under his leadership the most significant shipbuilding company of Finland.

The yard built the most important vessels of the Finnish Navy, including submarines and two large coastal defence ships.

The primary customer was the Imperial Russian Navy, which joined the vessels to its Pacific fleet to mainly protect the traffic of the large rivers.

[1] The Viapori fortress in front of Helsinki was still housed by the Russian soldiers and its cannons were seen as a threat against the Finnish White Guards.

The locks weighed hundreds of kilos were dismounted by use of winch hoists, packed into wooden caskets and stored in the warehouses of the batteries.

[4] After the war the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet published an article, according which Staffans had duped the Russian military personnel by typing himself an attorney letter fooling the fortress organisation up to the highest command.

[5] Russia and Germany had agreed in the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty that the Russian Baltic fleet and coast fortresses would not get involved in military operations in Finland.

[4] More information about the disputed event has been recently found from a 26 March 1918 dated report written by Oskar Gros who was a member in Staffans's team.

The report tells that the work was done under supervision of Staffans and also consent with the Russian officers, who wanted to avoid that operative cannons had ended up to the hands of the Red Guards or German troops.

[5] It is speculated, that a possible motive for exaggeration of the action was the Finnish White Guards' crave to get a part of the glory Helsinki conquest, which was mainly done by Germans.

[5] After the war ended Staffans stayed serving the Finnish army in the fortress during years 1918–1920[2] under commandant office as the technical manager of the dry dock.

[6] According to the contract, IvS promised to give all the needed engineering support in case Vulcan wants to build submarines.

[7] In the following month Staffans negotiated about a merger with a competitor, Crichton yard, which was located next to Vulcan, at the other side of the river Aura.

[6] The merger of Crichton and Vulcan took place on 18 August 1924 and Staffans was chosen unanimously to lead the new, united Crichton-Vulcan yard.

[7] The investments required capital and finally Crichton-Vulcan was sold to Maskin o. Bro, which had taken over previously the Hietalahti yard in Helsinki.

The acquisition improved the company's financial basis and during the 1930s Crichton-Vulcan had grown the strongest and most modern shipyard of Finland under Staffans's leadership.

By using his old contacts from ivS, Staffans made a licence production agreement with Krupp Germaniawerft AG in summer 1938.

[8] When Winter War broke out in 1939, Turku was heavily bombed by the Soviet air forces, but Crichton-Vulcan avoided of large damages.

Staffans was called together with Wahlforss and the Hietalahti yard manager August Jansson to negotiate about the ship types.

The agreement about material list was signed in December 1944 by Andrei Zhdanov from the Allied Commission and the prime minister of Finland, J.K.

[1] In 1942 Staffans wrote a book called Skeppsbyggare och resenär i Östasien about his experiences in Siberia in the early 20th century.

[1][2] Staffans faced two major personal losses in 1943 when first his closest colleague and son-in-law Gösta Rusko became seriously ill and perished in April.