[1] He graduated from the Baron Byng High School in 1923[2] and moved to New York City to take architecture courses at Columbia University by night while doing temporary jobs by day.

Yet they were efficient in plan, carefully detailed, up-to-date in construction techniques, appropriate in materials, budget-conscious, and attentive to the needs and tastes of their clients.

Although they promised to hire him upon graduation, the company was hard hit by the Great Depression and Kalman was forced to start working on his own, beginning in residential construction and renovations.

[1][2] By the mid-1930s he had developed a reputation for efficiency in design space and budget, and was tapped to draw up plans for many commercial, residential, institutional, and community projects.

[2] During World War II he converted a foundry in Joliette into a facility for manufacturing components for "training aircraft and merchant-marine submarine detection" for the Canadian military.

[10] Kalman fund-raised for State of Israel Bonds, the United Jewish Appeal, and Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.