Charles M. Hovey was born in 1913. Hovey attended Kelvin Collegiate Institute from 1928 to 1931. During his undergraduate years at the University of Manitoba, Hovey worked on designing and constructing many different instruments and apparatus for the engineering faculty including a complete photo-elastic polariscope. A University of Manitoba graduate and subsequent professor of civil engineering, Hovey began his teaching career in 1945. Hovey was appointed in 1947 to Forest Products Engineer working as a civil servant for the Dominion department of mines and resources in Vancouver. In 1952, he received a Master of Science degree in Engineering. One of Hovey's more significant engineering projects was building a device which helped polio patients exercise while in an iron lung. He also worked for the National Research Council on the behavior of aircraft panels in compression. In 1956, Hovey was contracted with Bristol Aircraft (Western) Limited to continue this research. He was appointed in 1958 as a lecturer for the University of Manitoba Faculty of Dentistry to occasionally speak on dentistry and metallurgy while still employed at Bristol Aircraft.