Mr. Clean

My life churned along as an estimator. I was fairly successful at it and I always made my 'plan'. Almost always. The 'plan' is what the branch manager decided you could produce in total dollars bid and secured, and then the gross revenue. My first year, the plan was $1.5 million secured and I made a $2 million number, so the next year my 'plan' was increased. I made that number and the 'plan' was increased once more. I saw the pattern.

I also learned that if you secured a large job, you were a hero! If you came in second with your bid, you were a loser…big time! You were only as good as your last successful bid. Stress ruled!

I did secure some landmark work; the Shriner's Hospital in Sacramento was one that I estimated and secured. Another was the Park Plaza Tower, a 24 story office tower in downtown Sacramento. And lots of others. I can drive around the Sacramento area today and point out dozens of jobs that I had a hand in. All very satisfying today, but all stress and bother at the time I was involved.

After I had been with PCI for some time, our branch office was invited to bid on the new NEC cleanroom project in Roseville. Cleanroom? I was given a short course education in just what a cleanroom was and how it was constructed. I also found out that cleanrooms were bid 'concept only'. The plans for this $25 million dollar cleanroom consisted of 3 pages. And a specification book. We had to come up a design we could build for the lowest amount of money but would still satisfy the customer and meet the spec's.

Bidding this project was going to be a team effort. It was far too large for one estimator as we had to plan on building walls, floors and ceilings. And not just ordinary, walls, floors and ceilings. Cleanroom grade!

To learn more about cleanrooms and how to bid on them, I went to Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, where our San Francisco branch office was building a small R&D cleanroom. We had to get into the Tyvek 'bunny suits' with 'booties' and face masks. All very high tech as we were going into a Class I cleanroom, the highest class, where particles of contaminants are measured and regulated by microns and even the number of water molecules is strictly regulated by the HEPA filters in the ceilings. De-ionized water is added back to the atmosphere in a cleanroom, just to make the environment human friendly. I found it all fascinating and I now had a second path available for my career.

So we began to prepare a winning number for the NEC plant. The new cleanroom there was going to be a 'Superfab', a Class I cleanroom that would be over 100,000 square feet in size. And since I was the only one of the estimators that used a computer, I was the designated spreadsheet guy. The Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet guy! It was not an enviable task as I had to constantly re-assure the team leader, a Luddite, that the numbers would calculate as planned and it wasn't magic as he assumed it was.

Many long weeks and lots of long evenings later, we came up with a number to bid with. Well, our concept number must have been right as we were invited to stick around for the second round of bidding. We were told the other prices we needed to beat and something about their concepts. Now we had to imagine a way to come in lowest and first! Which we did. We removed the number we had for cleaning and final wipe down of the fab and came up with a number that was substantially lower than everyone else. Of course we knew that someone had to do the cleaning and we planned on offering that service once secured the project. And then we could charge more!

Sure enough, we got the job and now our real education began as the branch office, that had never seen a cleanroom before, began to build their very first one.

Link to cleanroom stuff…

The Age of Computers

Estimating, (or Quantity Surveying if you were in Great Britain) was soon my life and I loved it. I had an office and a computer and I could take a set of drawings in to my office and close the door. Then I could take the plans apart, not physically, but within my head. Like most estimators, I was able to visualize the completed project and just about everything in labor and material it would take to get to that finished state. I was in my own little world and until I was finished, the door would remain closed.

But, back to the computer…sure I was given one, an IBM clone. But I wasn't given any instructions. I was going to have to figure it out by myself. And after a few frustrating weeks, I decided that there was no way that I could learn at work; too many interruptions. I was going to have to learn at home, so we decided to buy a computer. We convinced ourselves that we could learn to use it together for personal purposes as well as for business.

I went shopping and ended up buying an Epson Equity II with a 40 MB hard drive and 12 MB of RAM. With Turbo! It was top of the line and it cost us $2,500 (20 years ago). Long story short; it did help us, though it was painful at times.

And back at work, I could now begin to navigate through the programs that had been installed on my pc. Programs like Symphony, which contained a program called Lotus 1-2-3. And Pro-Write, a simple word processor. I didn't care for the Symphony word processor. At home I would read about spreadsheets and then practice. Later, at work, I would try out my new knowledge.

As luck would have it, I was the only one of the four estimators that wanted to use a computer. In their offices, the computers were silent and the screens were dark. I would get no help from those Neanderthals. I would go to our secretarial staff and ask them the tough questions. And I learned a lot. Probably too much as I was soon the resident 'geek' and if anything went wrong with a computer, I was the first one called to solve the problem. I quickly learned that 'reboot' solved 75% of those problems while checking the power supply would solve another 20%. For the remaining problems, we would call our West Coast Comptroller in Anaheim, a corporate 'geek' and the one that was pushing the use of computers everywhere. Pretty soon he noticed that he was getting very few calls from the Sacramento office and he figured out that I was the reason for that. We became friends. I think he enjoyed talking about computers to someone who knew what he was talking about.

That friendship became a lasting one, and it changed my career in ways I couldn't even imagine at that time..

Someone loan me a gun, please

Life at PCI was good and a couple of years went by uneventfully. We had lots of work and most of the projects were profitable and bonuses were distributed. Other branch offices in the PCI empire were noticing our success and thinking about starting their own drywall business.

In our third year, I was given the opportunity to become an estimator and let someone else take over the role of superintendent. I would be in the office almost all of the time and I wasn't sure if that was going to be much fun. I had always enjoyed the field work and the freedom that went with it, but to get ahead in the corporation, the estimators position had to be taken and so I agreed; putting my boots in the closet and buying some slacks.

Now, I had been an estimator many years ago, and then off and on during my career I had been asked to estimate small jobs. So I knew what I had to do and even looked forward to it. Because…it's an incredibly exciting thing to do on the day that a job is actually bid. You may have immersed yourself quietly within the plans and specifications for weeks and weeks, the door to your office was closed and locked, but on bid day, it's show time!

The day starts with an early meeting; the branch manager, the head estimator and yourself. You have to come up with 'the number', that's the starting bid price and then you have to decide how low you can go from that number. And still be able to justify it to the bookkeepers if you should succeed and actually secure a job. That's called your 'walk away number' and it's subject to change as the day progresses and your greed increases.

Now you may think that construction bidding is simple; estimate the amount of material and hours needed and price it. Add up the overhead costs and include that number. Now throw in the number of dollars you want make as profit. Take the grand total and tell the customers what your bid is. Go back to your office and open a new set of plans. Wait for someone to call and tell you the results. Wrong.

To begin with, as a subcontractor, we had to bid to a number of general contractors; sometimes as many as a dozen or more. And strangely enough, our bid price would vary, depending upon our business relationship with each of the contractors. Our 'friends' would get a better number than our 'enemies'. And determining who was our friend, or not…took a lot of phone calls as we tried to see who would work with us and keep us informed as to the current bid prices. Most bids were due at 2 PM and so we would wait until 1:50 or later before we gave anyone our price. Others were playing the same game and you had to keep your price protected from prying eyes and ears for as long as possible. Although, we and others, would sometimes put out an early and false number, just to see if we could identify which contractors were going to be our enemies that day. Devious!

During those last ten minutes, the tension was incredible! We would be revising numbers every minute as we heard little scraps of information on prices. Then, with a minute or less to go, everyone was assigned a few numbers to call – even the secretaries and the warehouse guy – and get our final, final number in to all of the contractors before 2 PM.

Was it over? No. Now we had to meet once again and, somehow, justify that amazingly low number we came up with at the last minute. All the while, hoping that someone, other than yourself (please!) made a mistake and you were a close but honorable second place. The results might not be known for an hour or so, even days, so the tension wasn't over. And when it was…you never wanted to be in first place by double digit percentage points. Might as well go shoot yourself!

It was just a picnic

The first year at my new job, I was as busy as I had ever been. We were securing work all over town and I was busy hiring and buying supplies for all of the new employees, plus the work of making sure that the projects were being run efficiently and at a profit. Once a week we had a mandatory meeting in the office with all of the estimators and superintendents to go over a document known as the 'CIP', Contracts in Progress. This document tracked every job for hours worked and material purchased against the amount we had billed the customer and how close we were to completion. In detail. The CIP also projected the amount of money we would make or lose on a project, based on the current numbers. Ouch! You couldn't say, 'it looks like it's going to be a good job', even when you knew it would be. The bookkeepers treated the CIP as Holy Writ and didn't accept guesses, even educated ones.

As branch office, we had to contribute to the corporate coffers in Kansas on a weekly basis and so it was critical to know where each job stood. It took me awhile, but I eventually learned that the bean counters were not interested so much in whether or not a job was profitable; they just wanted the right number to put in the books.

And it was during this first that I became aware of just how large a company PCI was. We were all union and 100% employee owned. We were the largest single contractor to be signatory to the Carpenters Union. And we were the 6^th most profitable specialty contractor in the U.S. at that time. We had a dozen or more branch offices and plans for more. It was kind of exciting!

But…back to work. At the end of the year I think we had close to 60 employees after starting with 5. And we were planning our first ever employee picnic. After all of my years in construction, this was the first time I had ever seen a company rewarding all of its employees.

Feeling Good

When I reflected on my transition from one failing company to a new and promising company, I was awed by how easy it was. I lost one day of work that year. And I was going to be very busy for the foreseeable future!

When I started with PCI in Sacramento, we had half a dozen projects on the books but none were ready to start; a good thing, as I had to find a crew and buy all of the equipment we would need as a new division within this branch office. So I went shopping.

To be more accurate, the shopping came to me. The word around town was that a new drywall company was starting up and pretty soon, every supplier in the region was calling to take me to lunch, breakfast, coffee. Business cards were piling up on my desk and each salesman was determined to be my new best friend.

And with the help of these new 'friends', the new equipment and material was soon flooding our warehouse, much to the dismay of my fellow superintendents.

This branch office of PCI had been a small but very successful acoustical ceiling and flooring contractor in the region and now I was the newcomer and threatening the order of things. I needed warehouse space and lots of it. I needed more carpenters, lathers, laborers, hod carriers and plasterers. All of this didn't make for good feelings among the current employees and the resentment was soon evident.

It took awhile, but after some 'feel good' speeches by visiting VP's, the mood changed as it was evident that this new department in their midst was going to stay. That and the fact that everyone's bonus depended on our mutual success.

New Job

On the appointed day, I showed up early and the new boss was just driving up. OK, I made some points right away. Then he walked me around the office and out into the warehouse, introducing me to everyone as the new Drywall Superintendent. After that he showed me to my newly built office and gave me the keys to a truck. Then we went into his office and he gave me the rundown on the corporation I had just joined…or would join just as soon as I filled out the many lengthy forms he handed me. Performance Contracting, Inc. was a nationwide contracting company; all union employees and employee owned. It was also nation's largest specialty subcontractor, with offices in almost all major cities… except in the southeast. (This would change later when PCI bought a large southern contracting firm) Historically, PCI had been the contracting division of Owens-Corning Fiberglas and had been divested by that corporation because of federal trade regulations. A group of employees had raised the money to buy the small division and the rest was history.

Although the branch where I had been hired was part of large corporation, we were always a profit center on our own. We had to justify our existence with every job. And as I soon found out, corporate bean counters were quite efficient at putting a project under the microscope to see where the money was going.

After the tour and the talk, I went to a couple of existing projects where we were doing acoustical ceiling work and learned a little about how PCI ran their jobs. OK, I was ready.

That night I called home and described my day to Laurae and tried to convey the excitement I felt. These people were professionals and they had great benefits to offer. I explained that there was a pension as well as a 401(k). Profit sharing and medical/dental insurance. A vehicle to drive with all expenses paid. Plus something called Max Stretch bonuses!

Changes

With Las Vegas and McCarran Airport behind me, it was time for a new project; something with a challenge. And sure enough, I found it; the Washoe County Jail.

The company I worked for, C. Solari and Sons, had secured the contract on the new jail facility just up the hill and north of downtown Reno. The project consisted of the administration building and the jail itself, with 8 'pods' or housing units. The majority of the work was synthetic plaster over concrete blocks and there were acres of walls to finish!

My trade background was that of a drywall carpenter and framer, but I knew quite a bit about synthetic plaster and I was going to be the project manager, so I didn't really have to know a lot about the application; I was going to be busy enough with scheduling and progress meetings. This was a government project, so it was going to have inadequate plans, obsolete specifications and the schedule would be faulty. My job? Protect us from the owner!

And what fun that was… every day was spent generating dozens of RFI's (Request for information) for the architect/owner and then responding to the inadequate answers from the day before. That summed up my workday.

But, during this time, I was hearing rumors that the company I worked for was in financial trouble; big trouble. So I started asking some of the executives about it and learned that, yes, bankruptcy was coming…but I shouldn't worry! The plan was to allow the general contractor to take over the payroll and pay all of us through the completion of the project. But, since bankruptcy was still a little ways off, I was to continue my adversarial role as project manager. That was weird! I would gather my paycheck from the contractor's office and then hand him my latest request for change orders. With a smile!

As expected, the project dragged on and on, fall became winter and then it was spring before we started on the administration building. And it was here that I got lucky. I was walking through the work site when I heard my name called. Looking up, I saw a carpenter that I had once hired while I was doing a project in Sacramento. We talked for awhile and then he told me that the company he was working for, Performance Contracting, was starting up a new drywall/plaster and fireproofing branch office in Sacramento and would I be interested in applying for the job of superintendent? Apparently they already had some work signed up and were ready to start, but had no superintendent. OK! I got the phone number and names and came home with some good news for a change.

I did call and I went down to Sacramento for an interview. It went well, or so I thought, but they told me that they would call me with a decision within a few weeks. I was depressed.

But, as we were sitting down to dinner that same night, the phone rang and I heard the good news. I had been hired and would start within a week!

It was time to say goodbye. I had spent 11 years working in the Truckee Meadows and I had enjoyed some great times… but it was time for a change.

Here's a Google Earth view of the jail...the admin building is the triangular section at the lower center. In between the pods you can see the steel framework that holds up a security mesh over the exercise yards.

Outta There!

Back to the stories from the McCarran Airport project…

The two or three week job I had come to Las Vegas for was turning out to be a much bigger project than anticipated and my boss and I decided that it made sense for me to stay for as long as it took to get the project back on schedule.

And every day was a challenge as we had to fight the bureaucracy from Bechtel in everything we did. Plus, we had the additional challenge of working a major remodel project in a 'live' airport. Nothing could be done that might slow down the operation of the airport. We had to work around and over the passengers that filled the terminals.

The portion of the terminal that I remember best was called the South Terminal. If you have ever been to this airport, it's the terminal that holds Southwest Airlines. We had to construct a new ceiling and soffit system at a height of about 24 feet and from the south windows all of the way to the middle of the terminal. All of this would be done while never inconveniencing a passenger in any way.

We had half a dozen rolling scaffolds built so that the bracing was at a height that would allow for people to walk under them if needed. And we moved them very slowly and carefully; not wanting to drop anything of course.

The days went by and the work progressed as planned. First; the framers would use the scaffolds and build the metal framework for the lath that would be attached. After the lath was on, the plasterers took over the scaffold to apply a 1-coat 'veneer' plaster. This plaster was used because it saved so much time over the normal 3-coat system. With the plasterers out of the way, the painters took to the scaffolds and finished up.

All was going well until we got to the center of the terminal. It's at this point that the ceiling changes and ascends to an existing structure far above. To make this transition, the architect had designed ¼ radius barrel shapes to gain the height needed. These were simply called 'clouds'. An apt name as the support for them was somewhere far above us. Support wires from a previous ceiling still hung from a height of about 70 feet. It was impossible to verify their exact anchorage so we submitted a question to Bechtel; could we use those existing wires? After a few weeks, the answer came back that, yes, we should use them. And we did.

All went well and the framing and lath were soon in place. Then it was time for the plasterers to do their job. I was standing on the pedestrian bridge that takes passengers from ticketing to the East Terminal and separates the North and South terminals. From here, I could watch the plasterers just below me.

Suddenly the plasterers began to yell and scramble towards the end of the scaffold. I heard some very loud 'popping' noises and I watched as the 'cloud' crashed down onto the scaffold. Passengers, who had been under the scaffold were running for cover.

The wires we had depended on had failed. Luckily, the scaffolding held the enormous load of metal, lath and plaster that had descended on it. Even so, we quickly barricaded the terminal, shutting off all access to ticketing. Yikes! That got everyone's attention, if the crash hadn't already done so.

I was still standing on the bridge as I could see everything and I was talking to our Reno office, describing the situation (Our 2-way radios could transmit to Reno via relay stations) and asking for assistance. Probably legal assistance!

Just as I finished my conversation, I looked up to see that a TV camera crew was standing next to me, filming the action. And firemen. Everywhere! What was going on? It had only been a few minutes since the collapse of the clouds; how did the word get out? Well, it seemed that the firemen and the TV news people were already at the airport because of a reported gas leak; a false alarm.

I declined to be interviewed and got the crew together to try and stabilize the tangled mess. We soon had a local engineer (hired by us) directing our efforts and a couple of brave volunteers climbed up into the wreckage and then even higher as they looked for something solid to attach chain hoists from. Within a few hours we had the weight off of the scaffold and felt it was secure enough to allow ticketing to resume. How many people missed their flights? I didn't want to know! Each one was a potential lawsuit.

With our engineers help and a lot of work, the clouds were rebuilt and in place within a week; painted. Now the real fun began as Bechtel tried to pin the whole debacle on us. But our piece of paper with their opinion stating that it was OK to use those existing supports saved the day for us. It was quietly agreed to let the matter drop and charges from both sides soon faded away.

And that was the last bit of drama from that project. I do know that we amassed something like 80+ lineal feet of 3-ring binders filled with Bechtel generated paperwork and close to a ton of revised and revised again blue prints. But once the clouds were in place, I was through and could return to Reno and a more normal existence.

ps…one last memory; whenever we flew to Las Vegas in the winter we experienced some very rough take-offs. The Monday morning plane had sat overnight and since the temperatures were in the zero range, the tires developed a flat spot from being parked so long. And one morning as we rumbled along the runway, just about ready to take off, the vibrations grew to a point where the overhead oxygen masks popped out. Now that will wake you up!

Just One

One more 'working for dad' story before I return to the 1980's and saga of the Las Vegas Airport construction.

I had returned from the Navy and so It must have been 1961 or 1962 and I was looking for work. A friend of my dad, Hank Kramer, had come up with a brilliant idea and had just begun production on it. 'It' was a 3-gallon plastic container that held pressurized syrup. If you have ever hung around bars, you may have noticed that the bartender gives you a soda or a mixer via a device that looks like a portable showerhead. That's connected to the various syrup and mixer containers located under the bar. Well, before Hank came up with his idea, these containers were all stainless steel for cleanliness. The problem with steel was the fact that you couldn't see how much fluid was left in the tank by simply looking at it. Hank's tanks, being plastic, let you glance at them to see how much was left and so there were fewer downtimes while tanks were being refilled and customers wondering what happened to the Rum & Coke they had ordered.

Hank had a big order for tanks and had just bought a brand new German injection molder. The instructions for the machine were written in German so Hank was quite busy looking a German speaking operator. Which he found.

The injection molder is really simple; hot plastic is forced into a precision mold, rapidly cooled and then ejected from the machine into the hands of the inspector; me. I had to use some very expensive dial calipers to check the tanks for proper wall thickness. The tanks were pressurized and a defective tank could blow up behind the bar and make a very sticky mess.

So I would inspect and then throw the rejects into a large bin. It was later that I found out that part of my responsibilities was to recycle the rejects. That had to be one of the worst jobs I ever had!

The tanks were dropped into a chopper and the machine turned on. You cannot believe the noise that was made! We were working in a large but almost completely empty warehouse and that noise filled the entire space. I would hit the switch and run for the door!

Luckily, I found a job within a week and was able to retire from this one.

Later for Las Vegas

I think I'll take a break from the Las Vegas stories and go back to some memories that came to me the other day.

Working for your father is a tough job in itself, never mind the actual work. Psychologically, it's high drama. And I did that a few times; very few.

One; my dad was a mechanical contractor at the time and he had a small project going that included some concrete pads and trenches around some future acid holding tanks. The concrete needed to be coated with an epoxy to keep any spillage from deteriorating the concrete. My job was to help out on a crew that was doing that work. I was the 'go'fer'. Of course everyone on the crew knew I was the boss's son and they treated me accordingly. With deference. I hated it! So I worked harder.

And if you have ever been around industrial strength epoxy, you know how unpleasant the stuff is. I had to mix it in small batches and then add color to it, stirring it thoroughly while standing directly over the bucket. The fumes were overpowering to say the least. And once mixed, I would take it to the trench and hand it down to the men working there. Then I would join them, trowel in hand.

The trench was about 5 feet deep and 2 feet wide, just deep enough so that any breeze that might come along was never felt. And epoxy becomes quite warm as it starts to set up. The sweat just poured off of us as we were surrounded on all side by the hot material. And after awhile I began to enjoy the occasional trips out of the trench to mix more epoxy. At least I could feel a breeze now and then.

Finally, at lunch time, my hard work paid off. The crew started talking about the 'boss' and ignoring the fact that I was his son. They may have forgotten!

Note: this was probably around 1955 and there were no safety standards for working with epoxy. We wore rubber gloves but no respirators. And the rubber gloves wore out within an hour or so. Today, California and many other states don't even allow this kind of epoxy to be sold.

 

 

 

 

Carry On

Back to the beginning. When I first arrived at the McCarran jobsite, I was told that I must go immediately to the FAA offices and obtain my security clearance and badge. There was no access to much of the work without that all important badge.

I found the FAA offices and completed the paperwork and a photo was taken, but it was going to be a few days before I was given the badge; security checks had to be made first.

That first day I wandered through the various concourses and reviewed the work we were doing in those public areas. All was going well.

The next day I was summoned by radio to look at a problem that the fireproofing crew had in the baggage area. Oops! I radioed back and said I wouldn't be able to go there as I didn't have my badge yet. "You got your hard hat on?" was the next question. Sure. "OK, meet me at the Southwest counter in a few minutes."

I met the fireproofing foreman out in the public area where he told me that a hard hat would be sufficient for entry. And he was right. I spent the rest of the day working in all of those secure areas; my hard hat and a 2-way radio was enough authority for most everyone I encountered.

A note about those baggage areas…

Almost everyone has seen the slow and stately progress of their checked luggage as it travels within the ticketing area and then through the small opening that hides it from further view. That's a good thing. You don't want to see what happens to your luggage after it exits the ticketing area.

Chaos! The line accelerates and the bags go flying. Not necessarily with you. As I walked over and around the conveyor machinery, I would spot bags that had fallen off and were now hidden under the machinery. How long had they been there? Baggage in huge piles that didn't seem to have function or identity.

Now you know…

Sunny Las Vegas

After the Sierra Pacific Power Company building, there weren't a lot of big projects in town; Reno had run into a building slump, and so when I was asked if I wanted to go to Las Vegas for a couple of weeks to help out on a project down there, I was happy to go. The project was called McCarran 2000 and it was a remodel and expansion of the McCarran International Airport.

This was going to be a new experience for me as I had never worked on an airport before. I learned quickly.

Shortly after arriving in Las Vegas I rented a car until I could find a spare company truck to use. I heard that we had a few 'beaters' on the site and one of those would be sufficient for my daily transportation. Following directions, I found the motel where the Reno crew would stay while in Las Vegas. The company had rented some rooms near the airport and that was convenient. In fact, everything about the job was convenient! I would get on a plane (Sunworld Airlines) early on a Monday morning in Reno. Fly quickly to Las Vegas and get off the plane right there at the jobsite; the airport. Our superintendent was always waiting for us at the gate with a long list of problems! Then, on Friday, we would reverse that procedure and head north to Reno, leaving the problems behind us till the following Monday.

I had been told that the job would require my help for just a few weeks. And within the first week it was obvious that wasn't going to happen. I would need to be there much longer.

First, a description of the work. That included the all new terminal 'C'. New ticketing facilities throughout the old terminals and new ceilings throughout the concourses. Plus a dozen smaller projects scattered throughout the airport property. As a major subcontractor, we worked under contract with a general contractor (Stolte Inc.) that had a contract with the Construction Manager; Bechtel, Inc. All of this contract language had us tied up in a dozen different directions. We had always worked in northern Nevada before this and most work had been agreed to by a handshake and an eventual contract. That was not going to be the case here. These people played 'hardball'.

Our project manager was particularly bothered by the amount of paperwork that Bechtel generated and so it was decided that I would help him with that by simply being his presence in the field while he battled the bureaucrats.

I had a superintendent and 3 or 4 foreman to take care of the actual work direction and it was going well, considering the fact that we had crews scattered throughout the entire airport and I spent most of my time walking from one problem to another. And talking on a 2-way radio. If you have ever been to the Las Vegas airport, you know how large it is. I got a good workout every day. Twice a day I would get back to our jobsite trailer and then go to the Stolte trailer to pick up the flood of paper that was being generated.

It didn't look too bad at first, but each piece of paper required a response. Which generated another piece of paper. We would receive about 2" of paper every day, plus innumerable sets of drawings. Revisions upon revisions and they all had to be checked to see if they contained any contract changes. So you had to compare each drawing with the originals plus the revisions that you had already priced. And take care of business. Overwhelming!

We soon decided that 'overwhelmed' was exactly what Bechtel and Stolte wanted us to be. True or not, it certainly felt that way. I remember that once or twice a week, I would take some of my papers that needed work and get on the automated tram that took passengers out to the 'C' concourse. Then I would walk all of the way out to the end and find a chair. At that remote distance, I was just out of radio range and could spend 30 minutes of uninterrupted time, doing the paperwork that couldn't be put off; like figuring out the payroll for the week.

Finally

Once the Boardroom and the executive offices were complete, there wasn't much more for me to do…except for the 'punch list'.

If you don't know, the punch list refers to the beginning stage for the final approval and acceptance of the building and all of its systems. The architect or his representative will examine the building, room by room and note any discrepancies. That list of discrepancies, the punch list, is then given to the various sub-contractors to use as they remedy…or challenge the items.

True, sometimes we didn't agree with the architect and negotiations would follow. We couldn't refuse to do the work, even if we thought there was an error because they held the final payment. The power of the purse.

In this case, the architect handed over the punch list duties to the owner. Violent disagreement erupted from all of our offices! The architect has a role to play and he is supposed to represent the owner. The architect has the duty to perform the punch list. Giving that duty to the owner wrong; legally and ethically. As subcontractors we were pretty low in the food chain and the architect had a duty to protect us from unscrupulous or ignorant owners.

After much discussion, it was resolved; the owner would perform the punch list under direct guidance of the architect. We weren't happy, but we did want our money and soon. So at least this part of the job would move forward.

We all (the subcontractors) knew when and where the owners inspection was going to begin and we waited eagerly to see how it was going work. The inspectors had been issued yellow Post-It notepads to identify the items that needed correction and we thought that made sense; after all, who wants to read items that might say, "Touch up paint NW corner of room 1123, 6" from corner and 47" from the floor". A Post-It note right on the offending spot would make it easy to send painters back to do the work.

The inspectors left the first room and we walked in to see… almost every visible portion of the walls and ceilings covered with yellow notes! Hundreds of them! Literally!

Another violent disagreement took place almost immediately as we stormed architect's trailer. We insisted that he come out to the room in question and see for himself. I can report that he was stunned and silent. And he quickly agreed with us. More training was given to the inspectors and after a few months of plucking yellow notes off of the walls, we were through!

 
 

 
 

  

As seen from a satellite

The Sierra Pacific Power office building project was almost done. And what a project it had become. Close to two years for completion. From the time I arrived when there were just a few pieces of steel coming out of the ground till the end, when the completed building sat in a huge park, complete with streams and a lake. (they had to do something expensive with that underground river!)

And then there was the Board Room. It could be thought of as a major project all of its own. It was located on the 4^th floor, the Executive floor, where every Vice-President had an office with a view. And each office was exactly the same size. Exactly. When we began to layout the walls, we were told that these executives would probably measure their office and that of their rivals. And they did. Once we started the work, those VP's would show up every day to see if their office was being slighted in any way. And they all carried tape measures.

The wall coverings alone were worth over $250,000. Material only. Wool broadcloth at $110 a yard and used as wallpaper. I kept the wall coverings in the safe, also located on that floor. And the plans changed almost daily as the executives were inspired by seeing what another VP was doing to his office.

Back to the Board Room. It was the last thing that was designed by the architect. Until we actually began the work, that floor was simply a blank on the drawings. And since the floor was not on the bid drawings, we were able to do the work for a guaranteed fee over and above the cost of the materials. And what a fee it was!

We spent months on the boardroom alone. A room that wasn't much bigger than 40' x 40'. And at one time we had a dozen people; painters, working on the ceiling of that room.

I only wish that I had a few photos of the room. Polaroid was the technology of the day and I might have taken a few with the jobsite camera, but I have no idea if the prints remain.

Odds and Ends. All of the glass at the Command level (3^rd Floor) and the ground floor (Accounting) was bullet proof.

The original site was planted in grass with wandering paths alongside the artificial streams. These paths were also made into a PAR course for the employees. The streams were actually re-circulated water from the stream beneath the basement. Pumped up at the west end of the property and wandering through the streambeds and then back down again at the west end.

The migratory Canadian Geese loved the grass! Sierra Pacific hired a hunter to keep them away, but Fish and Game put a stop to that and they had to resort to using Carbide cannons to scare them. This worked for about a day. After that, the geese owned the property!

Today, I used Google Earth to see what the site looks like now and I see that the people who loved asphalt have won. The park is gone.

39°28'26.02"N Latitude

119°46'59.36"W Longitude

Spray Here

The Sierra Pacific Power project continued on and once the prefabricated brick wall panels were in place and the inside temperature was stabilized, we began the finish work; paint and wall coverings.

Ordinarily I was the Project Manager for the framing and drywall/lath and plaster portions of a project. Most times I was pulled off the job early and moved to another project that was just breaking ground. But not this time. There weren't many projects in the schedule and so the decision was made for me to remain and direct the work with the painters.

Solari and Sons, my employer, had always been a painting and decorating contractor and the kind of work that I did was somewhat new to the company. And the painters treated us as if we were step-children. OK, I could live with that. I just wanted to learn.

I knew the painting foreman by reputation; tough! So I introduced myself and told him that I would need all of the help I could get; that I would depend on him to educate me. It took awhile but we became friends. I would seek him out and ask his advice for every major decision and that helped.

And one major decision was soon to be made; the specifications called for a urethane finish on all of the exposed wood. That was every door and all of the trim. One of the painters, another foreman, told me that if we could change the spec's and finish the wood in lacquer, we could have a better looking job and at half the price. So we finished some samples and submitted the request along with a very modest decrease in the contract value. The customer bought it! And we were looking at a great profit if we could pull it off. For the problem with lacquer is the extreme flammability of the product when you are applying it. Plus the temperature had to be just right. Where were we going to find a place to spray it?

We were almost ready to rent a warehouse for the spraying when someone mentioned the basement. Half of the basement consisted of parking for the executives. And there were lots of them! So we were looking at almost 40,000 square feet of bare floor space. Plus, the basement had 2 very large exhaust fans to clear vehicle exhaust. A plan was made.

We turned the parking area into a huge spray booth; closing off all entrances with poly sheeting. Large propane heaters were brought down and turned on to warm the basement and the wood.

Once everything was ready to be sprayed, we barricaded the entrances, turned off the heaters and turned on the fans to vent the fumes. We couldn't risk an open flame or spark of any kind.

Well, it worked and beautifully. Although every time we had a 'spray day' I was tense and nervous until they came and told me that they had finished. You see, we hadn't told the customer about some of the dangers inherent in the use of lacquer. And I certainly didn't want to be the one to explain why the basement just blew up!

Yes, the painters had reassured me many times that nothing was going to happen; that they had it covered… but!

 

Pay Here

Spring soon became summer and despite the well meaning efforts of the QC team, we were making progress. The basement walls were framed and drywall was applied. Taping and painting followed and since the basement was always at a uniform temperature, we decided to keep our tools down there. We would all meet there early in the morning and enjoy a cup of coffee before opening the 'gang' boxes and beginning work at 7.

One morning, as I was about to go down the stairs, I noticed that the lights were out and it was pitch black in the basement. I hunted around on the first floor for the temporary power box that fed the basement and found it connected and it appeared to be on. I assumed that a circuit breaker must have failed so I grabbed a flashlight and went down the stairs. Oops! My flashlight revealed that the basement was filling with water! The water was easily 5 foot deep and climbing.

The construction management team found the problem at about the same time and quickly disconnected all the power to the basement. Pretty soon there were half a dozen pumps in action as they tried to drain the basement. This took most of the day and that night and it wasn't until the next day that we could go back down and see what damage had been done.

As I had written earlier, this building sat directly in the path of a underground river and a very large and powerful sump pump had been installed to keep the basement dry. This pump had been placed on a 'dedicated' circuit so that it would never be without power. 'Never' is a funny word. Not to be trusted!

With the pump in operation again and an army of laborers mopping and vacuuming, it was time to assess the damage. And there was plenty. The walls had been painted and since they had also been insulated, the insulation had become wet and soggy. We had to open up all the walls and remove tons of wet fiberglass. Along with tons of soggy drywall.

Of course we were paid for the damage, as were all of the other trades that had been affected by the power outage. And it was quite a bill!

Something to remember; the power company paid us. After all, it was their building and it was their circuit that had failed. But they simply passed these costs on to the rate payers. Their customers. So this decision to build in the middle of an underground river was already costing the customers of Sierra Pacific and would continue to do so as the building continued.

A War

As winter faded away, we began to improve our production and I added more people to the crew. And so did the customer; Sierra Pacific Power Company. The general contractor, or 'Construction Management' firm had built a small complex of trailers to house themselves, the architect (Black and Veatch) and the customer representatives. These representatives were going to be the Quality Control team to ensure that their building was all that it could be!

At first, there were only 3 rep's on the QC team but it grew. Of course it did. Sierra Pacific was a public utility and they don't know of any other way of doing business, except add more manpower to any project. Which meant another trailer to be added to the 4 that were already there.

And they were a curious bunch, these QC guys. You couldn't do any work at all without finding one of them peering over your shoulder and then quickly consulting their well worn copy of the project specifications.

It was soon obvious that no one on the project was trusted by the QC Team. Bad feelings! As typical construction workers, we banded together with all of the other trades and presented a united front to them. We could wage a specification 'war' as well as they could! And we did.

It took a long session with the architect to resolve our difficulties, but the architect sided with us and spent some time with his customers, explaining how buildings were actually built. Public utilities may know power… but they don't know construction.

The QC Team retreated, war was over and we continued on and back on schedule… for awhile.

More Winter

That winter at the Sierra Pacific site was brutal. Because of the slow start when an underground river was found below the building, we were working up on the steel decks in the middle of January. The ironworkers would get up as much steel as they could on the sunny days and then it was time for us to climb up there and drop hanger wires through the deck before the next sunny day; a day when they would pour concrete if the temperatures were reasonable. So, storms or not, we had to get the wires dropped. Snow and ice was everywhere and we had to move cautiously near the edge. It was only a 4 story building but that still meant a 60' fall from the roof if you slipped on the ice. There were days when I wouldn't let anyone get up on the building and that would put us behind schedule. And that meant we were sometimes back up on the decks when the concrete was being pumped, just trying to stay ahead of the 'mud'.

We had thousands of wires to drop. Each was 12' long and made of #8 galvanized wire with a 'pigtail' loop at one end. This loop had to be positioned just right so that the concrete would flow through the 'pigtail' and hold it. To drop the wires, we first had to layout the pattern of the future ceiling below us by locating the walls. Then we would use a heavily weighted 4' long piece of rebar with a sharpened tip on the end to punch a hole in the deck. With 3 or 4 of us punching on the deck, the noise level grew quite high! While we were dropping the wires, we each carried a bundle of 50 wires on our shoulder and tried to locate the holes and then thread the wire through them.

And when we weren't on the high decks, we were down in the basement, trying to layout and snap chalk lines to locate the walls we would be building. The basement was covered at that time as the concrete had been poured on the first floor level. But, concrete is not waterproof and all that melting snow from the floors above us would slowly trickle down into the basement; dripping on us continually.

I mentioned snapping chalk lines for the walls; because conventional chalk was just floating away in the water and not making a good line, we starting using 'lamp black', a pure carbon form of chalk. It would work right through the water, creating a sharp black line that wouldn't wash away. It also wouldn't wash away from your skin and clothes. We were quite a sight each day as we emerged from the dark and cold basement, bundled in filthy clothes and parkas, our faces black from the chalk.

Goodbye

I was thinking the other day that I have spent some time writing here about my jobs but not a lot of time writing about what I did before work entered my life. That would be back in the days of childhood, from age 4 to 10. Hmmm? I hadn't thought about that before…it's only six years. At the age of 10 or 11, I was jumping into the world of commerce by mowing lawns and delivering papers. I even went door to door as a magazine subscription salesman. Bye-bye childhood.

But what did I do for fun? As a child? Being an asthmatic, I got to spend far too much time at home and in bed. And my mother had to devise ways for me to entertain myself. One of her ideas was to give me modeling clay; the kind that never hardens and has the ability to stay locked forever within the fibers of the carpet. Great stuff! And I loved it; making armies and castles. Making automobiles and submarines. And I could merge the clay with all of my other activities; such as Tinker Toys and Erector sets.

And I loved to draw. Sketch. Doodle. Nothing ever came of it; I never became a 'famous artist'. I did have a dream of going to the Art Center and graduating from that famous school. I read everything I could about the school and I thought that would be heaven; to spend your days in class being 'artistic'. There didn't seem to be any work involved. But money was involved and so I didn't get to go. That and the fact that I wasn't able to focus on one thing long enough to become really good at it.

That probably explains why I enjoyed construction so much. I could enjoy each project because I knew that there was an end to it. I would finish and then move on to another. Never bored. In fact, the jobs that lasted over a year at the same site were dreaded. I enjoyed the size and the scope of such projects but hated the duration! Whenever a project came down to the last few weeks, I was more than ready to turn it over to someone else to finish so that I could begin another.

I thought, and still do…that working at the same job and in the same place for 30+ years would be worst possible fate that could befall a person.

Only The Best

Our fishing trip was in the fall of that year and pretty soon winter time descended on the jobsite. And Reno can become quite cold. Snow and ice were soon part of our normal work day.

And that work day began when we would leave Janesville very early in the morning and make our way, carefully, over the 75 miles of two lane highway into Reno. I say 'we' because my daughter, Alicia, had agreed to work with me as my 'secretary'. We had an old construction trailer pulled onto the site and hooked up to some power; enough for some lights and a miniature heater. My boss didn't want to spend any money on fixing the old wall furnace that was in the trailer, and so while I was out on the jobsite all day, Alicia was stuck in the cold trailer, doing my filing and copying tasks, while never straying far from the heater. We closed all of the other rooms in the trailer in an attempt to keep it above freezing in there.

At this point, the basement walls and slab had been poured. A most difficult task as there was an underground river flowing through the site. There was layer of clay about 20' down and the river ran on top of that clay. They had to drill a dozen de-watering wells around the foundation and keep the pumps going 24/7. Once the walls were poured, the pumps would be shut down and a very large sump pump in the basement would take over. This pump was on a dedicated circuit, one that could never be shut down, as at this stage; the basement would 'pop' up out of the ground if the groundwater was allowed to accumulate under it. Only after the weight of the entire building was resting there would it be safe for an occasional power outage.

Some info on the 'river'. The existence of this water was not known when the plans were drawn and it was only when a D9 Caterpillar broke through during the excavating, that it was discovered. The driver of the 'Cat' got off just in time as it dropped into the river in the desert. It then took two Cats to get it back out!

Back to the drawing boards. Besides adding a huge sump pump and an ingenious landscaping plan that utilized the water to create a myriad of streams across what was once sagebrush and alkali, the new plans required a lengthy delay. This is why we were doing this prelim work in the winter. Ah! But the plans…very lovely and quite expensive. You see; the basement could have been abandoned as its only function was that of the executive parking lot. A nicely heated and undercover parking garage. Snow should never fall on a VP's head. And besides, the rate payers would be paying for the building anyway. Wouldn't they want the very best for the executives that labored in this building?

Fishing

After a time I was back in Reno and the California projects were finished and faded from memory. Solari & Sons never got a foothold in the business there and transport across the Sierra's was always a headache. And since the company had most of the state to themselves, there was always plenty of work in Nevada.

And one of the projects I began was the new Sierra Pacific Power Company headquarters' building, located south of town, near Moana Lane. At first glance, just a simple 4-story office building.

But, after I received the construction drawings and began to plan for the project, I finally saw the true scale of the building. It was huge. Even today, if you drive by, you see the office building located in the middle of large and beautifully landscaped park like setting. The scale can only be appreciated when you're up close to it. And since there is a guard at the gate, most people don't see it up close at all.

NVE was going to be the construction manager on the project and I was told that the superintendent was going to be 'Smitty', a person that I had had some angry run-in's with in the past. He had been the superintendent on the Meadowwood Mall project and although we weren't working directly for him, he had tried his best to direct our work as he saw fit. That didn't happen because I told him 'no!' and some shouting ensued. Oh, oh! I was looking at project that might run for a full year and I would have to be polite all of that time. Could I do it?

It didn't look good at first; Smitty remembered me and told my boss that he didn't want me on the project. After some negotiations and apologies all around, a settlement was made and I was given a spot to set our job trailer. My home away from home!

And then, just to make certain that bygones were really bygones, I was told by my boss, Al Solari, to ask Smitty to join me on a fishing trip. We were going to go fishing on a private lake that is located off of the Mount Rose Highway and just below the crest leading to Tahoe. Little Lake was the name and there was a lodge and caretaker at the lake. Boats were available and the caretaker would handle all of the arrangements for us.

A little info on the lake; it had been purchased many years ago by the 'movers and shakers' of the Reno business community. Ascuaga, Solari, Quilici, etc. It was very private and only used by the principals and those they favored. OK, so I was favored once. But only once.

Smitty and I drove up together and didn't have much to say to each other. But after we got out onto the lake and Smitty and I started catching fish; our differences faded away. This was fun! We were both fly fishing and we could do nothing wrong that morning. And since it was a workday and there were no 'millionaires' on the lake; we had it all to ourselves.

That fishing trip removed all of the barriers that had grown between Smitty and me and we became good friends.

Crossing A Bridge

The Clarion Hotel project continued on as the Sacramento project finished up and I was soon spending all of my weekdays in Millbrae. And I soon discovered that if I wanted to get home to Lassen County before midnight, I would have to be on the Bay Bridge and headed east by 1 PM on a Friday. Any time later than that and the traffic was simply horrendous.

Winter time was the worst. In miles traveled, it made more sense to drive up I-80 and into Reno before heading north to Janesville. But Donner Pass is one of the few roads where chain controls are rigidly enforced and my company truck was not a 4-wheel drive model. When chains were required, I had to put them on. And join the crowd in the right lane that was traveling at 20 mph.

If I chose to travel the alternate route, Highways 32 and 36, I had to deal with roads that were not plowed or poorly plowed. Scary times going over Fredonyer Pass in a blizzard! Plus, these roads were lightly traveled in the winter and there’s definitely safety in numbers.

Once safely home on a Friday night, I had to start planning for a return trip on Sunday evening. Would there be a storm? Which way should I go? And one of my monumental mistakes had me sitting in traffic on I-80 in Verdi, Nevada. Thousands of us waited as the CHP directed 50 cars at a time over the pass at Donner. It took me 11 hours to go from Reno to Sacramento.

OK, back to work. Some of the panels for the Clarion were quite large and we needed to get an oversized load permit from CalTrans so that we could get them over the mountain.

Here’s how that works. You contact CalTrans and tell them all about your load. Size, height and weight. Origin and destination. You can tell them when you would like to make the trip…but they will tell you. And they also tell you which roads you can take and at what hours. It’s all pretty tightly controlled. As it should be. Until your truck gets to the toll plaza at the Bay Bridge. That was where the CHP directed our truck to join a few other ‘Wide Loads’ just west of the toll booths. The officer then said that in a few minutes, the toll booths would shutdown just long enough for these three trucks to get in gear and head for the bridge itself. He said, “You’ve only got a minute, so straddle the white lines and don’t let those b******d’s get ahead of you!” It worked.

Moving On Some More

Eventually the pile driving was complete and the old hotel stopped moving and we finished up our repairs without any more problems. Then it was time to start on the hoisting and installation of the prefinished skin of the building. The panels had been finished and stored in Reno so all I had to do was call the plant and let them know which ones I wanted. The truck would be loaded and on it’s way in a day. And the panels were finished in a dark brown color, so I didn’t have to worry about them being ‘smoked’ by the truck as they came over Donner Pass.

Interesting. I was parked near the corner of the project site, studying some detail on the blueprints that were lying on the hood of my truck. I was probably 50 yards away from the off ramp at Millbrae Avenue. Suddenly, I noticed that the truck was vibrating! It was bouncing up and down. Slightly. Nothing dramatic, but it certainly got my attention. I looked up and saw a concrete truck passing by on the Bayshore Freeway. As it moved north and away from us, the vibrations faded away as well. Sure enough, the soil in this part of the bay was less than solid and if you paid close attention, you could even feel the vibration of ordinary traffic, 300’ feet away from the freeway!

So, what would happen during an earthquake? I found out a few weeks later. I was in my hotel room/office and making a phone call to our Reno office when I suddenly felt the room shaking. Violently. I said goodbye in mid-sentence and headed down the stairs. Probably not the smartest thing to do…

Moving

While the Sacramento project continued on schedule and was even making some money, the estimators in Reno had been busy securing more work in California for me to run. We were going to be involved in the construction of the AC Transit headquarters building in Oakland and the new and remodeled Clarion Hotel in Millbrae.

Now I had to spend part of each week driving over to the Bay area to check on progress and determine when I would need full crews at each location. You couldn’t always depend on the General contractor to call you in time. They always assumed that you had a crew for them, just standing around and waiting to be called. Not.

AC Transit (Alameda County Transit) was located just off of East 14^th Street. And in a very undesirable location. I remember that you turned left just a few blocks from the East Bay Drifters motorcycle gang clubhouse. And the East Bay Dragons MC was close by.

I already knew the General contractor’s superintendent from a time spent in Reno on another job, so we had a good relationship. And he told me that just about everyone on the jobsite was ‘packin’. Guns in their lunch pails and guns in their vehicles. The jobsite itself was fenced with razor wire and everyone parked their car on the site and not on the street outside. Culture shock!

I talked a couple of likely guys into becoming foreman and distributed the plans and spec’s to them so that they might become familiar with the jobs.

The AC Transit project, except for location, was a pretty straight forward job. No mystery and I wasn’t going to worry about it. But the Clarion hotel was a different story. It was located near the end of the runway at San Francisco International Airport and close enough that the FAA had jurisdiction over the type of construction we were doing and the height of that construction. It was also a ‘panel’ job and that meant that the exterior skin of the hotel was going to be built in Reno and then trucked to the jobsite, where we would hoist it into place. And that’s where the FAA got involved.

We needed a crane for this work and the General contractor had one for us to use. A very special one that sat on railroad tracks located next to the building. It was a tower crane, but one that could quickly move to the end of the tracks and then lower itself to the ground whenever the FAA called to tell us they were going to use that runway for southbound take-off’s. Pretty cool! Except for the fact that we had no idea as to when they would call and so all of our schedules depended on which way the wind was blowing. A wind from the south meant we couldn’t use the crane until it shifted…but then we would be behind schedule! A no-win situation.

But first, before we could even begin new work, we had to repair the old hotel. Since the new hotel was being built on fill dirt and who knew what else that had been placed in the bay a long time ago, pilings had to be driven into the muck to support the new construction. As there is a law of physics that says there is a reaction to every action, sure enough, every piling driven in was raising the old hotel a few inches at a time. After a couple hundred hammer blows, the old 3-story hotel was about a foot off of its original elevation and water and sewer pipes were breaking every day. Plus, walls and ceilings were now cracked and broken. A big job for us and all extra work. $$$$

Back in Sacramento

The L Street project had continued without any delays while I was gone and although I would have enjoyed a few days at home after a working vacation, it was not to be. I was right back in my apartment in Sacramento and making the short trip downtown every morning.

And I shared that apartment with a fireproofer, Joe Tiki. He had been the number one nozzleman in Reno and we needed that kind of talent on this large project. Before I could hang (weld) panels on the outside frame, Joe had to have fireproofed them with Monokote fireproofing spray.

A little background. Fireproofing (and some plaster) is applied with a Thomsen ‘Tommy Gun’ fireproofing pump. Powerful! It will spray a bag a minute in high gear and that means the machine is literally screaming. It uses air pressure to diffuse the mix at the nozzle and in high gear; this produces a screaming sound that requires ear plugs. Plus you have to hold the gun hose between your legs while you maneuver the ‘whip hose’ to spray the structural steel. That hose pulses with each stroke of the piston; and has been known to jerk a shooter right off of their feet if the hose develops a ‘pack’ (Material that suddenly hardens in the hose and won’t pump any further.) All of this is happening while you are standing on a wet and slippery plank. Said plank is sometimes 20’- or more above the floor. In fact, my favorite memory image of Joe has him standing on one plank, laid across a couple of scaffolds and spanning the elevator shaft. He was walking, spraying and talking to me at the same time; and probably close to 200’ above the floor at the time.

Joe was a real craftsman; a one-eyed craftsman. He had lost his left eye in a plaster hose blowout; an altogether too common occurrence among plasterers who worked the ‘guns’. He wore a patch on his eye while working, so there were plenty of superintendents who questioned his ability. After all, you have to spray the fireproofing on evenly and to within 1/8” of an inch in thickness. Could he do that with one eye? Oh, yes!

And after work, Joe went without the patch, except while going out for dinner. Now there was a real chore; trying to talk to Joe while looking at one good eye and one that was white and shrunken into the socket. That took awhile, but then, after a few weeks, I forgot about it. But it was fun to watch others when confronted with Joe's odd eye.

Last story from camp.

This was our last camp on the base, and as we set up the mangers, Judy warned us that we were in rattlesnake country and to keep an eye out for them. He had seen this camp many years ago and remembered that fact. Well, we were working in thick grass that was at least 3’ tall; it was difficult to see our own boots, let alone a snake!

But sure enough, one was found. Judy quickly trapped it under his boot and removed its head. Now we were doubly nervous. How many cousins did that snake have? We began to move slowly; very slowly. And one of my tasks was to crawl under the hay truck with a logging chain to wrap around the axle as we made the heavy truck a ‘deadman’ for the long line of mangers. I wasn’t happy about that! I grabbed a pole and beat the grass thoroughly before getting down on my hands and knees.

While we finished up, Judy skinned the snake and took the meat down to the cook’s. We were having appetizers tonight! Quite a few as the snake was about 5’ long.

Pretty soon the riders showed up and we no longer worried about snakes; the vibration caused by 150 horses milling about is guaranteed to send any and all snakes to a deep hole in the ground. Or to the next county.

Once the bar was set up, we grabbed our drinks and the plate filled with breaded and fried rattlesnake. Very good. Tastes just like chicken…but you knew that, right?

And then a real treat. Once dinner was over and the horses were all watered and settled in, we got permission from Judy to walk down the road about a mile to a neighboring camp; the barracks of a howitzer battalion. We brought along our soap and towels and begged for a chance to use their showers. They were most gracious and invited us in. What bliss!

Camp Pendleton Continued

Our dreams of a lakeside camp evaporated, much like the water in the lake itself. But we had riders and 150 horses to think about and they would soon be riding in and expecting to see the mangers standing and filled with hay. And water for their horses. Water? It turned out that we had a ‘dry’ camp. The only water available was going to be the remains of the lake and it was located a couple of hundred yards away from the manger line. Too far!

Luckily, we had a Marine Corps Liaison officer with us. Groups like ours weren’t allowed to simply wander about the base unescorted, and so we asked him what he could do for us? The Marines quickly came to our rescue with ‘water buffaloes’, large trailers with water tanks on them and as many as we needed. And each came with a jeep and a Marine to make certain they were replaced as soon as they ran dry.

And since they had selected Privates to deliver this water, they would stand at attention and call us ‘Sir’ every time we spoke to them. Fun! After a week on the ride, there was finally someone lower than us on the social scale.

Spring Break

Earlier in this blog, I wrote about the spring vacations I would take each year and spend a week working as a wrangler on a trail ride. The DeAnza Trail Caballeros was the name of the group and there were always 150 riders and horses. Plus, 7 wranglers and assorted cooks and bottle washers. And the route always took us somewhere into the deserts of Southern California.

One of those years had us scheduled to visit Camp Pendleton as we trekked in from the desert side of this huge Marine Corps base. I had been told that we would enjoy a few nights camping out on the beach and after a couple of days of horse babysitting in the desert; that sounded just right!

Like all well made plans, this one came to an end rather quickly. As soon as we entered the base, we were told that the Marines were using the beach for amphibious assault training and we were going to have to go elsewhere. We were given an escort and told to follow that jeep to our campsite.

We were within smelling distance of the beach when the jeep stopped and told us that our camp for the night was just a right turn and a few miles away. The driver of the jeep handed Judy, our head wrangler, a map and headed back where he had come from. We all studied the map which showed us camping near a lake? OK, not the ocean, but a lake would be nice. Now all we had to do was get there. The right turn that had been mentioned was a jeep trail down into a dry wash, up again and then another jeep trail along the side of a steep mountain.

Jeep trails are just dandy for jeeps. But I was driving a 10 wheeler, a hay truck, fully loaded. And we had our 24’ box truck, plus a couple of pickups with horse trailers attached. And since the hay truck was the slowest when loaded, I was going to be the last one to cross the wash and up the hill.

So I sat and waited while watching the others, hoping to pick up some knowledge of the best route through the wash. Yikes! It was scary… as one after another, the vehicles came close to wrecking. I watched as the box truck came up on one side, teetering, and then fell back onto its wheels. Safe.

The other drivers walked back to tell me how to do it. I volunteered to let them show me instead. None fell for it. The only real good advice I got was to not slow down, no matter what. Pedal to the floor, get into second gear, if I could, before I hit the opposite side of the wash and then make a hard right at the top. More speed and don’t look down while traversing the side of the hill.

Off the edge I went; 15 tons of hay swaying and scaring the heck out of me as the truck rolled and pitched. I double clutched and got it into second about halfway across the wash and then accelerated for the narrow trail ahead.

“Turn hard right at the top” was my mantra and as soon as the front wheels cleared the top I spun the wheel and felt the load pulling me over to the left. It was one of those slow motion moments. I remember watching the faces of the other wranglers as they stood nearby to watch my attempt. They were all grinning! Jerks!

Then, with a crash, I was back on level ground for a moment and heading for the side of the hill…just as planned. The side hill climb was a piece of cake after the crossing and I relaxed. A few more minutes and I was around the mountain and looking at our camp site and a mud puddle. The lake.

Just Do It!

After a few hiccups, we were soon sailing along, panels flying up onto the building on a regular basis and making the schedule work. The real puzzle would come later when we reached a level where our ‘dinosaurs’ wouldn’t work any longer. And for that work we would need a large crane, but it had to be mobile. The city wasn’t going to allow us to block off this important street for more than 4 hours at a time, and a ‘crawler’ type of crane with a fixed boom length would require just that much time to get ready for the first hoist. I would need a very tall self-propelled hydraulic crane. And a very expensive one at that.

After some discussion with the general contractor, we figured out a way to have that same crane hoist material for the roofer and HVAC contractor; that would ease the burden by splitting the cost 3 ways. But it would mean that I would have to wait until those other contractors were ready. In the meantime, I arranged for our 15 ton Link-Belt hydro to be delivered from our warehouse in Reno. It only had a 125’ of boom on it, but it would help.

The Link-Belt was an odd piece of equipment; it had been purchased to hoist panels at our Lake Tahoe Harvey’s project because it was an all terrain crane, the kind with the really big tires! It had to work in snow and ice and those tires were perfect for that. But there was no snow or ice in Sacramento and the tires became a liability as they couldn’t be driven more than 25 mph and must be rested (cooled off) every ten miles. Our office and yard were about 10 miles away and it was a slow drive every morning.

A memory; we had a crane operator but I would sometimes operate it when he was busy doing something else. (We used him as general labor at times) And when it came time to send the crane back to Reno, a truck with a lowboy trailer arrived and it became my job to get the crane onto the trailer. Well, those big tires hung over the trailer by about six inches on each side. This left about 2’ of tire still on the trailer, but each time I went to drive on the ramp, I would look down and see nothing but air beneath the tire on my side. Yikes! And I would quickly back away. The poor truck driver kept signaling me that all was fine, that I was doing it right, but without being able to see the right side of the trailer; my senses kept telling me that I was heading for a fall. And I would back off…about 6 times in a row before I decided to close my eyes and go for it. Very embarrassing!

Dinosaurs

Once we had a trailer load of panels in our storage space next to the building, we would inspect them to see if they needed any repairs after their journey across Donner Pass. And we always had some damage. The most irritating damage was having the panels ‘smoked’. The owner of the building had decided on a white synthetic plaster finish and all it took to ruin the looks of them was diesel exhaust blowing across the panel surface for 100 miles or more. A poorly tuned diesel at that. The first truckload was delivered without being tarped and they had large black streaks on them, plus some additional damage from the binders that held them in place. I had to insist on tarps from then on, but that persistent smoke could still find its way onto the load; turning the outer panels a light gray in color.

After the repairs were complete, we had to find a way to move the huge panels from the trailer and over to a spot on the ground below where they were to be installed. We had a large forklift and some portable stop signs and we would try and halt traffic just long enough to move down L Street and place the panel, resting upright, against the building. Halting traffic without a permit was frowned upon by the authorities and getting a permit each time we needed 5 minutes of hauling time was more trouble than it was worth.

Up on the 6^th floor were our hoisting machines. Nicknamed ‘dinosaurs’, they had a short boom section coupled to a 220 volt 2 phase motor and some reduction gears that would allow it to hoist about 3,000 pounds. Each ‘dinosaur’ had wheels and counterweights to allow for heavy lifting. Plus, a section of pipe that we would raise to the deck above us, clamping the ‘dinosaur’ in place.

And since the ‘dinosaur’ couldn’t always be directly above the panel to be lifted, we used ‘snatch blocks’ to reroute the hoisting cable to a spot where it would work best. It was all improvisation and sometimes the cable was running at 45° to the ground and then back again, depending on what kind of obstructions we had to deal with. No one had ever done this before and so every time we successfully lifted a panel and welded it in place, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I almost forgot to mention the trees; the City of Sacramento was quite proud of it’s designation as a Tree City and the building permit stipulated that NO tree was to be removed or damaged during the construction of the building. Unfortunately, some existing trees were growing right over the building. This meant that sometimes we had to arrive on the jobsite at 6 in the morning while it was still dark. When the sun rose at 7, the offending branch was usually gone and the dumpster was full and covered.

Back in Sacramento…

Progress on the 777 L Street job was slow at first. The first 5 floors were made for parking and so the building was very ordinary at that point; rectangular. But once the building rose past the 6^th floor, there were all sorts of setbacks and jutting balconies to be framed. And by the time the building topped out with a heliport on the 17^th floor, it had a much smaller footprint at that level. To help the crew, and me, I decided to build a model of the building. I bought the heavy card stock and glue and an X-Acto knife. I spent my evenings at the ‘company apartment’ cutting and gluing until I had it completed. Now I could share my ‘vision’ with the crew. (Imagine how easily it can be done today with BIM)

It didn’t take long for the panel plant in Reno to build the panels that would enclose the lower parking levels. They were quite ordinary in appearance and wouldn’t take us long to install; except for one thing - I mentioned the building footprint; well, at ground level, the building took up all of the available working and storage space on three sides. The west side was a short and private alleyway and at most we could put one trailer load of panels in there. And only if the truck driver was good enough to snake a 40’ flat in there…backing it in from a very busy L Street.

A memory; I was standing on the 6^th floor and looking east up L Street. As far as I could see, (a long way!) cars were stopped in the west bound lanes. There was no traffic in the east bound lanes. Horns were blaring. And directly below me was our truck, jackknifed across all four lanes and up onto the sidewalk as the driver fought to slip the trailer through that narrow 12’ opening.

BIM -

Building Information Modeling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Progress.

When I started in the construction business, 'blue line' drawings were new and the standard was still an architectural drawing made with white lines on a dark blue background. And you had to have a certain skill to be able to make sense of those drawings. Spatial relationships. And not everyone was capable of it.

Luckily for me, I was able to make sense of them and interpreting these drawings became my career.

Then came CAD, computer aided drawings that could quickly be changed and reprinted. But they were still just lines on a piece of paper.

But BIM... a revolution! I only wish I was there to take part in it.

Where was I?

Let's see...I have finished the Steakhouse story and I've probably told you enough about Saint Mary's Hospital. I worked in Reno for 11 years and so there are plenty of 'monuments' of mine around that town. Maybe it's time for me to remember the out of town work...not necessarily in chronological order.

As I wrote earlier, C. Solari and Sons was heavily into the prefabricated panel business. And when there weren't enough casino hotels to build panels for, the estimators would look for business elsewhere. We had a huge panel plant and needed to keep it busy.

One day I was asked if I wanted to run some work out of town; Sacramento to be exact. The estimators had picked up a new project, a 17 story building in the heart of downtown Sacramento. 777 'L' Street, right across the street from the bus terminal and within sight of the Capitol.

It sounded like a good career move and there was talk of opening a branch office in Sacramento. I signed on for the job.

The first thing to do was to scout the area for a temporary office and a 'yard' to hold any equipment or panels. We found a plastering contractor that was going out of business, retiring, and they had the perfect setup for us on 'C' Street, right behind the levee. Then I found an apartment and I was ready to do business.

I went to the local Carpenter's Union and signed up with them, explaining that I would probably need a dozen men that could weld and work with structural steel.

Then it was time to look at the jobsite. I had driven by a few times and had even stopped once to introduce myself. Now it was time to examine the structure and see how well it was being built in order for us to weld panels onto the frame. It had to be square and plumb for it's full height and ironworkers, the ones bolting it all together,worked to different tolerances. We had to be accurate to within 1/4". Ironworkers worked to within 1". This could lead to some tension on the jobsite.

I had hired 3 men and so the first thing we did was to survey the work that had been done by the ironworkers; using a laser to see how plumb the steel was. Oops! it wasn't plumb at all, and since the steel had been bolted up all of the way to the 7th floor, it was going to be a fight to get the ironworkers to fix it.

After some tense negotiations, we all agreed on what was to be done and I agreed to furnish laser measurements for the ironworkers to follow from that point on.

More later...

Back in the Steak House

It was probably one of the most frustrating projects I had ever been involved with. Once you were up in the restaurant ceiling, it took so long to get back down, you would simply stay up there as long as possible. Right through lunch. It was also painful; metal lath has a very sharp cutting edge to it and could even slice through leather gloves if you weren’t careful. Bandaids were essential. We also had to create some of our own tools to get the job done. We welded long handles on to our wire tying nippers so that we could reach the work from some impossible locations. And dirty! Remember, this was above a restaurant ceiling where there had been a grease fire. Plus, the cold rolled steel channel we used for framing was coated with a sticky black paint that would spray paint fragments whenever it was cut or bent. At the end of the day, our faces were liberally sprinkled with the sticky black flecks. What fun!

And once we had finished the long horizontal run of ductwork, we actually stood up where the duct turned 180°, becoming vertical and went up the mechanical shaft to the first floor. It was a large shaft, about 15’ square and once we put a light in it, we saw that it was filled with all of those pipes that we had been fighting for the past week. But…there was room for us to build a scaffold of sorts. We were going to build a scaffold on top of a plaster ceiling that was suspended over a stairwell. Brilliant!

And so we did. Bringing long planks up through the maze of pipes and then nailing it all together. Below, on the stairs, we built props to hold the ceiling up while we worked above. At the same time, the plasterers were following us through the ceiling as they applied plaster to all of that lath we had put in place for them. This meant, when we crawled back down, we were crawling through wet plaster that they had spilled. Plasterers are not the neatest of craftsmen.

End of the story? Of course we finished the project; we always did. But it was a struggle that we all remembered for a long time.

Steak, anyone?

Taking a break from the Saint Mary’s project…for some reason, I was reminded of the small project we did at Harrah’s Steak House. The Steak House was one of Reno’s premier restaurants and located in the basement of the old Virginia Street casino. We got a call one morning telling us that a crew was needed, immediately, at the restaurant. It turned out that a grease fire had burned out the old ductwork above the ceiling. A sheet metal contractor had been working 24 hours a day to rebuild the grease duct that ran from the basement kitchens to the first floor and exiting high above the alleyway. It was going to be our job to enclose the new duct with metal framing and a thick layer of gypsum plaster over lath. And maintain a 2” air clearance around the ductwork at all times. None of our framing could touch it. To top it off, all of the work was to be done above the existing ceiling and it had to be done in a hurry. All casino work is done in a hurry.

So up we went. Two of us above the ceiling, lying on pipes and framing, while a third was cutting the material that we called for. And since we had to weld a lot of the framing in place, we had to keep a fire extinguisher with us which just added to the crowding we were experiencing. All of this was done while were wearing ‘leathers’ to try and keep the burns to a minimum. It would sometimes take us almost 30 minutes to crawl from our entry point to where we were working. Once in awhile, we would try a shortcut, only to find the way blocked by equipment or piping and then we would have to retrace our steps (crawling) to start all over again. After about a week, we had progressed about 30 feet and we could see our destination off in the gloom; a vertical shaft that rose about 20 feet into total darkness on the first floor.

Saint Mary's Redux

The pace was glacial, but we were building a hospital and it was to be expected. When you walk down the corridor of a hospital, you can’t see the enormous amount of work that is concealed by the ceilings and walls. Piping and ductwork so thick that it’s a wonder it could ever be built. But, slowly, it always is.

And at the same time we were building the hospital interior, we had other crews building the exterior walls at our panel factory up on the hill above the Washoe County fairgrounds. Once these wall sections were completed, they would be transported to the jobsite and lifted into place by our good friends at A&KW Crane Service. We would align these panels and then weld them to the steel framework of the building.

We decided to work a long weekend when it came time to set the panels and we were hoping to complete the two elevations that made up the sides of the patient room addition. The mechanical areas were more complicated and would be done at a later date.

We barricaded the street and set the crane where it could reach the building easily and then we brought the panels down to the jobsite. One after the other, the trailer loads of panels arrived and were quickly emptied. We were setting an average of one panel every 10 minutes; we were flying! And since the crane operator could see the work area, signaling was kept to a minimum. The ground crew would set the chokers and the tag lines and as soon as Lonnie saw he was clear, he would hoist and swing the panel up against the building, usually within a foot or so of where it belonged. Someone would use a pry bar to force the panel into place. A dozen Vise Grips would clamp the panel to the building. A welding hood was snapped down and the sparks would fly. Then, a hand signal to let Lonnie know to drop the ‘headache ball’ down a few inches. The chokers and tag lines were released and the crane swung away to get the next panel. I remember being up on the roof and marveling at how we were working together, as a team. Very few words were ever spoken; everyone knew what to do without being told. It was a long weekend, but oh, so satisfying!

Flight Plans

The Saint Mary’s hospital project was pretty much typical for hospital construction; all steel and all very heavy gauges. We had to weld everything together. Once the fireproofing was complete, the mechanical trades moved in with their large and heavy ductwork and piping. And once they had filled the overhead spaces, it was our turn to construct the walls. Easier said then done, as we could barely see the deck above, let alone put our framing in place. It was slow going and every day we cursed the planners that had scheduled our framing as one of the last activities on the flow charts.

There were days when a crew of 3 might be able to build 10 feet of wall in 8 hours. We frequently had to abandon our scaffolds and climb up onto the ductwork itself to do our work. And we had to wear welding ‘leathers’ to avoid being burned by all of the hot sparks that would shower us in those confined spaces. There was nothing quite like being far above the ground, up in the attic space, in the basement, wearing a leather jacket during a hot Reno summer. It was quite easy to keep the weight off!

But, rank has some privileges and once in awhile, someone from another trade would have a question and I would climb down and we would go out to the trailer to review the plans. And invariably, as soon as I spread the plans out on the table, the emergency helicopter would come in for a landing or power up for a takeoff. The only space available for locating our construction trailer was right next to the helipad and that meant that I had to quickly run around the trailer and shut all of the windows before all of my plans and notes took flight as well. What fun!

Hospital Time

As Saint Mary's continued to grow, the projects became larger and more technical. But always interesting and the best part was the fact that it wasn't downtown among the gamblers! After doing a couple of years of casino work, it was great to be away from that atmosphere.

Finally it was decided that Saint Mary's needed a whole new addition; one that would easily double the size of the current hospital. And we had plenty to do in the old hospital while they dug the dug the basement level and then poured the walls. Shortly after that they began putting steel in place and that was when we began to set up for the fireproofing. But first we had to drop all of the hanger wires through the steel deck. These would be needed for the future ceilings. This wasn't my favorite job; using a 4' long and very heavy steel deck punch, you would punch holes in the deck in a 3'x4' grid pattern. And it had to be a grid that reflected the architects plans for the floor below you. Bam! Bam! Bam! All day long, or until your arms tired, Then it was time to thread the long hanger wires through the holes you had made & tie them to a piece of rebar.

With all of the hangers in place and concrete poured onto the deck, the fireproofers began to spray the beams and columns. A wet and dirty job. It wasn't going to be very tall, just 5 floors and a helipad on the roof. Fireproofing would be done in a month.

And it was decided by those in charge, that I should have a trailer/office to run my portion of the work from. Good! Except they found a cheap substitute for a real construction trailer, one that been knocking around jobs for the past 20 or 30 years and it showed. Well, I fixed it up the best I could and settled in for the long haul. About a year. No, make that 2.

Oops! Not!

Another memory of a project at Saint Mary’s hospital; I was told that a special operating room needed to be remodeled and this one was going to be different. Because of the special and necessary equipment in the room, we would have to do all of the work behind a polyethylene barrier while the room continued to be in use. For surgery. We had to prepare by making certain that we had all of the material needed, as well as the manpower. All the rest of the ongoing projects would be halted until we had finished this one.

The demolition of the existing walls was quickly finished and then the plumbers had to pipe in all of the medical gas before we could start. And when we did, I was quite surprised to see that the operating table, the patient and the surgical team were only a few feet away from us, on the other side of the clear poly wall. Yikes!

So we did our work quietly on one side of this thin wall while the surgeons did theirs on the other. And neither of us said, "Oops!"

Paper Trail

I didn’t spend all of my Reno years working on casinos. That kind of work was sporadic at best and the Reno construction market had lots of other projects to offer. One of these was the on-going remodel of Saint Mary’s Hospital. Over the years, I would be sent to Saint Mary’s for any little job that came along; a day, a week, or rarely, months at a time. You had to be able to give the contractor, Q & D Construction, a detailed cost estimate before the work began and since I was a former estimator, I could do that. This way our office didn’t have to be bothered with sending someone out to estimate a $500 job; I could do it and then actually do the construction itself. The customer loved it and we never had any of our billings questioned.

And during this time, the hospital administration was quietly buying up houses in the neighborhood around the hospital; preparing for eventual expansions. Quite often we would have to work on one of the old houses as they converted it to temporary office space. And I remember one in particular, a very old house that was being converted into a ‘blood bank’.

I was working in the stairs that went into the basement and as I chopped off the old plaster ceiling, I noticed that the backside of the old wooden lath was covered with newspaper. Very old newspaper. I had heard that this was common in the ‘old days’, a primitive form of insulation.

I carefully peeled the newspaper off of the lath, a tricky job. And I ended up with a couple of fairly large pieces of newsprint from the local paper, printed in 1916. In fact, I still have them today.

I thought I had done quite well, retrieving a little bit of history, but two carpenters had been told to reinforce the joists in the attic and they had found boxes of treasure hidden between the joists. Yes, money had been found. Which went to the hospital administrators and was never talked about again. And no one thanked the carpenters.

El Dorado

All good things must come to an end and pretty soon it was time to open the new hotel, convention center and casino. But not till we survived another disaster. The hotel tower had been built directly over the convention center and on the day of the grand opening, the plumbers opened the main water line to the hotel rooms. They had used a temporary line to test all of the plumbing in the tower, but now it was going to be the real deal; city water pressure.

I was in the convention center, admiring my work, now that all of the lights were on. The walls were freshly painted and the carpet layers were finishing up a few seams on the vast expanse of carpet. Suddenly there was a roar and water began to pour down through the ceiling, about twenty feet above us. I used my radio to call for help. The plumbers responded, but not until a large portion of the ceiling was destroyed. It turned out that one fitting on a 1-1/2” copper line had never been soldered. And that fitting was on the 16^th floor, with an open shaft all of the way down to the convention center.

Crews were soon vacuuming up the water while I took a 20’ length of cold rolled channel and began poking holes in the ceiling wherever it was sagging. Plenty of ceiling tile was already on the floor but we had remove all of the wet, or even damp ceiling before we could begin reconstruction. And the grand opening was scheduled for 8 that evening. It was now 10 in the morning. Yikes!

Of course we did it…money is no object when it’s time to open a casino.

Another Easy Day

The El Dorado project was a great stress reliever. I only had to show up each day, climb up onto my scaffold and install ceiling tiles all day, minus a few breaks of course. And in the initial stages of this remodel, we would gather for coffee out on the existing second floor pool area. One morning we had an unexpected visitor ‘drop in’ on us while we were enjoying our break. Gary, a lather apprentice had been up on the ledge of the 7^th floor, installing a safety cable. He had a roll of steel cable and was walking backwards and unrolling it as he went. Of course he walked right off the end of the building.

But…he grabbed the cable tightly as he fell and his momentum swung him out over the intersection and then around the corner and that’s where he dropped onto the pool deck in front of about 50 surprised workers! His hands were a mess, but he was alive and well enough to go back to work immediately. Probably because his uncle, who was a foreman, came down and chewed him out for doing such a dumb stunt!

Later on, Gary became a great foreman in own right, but as an apprentice, he was a lot of fun to have around; you never knew what he might do next!

A short story from the Sahara project; Gary was sitting on the top of the building and signaling for the crane operator, Dennis. We were unloading panels from a trailer and stacking them on the ground, a simple operation. And since Dennis couldn’t see the trailer from his perch in the cab of the tower crane, Gary was to relay signals from the ground. I could hear the whole operation on my radio and suddenly Dennis was swearing; not his usual style at all. It turned out that Gary had turned away from what was happening below just after giving Dennis a ‘hoist’ signal. The panel had started up and had become caught under a large advertising sign. The sign was not going to move from its spot, so the crane began to tilt; quickly. Things like that make tower crane operators nervous and very cranky! Gary, oblivious to it all, was watching clouds or something similar.

We got it all sorted out and sent the panel back to be repaired and we bought Dennis a few beers after work that day. Actually, all he wanted and Gary paid.

Moving on

OK. Short version of the tour bus drive-through job…we did finish the project and it never did fall down. As far as I know, it still exists today, a grimy smoke stained ceiling that few tourists ever look at as they exit their buses. The casino beckons!

That is pretty much the same story with all of the casino building projects. When we were finished with all of our hard work, the customers saw only the mirrors and the flashing lights. Just as it was planned.

As usual, whenever I finished a project, there would be a few weeks where I would go to someone else’s project and work for them. My boss would continue to pay me my foreman’s wages and so I had an incentive to work just a little bit harder. And after the Harrah’s project, I was sent over to the new ElDorado hotel and casino.

This project was actually an existing hotel remodel; adding a 16 story hotel tower and a large convention center. As usual; the work went on right over the top of the customers. The existing casino and hotel never shut down for a minute.

Since most of the drywall and lathing crew positions were already filled, I was asked if I wanted to work on the acoustical ceilings in the convention center? Sure. I had already learned enough about that trade to make it appear as if I were not a rank amateur. I could fake it for a day or two until I learned more about it. And so I climbed up on the scaffold and began. It was fairly high, about 20’ up, but we had large platforms to work on and only had to move these scaffolds once a day.

Putting together a concealed spline acoustical ceiling was a great way to relax after the stress filled days of running a big project and I looked forward to doing this mindless work. For awhile.

Curves Ahead

Elevator work finished, I was back at the new tour bus drive-through at Harrah’s Sports Book. The project consisted of our building a plaster ceiling that did not touch any of the walls and consisted of a series of up and down arches for the length of the ceiling. (300’) Imagine a section through the waves on the ocean. Arch up. Arch down. And as it progressed through the building it was supposed to lose about 3’ in height. A sloping arched and wavy ceiling.

The first problem we ran into was the fact that we had to suspend this heavy ceiling from wires that would be shot into the hardened concrete, not embedded in the poured concrete; the preferred method. This ceiling was directly beneath the parking garage and the contractor for that project was not the same as the one we were working for. And he wasn’t going to allow us to embed any wires.

The second problem was the fact that the parking garage was built as a post-tensioned slab. These slabs are quite strong, but they vibrate easily because of the tension built into them. Traffic going up and down the ramps of the garage was going to cause our ceiling to vibrate as well. And since this ceiling was all cement plaster, it was tremendously heavy. Wires could be vibrated right out of the concrete. Once one wire failed, the rest would go quickly. I had nightmare visions of the ceiling crashing down onto half a dozen tour buses.

We decided to double the amount of wires as a safeguard. We had no engineering to tell us whether or not that would work, it just seemed to make sense. So, while one crew spent days shooting eye pins into the concrete and tying the wires to them, I had another crew bending the ¾’ ‘black iron into the radius shape we would use for the arches. Miles and miles of curved iron. And all bent with a roller that slowly formed the arch as you rolled the iron back and forth in its jaws. I worked with both crews, wherever I was needed.

Boring. Weeks went by as we tied hundreds of wires to the pins and formed a ton of steel into curved shapes.

Then we had to build 3 scaffolds that would be used for us, the framers and lathers, and then used by the plasterers and finally the painters. The drive-through was about 40’ wide, so we tied 4 scaffolds together for the first low section of the arch. Then a taller set of 4 scaffolds were tied together for the top of the arch, followed by another 4 low ones. And all 12 were tied into one huge scaffold. Moving it took the combined efforts of about a dozen men.

The end...almost

Following my harrowing inspection of the elevator shaft, there came a time to actually do the work I had calculated and so I found a couple of guys in the crew that would work fast and neat. There wasn’t a lot of room behind the barricades on each floor; just enough room for the material and maybe a few more spare feet. And since they wanted it done quickly, we were going to have to do the work on a weekend and have it complete by Monday morning.

I showed Bill and his apprentice just what I needed done and then I warned him, “Be careful. They can’t set the doors into the frames until we finish the wall; that means that you could reach your arm out into the shaft and touch the elevators as they go by. Don’t!” In fact I warned them both a couple of times. And to demonstrate that particular hazard, an elevator hurtled past just as I was speaking. They both jumped back in alarm. (Elevators are very quiet and they never say, ‘excuse me.’)

I left them to their work and went back to mine. Then, every couple of hours, I would go back to the tower to see how they were doing. They were making great progress. Bill had his apprentice work one floor above, getting things ready while Bill finished the floor below. Good thinking.

Then, I went back one more time and opened the barricade door and found Bill lying on the floor, looking dazed and his tools scattered all over. “Bill! What happened?” He shook his head and then told me, “Well, I needed John (on the floor above) to give me some more screws, so I leaned out into the shaft to yell at him. The next thing I knew I was on the floor over here” Yes, an elevator coming up had struck him and thrown him about 10 feet away. But imagine the results if it had been an elevator coming down.

We finished the project on time…even though Bill worked at a much slower pace.

What goes up

Eventually we finished our work in the South Tower and the crew moved over to the Sports Book and casino remodel. I was given a new project to run, the tour bus drive-through below the parking structure. But first, this story…

Just after I had settled into the routine of work at the Sports Book, I received a call from the Harrah’s representative; the elevator installers (Otis) needed us to return to the South Tower and rebuild the elevator walls where they had been torn apart to install new doors. Harrah’s had reconfigured one elevator so that it now had a rear door in it and it was going to serve as the ‘Housekeeping’ elevator for the new hotel rooms.

OK, I knew most of the Otis mechanics and so I asked one of their foreman, Bob, when would they like us to do the work? He told me that, perhaps, I should take a ride with him the next morning and we would both get a good idea of how much work was needed. Fine; I would meet him the next day.

I met Bob at the loading dock where the service elevators were located and that was when he explained that we would take the newly remodeled elevator and go from floor to floor to assess the situation. Using the special Otis elevator key, he opened the doors and I saw the top of the elevator at my feet. We were going to ride on top of the elevator! Yikes!

Well, I couldn’t let Bob know how terrified that made me feel. Of course not. (It's a guy thing) So I joined him on top of the elevator and he picked up the remote controller, explaining that we would be moving at ‘inspection speed’, far slower than the rest of the elevators that surrounded us. Before he closed the doors, I noted that there was very little to hold onto…in fact, there was absolutely nothing I could touch! In the center of the small space where we stood, the cables from the traction motor, 25 floors above us, were located and Bob warned me, “Careful. Those cables will be moving as we move and they’re pretty greasy.” And then he closed the doors.

There was one small 60 watt bulb on the roof of the car but the light it gave off seemed to be swallowed up in the darkness of this shaft that held 5 other elevators; all of which were moving up and down at what seemed to be a great speed. You never saw them, you simply sensed that they were close and then a gust of wind would strike you as the car passed by.

Inspection speed is slow. Far too slow. It seemed to take forever to get to the second floor, where we could step off for a few tension relieving minutes while I measured and calculated the work needed. Then it was time to get back on the elevator and go to the third floor. Another eternity. Eventually, one floor at a time, I made it to the 24^th floor, where I thanked Bob very much for the tour and told him I would probably take the stairs to get back down!

Drinks on the House

While working on the Harrah’s South Tower expansion, it was fairly easy to forget that you were working at a casino. We were high above the crowds that circulated through the downtown gaming district and the work itself kept us focused. But once or twice a week, a Harrah’s rep would come up in the man lift and distribute ‘drink tokes’. He usually carried a coffee can full of the cardboard tickets worth one drink apiece. These would be passed out to the crew and then at 3:30, we would gather up our lunch pails, thermos’s and other gear before getting in the man lift and descending to the Restaurant Level. Here, stairs would take us directly to the casino and the bars.

Somewhere in this time frame, Harrah’s also began the construction of a new Sports Book and parking garage. And right in the middle of this remodel and new construction mess was a bar. Most casinos have bars scattered all over the property and Harrah’s was no exception, except that this one bar became ‘ours’. Once a day, just after 3:30, this bar filled up with guys in hard hats. No civilians allowed. Oh, sure, they might wander in by mistake, but one look at the clientele would cause them to depart in haste. Beer was the only drink consumed and it was usually Bud. Order a Coors and there was a good chance that you would be ridiculed all night. You could order Millers safely, as popular opinion had ‘no opinion’ about that one.

And being highly paid, we would usually give the bartenders a buck with each free toke. The bar might hold the entire construction crew, perhaps 75 people and they were all drinking and giving the bartenders a dollar for each drink. They were raking in the money! This resulted in great service and the promise of just a few more free drinks, even after the tokes had all been used.

Moving on up

It’s been awhile since I posted here. But the memories are still valid.

This job (Harrah’s South Tower) had more than its share of problems. For one, Bill Harrah had recently died and the construction was being overseen by the new owner, the Holiday Corporation, owners of the Holiday Inn name. Harrah’s and Holiday Inn were never synonymous and it really showed on this project. The original budget per room for decorating was around $300 when Bill Harrah was alive; with Holiday, it was $78.

Plus, the Holiday people had used a construction management firm and not a ‘real’ contractor. That left the subcontractors on their own to manage scheduling. It was soon a disaster in the making as every contractor did exactly as they pleased. Finally, after many weeks of frustration and angry meetings, we all agreed on one guy to handle the scheduling for us and agreed to follow his lead.

It didn’t take long for us to catch up and start exceeding the schedule and we were soon finishing a floor every week. But we did have one slight handicap to overcome. Our ‘Boss’, the owner of Solari and Sons was also the chairman of the board at First Interstate bank; the tall black building about a block away from our site. And from his boardroom, he could look at those who were working…or not working. And I would get phone calls from him; “There’s a taper on the 3^rd floor and he’s smoking and looking out the window! Go down there and fire him!” And off I would go…to find a plumber or an electrician smoking near the window. Not my problem. Then I would have to call him back and let him know that it wasn’t one of his employees. And he always doubted me. I finally passed the word to all of our employees that they should expect to be seen by Al Solari while working on the south side of the project and if they needed a break, go over to the north side. Duh!

At the same time we were building the hotel tower, we were also remodeling the casino on the ground level and the seafood restaurant at the second floor. Plus a few other odd jobs at various spots around the offices in the basement.

A note about casino remodeling. Nothing is more important than getting the customers back in and gambling. Cost doesn’t matter; time does. I would often meet with a Harrah’s rep at 8 in the morning and he would explain what work he wanted done and where. There was no time for cost estimates or contracts. We would work as many hours as needed and at 8 the next morning, the work would be complete. Fresh paint and new carpet. I would then submit a bill and they would pay it.

Example: I met the Harrah’s rep one day behind the barricades that had just been erected around a 20’x30’ space. The slot machines had been removed and were now lined up against the barricade wall. Besides me, every trade was represented at his meeting. Ironworkers to painters. The ironworkers would go first, putting in a few beams as the laborers removed the old construction. My crew would fireproof the beams as soon as they were in place. My framing crew would follow and the electrician was right behind. Plumbing, plastering, HVAC and drywall. No one left till they were complete. There were probably close to 30 people behind the barricade, all working shoulder to shoulder or waiting for their turn. And 24 hours later, the barricades came down and the slot machines put back in place.

Progress slows

We had solved all of the layout problems on the 3^rd floor rooms and the 4^th floor was framed right on schedule. But the 5^th floor was the starting point for a general slowdown in production. It just so happened that the existing Harrah’s hotel had a rooftop pool on the 3^rd floor and you could observe the pool and the guests starting at the 5^th floor level of the new construction. Since it was early summer, the pool was filled with guests’ everyday and every worker on the project seemed to find a reason to do something, anything at all (except work), on the north side of the building which overlooked the pool.

It was fall before we were able to get into full production again. And by then we were on the 24^th floor. You had to have binoculars to see the pool by then!

A story:

We were on the 8^th floor having lunch one day and I was sitting on a toolbox with wheels, when suddenly I felt the toolbox move slightly. And then again. We all looked at each other as we had all felt the movement. I stood up and the motion became stronger. What was it? The whole building was moving! Since we had been sitting close to the outer wall of the existing hotel tower, one of us noticed that the gap between the two buildings was opening and closing, indicating that only the new building was moving. We put a tape measure down and it showed that the floor we were on was moving about 2” and in a slow circular motion. The general superintendent happened by and we asked him about it. He was mystified as well and quickly went down to the office to call the engineering firm. He was soon back and told us that what we were feeling was the motion caused by the concrete pump on the ground floor. The pump itself was bolted down to a large ‘thrust block’ of concrete that was tied to the structural steel column in one corner. Every time the pump sent a surge of concrete up the ‘slick line’, it moved the building. They had been pumping concrete for the 12^th floor during our lunch hour and so we hadn’t heard the usual ‘whoosh…pause…whoosh’ of the wet concrete across the steel deck.

Mystery solved. And what was more interesting was the fact that as we got higher in the building, the motion increased, up to 6” at the roof (24^th floor). The engineer came out and told us that it was just what he had planned for.

We're Back!

To make a long story shorter… after all, I was working as a wrangler for only one week a year; I will return to it later. Let’s just say that the first year was great! I enjoyed it thoroughly and was asked to return the next spring. And for 9 more years.

Back in Reno, life was fine. Since Solari & Sons had no competition for the majority of jobs, we rarely went without work. And when I got back I had a new project to start; Harrah’s Hotel Tower expansion. Harrah’s didn’t want to miss out on the remodeling frenzy that had gripped the town, but they were short on space and already had a 24 story hotel on Center Street. They had begun a casino expansion on Lake Street with a new Sports Book casino and the only place left to add on for hotel space was directly over the top of the Seafood restaurant on the corner of Second and Center. This expansion would tie into the existing hotel and add a dozen or more rooms per floor.

It had been decided that the expansion would never shut down the restaurant or the casino below it. These were located in what was called the Dondero building. The two-story structure had been absorbed into the Harrah’s building without ever demolishing it in its entirety. When we entered the ceiling space above the restaurant and the casino, we actually walked across the old roof of the Dondero building. Looking over the edge of the ‘roof’, we could see that the walls of the old building were enclosed by false walls in the casino. And this roof top area was also used as the spot for security to set up their monitors; the camera feeds that watched all the gambling below.

Needless to say, it was a tight little corner to have to build a very tall and tiny high-rise hotel. To erect the steel, they had to dig deep into the corners of the Dondero building without bothering anyone. Concrete footings were poured in the dark of the basement and behind walls. And it was our job to follow along behind that work and repair any damage that was caused.

Once the steel reached the level of the third floor, it was time to bring in a crane to erect the rest of the building. But not an ordinary crane; the site already took one lane out of Second Street and the city wasn’t going to allow any more than that. A very special Manitowoc crawler was brought in and it was able to stand its mast vertically and use the jib section almost as if it were a tower crane. But, as it squeezed itself into position, next to the manlift, it had to ‘squirm’, rotating the tracks on one side while braking the other. This action actually broke the concrete walls down in the Dondero basement and that caused flooding from groundwater.

But, we were soon moving upwards and onwards. Steel flew into place and we sprayed fireproofing on it just as soon as the concrete deck was poured. A few days after that we were doing the layout and building walls. Electricians and plumbers were right behind us. Progress!

And then we got to the 5^th floor…

Dreaming

On the highway and on our way to the first camp.

It was only going to take us about an hour or so to drive the distance; the riders would take all day to reach the same site. A couple of the catering trucks would meet them at noon for their lunch break, while the main kitchen truck followed us and would setup in the same location. Well, almost the same location. It was always important for the kitchen to be upwind of the mangers and sometimes there was some bickering about where we were going to be located. Especially if there was a good sized tree to be used for a ‘deadman’ for one end of the mangers and that tree happened to be close to where the kitchen was going to be.

A note about our camp sites: About half were on private property; large ranches were preferred. The board of directors for the ride had chosen the various sites and had used their friendship with many ranchers and horsemen to secure us a good site. But…not all sites were created equal and the board members were not always knowledgeable about our requirements. Trying to fit 150 horses, mangers, kitchen and all the assorted vehicles that came with that, into a ‘scenic’ spot was sometimes very difficult!

Once we entered the area, we tried to keep the motor homes from crowding us; telling them they had to wait on the road, at least till we were in place. Some riders had begun bringing large motor homes with them so they could enjoy the comforts of home after a hard day in the saddle. TV and a couple of cold brews after a hot shower. This was an expensive way to go; as they had to pay their own way plus pay for their drivers’ meals and his bar tab. When I was involved in the ride, there was a limit of twenty motor homes and no more. Even with just twenty of them, they could crowd the campsite down to a painful minimum. The riders that chose to rough it and camp on the ground were our kind of guys!

Now it was time for us to set up the camp… all over again. Our goal each time was to have the camp ready and waiting for the riders at least an hour before they arrived. That would give us time to get cleaned up as best we could, enjoy a quick lunch and maybe even a nap in the back of the bed truck.

Did I mention the toilets? As it turned out, the only flush toilets we would see were at the beginning and at the end of the ride, a week later. In between we had to use pit toilets; hand dug by the wranglers. Being the new guy, I was included in the toilet digging chore every time. Once a deep trench was dug, we placed long and narrow 5 sided boxes with toilet seats screwed to the top of them over the trench. I’ve said enough…

And since we (wranglers) hated these toilets, we were always hoping that some minor county official would happen by someday and see them in use and then, in our dreams, he would put a halt to their use. “What do you people think you’re doing? You’re going to have to rent portable toilets and immediately!” Just a dream of course.

Calm before the storm

Where was I? In a dirt parking lot in Riverside and in the back of a truck. OK, it wasn’t quite that bad; the Riverside Rancheros club site was actually secluded and surrounded by thick Eucalyptus groves. With some imagination you could believe that you were far away from civilization.

With the horses quieted down, it was time for dinner. Since the caterers’ truck hadn’t arrived from Arizona, we were on our own for this meal. Burger King. But…all of the meals, beginning the next day, would be catered by a crew from Wickenburg and we had already been given a menu for the week ahead. Steak and lots of it. Plus the occasional lobster.

Most of the riders were socializing in the club house while we set up our sleeping spaces in the bed truck. A few of the riders did manage to stumble down to the mangers later in the evening to see to their horses, but not many. Most were too busy with partying. Although it wasn’t really our responsibility to care for the horses on that first night, we took the remaining horses to water.

My first lesson as a wrangler was to learn how to tie and untie horses from their assigned spots on the manger. And to remember where they were tied. Each manger space had a number and I learned quickly that horses don’t necessarily like their neighbors. Get a horse in the wrong spot and it’s likely to cause a fight. A horse wreck. I was also told to gather up as many horses as possible when watering, at least 3 of them and 4 would be even better. So I would carefully note the numbers as I untied the 4 horses and led them out. But, horses, being as stupid as they are, would quickly move back and forth and all around me as I tried to keep them separated. I soon had a tangle of horses in my hands, all pulling in different directions. And as soon as they were at the water troughs, they would move from trough to trough, sampling a little water from each, while I tried to keep them in some semblance of order. Impossible. Once they were full, I would lead them back while I tried to remember which one went where? What was that number? Talk to me horse! Where do you belong?

With 6 wranglers working, it didn’t take long to get the horses watered and back in some order. But this was easy, I was told, we only had about 90 horses and tomorrow we would see the additional 60 added to the mangers. Oh, oh!

Judy woke us up at 5:30 and we began our day by filling the water tubs and adding some hay to the mangers. Then it was time to begin the daily watering rodeo. And it really was a rodeo as the horses had grown quite thirsty overnight and pulled us to the water. After a few trips, I switched to taking no more than two at a time, just to avoid being crushed in the rush to water.

After the horses were back in place, it was time for our breakfast. The cooks had arrived late last night and had been up since 4. And being wranglers meant that we were always first in line for food. A perk we loved!

A little while later, relaxing with coffee cups in hand, we watched as the riders gathered for the ceremonial beginning of their first ride, 17 miles to the south. And once they had left, the work began for us. The mangers and all that gear had to be taken apart and placed in trucks and trailers for our trip to the first nights campsite.

About 1-1/2 hours later, we had everything packed and our bed truck was now filled with the suitcases, cots and bedrolls of the riders. A mountain of gear. And since I was the spare driver, I was given the veterinarian’s truck to drive. A brand new Chevy pickup with all of the luxury items included.

It was time to hit the highway and our caravan went just as fast as its slowest vehicle, the hay truck. But we were moving and the adventure had begun.

First Day

We pulled in to the long and narrow dirt parking lot of the Riverside Rancheros club and then we began the drill of setting up a camp for the first time. My fellow wranglers were already complaining about the location for the setup; being new, I didn’t have much to say. I would learn.

Setting up required that we first unroll the heavy bundles of canvas and steel cable that made up the mangers. Hay, from the hay truck was dropped as directed and then the truck was parked. The ‘bed’ truck (where we would live and sleep) was placed in position as the center anchor for the mangers. Cables and chains would secure the end of the mangers to the frame of the truck. The hay truck would serve as the anchor for the other end of one manger and a buried ‘deadman’ or a convenient tree would be the anchor for the end of the other manger. Since this was the first night, some horses wouldn’t show until morning and so we didn’t need to set up the ‘little manger’, a separate unit that required its own anchors.

Here’s the picture; from right to left, the hay truck followed by a length of manger that could accommodate about 60 horses. That manger was then attached to the right side of the bed truck. On the left side, another long manger was attached and that ended with an attachment to a large eucalyptus tree. Heavy chains and cable ‘come-alongs’ made the final attachment at the bed truck. These would be tightened, which would lift the manger off of the ground. And to complete the lifting, drive poles were hammered into the ground at 3’ intervals and the manger lifted onto the hooks on the poles. These drive poles were made of heavy 2” pipe with a sharpened point to penetrate the soil. And the only way to install them was to use a sledge hammer. One man would hold the pole and the other would swing. Once it had been well started, we would alternate the swings. (We used to joke that we were well qualified to work in the circus) The goal was to drive the pole till the hook reached the level of our belt buckle. And I quickly learned to rise up on my toes to make this critical measurement! And I also learned why the others had complained about this location; it was a parking lot and the many vehicles had compacted the soil. I soon became an expert on soil types.

After the manger was in place and lifted onto the poles, we opened the bales and put a flake of hay into each numbered spot on the manger. Then it was time to get out the large water tubs and the smaller grain tubs. Hoses were linked and we soon had all 6 tubs filled with water. Our bed truck was our next chore and so we arranged the bags of grain at the far end and then set up our sleeping spaces; a foam bed roll, a pillow and a sleeping bag. We placed our other gear wherever we could find space. Since the bed truck didn’t really carry anything important, like hay… it became the truck that anyone could throw whatever they wanted, into. The riders would use it to carry their bedrolls and extra gear. It was the baggage cart, despite the fact that it was also our home for the next 7 days. We would have to rearrange this mess every night after making camp.

That first night came quickly and we soon had about 80 or 90 horses tied to the manger. Unhappy horses. They had spent the winter in tall grass and roaming free at their owners’ ranch. Most didn’t like the neighbor they had been tied next to and so we had to put up kick poles between them. Dave, one of the wranglers and our farrier, would gather up a supply of small rocks and whenever a horse would start kicking at its neighbor, he would nail it with a well placed rock to its rear. I liked that!

Trailing

Should I be posting something here about vacations? After all, the focus is supposed to be on my working life. Well, these one week vacations where I imitated a ‘wrangler’ were working vacations, so I think they qualify for entry.

The first year of the ride, I had no idea of what I might be doing during this one very long week with 150 horses and riders. I got a list of things to take with me, from Bill. The list included gloves (2 pair), hay hooks, hats, boots, socks, shirts, thermal underwear and lots of Levi’s. And a camera. Oops, almost forgot; a bedroll and a pillow.

We left very early on a Saturday morning and drove down US 395, on our way to Riverside. We were supposed to drive into San Bernardino first and meet up with Judy, the head wrangler, and then pick up the trucks and trailers we would need to load all of the gear onto.

All went according to plan. Even if we weren’t, Judy was very efficient. He had been doing this for many years. We stopped at a truck rental firm and picked up the ‘bed’ truck and another, larger truck for hauling hay. We were all assigned trucks to drive; except for me…the new guy. I would fill in as needed.

Then it was time to pick up the ‘iron’. The word described it well. Steel posts and cables and Come-alongs and chains and nuts and bolts, huge bundles of portable mangers…tons of gear that I had no idea as to its purpose. But…I would find out. This was all loaded into a horse trailer, along with about 50 long and narrow wooden poles; ‘kick poles’ that were placed between horses to keep them from kicking. Horses kicked?

After all was loaded, we followed Judy to a hay supplier who loaded our hay truck for us. OK, we helped, a lot. A full load of heavy 3-wire bales. Giving me a chance to see how my new hay hooks worked.

Once loaded, we headed over to the club headquarters of the Riverside Rancheros. It was from here that the ride would begin.

Explanation: Every year a different trail was used. I believe there were about half a dozen different ones. And every other year, the ride would begin in Riverside. In alternate years, we would begin somewhere far away and then trail back to Riverside. This year we were going to San Diego; actually a little bit east of the city, to Alpine.

This is fun?

Construction in Reno was not all about hotels and casinos; there were plenty of times when I was sent to ‘normal’ jobs. And it was always a relief to get away from downtown and all that it represented. Plus, parking was easier!

And one of those jobs was Saint Mary’s Hospital. When I started working there, it was a small hospital, run by a charitable Catholic order. And it was during the 1980’s that this small and aging order decided that they couldn’t run the hospital any longer and so they hired a firm to manage it for them. The ‘Sisters’ were still around and would remain so, but they no longer had to worry about day to day operations.

This was when the hospital began to grow. Prices for medical care went up. Patients; all patients, had to pay their bills. The hospital was soon a thriving business and the hospital began to buy up property around the hospital in hopes of a future expansion.

At first, the projects at Saint Mary’s were quite small. Carl and I would be sent over to build a new office or add a wall in the pharmacy. These were jobs that could be handled by two people and be completed in just a day or two.

As the money rolled in, the projects grew in scope and pretty soon we had jobs that would take us a few weeks to complete and we had to bring additional crew in to help us. And it was during that time that a new man showed up one day, Bill Smith.

It didn’t take long for the two of us to become friends; especially when we discovered, during a lunch time conversation, that we both read books…lots of books. You have to understand that most drywallers did not read any more than they had to. So to find one that actually sought out books to read was a rare find indeed!

Bill, besides being a drywaller, was a cowboy. The real deal. And when I met him, he was also a new father and he lived with his growing family in Sun Valley. This part of the Reno suburbs had boomed during the casino construction times and it was now wall to wall in mobile homes. When you crested the hill that led to the valley, you were faced with what looked like the world’s largest ‘trailer park’.

It was during one of our lunchtime conversations, held while sitting on a large stack of sheetrock, that he mentioned his vacation adventures. Every year, he went down to Riverside, California and spent a week working as a wrangler for a group of horsemen on a long trail ride. 150 horsemen and their horses to be exact. These were the De Anza Trail Caballeros and most were lawyers, doctors, some dentists and a wide range of other ‘professionals’. All were wealthy enough to afford horses and the lifestyle that went with them.

Somehow or another, the conversation came around to the question; would I like to join him? There was going to be an opening for another wrangler that year and he knew the head wrangler quite well. He could get me the position if I wanted it.

Horses? I wasn’t sure about that. And 150 of them? At this time I had a general dislike of horses, a fear, and then the thought entered my mind; maybe I could get over this horse phobia by confronting it head on? That was how I had conquered my fear of heights and it was worth a try, besides, it seemed like it might be fun to take a working vacation. Yes, they would feed and pay us for the week. (That was in 1978)

Back at the Sahara

On another morning, I took my place in the office of our superintendent and waited for an assignment. A normal, but time wasting routine. And that morning I was sent back downtown to the Sahara hotel once more. There I met Phil and we went to the roof to find ‘Trini’, the project foreman.

Phil and I were foremen, but without current assignments and so Trini, also a foreman, would try to find us a project that would fit our somewhat elevated pay schedule. Even if we volunteered to do the simple work, the mindless work…it wasn’t going to happen. We would be given a 'challenge'.

This morning he led us across the roof to a small steel structure that rose about 20’ above the roof. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves on a concrete pad that measured about 10’x8’. What a great view! There were no other buildings in the way and we could see all over town. And it was windy! There were also 2 large electric motors and other gear on the deck. This was going to be the elevator machine room for the two elevators that serviced the restaurant just below us. The only things missing here were the walls and the roof. And it was our job to measure for them, weld in some brackets and go to the panel plant and frame them. It was going to be a rush job, so as soon as we had the walls framed and boarded, the plasterers would install the EIFS finish on them.

So it was about 3 days later and we were up on our elevated perch with welding leads in hand and lots of clamps. The wall sections were soon flying up to us and we guided them into place. Now we had to become creative. There were no structural plans for this room and we had planned it so that the roof panel would tie all of the components together. But, in the meantime, we had hold the walls in place, temporarily. But how?

We had a full lift of 1-1/2’ black iron sitting on the roof and I began cutting it up into 6’ and 4’ pieces. We would weld those to the elevator motor brackets and then to the walls while the crane held them in place.

The first panel was the scariest. About 4’ wide and 10’ tall, and that meant that I had to use a stepladder to reach the top of it and release the crane. If I thought it was a great view from the floor, it was an even more spectacular view from the top of a stepladder placed against a narrow metal panel that was quivering in the wind. Or was I shaking?

The panels blocked the wind, so gradually it became easier and more comfortable for us as more panels were put into place. But, we were creating a spider web of black iron welded to black iron within the confines of the small room. When the last panel was flown into position, we could barely move through the maze of iron we had created.

Finally, it was time to place the roof panel. It was going to be flown up in a horizontal position, ready to drop onto the walls. Fine, except someone would have to climb up on that roof panel to release the chokers. Oh no!

With the roof in position and welded in place, we could safely remove all of the black iron. As I remember it, it took us most of a day to remove the iron and grind off our welds. We had already taken some verbal abuse from the elevator installers and so we had to leave the room looking a little better than how we had found it when we began.

Iron(ing)

With so many projects ongoing in the Reno area; if you were a foreman without a current project, you were sent to whichever project needed some extra help. It was great! Variety was the spice of my life! I would check in with the office on a daily basis to find out where I was needed. One of the projects that I was sent to was the Porte Cochere at the MGM Grand Hotel.

I don’t remember how tall the structure was, but I do remember that the scaffolding was quite high, maybe 40’? and it seemed to cover about a football field in size. It was solidly planked and there were about 3 dozen people working up there. Ironworkers, electricians, carpenters and lathers.

For this job I became a lather, something I was still new at. But with hundreds of yards of 3.4 galvanized metal lath to install on the ceiling, I was going to become better in a hurry. Interesting thing about the 3.4 metal lath; it’s very sharp! Rub your hand across it in one direction and it’s quite smooth. Rub the other direction and it’s sharp as razors. We would wear gloves with the fingertips cut out so that we could handle the wire ties, while we used the back of our hands (and glove) to smooth the lath as we tied it to the ¾” black iron supports.

Another bit of info… the black iron we used came from Japan and it was always dipped into some cheap black paint before being bundled and shipped. And this paint would flake off constantly, landing on our upturned faces as we tied the lath to the iron. At the end of the day, our faces were a mass of black specks and our fingers were bloody. Great combination!

Dizzy!

The Circus Circus tower was finishing up as we placed the large roof panels. But there were still plenty of projects to work on downtown. Every casino wanted part of the action and there were remodels being planned almost daily.

One project that I was sent to was the final phase of the Sahara hotel and casino. They were hanging the last 3 or 4 floors of panels and help was needed. Especially help that knew something about panels, hoisting and welding. That was us.

These panels were being made in Arizona and shipped via truck to the jobsite. Once the trucks pulled into town, the drivers wanted to unload and get back on the road, but with no storage available on the site, we had to quickly hoist the panels off of the truck and install them at the same time.

Luckily, the Sahara had two tower cranes on the job; one about 40’ taller than the other, so they could swing over and under one another. And they were always busy, hoisting panels and steel.

One day, I was working with the North crane, the taller of the two, and I was unloading a truck that was parked in the alley. I was actually up on the roof, about 280’ up, but I could see the crew on the ground and see their hand signals. The crane operator couldn’t see into that alley, so it was my job to relay the instructions via radio. No problem; at first. But then an odd thing happened in the middle of the day; the sky was a perfect blue as the sky in Reno usually is and I had glanced up just after I told the operator to begin hoisting a panel. There were puffy while clouds sailing by and just then the South crane rotated and the boom and his load swung past me, I felt a twinge of dizziness and looked down. Oops! As I looked down, I saw the panel coming up out of the alley and at the same time I watched the manlift begin its descent. I looked up again, quickly, and I suddenly had a sensory overload! I was falling! Luckily, I remembered that I was standing with one foot on the parapet, a parapet that was only about 2’ high, so I tried to make sure I fell back onto the deck… and I did.

It took me a few minutes to recover and in the meantime, the panel simply hung there in the air while the crane operator, who could see me, tried calling me on the radio. Another one of the crew grabbed the radio and talked the panel into place while I tried to figure out what had happened to me. Vertigo?

I was shaky for the rest of the day and certainly didn’t want to get too close to the edge of the building. Next day, I was back at it, but with a new awareness of my surroundings. And I never forgot that day.

Getting Better

The large arched panels at the roof line were, at the time, the largest prefabricated panels ever lifted. A record. The very first one was delivered early in the morning by our crew from the panel plant on Tampa Ave. The plant was probably 4 or 5 miles away from the jobsite and since the panels were too big to ever be legally transported, they would bring them down around 4 in the morning, hoping no one would see them. It worked.

Since these panels had large structural elements built into them, we had to hire Iron Workers to do the final welding and we used a composite crew to set them in place. Since we knew all of the local iron workers, it wasn't a problem...except for the local Carpenter's Business Agent, who was ticked off.

The panels were over 16' wide, 16' tall and about 6' deep. But, being made of lightweight materials, they were going to be an easy lift for the crane. And we had built a lifting point into the panel, so rigging was very simple...attach one choker and let it fly!

And so we did. After some tense moments as the crew made sure everything lined up with the panels below, we finally saw some sparks flying and knew the panel was being tack welded into place.

We were going to have to wait until the next morning for another arched panel to make it's secret journey down the hill to us, or so we thought. But then, the owner of McKenzie Construction came out of the job trailer to tell me to take the panel back down. What? He wanted to have the local TV news cover the story and we would have to fly the panel back up for the cameras. The owners of the Circus Circus also wanted the publicity. I said, 'No!' There was some shouting and some threats were made. Finally, I said I would take it back down when Mr. Solari told me to. I didn't have to wait long. In a few minutes the Project manager called me into the trailer, "Phone call for you, Steve."

So... we hooked the panel to the crane, cut the welds loose and lowered it to the ground. 30 minutes later, the TV crew arrived and we did it all over again. Better, of course.

Really High

After a few weeks, we had developed a good pattern and could lift and weld in about 20 panels a day and we were quickly gaining on the concrete crews. The ‘Flyers’, the forms for pouring the floors, extended out past the edge of the building, so we had to stay at least a floor away from them if we were going to be able to hang the panels. When we came too close, we would take a break for a week and let the form work get ahead of us.

It was definitely exciting work as we had to remove the safety cables from the floor we were working on and then reach out to grab a swinging panel and pull it in close enough to get a hook on it. Naturally, the windy days were the worst. It didn’t take a lot of wind to make a panel spin like a top. The tag lines would keep the panel steady… until the panel reached a height beyond the limits of the ropes and the handlers had to let go of them.

I found this great photo of the project and it shows the tower crane, the manlift hoist and 5 of the 6 large arched panels at the roof line. You can see the brace connecting the tower crane to the building. I think that was on the 16^th floor and every day, Dennis would climb out the window and then walk across the narrow beam to the tower and then climb the rest of the way up via the internal stairs on the crane. I wonder where I was when this photo was taken? I was certainly there that day.

I remember standing on that floor and talking to Dennis when he asked if I wanted to come up and see how the crane worked. I really did, but when faced with stepping out onto that beam… I suddenly remembered something else I needed to do, somewhere on the ground!

Normal?

After the grand opening of all of the casinos, life became a little less hectic, but only a little less. The various hotel towers still needed to be completed so that the casinos could be filled with happy (overnight) guests.

And it was about this time that I was asked to be the foreman for the framing and drywall on the Circus Circus tower. Sure! The Money Tree could be completed in just a few weeks and since the two jobs were only a few blocks apart, I could walk between them to make sure everything was going well. And the two jobs had the same general contractor and project manager. I already knew everyone!

The Circus Circus was the second ‘flying form’ post tensioned slab building I had worked on and so I knew a little about how it would go together. But, what was different this time was the fact that we were supplying the exterior ‘skin’ of the building as well as all the interior partitions.

It wasn’t long before my duties were expanded to oversight of the panel crew. These were the guys that were installing those panels that I had worked on while at the panel plant during the previous winter. I knew the panels and I had a general idea of how they were installed. This might be fun… and it was.

First, I had to get used to working with a tower crane. Luckily, the crane operator, Dennis was a great guy to work with. Serious, while he still had a relaxed manner about him. And he told me, ahead of time, what he wanted from me. Most of the time, a tower crane operator is working ‘blind’. He can’t always see the load and/or its final destination. When the crane is used for pouring concrete on a deck, he can see the entire operation. But we would have him swinging out to a spot he might not be able to see. We would be his eyes. And as he said, “When you’re signaling me…it’s your crane and you are the operator. Pay attention. I’m just your tool.” Scary! Normally, we used our radios to direct him, but there were times when you had to have both hands ready to grab onto something… anything at all! A radio would only get in your way, and then it was time to use hand signals. Something new for me to learn.

Here’s how it would work. First we would determine by measuring and leveling, just where we wanted the panel to be. Then we would weld angle iron clips at the floor level. We had already installed steel backing plates in the concrete forms and now we had a secure place to weld our angles. A truckload of panels would arrive on the jobsite, but since there was no room for the truck and trailer, we would block a lane of traffic with safety cones while we unloaded them, one at a time. I would have 4 people in the tower itself, ready to clamp and hold the panel in place once it reached them. On the ground we had the truck driver and two men to secure the chokers and hold the tag lines once Dennis started the lift.

I was usually on the floor above the top of the panel, so that I could see the whole operation. I would call Dennis, “Trolley out. Easy, high...hold the trolley. Swing right. High. C’mon down… down. Easy now. High.” (The word 'high' stops the crane) The guys on the trailer would hook up the chokers with a clevis through the studs and then hook the chokers to the hook that was now swinging just above their heads.

Now the guys on the trailer would use hand signals to direct Dennis to raise one end of the panel while swinging the boom slowly and smoothly. The panel would slip off of the trailer without disturbing or damaging the one below it. Then it would hang in place for a moment or two while the tag lines were attached to the bottom of the panel. Once the two men had moved across the street with the tag lines and we had traffic stopped, Dennis was given the signal to raise the panel.

Tower cranes are powered by electric motors and so they are very quiet. On the ground, you ccould only hear a faint whine as the panel would quickly rise to its spot on the building. The tag lines would be released and I could then guide Dennis as he maneuvered the 24’ long panel closer to the building. Close enough, someone would reach out and with a come-along hook, begin pulling it closer. Because of overhead obstructions, Dennis couldn’t get the panel tight against the building; we had to pull it over and then clamp it.

As soon as we had 4 clamps on it, we would release the chokers and let the crane go back to the ground and prepare for another hoist. The 8’ x 24’ panel was held to the building by 4 clamps and nothing else while we pried and pushed to align it with our layout marks. And once we had it where we thought it should be… we welded it in place. Just a few spot welds, as we had to get the next panel, which was already flying up towards us. The real welds would come later, after the truck and trailer were empty and the traffic was back to normal on the street below.

Race Over

The crane wreck was just a minor glitch in the race towards July 1^st and the opening of half a dozen casinos. The damage was quickly repaired and we were soon working double shifts every day of the week. When I wasn’t running my own job, I was usually to be found at the Gold Dust casino, working for another Solari foreman.

Finally it was over and the casinos were due to be open at midnight. Well, maybe not completely over. I remember being up on a tall ladder at 11:30 PM, replacing ceiling tile behind a sprinkler fitter, who was taking them out to put in the new heads. Below me, a laborer stood by with a vacuum to clean up the mess I was making. Since the ceiling had already been painted a bright red, my new tiles (white) stood out like beacons. But no one cared, the gamblers, when they arrived at midnight, would be focused on the machines and not the ceiling.

A note about the ceilings; as a drywall carpenter from Los Angeles, I was accustomed to doing the work of my trade and my trade only. Drywall and steel stud framing. In Reno, I was supposed to know something about every trade involved in finishes. So I quickly became a lather and an acoustical ceiling installer. It was simply expected of you and you had to learn on your own.

Luckily for me, the concealed spline ceiling system used on the Money Tree was a brand new one and the ‘real’ acoustical ceiling installers that worked for me had never seen it before, so we were somewhat equal and I could catch up to them in expertise. Pretty soon, I was accepted by the acoustical ceiling crews and we got along fine for the rest of my career in Reno.

Taking it down

The wind in the Truckee Meadows can be very deceptive. At ground level; all is calm. Climb up about 30 feet to the second or third floor of an open steel structure and you might find a gale blowing. And without any letup. We were soon accustomed to this phenomenon and modified our work methods to suit.

Apparently the operator of that large crane used on the Sahara hotel hadn’t been told of those winds; winds that swept down from the Sierra’s. He wasn’t a local; being brought in for just this one lift. And now it was time to bring the giant mast of the crane down and let the ironworkers put it all back on the trailers and then onto the train.

It was early and I was touring the job site, (The Money Tree) making sure that everyone was busy and had all of the materials they needed. I had started down in the basement where I had half a dozen men working. Completed, I was climbing the stairs up on the west side of the building and had almost reached ground level when there was a tremendous noise and the pedestrian barricade, just in front of me, exploded in dust and splinters of plywood. I crouched down and covered my head. I wasn’t sure of what had happened. When I looked up again, I could see a mass of thick cables swaying where the plywood barricade used to be.

I still didn’t know what had happened, but I knew I wanted out of the spot I was in, so I pushed past the broken wood and the cables and got out onto Sierra Street. It was an unbelievable sight. The crane had fallen. The cab and body of the crane was lying on its side, two broken outriggers spraying hydraulic fluid onto the road. The main mast, the boom and jib had fallen across the Ace Motel and I joined 2 or 3 others in racing into the courtyard of the motel to see if anyone was hurt. Motel guest were pouring out of their rooms; a few wearing only towels for modesty.

We quickly determined that no one was hurt in the rooms affected by the boom landing in them and so we continued over to Virginia Street, where the hardcore gamblers were oblivious to the fact that the crane had also fallen onto the Nevada Club. It turned out that the ‘headache ball’ had remained on the roof of the club, but the block, much heavier, had crashed through and into the second floor women’s restroom. Unoccupied!

The same good luck had occurred when the crane was dragged sideways by the falling mast. Ordinarily, there was a long line of cars next to the crane because of the lane closure. Since it was early, and the signal had just changed, there hadn’t been any cars in that lane. And it was the same with the pedestrian barricade at the Money Tree; it was simply too early for the crowds to be out and walking around downtown. Besides taking out the barricade, the cables had also sliced off a corner of one of my panels. Like a knife through butter. Scary!

We returned to the crane to see how the operator was and found out that he had ridden it down safely, but as soon as the noise and confusion was over… he had left the scene. Not to be found anywhere.

It didn’t take long to find out what had happened from the ‘oiler’ on the crane. When they started the crane up that morning, the oiler said he saw the flag on the boom whipping back and forth as the wind raced across the roof of the Sahara, about 270’ feet above the ground. The boom had been placed in a near vertical position overnight and the swing brakes were locked. Safe. But as soon as the operator released the swing brake, the boom swiveled in the wind and the operator tried to lower the boom quickly to get it out of the wind, but he couldn’t stop the swing and between the two actions, it was soon out of control and dragging the crane across the pavement as the 300+ feet of boom and jib settled across 3 buildings.

We were working double shifts and later that night, I watched as ironworkers took what was left of the crane apart with cutting torches; not wrenches. Trailer loads of very expensive, bent and twisted tubing went down the alley that night.

High Lift

And speaking of cranes, as I was… The Sahara hotel was directly to the west of the Money Tree and although they had two tower cranes on the project, they needed one very powerful crane to make a lift that the tower cranes couldn’t. It was a cooling tower assembly that had to be on the roof. And one day a train arrived in Reno and unloaded a brand new Manitowoc crane that would do the job. It had over 300’ of ‘stick’ and a lengthy jib section as well. The equipment made a grand parade up Second Street as they headed to the job site. We heard that the manufacturer was selling this crane to someone in the Bay area, but since it was passing through Reno on the train, they might as well try it out for one tall and heavy lift.

Once they were at the site and they had the crane situated on Sierra Street, they brought in the trucks that held all of the boom sections. These were quickly unloaded by the tower cranes and ‘shook out’ along the road so that the ironworkers could assemble them and string the cables.

The rumor that quickly circulated was this; the crane was so powerful that it was going to be able to lift its own boom off of the street. Most cranes needed another crane to help in getting the mast vertical. Of course everyone wanted to see this!

There were probably a couple hundred construction workers lining the sidewalks when the operator fired up the big diesel engine that powered this giant. Outriggers were extended into a blocked off traffic lane. It was time. Sure enough, a large cloud of black smoke erupted from the stack and the boom began to lift free of the pavement. We were impressed. And in less than a minute the boom was vertical and easily reaching past the 24 stories of the Sahara.

A little while later, the cooling tower arrived on a truck and it was almost anticlimactic as the crane easily swung it up onto the roof. One lift. They were through and the crane was scheduled to be taken apart and put back on the train during the next two days, to continue its journey to the Bay area.

Of course we all speculated; what did that cost? Hey! It’s a casino. Money was no object…

Crane time

I may have gotten ahead of myself with that last story. Of course I had to have installed the panels before the kitchen was ready.

Back to the panels. The Money Tree construction site could only be described as ‘tight’. We were building right along the property lines and had covered barricades for the protection of pedestrians on two side of the lot, There was an alley on the east side and we were located right up against the Ace Motel on the north side. There was no room for storage of material near the site and whatever was delivered had to be placed inside the work area immediately. I soon learned how to control traffic and to hold up a ‘Stop’ sign with an air of authority while a drywall or stud delivery was being made.

Installing the panels though, was a little different. We had to get a permit from the city to shut down a lane of traffic for the amount of time it would take a crane to lift the panels from the trailer and install them. Since I had never installed a panel, I was only guessing. But each day, we had a deadline to get out of the way and re-open the lane to traffic.

We were using a local crane service, A&KW Cranes. Lonnie and Eli Walker. They did most of the crane work in town for the various sign companies and so their cranes were fairly lightweight. But they did have a Grove hydro truck crane with 125’ of boom, including a 30’ jib, or ‘fly’ section. And they would be able to lift the majority of the panels for us. For the longer reach to the north, McKenzie was going to let us use their much bigger conventional crane. This crane could reach all of the way across the roof, but the hitch was that we would have to share the crane time with the air conditioning contractor. We would have to hurry to set all of the panels that butted up against the Ace Motel.

When it came time to set the first panel, I was immediately impressed with Lonnie’s skill. He could lift the panels off of the trailers without even scratching the panels stacked below. Smooth. And then he would hold the panel right where we needed it while we attached the ‘tag lines’, long ropes that we would hold and try to keep the panel from crashing into something while Lonnie swung it up from the street and up against the building, near it’s final destination. Holding the tag lines required a lot of strength and skill, plus some bravery as you would sometimes have to rush out into traffic as you pulled the panel away from certain disaster.

All went well, in spite of my concerns and within a week we had the building covered with a prefabricated finish, ready for the sign companies to begin their work.

This job was my introduction to the world of cranes and crane operators and I soon knew all of the operators in town; working with them on many projects.

Back then

Despite the lack of adequate and skilled labor, the Money Tree project rushed towards the July 1 opening date; along with all of the other projects in town. I had only been in Reno for a little over a year and had never seen anything like this before. Casino building defied all of the usual rules of construction; rules that I knew well from my years of working in Los Angeles.

One incident from that time: I was talking to Greg McKenzie, the project manager for McKenzie Construction. We were in the kitchen of the new second floor restaurant. We heard a crashing noise and then someone yelled, ‘Call the fire department!’ and a crowd of men rushed over to where someone lay on the floor amidst a broken ladder and a lot of blood.

The man on the floor was shaking violently and someone, luckily, spotted the fact that he was clutching a drill motor in his hands and they yanked on the cord, unplugging it before anyone touched him.

We recognized the worker; Karl, the foreman for the crew that was installing the stainless steel kitchen equipment. He was also one of the most thoroughly disliked men on the job. He was from Oregon and had no intention of making friends in Reno. But, someone in the crowd began CPR and everyone looked on, anxiously. He may not have had friends, but he was one of us.

That was when Charlie Mapes, the owner of the Money Tree, walked in. He spotted Greg and I and after looking at the scene for just a moment, he told Greg, “You better get these men back to work.” and he then turned and walked away.

Yes, Karl survived and returned to Oregon. Charlie never asked about him.

Careful!

Pretty soon I had most of the panels completed for the Money Tree casino and it was time for me to actually begin some work on the project. The building consisted of a basement and two floors above that. A very small project for downtown Reno.

The basement held the money counting rooms, slot machine repair and general supplies for the casino. The first floor was almost all open floor space and would be filled with slot machines and table games. The second floor was reserved for a large restaurant and bar.

When we started the project, it was understood that we would have to be finished by July 1. Every new casino in town was aiming for that date and there was going to be a grand celebration downtown when about 7 casinos opened at the same time. Ads were going to be placed in all of the major newspapers throughout the country, but focusing mainly on California, where most of Reno’s customers came from.

On the corner opposite where the Money Tree was located, the new 24 story Sahara hotel/casino was being built. On the other corner, the Gold Dust casino was being given a major remodeling. A few blocks away were the Circus Circus, Comstock, Harrah’s and a few minor remodels among the smaller casinos. And Solari held the contracts for all of them. It was soon evident that there weren’t enough carpenters or lathers in town for all of the work that we had and we were soon forced into overtime. Major overtime!

The Sahara and the Circus Circus were among the largest contracts and so they received the most attention when a call was made for additional labor. My project was usually ignored and so I had to fight for any additional help. At one time, our superintendent told each project foreman to tell the crew that could work as many hours as they wanted and anywhere at all in the downtown area. Some of my crew would work at the Money Tree for 10 hours and then walk across the street and work for an additional 10 hours at the Sahara or Gold Dust. They would then sleep for a few hours, resting their heads on their tools, somewhere on the floor of the casino, away from the crowds of workers doing their own shifts. (Giant rolls of carpet or padding were great for sleeping on) Someone would always come along and wake them up in time for another shift.

One afternoon, I left my project and went across to the Gold Dust for lunch. Sitting at the bar, I saw about a dozen of my morning crew asleep, while sitting up and leaning against a temporary partition in the bar. A few were sprawled out on the floor itself. Customers would simply step over them carefully.

A Career Move

When I first arrived at the panel plant, I was put to work on the panels for the Circus Circus hotel tower. My panels for the Money Tree could wait for a little while; at least until the concrete was poured on the decks.

So, Circus Circus. The schedule called for Solari to complete the casino first and then work on the high-rise hotel would begin later in the summer. Phil, the project foreman, would line up the work for us and then go down to the casino worksite and spend most of the day there.

The panels that had been designed for the hotel were quite large, 8’ wide and 24’ long. They would cover a section that was three floors tall, all in one lift from the crane.

And for us, in the plant, it was also a ‘lift’. We had no crane and so we would gather a crowd around the panel and lift it together (hopefully) as we moved it from station to station in the manufacturing process. 4 people could lift it when it was only a metal frame, but it required twice that number when the drywall sheathing and EPS foam had been added to it. And that was where we had to move it to the finisher’s room. A warm haven! The EIFS system required a minimum of 50 degrees and we welcomed a chance to warm up, even if it did mean we had to haul that heavy panel with us.

At this time, it was also revealed to me that I would complete the Money Tree casino project and then I was slated to be the foreman for the interior framing and drywall on the Circus Circus hotel. It looked like I had begun a career.

Break Time!

Back at the panel plant. As I wrote earlier, the plant was actually an old aircraft hanger. It had been built at the Stead Air Force Base, north of Reno, during WWII. After being declared ‘surplus’ sometime in the 50’s, it had been dismantled and moved to a hillside location on Tampa Avenue, just above the city. When reconstructed, it was over 300’ long and about 80’ wide. It was probably close to 40’ high and had 3 overhead cranes installed. There were additional buildings connected to it and these were used by the plasterers when finishing the panels.

Al Solari had owned the empty building for quite awhile but hadn’t used it for anything, and so when we made it into a ‘panel’ factory, we had to do some renovations. Such as adding water and electricity. The former owners, a cabinet manufacturer, had removed much of anything valuable and what was left didn’t work.

One of Mr. Solari’s ‘virtues’ was his thrifty nature. He hated to spend money. So the overhead cranes were not repaired. Nor was the heating system. Or cooling. In general, the roof kept us dry and that was about all we could expect in the way of comfort.

We had built large, flat and level framing ‘tables’ to build the panels on. These tables would allow us to clamp the framing components into the required shape and hold them steady while we welded them together.

The framing components were cut with a large ‘chop’ saw and then placed on the table, all laid out according to the drawings we had from our designers. Al Solari had decided to save money by consulting with structural engineers only when absolutely necessary and doing the drawings in-house by hiring a draftsmen and a helper. Our design team.

The welding began. The studs and track were all made from painted steel and as you welded, the smoke from the burning paint would creep under your welding hood. Pretty soon we were all coughing and complaining of sore throats. Solution; install a fan at the end of the table. Did I tell you how cold it was in this building? If it was 20° outside, it was 15° inside; no sun. The fans were only run when the temperatures rose into the 30’s and we resigned ourselves to the coughing.

Some days, after a lot of welding had taken place, you could look up into the trusses above you and the smoke obscured any view of the roof itself. Part of that smoke came from the fires we built in 55 gallon drums. There were always a couple of these fires going and it was the job of one of the plant ‘go’fers’ to keep the fires going by breaking up old pallets. All coffee breaks were taken standing around the barrels and warming our hands. And Al Solari had the habit of showing up at break time every day. 10 minutes. No more.

Another note; we all wore welding protection clothing, 'leathers'. But these thin leather jackets wouldn't fit well over down filled jackets, so the one thing that would keep you warm, was removed. For those times when we simply couldn't or wouldn't remove the warmth... we suffered later, as the sparks would burn holes in our nice down filled jackets and soon there were little feathers floating in the chilly air.

Barbwire by Barbano

MapesXecution: the slivered legacy of lesser royalty

Some good stuff about Charlie Mapes and a little about the Money Tree casino. Yes, I knew him. Didn't like him.

Measuring Up

A note; Al Solari was determined to get every bit of benefit from his panel plant, the old aircraft hanger, and so every building project we had under contract was examined to see if we could use pre-fabrication in the construction of it. Invariably, it was determined that we could and we would. In the case of the Money Tree, there were no drawings made for panelizing. No engineers looked at it. I was simply told to go to the project and design it myself. A few weeks previous, I was a sheetrocker and now I was a structural engineer? OK.

As the weather changed and became more spring-like, I began to plan for the pre-fabricated panels that were going to be placed on the new Money Tree casino. This meant that I had to climb all over the structural framework of the emerging structure, placing me in a working relationship with ‘ironworkers’, a trade group that I knew little of. I soon knew them all quite well.

A little bit of info about Reno in those days, the 70’s and 80’s; Unlike Los Angeles, you would almost always work with the same tradesmen on each and every job. Within a few years I knew every ironworker, electrician, plumber, ‘tin knocker’ and laborer in town. Worked with them on every project. So you learned very quickly that it made sense to be helpful to one another. We looked out for each other, where in Los Angeles it was exactly the opposite. It was very refreshing!

So there I was, climbing up onto the steel structure and measuring for the panels to be built. And designing the structural attachments as I went. And after a week of measuring, by myself… Mr. Solari didn’t believe in unnecessary labor costs, I was back at the plant and building the panels. By myself.

Some Money Tree memorabilia

Springtime at the Comstock

As I said, the Comstock was the first of many hotel casinos to be built that spring and Solari had the fireproofing, lath and plaster, drywall and painting contracts for 99% of these projects. And this meant that I wasn’t going to be able to hide any more. Art now knew that I read plans and he knew that I had been a foreman and a superintendent before. Like it or not, I was going to be given a project to run.

But first I was going to be given a short lesson on panel building. Solari had secured the contract for the exterior panels on the new 24 story Circus Circus hotel and casino. These were similar to the panels that were being installed on the MGM hotel, except for the fact that these were made with a new synthetic and lightweight plaster/Styrofoam combination called Dryvit.

The foreman (Phil) for the Circus Circus project was already busy building these panels at the Solari panel factory; an old and very large aircraft hanger from Stead Air Force Base. It had been dismantled and moved into Reno, where it had been rebuilt as a cabinet shop and then, later, purchased at foreclosure by Mr. Solari. (Did I mention that Al Solari was the chairman of the board of the bank?)

My assignment was to work at the panel plant and then take Phil’s place when the time came for him to leave and install the many panels he had built for the project.

Then, once the Money Tree Casino structure came ‘out of the ground’ I was to begin the building of panels for that project; my project. Fun times ahead!

The Comstock

Winter (1977) settled in and I was still driving to Reno each day and working on various small jobs; usually with Carl as my partner. I would often see him early in the morning as he and Leroy would be getting on the freeway at Hallelujah Junction, on their way into town from Loyalton.

Every once in awhile we would be sent over to the MGM to spend a few days hanging drywall in the tower. And it was in the tower that I first saw the prefabricated exterior panels being used to clad the structure. These were made from structural steel studs (16 gauge and heavier) and covered with lath and plaster on their exterior side. Pierce Lath and Plaster was the contractor and I knew of them from my days in Los Angeles. They had also been a major player in the drywall industry.

Pierce was using portable hoists to haul the panels up the side of the building and then prying and clamping the panels into place and welding them to the edge via structural angles. The hoists, which were very heavy, would be rolled into position on the floor above the location for the panel and then counterweights were added to keep the hoist on the floor. A stabilizer bar was also used to pin the hoist in place while lifting the heavy panels. It was fascinating to watch the ‘dinosaurs’ at work. That was the slang name for the hoists and they did resemble some ancient beasts.

And on another note… one day, as was standing by the man hoist on the ground, I was spotted by Rick Thompson. He had just started to work that day. We talked for awhile and he explained that business had been slow in Bishop and he had heard about the work at the MGM. He was also looking for someplace new to live. Bishop was getting too big! I told him all about where we lived (Janesville) and told him I would bring him a copy of the local newspaper so he could look at the real estate ads.

Rick, if you remember, was from Los Angeles originally and I knew him from there. He had also been my ex-partner’s partner in the contracting business. The same one I had just left. Small world.

When spring came, most of the casinos in town, plus some new ones, had big plans for expansion. The opening of the MGM would occur soon and they all wanted a part of the tourist dollars that would flood the town with the opening of this huge casino.

Of course Solari wanted this expansion work and they set out to estimate and secure all of the work they could. The first one; the Comstock hotel and Casino.

This is the job that changed my career path. The job was being run by Donny; one of Art’s favorite foreman. That didn’t mean he was actually good at what he did, he was simply a favorite. I was sent out to the Comstock to begin dropping hanger wires in the steel deck. You would have to read the blueprints and determine where the ceilings were on the floor below the deck. Then you would mark the deck for a pattern of holes to be punched and wires dropped through them. The wires had a pigtail on them and that would be captured in the concrete when they poured the deck. So you were always working one floor above where the ceilings would be and that required some skill in reading plans. Standing on a shiny steel deck with no ‘landmarks’ around you… no walls, was a good exercise for your brain.

Donny’s crew (and I) had gathered on the deck, ready to begin and Donny asked, “Does anyone know how to read plans?” No one raised their hands. Finally, I did. Donny wasted no time at all, shoving the drawings into my arms and telling everyone to follow me. Oops! I was in charge. Something I did… and didn’t want to do.

I learned later that Donny didn’t know how to read plans at all.

Experience

After a few months of working on nothing but small jobs, there came a day when Art could find nothing for Carl and I to do, so he sent us over to the MGM for a week or two, telling us that he would call for us as soon as there was some of our kind of work.

We parked in the huge parking lot and made our way into the casino, looking for a foreman named ‘Trini’. Trinidad Guerra. A very large and loud foreman. Of course we found him easily; we simply listened for him. After the usual introductions, he put us to work in the big showroom on the first floor. It was all pretty simple stuff and Carl and I were soon doing as much or more than the rest of the crew.

At break time I got a chance to meet a lot of the Solari regulars; those who had always worked for them. And I got a chance to learn more about the company.

C. Solari and Sons, Inc. (Established 1918) was named for Camille Solari, an Italian immigrant who had founded the company as a painting contractor. He had also bought a lot of property in Northern Nevada and his sons had continued that tradition; painting and acquiring.

I remembered that when we had come to Reno in 1967 to build the Broadway store, we had some difficulty finding an apartment to rent and one of our crew suggested that we contact Mr. Solari (Al) as he had plenty of rentals available. He owned over 5,000 apartments and houses to be exact. He found one for us immediately. That had been over ten years ago and now I was working for the same Mr. Solari.

Al Solari was also the Chairman of the Board of First National Bank in Reno. When it came to ‘movers and shakers’ in Nevada, he was one of the biggest.

Back to work…

After a few weeks in the showroom we were moved to the tower for awhile. I certainly knew my way around; after all, I had framed most of it while working for Oahu Interiors. So it was noted by the foreman and reported to Art, that I had some talent. Then I was called to Art’s office one day and he closed the door. He wanted to know what kind of experience I had. I told him. And when I mentioned the fact that I had been a superintendent for Pacific States Plastering, he interrupted me to say, “Don’t think you’re going to get my job!” and he was quite serious about it, glaring at me.

Of course I told him that I wasn’t interested in his job and much preferred working with Carl on any small jobs he might have for us.

And that was what I did for the next few months. Art kept me away from any jobs where I might be called upon for a leadership role. Life was good!Just add the old MGM logo to the ends of the towers in this photo and you have a picture of the hotel in the late 70's... I'm not sure who owns it now.

A Day in Reno

Every once in awhile I will forget which blog I’m posting to and then I have to try and unscramble the results. I see that I have posted the one below this to the wrong blog. Should have gone on Projections. But I’m leaving it…

Anyway, back to my story…

I had just met Art, my new boss and he was going to send me out on a job. And he told me that he would be sending me to small projects at first; nothing major until he knew more about me. I was on trial again.

Art introduced me to Carl Scatena, who was going to be my partner (and judge) for the day. Carl was from Loyalton, California, a small town north of Reno. We already had something in common. We were both from small California towns and earning our livings in Nevada.

I grabbed my tools and followed Carl to some small job; maybe it was an office remodel? Or a patch in a ceiling in some factory? I don’t even remember all of the places we worked for the first few months of my career with C. Solari and Sons. Every morning would find me driving in from Janesville and meeting with Carl and Art, at the office, to see where we would go that day. No job lasted more than a day or two. It was always interesting and I didn’t miss the excitement (and the boredom) of working on a high rise hotel, like the MGM Grand.

Solari’s office was only a few blocks from the MGM and Solari had already started working a crew on the tower portion as well as the casino levels. The foremen for that project would be in Art’s office each morning, making their plans, while Carl and I waited outside for our daily instructions.

(As it turned out, working with Carl produced some of the best working days in my career. Great times!)

A little something about Solari; when I was still working in Los Angeles and working for Modern Drywall Systems, we had secured two out of town Broadway store projects. One was in Sacramento and the other, a twin, was in Reno. And the drywall contractor for the base store project was C. Solari and Sons. We did what were called the fixturing walls and worked directly for Broadway or the store fixture companies. So, I already had a small, indirect, relationship with them and knew something about the history of the company. More about that later.

Basic Instructions

How to Express Condolences

This guy is good! LOL...ROFL and all the rest of the acronyms!

More Changes

The framing crew and I came together pretty well and we were able to exceed our production quotas easily. The younger Hawai’ian members of the crew would disappear around 10 AM as usual, but we never noticed anymore. The studs just flew into place and time passed quickly.

Then we started hearing rumors. True; men on construction sites love to gossip! And the gossip was all about the mistakes being made by the other framing crews and then whole wings of completed drywall being removed because backing strips were absent or in the wrong place. Big layoff’s! We were still the ‘good guy’s’. None of our work had been faulted, but once a contractor gets into the ‘firing’ mode, it is hard to tell the good guy’s from the bad guy’s. And every one is suspect.

It was about this time that Mr. Ernie Jackson decided to bring in some heavyweight supervisors. He recruited them from the Fresno area; people he knew and was comfortable with. And their method of supervision had me ready to find another job. First, they assembled the crew, all 300 plus men. Then they told us that there was going to be all new foremen. But only after an evaluation period. All who were foremen at the current time were no longer in charge…or being paid as foremen. We would be foremen in name only. The exit was being prepared for me, but I decided to stick around for awhile and see what developed.

I seem to remember that we were already framing on the 21^st floor with 3 more to go. So, framing wasn’t a problem area and I was assigned to a drywall crew. Some good things had been said about me and this was going to be my foremen’s ‘test’. I decided to press the issue and said, “No, thanks.” And told them I wanted foreman’s pay now and not at some later date if they wanted me to run a crew. That worked, I got the pay and I was told not to tell anyone else.

I returned to the 11^th floor and began re-installing drywall. We quickly moved up the tower and were soon installing on the 14^th floor.

Success? It was not be. All of the foremen were asked to attend a meeting at Ernie’s house in Sparks. (He had bought a house for his new superintendents) At the meeting, he informed us that it was all over. He was turning the project over to the bonding company and sailing back to Hawai’i. Whoa! That was startling news. He was going to lose the cost of his bond ($250,000) and lose the ability to be bonded ever again.

Well, I didn’t have to agonize over a decision. Should I quit? Ha! The next morning found me at the Carpenter’s Union hall and talking to my new friend, the business agent. He informed me that C. Solari and Son’s, the local drywall contractor, would probably take over the job and finish it for the bonding company, so he was going to see if he could get me hired by them. Sure enough, a phone call later and I had orders to report to Art Engebrittsen the following morning.

Back to Work

Meanwhile, back at the MGM.

As I was saying earlier, I was supposed to be the foreman of the layout crew, but as it worked out, Frenchie didn’t want to go home to Hawai’i. Some problem with a warrant? They continued to pay me foremen’s wages and Frenchie was the boss. OK with me.

And as I also said, I was the only non-Hawai’ian on the crew. Haole. The crew spoke what I learned was called ‘pidgin’. An interesting blend of English, Polynesian and maybe some Tagalog from the Philippines. For me, it was sink or swim, I had to learn what they were saying and it proved to be quite easy. Too easy, in fact I was soon speaking it all of the time. This drew some complaints from those at home.

I also learned something about the Hawai’ian work ethic; which was minimal. Half of our crew would disappear around the time for our first break of the day and we wouldn’t see them again till the next morning. As the foreman in pay only, I wasn’t too concerned. It was Frenchie’s problem and he never seemed to notice their absence.

A little something about Frenchie; he was originally from Philadelphia and he was a French Canadian ‘gangsta’ to boot. It sounds odd now, but he was pretty much typical of drywallers in that day. If you hadn’t been in the ‘joint’ you were considered odd. So I was odd.

Even with just half a crew present and accounted for, we used lots of shortcuts and were soon cutting our allotted layout labor budget in half. Frenchie’s response to this was to slow down. He really didn’t want to get back to Hawai’i too soon.

I was soon frustrated and began to talk to the powers above and asked to be given something with more responsibility. This was soon given to me. I had a framing crew now and a goal of framing all of the walls on a floor within a week. I also had a crew of Hawaiians. OK, the work began…

I Recall

A thought or two that I had yesterday while I was mowing the orchard. I was thinking about the fact that my career suited my personality. I have always enjoyed working alone and that was something I could do in the construction business. Early on, when I was an apprentice and working ‘piece work’ on houses and apartments, I always worked alone because that was how you made the most money. And you quickly learned that having someone nearby who might strike up a conversation would cost you money in the long run. And when you did have to work with someone, the best partner was one that knew what to do without being told.

I can remember many days of working on high rise buildings, installing the panels that made up the skin of those building, and never saying more than a dozen words. You controlled the crane with hand signals and the crew knew what they were doing without being told; if they didn’t… you didn’t want them around. It was far too dangerous.

Working as a foreman or superintendent meant that you didn’t spend a lot of time in conversation. You have very few friends when you’re the boss. And I remember making lots of people upset because I wouldn’t let them work with a partner. I knew that production would increase when people worked alone and I was always right. Part of my job was to make sure that conversations didn’t occur during the workday.

What a grouch!

Driving

Now that I had a job, I had to get used to a long commute. 75 miles, one way. I started the job in the spring of 1977 and so the trip was quite pleasant; certainly better than half that distance on a Los Angeles freeway. Great scenery and no crowds.

I would have to get up early; maybe 4 AM. Then it was a 90 minute drive to the jobsite. I liked to arrive about 6:30 or before, in time for a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito before heading over to the manlift and taking a short ride to the 4^th floor and the gang box where we assembled each morning before heading up into the tower for that day’s project.

When I started the job, the steel frame of the hotel tower was complete up to about the 16^th floor, with 11 more floors to go. Concrete had been poured to about the 12^th floor. We (Oahu Interiors) had begun framing and had completed the framing from the 3^rd floor to the 7^th. And my job, laying out the walls, had progressed to the 10^th floor.

Drywall installation hadn’t started yet as we were waiting for the exterior panels to be installed and that was still a few weeks off. And that also meant that we had a great and unobstructed view of the Truckee Meadows from our vantage point on the 10^th floor.