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 we 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 for 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.