Missouri

One of the better branch offices was in Missouri. Grandview Missouri and not more than 20 minutes from Kansas City. PCI had gone into a partnership with an existing drywall company, Dahmer Bros. in order to have a contracting presence in the area where the corporate offices were. The Dahmer brothers themselves were true gentlemen. Highly respected in the trade. And they were fun to be around.

They had not been exposed to the level of technology that PCI offered and not all were comfortable with having a PC on their desk. I was sent to show their estimators how to use our software. Lo and behold; they had a woman as an estimator! And what a gem she was. Smarter than most estimators I knew and eager to learn something new.

Their estimating style was different from almost anything I had seen before and I had to convince Jean that she could translate that style into our program. We couldn't change the program for just one branch office but I could show them how to input data in such a way that it would make them comfortable with the program.

I probably made a dozen trips to this office as I had to train just about everyone in the office. And it was here, one morning in September of 2001 that we heard the news of airplanes striking the twin towers. We didn't believe it at first. It couldn't happen! A few minutes later, after hearing of the attack on the Pentagon we did believe and lessons were over. I took my laptop out to my rental car and drove back to the hotel. I spent the rest of the day watching television. Then I heard that all air traffic had been halted indefinitely. I had a ticket to return to Sacramento on Friday and it was now useless. But I had a rental car. I had talked to some other PCI employees and they told me stories of how PCI employees that had been caught, as I was, away from home, had rented cars and were driving. I started thinking about it...I called our travel office at corporate headquarters and they told me that they had already negotiated with Avis and I was to keep my car and use it to drive home. Halfway across the country.

 I think it was Friday morning when I set off, pulling onto I-70 and heading west. First stop was Lawrence Kansas where I had breakfast. On the road again. I wanted to make Denver by nightfall. After seeing a whole lot of prairie I approached the turnoff to the Denver Airport. I looked up in the sky and there wasn't a plane in sight. And this airport is normally one of the busiest in the country. I also noted that while I was driving, the traffic was very light and the cars that I did see were rentals like mine. When you rent cars often, as I did, you learn that they have a certain look, plus a small decal on the rear window. As it turned out I was able to drive right through Denver while it was still light and cross the Rockies through the Eisenhower tunnel. I stopped at Eagle Colorado and parked at a motel that was filled with travelers like myself. The parking lot was filled with rental cars. I got one of the last rooms. After 13 hours of driving I was exhausted.

I was up early the next day and continued west, down the canyon on  I-70. In the early morning light I could see what a magnificent highway this was. The scenery was out of this world! And then I was in Utah...

There's little to see in Utah. Yes, the Great Salt Lake was interesting but after that it was all desert, all the way to Winnemucca. I had originally planned on staying in Winnemucca for the night but there was still plenty of daylight and so I continued on , planning to stop in Reno for the night. Well, I got to Reno in the dark but I knew that home was only another 90 minutes or so across Donner Pass. I pressed on. And after 18 hours of driving, I pulled into our driveway. After 9/11, this was where I wanted to be.

Diligent

Diligent is not my middle name and here it is, May 27th in the year of 2014. Didn't I say I was going to write more often? Okay, I'm guilty.
I was going to write something about some of the branch offices that I visited and I might as well start with one in New Mexico. Intel (and PCI) had built a Super Fab, or 'chip foundry' in Rio Rancho, just 20 minutes north of Albuquerque; right in the shadow the towering Sandia Crest.
After the 'fab' was complete and in full production it was decided that we might as well leave the people who were in charge of the construction, right there, in the desert. They found an office complex nearby and began to build a business. Their main customer was Intel, of course. Intel was constantly swapping out machinery within the fab and we were the people to do that work. And since technology attracts technology, other electronic companies were buying and building.
They hadn't been in their new office more than a month when I was called to visit them and help setup their labor control and estimating. I made my plans...
I was somewhat familiar with New Mexico, having been to Albuquerque and Santa Fe in the past. Rio Rancho, however, was very different. Before Intel moved in, Rio Rancho was a sleepy little town far off the main highway. But now, there was building going on everywhere. In the desert of course. You cannot escape the fact that you are in the high (5;282') desert. Step outside the city limits and you are in the territory of the early pioneers that moved through this valley.
I wish I could report that my training was a success, but it wasn't. I would start a training session and half way through, the estimator would get a phone call and he would have to go out to Intel and handle some problem. We would try again the next day and usually with the same results. At the end of the week I would have to make an appointment to return and do the same thing all over again. I think I went there five times and each trip resulted in the same scenario...but, on the plus side, I got to eat at some great restaurants!

Next time, I will write about a classy branch office.