Another PCI project that I worked on was the training of the estimators at a company we had acquired in Georgia. The company, North Brothers, had offices all over the South and we had to bring them into the 'PCI family'. North Bros. had been a non-union company and we were going to change that as well. PCI had always been a union contractor and would remain so, even in the non-union culture in the South. First, I went to meet some of the people at the Atlanta office. I thought NB was a somewhat class act and I was wrong. Their office was located in a very poor section of Atlanta, "Turn right at Go Daddy's Used Hub Caps". At the meeting it was determined that only one of the offices in Georgia would be doing drywall and fireproofing work and that office was in Rome, Georgia. I met their chief estimator, a genuine 'Good ole boy'. He was quite nice but computer illiterate; as were all the estimators with North Bros. Then I was told about the other offices, Memphis TN and Knoxville TN. I could only picture these offices as new places to fly to...not very exciting at all. NB had other offices of course, but they were going to remain Insulation contractors. The Atlanta office would remain as PCI headquarters in the South and do some insulation work as well. The Rome office would estimate and run any drywall work in the Atlanta area.
Slightly off the subject; I flew to this first meeting using Delta Airlines. I had never been to Atlanta Hartsfield airport before and when I got off of the plane I headed downstairs with all of the rest of the passengers. Once there, I saw that that there was a crowd getting on to an electric 'train' and they appeared to be going to Baggage Claim. I don't like crowds so I elected to walk. Bad decision. I had no idea as to the size of this airport and after walking for 15 minutes and seemingly getting nowhere, I decided to get on the next 'train'. It was a 5 minute train ride on a fast train so I knew I could have spent another 30 minutes getting there by foot.
On all of my subsequent trips to this airport (and there were far too many of them) I used United Airlines. It so happened that United had only two gates at this airport. After all, this was Delta Airlines headquarters and biggest hub and so they commanded all of the gate space. But... United's gate was just a few hundred feet away from the check-in counter; almost hidden No train and very little walking. Plus, it was very quiet back in the United Airlines corner.
