BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

This story describes the early days of my employment with SRP. I found myself immersed in some familiar surroundings. 08/10/2017

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

The year 1967 began tumultuously for me. SRP hired me on January 10 to begin work on March 6. My exuberance waned when news came of my father’s death on January 21. He had spent the last five years of his life living with my sister Helen in White Plains, New York. Unfortunately, he had broken his hip after falling down a flight of stairs at her home. While recovering in a hospital, he contracted a staph infection. After languishing in pain for four months, he succumbed to heart failure at age eighty-eight.

My sister spent countless hours at the hospital with him during those final months, supplementing the nursing services he required on a continuous basis. Living in California with Angie and our six children, I could not help her during his prolonged hospital stay. This anguished me, then and now.

I flew home to attend his funeral. An Irish wake helps ease the pain of death. Relatives and friends came from afar to honor my dad. It made me proud to hear him praised, rightly so. His funeral procession traveled a long distance to reach St. Charles Cemetery, in Pinelawn, Long Island. Upon arrival, the pallbearers put his casket inside an unheated building with numerous other deceased but unburied persons. The Gravediggers Union had gone on strike and refused to bury any of the dead brought there until their demands for higher wages were met. Instead of a graveside ceremony, my first cousin, Monsignor Heneghan, conducted one in this wretched place, leaving me bitter toward labor unions until this day.

Upon returning to San Mateo, we put our house up for sale in February in preparation for my new job with SRP that would take us to Arizona. We both thought our home would sell quickly. The ideal scenario would be for it to remain on the market until May, allowing our children to finish school that June before moving.

I waved goodbye to Angie and my family on Sunday, March 5, and flew to Phoenix. Arrangements had been made for me to check into a motel on the corner of 32nd and Van Buren, conveniently located near the SRP Administration Building. The company agreed to pay for a two weeks stay while I looked around for an apartment to rent.

The aroma emanating from the nearby stockyards caught my attention, too “country” for a city slicker like me. In later years, the State of Arizona bought the motel and converted it into a woman’s jail. I pitied the inmates.

On Monday morning, George Nielsen, Manager of the Supply Department and my new boss, introduced me to Ray Schweiger. George had removed Ray from his job as Purchasing Agent, but retained him in the capacity of Materials Consultant, a job with no description. Ray, a very thin short man, looked older than his years, fifty-nine. He smoked and wheezed while chatting with me. He appeared weak and incapacitated. Perhaps his physical condition prompted George to replace him.

 Poor Ray. How he must have hated seeing me walk in off the streets, taking his job. He had worked 39 years for the company, all of them in purchasing. I felt great empathy for him. I told him I would welcome his support.

Ray accepted his new role with dignity and helped me learn the ropes, despite the fact he had no use for George, as you might expect. Fortunately, Ray liked me and we became good friends. He shared his purchasing knowledge and business philosophy with me. Ray placed great emphasis on vendor loyalty. He said SRP always purchased insulators from Ohio Brass as this firm had supplied them to the company during the war despite a wide-spread shortage.

“Ray, World War II ended a long time ago.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that war. They helped us out in World War I.”

George also introduced me that first day to all three members of SRP’s Legal Department who occupied offices down the hall from his. Leroy Michael, Jr. oversaw the small group. No one could be as closed-mouthed about every aspect of SRP.  Convinced I had graduated from Notre Dame, he often tried to get me to bet with him when they played a game against one of the many schools he seemed to have attended.

The second lawyer, Mike Stientjes, later went to Washington to serve on some Arizona congressional committee and dissolved into limbo.

The third member of the Law Department, Richard Silverman, had only recently joined the firm. I came to know him well. It would never have occurred to me that one day he would serve as the General Manager of SRP.

After meeting the legal eagles, George walked me across the street to the offices of the Purchasing Division located in a dilapidated one-story building on Mill Avenue, a few blocks from Monti’s La Casa Viejo restaurant, where he introduced me to my staff of twelve employees.

After I made a few remarks (pleased to meet you, pleased to be here), George left and my new job began. A secretary dumped the mail on my desk, mostly material requisitions. I had to distribute them to the appropriate Buyer. I called on John O’Malley, Assistant Purchasing Agent, to help me get started.

He explained that each buyer specialized in purchasing materials and supplies within his field of knowledge. He bought transformers.  John Blanchard purchased wire, cable, and related electrical system hardware. Emmit Casey handled all of the Water side of the company’s requirements, including pumps and maintenance parts for SRP’s 250 wells. Jack Cain had considerable knowledge and purchasing experiences. He handled requisitions for power plant parts and supplies, and a wide variety of electronic parts. John Jones bought stationery and other low-value miscellaneous items. It would be my responsibility to purchase (on an annual basis) fuel oil for certain small power plants and gasoline for its fleet of 1,200 vehicles.

Nielsen wanted me to quickly evaluate the buyers, and replace those I thought to be inadequate with more educated individuals. A month into the job, I had a pretty good idea of their individual qualifications. However, I had no plan to make snap judgments about them.

Jones, the least qualified of the group had a severe rheumatoid arthritic condition. To combat the pain, he consumed large quantities of aspirin at work, and drank many martinis whenever he could. A few years earlier, the company chose to transfer him from Accounts Payable to Purchasing where he began working as an expediter. Only recently had he become a buyer. He found it difficult, almost impossible, to make any purchasing decisions and worried that I would fire him at the very first opportunity. The poor man sweated profusely whenever we talked.

Casey knew everything about the Water side of the business, but worked at one speed: slow. He insisted on handwriting new orders for typing, rather than marking up a previous order for the identical materials. He smoked cigars all day long. We had to fumigate his office after he retired in an effort to remove the stench.

Cain had years of purchasing experience gained while working for Bechtel, the engineering/contracting firm that built SRP’s Agua Fria Power Plant, When he joined SRP, he brought with him considerable knowledge of the materials and supplies required for its maintenance, repair and operation. Unfortunately, like Casey and Jones, he sometimes drank to excess while at lunch.

Blanchard, the youngest and fastest worker of the group, would finish his assignments as quickly as possible, and then leave his office to “roam.”  He would visit our warehouses, or go chat with friends in other parts of the company. His previous employment included a stint in the Michigan National Guard after which he became a barber before hooking on with SRP as a warehouseman.

O'Malley’s specialized in the purchase of distribution transformers. He had no knowledge of how such a piece of equipment actually worked, but that didn’t matter. SRP purchased transformers from a limited number of suppliers, making awards based on price, but in fact, Engineering dictated how the order would be split among all the major manufacturers. He simply followed their directions. He handled his job with aplomb and confidence.

O’Malley, fifteen years my senior, befriended me. He invited me to his house for dinner. Many company old timers called him to get his opinion of me. He gave me a “thumbs up,” and that helped make it easy for me to fit in. The old guard accepted me.

As part of my employment agreement, the company promised to provide me with a company car. Their fleet contained hundreds of Plymouth white four-door sedans, most of them quite old. They gave me a very old one to drive, a wreck of a vehicle whose back seat had been removed so that it could serve as a truck. Weeks later they replaced it with a somewhat improved vehicle which raised my morale. The company car came with certain restrictions. It could not be used for any purpose other than commuting to work, but I used it to go house-hunting on weekends. Nielsen and O’Malley knew this but said nothing.

The company agreed to pay my motel bill for the first two weeks of my employment. It only took me a week to find and rent a furnished one-bedroom apartment in a complex near the ASU campus. Not until I had signed the lease did O’Malley inform me the students dubbed this area, “Sin City.”

Despite the proximity of my apartment to the office, everyone else arrived at work before me. I decided to get to work a half hour earlier. None of us worked. We sat around drinking coffee and dunking donuts. One might describe our workplace as laid back.

I lived the life of a bachelor for five months. During that time, George Nielsen treated me like kin. He always paid when we had lunch together. More than once, he said, “I should be working for you,” in front of other employees. He had a great talent for making people believe in themselves.

George had led a remarkable life. A law-school graduate from the University of Iowa, he failed to pass that state’s bar examination. Instead of practicing law, he established and operated a small business for a few years before joining General Dynamics, a large military contractor. For eight years, he traveled around the country helping to purchase sites on which to locate underground missile silos. Along the way, he became an alcoholic.

He joined AA and began a period of recovery that took him to Nevada and then to Arizona where he worked as a traveling sales representative for a plumbing supply house, carting goods in his RV while making sales calls on copper mines and utility companies, including SRP. Some of the buyers recalled meeting him in this capacity, and were stunned when the company hired him to fill the position of Manager, Supply Department.

It happened this way. In 1966, George’s next door neighbor, an SRP employee, told him that an executive had quit the company. George decided to apply for this vacated position. Somehow, he managed to arrange for an interview with SRP’s General Manager, Rod McMullin. To the amazement of everyone at SRP, Rod hired George, not only to fill the vacated position, but to report directly to him.

The Supply Department included four functions: purchasing, material control, material reclamation, and warehousing. The staff numbered close to one hundred, mostly hourly union workers, the rest salaried employees.

Nine months later, George hired me, intent on modernizing the purchasing function. It did not take me long to discover that few SRP people liked Nielsen. He remained an “outsider” during his employment, which ended in late December 1969.

I had only limited purchasing experience but knew that sales folks are almost mandated to entertain buyers, usually by inviting them to attend business lunches. It came as no surprise when Jerry Linderman of the Maydwell and Hartzell Electric Supply Company took O'Malley and me to Scottsdale’s Lulu Belle's restaurant for lunch on my second week of work. The waitress said, "Welcome to Scottsdale, Mr. Finnerty." Had Jerry tipped her off? No, she said she had seen my picture and an article in the paper announcing my appointment as SRP’s new Purchasing Agent. Jerry had three martinis before ordering a round of shrimp cocktails prior to lunch, welcoming me to the Valley of the Sun in style.

This is going to be a fun job.

A parade of sales representatives presented themselves to me during my first few months, anxious to check me out. It forced me to accept many invitations to join them for lunch or dinner, and to play golf with them on weekends. While the habitat had changed, the courting behavior of sales representatives remained the same as it had been in California. Yes, I now found myself on a different ranch, but these cowpokes seemed familiar to me.

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NICE WORK, IF YOU CAN GET IT

I had found a job back in 1951 after reading a want ad in an employment agency window. Now, in 1967, something similar happened. 08/10/2017

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

For almost six months, while enduring a miserable commute from my home in San Mateo to San Francisco, no new employment opportunity came my way. Then, in January 1967, this want ad appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Purchasing Agent; Utility Company; Phoenix, Arizona. Applicants should have both M.E. and MBA degrees. Interviews limited to this day only.

My heart pounded. I matched this job’s qualifications.

At noon I raced over to the address given and submitted my resume to a man who introduced himself as the Personnel Director.   

"It’s excellent, and I am certain my colleague would want to interview you when he returns from lunch. His title is Manager, Supply Department, and he is the person doing the hiring. Can you wait for him?"

My mind raced feverishly.

“No. I must get back to work in a half hour.”

I asked, "Do you have dinner plans?"

"We haven't made any, but we'll most likely eat at some restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf. We both love salmon. Afterwards, we’ll be driving to Sacramento to conduct more interviews tomorrow before returning to Arizona.”

   A wild, off-the-wall, thought hit me.

"My car is parked at the train station in Millbrae. Would you consider driving me there after work? Just minutes away from the depot is a wonderful restaurant located on the bay whose specialty is salmon. You can interview me as we travel down the freeway. After you dine, you can cross the San Mateo Bridge and be on your way to Sacramento."   

To my great delight, he accepted my bizarre suggestion. After work, I sprinted over to meet him and his colleague and hopped in the back seat of their rental car. As we proceeded up the ramp onto the highway, my interview began. It went along these lines:

"Why do you want this job?" one of them posed.

“Just look around. How would you like to put up with this traffic every day? That’s why I commute by train. Commuting to San Francisco from my home in San Mateo is nerve wracking and time consuming. It rains here frequently. I need to relocate someplace where it’s sunny and commuting less strenuous.”

The other one said, "In this job, you'll have to interact with various engineering groups and institute new purchasing practices and procedures. What experience do you have in this regard?"

“I wrote and delivered a technical paper to an engineering society, have years of Toastmasters training, am fair-minded, flexible, and have a great sense of humor. These traits and skills allow me to work closely with co-workers and management.”

"You will be supervising personnel who have no academic training beyond high school. How do you propose to interact with them?"

"I'm a good teacher, able to instruct people, a person who listens and weighs options before taking action. My education will help facilitate my ability to communicate with staff. I don’t talk down to my children or to employees.”     

Not all of this was true, of course, but I hoped it would make a favorable impression. As the interview continued, I laced my responses with witty or pointed stories that seemed appropriate, conversing with these two strangers as if they were old friends. 

“My prior employment responsibilities mesh with those needed to fill this position,” I said authoritatively, hoping that neither of them knew the specifics of corporate purchasing.  

"What salary had you in mind?"

"I require ten percent more than I am currently earning." In truth, I would have taken the job for a cut in pay of that amount.

"That might be possible. This position has an additional benefit, a company take-home car to use for commuting to work."

Visions of sugar plums danced in my head. Are you kidding me? What a great benefit. It’s worth more than the salary increase mentioned.

Before the interview ended, I summarized my qualifications: an excellent job record which included corporate purchasing experience, a stable family life, an undergraduate and a graduate degree that precisely met their job requirements, a confident bearing, and an eagerness and willingness to relocate. Could there be a better candidate?  I hoped not.

Imagine my delight when a letter arrived a few weeks later from Salt River Project offering me the job. It read, in part, "Anyone capable of conducting an interview while seated in the back seat of a car traveling 70 mph down a freeway deserves to be hired." My heart leaped for joy.

At about the same time, Boeing offered me a job in Seattle. It came nowhere close to matching SRP’s offer which I accepted immediately. My new employer not only raised my salary ten percent, they agreed to provide me with a company car for commuting purposes, and pay our moving expenses.   

I had to report for work on March 6, 1967. This presented a challenge to our household. We decided that Angie would remain in San Mateo until our children finished school that semester. I planned to move to Phoenix and live in a furnished apartment until she and our six and growing children could join me. We put our house up for sale, and prepared for a new beginning.

A year or so later, Boeing lost a major defense contract and began to lay off employees, most of them newly hired. In accounting inventory jargon, it would be termed LIFO (last in, first out). TV coverage showed some former workers standing on the chilly streets of Seattle, peddling apples. Thank goodness SRP had hired me. There is little doubt I would have been one of those poor unfortunate souls up north singing the blues in rainy Washington. Instead, I found myself down south whistling “Dixie” in sunny Arizona, doing the “nice work” that I had gotten.

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SAN FRANCISCO, HERE I COME

My next job found me working in Shakey Town. It didn't last long. 03/10/2016

SAN FRANCISCO, HERE I COME

 In 1963, Bob Tonneson left FWC’s cooling tower department and began working for Rogers Engineering Company, a small privately owned San Francisco firm. Now, in late 1966, Bob knew that my job with DeLaval would soon end. He arranged for me to meet Mr. Rogers at a business lunch. Much to my delight, he hired me on the spot as a materials expediter at a slight increase in pay over my current salary. It seemed too good to be true.

It was. From day one, the agonizing complex chore of commuting to my new job began to take its toll on me. Early each morning I would drive to the Southern Pacific depot in Millbrae, take the train into San Francisco, board a cross-town bus to Market Street, and then change to another bus to reach my office on Beale. I could walk rather than take two busses, but when it rained, as it often did, I had to ride them

The office opened at 8:00 a.m., which forced me to take an early train. While dressing one morning, Angie remarked, “I never thought you would do it.”

"Do what?"

"Take a night job." Only the light of the moon intruded on the utter darkness of the morning.

I hated commuting back from San Francisco. My workday ended at 4:30 p.m., but the first train I could take that stopped at Millbrae did not depart until 5:15 p.m. I arrived home about 6:30 p.m. If I missed this train the next one got me home well after 7:00 p.m. A few times I fell asleep, failed to get off at my stop and had to ride for miles down the track before I could get off. As a rule, few trains going back to San Francisco stopped at Millbrae. I had to phone Angie, ask her to load up the kids, come pick me up and drive me back to Millbrae in order to retrieve my car. Usually heavy rain would fall to add to the fun.

I could drive from home to my job rather than take the train, an option akin to Sophie's Choice. I could crawl along with heavy freeway traffic to reach San Francisco where parking could rarely be found. Lots far away from my office charged exorbitant fees.

Just before Christmas, I missed the morning train and had to drive to work in the rain. Coming home that evening, I found myself gridlocked in traffic. After an hour behind the wheel, my car had moved exactly four miles. It took me until 7:30 p.m. to make it home. I screamed to Angie, “I’ve had it. This commute is killing me. Any job would be better than this one.”

Fortunately, one came my way shortly afterwards. Not just any old job, but one that would change my life completely. With my new position in hand, I began singing “San Francisco, Here I Go,” lyrics more pleasing to me than the original version.

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SO LONG, IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YOU

Another year, another baby, another degree, another job. In this yarn I describe some of the amazing events that happened to me and the family in 1966. 03/10/2016

SO LONG, IT’S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YOU

In 1964, Angie and I decided to have another baby, hoping for a boy. On June 11, 1965, our second son and last child arrived on schedule at Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City, and a familiar port of call for my wife. She had given birth to our six children in less than nine years. Angie wanted to call him Anthony, but I objected. It didn’t seem to fit with his surname. We finally agreed to name him after me, Joseph James. There are times when I wish we had chosen to call him Timothy. Don’t you think someone named Timothy Finnerty, spoken with a lilting brogue, would capture the ear?

The attending physician said, “Do you know how fortunate you are to have six children born without a single health issue?” To be honest, it never crossed our minds that such a thing could occur. We took it for granted our babies would be born perfectly healthy, and they were. 

What I did not take for granted was my ability to earn an MBA degree. It required me to drive from Millbrae to Santa Clara in heavy rush-hour freeway traffic, two and sometimes three nights a week, which took a minimum of forty minutes. The drive home to San Mateo took an equal amount of time. Angie never failed to have dinner waiting for me. I could always rely upon her.

I could not rely upon my 1951 Studebaker to travel these distances at freeway speed. I sold it for fifty bucks and bought a brand new bright red 1964 VW bug, our first ever new car. What fun it was to drive. Sometimes we would use it rather than our station wagon to go shopping. Picture us, if you will, arriving or leaving a parking lot. Angie placed Joey on the floor between her legs, in his car seat. Jamie, Laura and Ellen filled the back seat. Barry and Carol occupied the well in back, knees facing each other, riding sideways. People gawked at us when we emerged like clowns from a circus car, surprised that we could all fit so snugly.

A much greater surprise came when Transamerica Insurance Company bought DeLaval Turbine Company in 1965. It seemed like an unlikely purchase. What did an insurance company know about industrial equipment? Nothing, but this did not matter. This was the time in American history when large business firms decided to expand horizontally, not integrate vertically. All sorts of unusual business acquisitions took place.

Soon afterwards, a Transamerica executive showed up at the Filtration Division offices. His job was to assess our potential for profit. He interviewed most of the staff, including me. Favorably impressed with our organization, he convinced Transamerica to provide us with their financial support, with a proviso. He gave Sam Felix one year in which to turn around the company’s fortunes. As time went on, we learned that you might enjoy meeting this man once but if he paid you a second call, he had come to terminate your employment. I could feel a great unease descending upon me and my coworkers as time went by without achieving any significant improvement in our profitability.

Despite this looming uncertainty about my job, the year 1966 became memorable. In July, Angie took all six children, ages one to nine, to New York on a red-eye TWA flight. Imagine how difficult and how brave it was for her to undertake such a journey by herself. 

I stayed behind in order to complete my study program. On August 6, 1966, Santa Clara University awarded me an MBA degree. While driving home I periodically stuck my head out the window, shouting for joy, unable to contain my excitement and pleasure. It had taken me three and a half years to finish the program, an achievement Angie made possible. It was she who encouraged me to go back to school; she who typed all my school papers; and she who allowed me the luxury of spending time studying instead of helping her with the grinding chores of raising a large family of young children. She always sacrificed for me.

A few days later, I traveled to New York to spend my two weeks of vacation with Angie and the children. We returned to California in the company of her brother Al Sammarco, his wife, Mary, and their two boys, Richard and Gary. Al, a career naval non-commissioned officer, was in the process of transferring from Rhode Island to San Diego. Our combined families made quite a sight when we arrived at San Francisco International Airport. Half the luggage on the plane seemed to belong to our party. We gathered everyone and our belongings at the curb, waiting for our neighbor, Mrs. Kane, to drive us home. We laughed when she showed up in her Volkswagen convertible. I phoned a friend at DeLaval and obtained the loan of their truck to cart the luggage. Everyone squeezed together, and we managed to make it home in just one trip, some of us in the truck, everyone else in her Bug.   

Not long afterwards, Transamerica announced it would close the Millbrae Filtration Division in September, relocating its operations to Trenton. They offered to transfer some key personnel, including me. It was de-ja-vu: First FWC, now DeLaval wanting me to move back to New Jersey.

As noted previously, Sam Felix had expressed little interest in my effort to obtain an MBA degree during my years with DeLaval. Imagine my pleasure when I showed my diploma to the business manager a few days before the plant began to shut down. She immediately reimbursed me for the balance of my tuition. Thank you very much, DeLaval.  

In exchange for the check, I submitted my resignation. I had found another job with a small engineering firm. I left, singing the title of this vignette.

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TEACH ME TONIGHT

In 1963, I began working in a factory, a new experience for me. Read this story to find out how I fared.
03/10/2016

TEACH ME TONIGHT

   In 1963, Sam Felix hired me to fill the position of Purchasing Agent of the DeLaval Turbine Company’s Filtration Division located in Millbrae, California.  DeLaval’s primary manufacturing facilities were located in Trenton, New Jersey where it manufactured many industrial products including pumps known the world over by its logo, IMO, which stood for I Move Oil. Sam’s family owned a significant amount of the company’s stock, it was said, which may explain why he was given so much autonomy while managing this small part of a very large corporation.

Sam, six-foot three-inches tall, flew when he walked. On my first day of work, he led me at a quick-pace march around the shop area while describing the manufacturing process. He left me panting.

That evening, Angie asked, “How’d the new job go?”

“Not bad, but my legs hurt from having to sprint after Sam all day, trying to keep up with him.”

One of my duties was to purchase a two-inch thick circular steel plate used to hold the filter tubes in place. The first one I ordered arrived cut incorrectly. It wouldn’t fit in the steel tank. The shop superintendent covered up my error. I owed him a great debt of gratitude as this slab of metal was quite expensive.

Another job duty was to arrange shipment of completed units. It seemed to require more time to prepare shipping documentation to transport the skid-mounted filtration units to customers, one in Japan, another in Australia, than it did to manufacture them.

Interestingly, we allowed four weeks for our start-up engineer to get these units in operation, three weeks in Tokyo, one in Sydney, based on anticipated language barriers. The reverse happened. He only needed one week in Japan where every pipe and valve had been hand painted by legions of women and when the unit was turned on, not one leak occurred. In Australia, workmen had left a tool in the piping which caused major damage when the pump was turned on. In addition, virtually every fitting leaked. When the whistle sounded for tea, everyone stopped work, some dropping their tools. Our field engineer couldn’t get over the difference in the work ethic of the two countries.

Dan Harrington, my predecessor, taught me the ropes of my job. Although not a college graduate, he had years of field experience and knew every aspect of the business. He went out of his way to help me succeed as his replacement.

The shop utilized four welding positions. The welders had a strong dislike for management and called a strike within my first year of employment. The strike ended quickly when management refused to meet their demands, and the welders came back to work, surly and unhappy. They had one thing going for them. Collectively, they had cornered the Playboy centerfold market, which was on display in their welding booths. One of the female office employees complained, and Sam had the pinups removed. It was bad enough that the welders lost their strike. Now, they lost their art gallery.

It soon became apparent to me that the financial well-being of DeLaval’s Filtration Division was dubious, as unprofitable as had been FWC’s Cooling Tower Department. To rectify the situation, Sam began resorting to some questionable business practices. On one occasion, we needed to complete and ship a water filtration unit to a small community in California by month’s end to reflect profitability that quarter. Sam managed to persuade one of the elected officials to accept billing before we shipped the equipment. This event coincided with an inspection of our inventory records by internal auditors. Part of my discussion with them went something like this:

“There are three of these items in your inventory record, but we counted six of them on the shelf.”

“Yes, but three of those are assigned to the unit on the shop floor still under construction we billed for but haven’t yet shipped. Technically, they are not in our inventory.”

The auditors displayed little sense of humor about this matter, although Sam was a bundle of laughs. On one occasion, he invited me and a few other employees to join him after work to help him entertain a prospective customer. Sam took us to his “Members Only” Bombay Bicycle Club to loosen up the client. The bartender mixed drinks using Sam's personal liquor supply stored in his private locker. Afterwards, we went to a very fashionable San Francisco eatery. Sam almost fell off his chair when the restaurant declined his credit card, as they accepted cash only. Sam did not have a dime on him. The staff and the prospective client had to chip in to pay the bill. It was just another hilarious day in my so-called working life.

I had learned a valuable business lesson: Always carry cash when making a splash.

Oh, the client did not buy a filtration unit from us. It’s too bad as Sam was prepared to accept a credit card.

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THEY'LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE TODAY

The days dwindled down to a precious few, and my years of employment in the colling tower business ended, in 1963. This story describes the event. 02/29/2016

THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE

In early 1963, we learned that a neighbor, Mike Kane, had begun attending Santa Clara University at night, working towards an MBA degree.  Lay teachers taught the program designed to attract engineers from the Silicon Valley electronics industry. 

“You should do the same thing,” suggested Angie.

 That spring I enrolled there. In order to attain an MBA I would need to take fifteen classes, forty-five credit hours. It seemed unlikely I would succeed.

FWC’s college education benefits program reimbursed me for two-thirds of the cost of tuition upon evidence of having attained a passing grade. I passed my initial classes and felt delighted my first efforts had met with success.

FWC made one last effort to keep its cooling tower business from going under by offering to sell a concrete natural draft tower. We had never designed or erected such a structure. Such towers were commonly used around the world because of favorablr weather conditions or where operating costs made them more financially attractive. They rely upon the “chimney effect” to provide air flow, obviating the need for powered fans. Most nuclear plants employ such towers. What you see rising from them is nothing more frightening than water vapor.   

Our proposed tower design simulated a hyperbolically-shaped wastepaper basket, popular at the time. It would employ steel reinforcing rods placed in concrete to provide both the shape and strength required.  Fortunately, we could not entice a prospective customer to buy our proposed design. I had serious misgivings about our ability to oversee its construction.

When this effort failed, FWC sold its cooling tower business to a rival firm, Fluor Corporation.  Employees with longevity had three choices: they could remain with FWC but move to their corporate offices now located in Livingston, New Jersey; resign and work for Fluor, in Santa Rosa, California; or quit and find other employment. I had no intention of moving back to New Jersey, nor did I relish the thought of uprooting the family to live ninety miles away in Santa Rosa while remaining in the cooling tower business. I decided to resign. But where would I find work?

A want-ad caught my eye. The DeLaval Turbine Company, a manufacturer of pumps and other industrial equipment, whose headquarters were located in Trenton, New Jersey, advertised a Purchasing Agent position for their Filtration Division located in Millbrae, one town away from San Mateo, just off the Bayshore Freeway and near the San Francisco airport. I applied immediately and after one interview, obtained an offer. I quit FWC on Friday and began work for DeLaval the following Monday. I considered myself fortunate to obtain a new job so quickly with a well-known reputable company. I could commute to work in fifteen minutes. This new job allowed my family to remain secure in our present home. There would be no disruption to our children’s lives.

Having to take a slight cut in pay did not upset me because DeLaval’s employee benefits matched those of FWC, and included an even better tuition educational refund program. Under its provisions, they paid half the tuition expense each semester, but would reimburse the employee the remaining fifty percent in lump sum upon proof of having attained a degree. This reward motivated me to continue attending Santa Clara University.

I left FWC with mixed emotions. Glad to be doing something new, I knew I would miss the friends I had made while working there for over a dozen years, all of whom scattered. Change is inevitable, and often good things follow. It took a while, but my life improved immeasurably thereafter.

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PRETTY BABY

We wanted another baby, and our prayers were answered when our fifth child and fourth girl arrived. 02/29/2016

PRETTY BABY

            By September 1962, we had lived in our Eichler home for two happy years. In October, the Cuban missile crisis arose. Many Americans feared the possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Fortunately, Kennedy did not blink during and the immediate threat abated.

            But neighbors asked, “What if those Russians bomb the Eichler Highlands without warning?” In response to this hypothetical question, a group of engineers living in the neighborhood took it upon themselves to assess the feasibility of building a bomb shelter within the boundaries of the community to protect its residents in the event of a “first strike” event. I scoffed at the concept, thinking it far-fetched and zany. The study group spent a number of months at this task, and presented their findings at a meeting. Their analysis determined it would be cost ineffective. Too few people would likely make it to the shelter in time to be saved from the first bomb which surely would land right in our community pool.

            I am glad we were not asked to ante up money to build the shelter. I did not think it possible for me to get home from work before the bomb hit. As it was, the evening fog always beat me there before I could take the kids swimming.

            In 1963 we enrolled Jamie in first grade at St. Bartholomew’s parochial school located in downtown San Mateo, a ten-minute drive. Laura and Ellen attended pre-school and kindergarten in the Highlands. Barry had the house and the back yard to himself, most days. We set up some neat playground equipment back there, including swings, slides and a four-person carousel contraption.

            By this time they had all learned to swim, despite my frustration with the weather. Some days I’d race home from work, grab the kids, head to the pool, only to find fog rolling in, whipping up the wind, and making it impossible to enjoy swimming.  The coastal range blocked off some, but not all of this misty stuff.

            At other times of the year, I’d play golf at the nearby Crystal Springs public course. Most of the holes sloped sharply toward the reservoir, and no matter how straight I hit the ball, it always ran off into the dense underbrush, lost forever. The greens had numerous undulations which caused me to four putt most of the time. However, no one else ever seemed to play there, and I usually had the entire place to myself.         

   Angie became pregnant again. We thought a boy would help balance our brood and provide Barry with a kid brother. Should it be another girl, we would be thrilled. We hoped only that it be born healthy. 

   The new family member turned out to be a girl, whom we named Carol. We continued our pattern of naming our children with five-letter first names. When it came time to choose a middle name, we picked “Michele.”  Of course, we did not realize we omitted a letter, but over time, Carol got over it. I think. “What the ‘L,’ right Carol?”

She arrived on September 29, 1963, at Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City, California, the same locale where Angie had given birth to our other children. They had a bed reserved for my sweet wife. Once again, fortune blessed us with a beautiful and perfectly healthy child

It may not have been the most appropriate time to have another child born to us as my job fortunes were in turmoil. FWC had every intention of extricating itself from the cooling tower business. I began looking for another work opportunity.

My life insurance agent suggested that I apply for a job at Northwestern Insurance Company. With no other prospects in mind, I applied for a position after reading his company’s training book he thoughtfully provided me. This enabled me to pass their pre-employment qualification test with an exceptionally high mark and resulted in their offering me an entry-level job. After considering how difficult it would be for me to earn a living selling insurance, I chose not to enter this field.     

   The book my insurance friend loaned me taught me more about the subject than any other before or since and made me a firm believer in its benefits. Not so with Angie, who always thought differently about its need. Sometimes, when we suffered a loss that our insurance covered, I gloated. When I had to cancel a policy because we could no longer afford the premium, she said, “I told you so.” Thank goodness we had plenty of insurance to cover the cost of her giving birth.

   Carol came home from the hospital, but took no interest in any of these affairs, a happy infant who delighted us. Asthma and eczema conditions were not yet of concern to her or us. The other children delighted in having her join the family.

   Did I mention she was beautiful?

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THIS NEARLY WAS MINE

/This story describes a job offer I turned down in 1963. 02/29/2016

THIS NEARLY WAS MINE

As the Foster Wheeler Corporation cooling tower business spun out of control, it behooved me to find another job before it crashed. Looking over the want ads became a daily ritual for me. Unexpectedly, I received a phone call from Bob Moore, owner of the Moore Fan Company, who offered me a remarkable employment opportunity. Some years earlier, he had moved his business from Kansas City to Marceline, Missouri, after neighbors complained about his use of explosives to manufacture fan hubs. Bob, an aeronautical engineer, had learned his trade while employed by J. F Pritchard & Co., designing propellers for the light aircraft market.

  At this point in time, the Moore Fan Company was FWC’s sole fan supplier and its largest customer. Over time, Bob and I became good business friends. The impending sale of FWC’s cooling tower business to the Fluor Corporation, who made their own fans, would result in a large loss of revenue to Moore Fan Company.

Bob’s employment offer caught me completely off guard. I stalled for time to consider the idea. In May, he wrote me a three-page letter and outlined some of the mutually advantageous reasons why we should link up. In June, at my suggestion, he paid to have me spend a week with him at Marceline, to allow me a better opportunity to weigh his offer.

Bob wanted me to join his firm because neither of his two adult sons from his first marriage wanted to work for him. Bob wished to provide his current wife and child with a measure of security by having someone on his staff able to maintain the business after his retirement or demise. 

What exactly would my new job entail? Bob outlined a number of directions in which it might evolve, including sales. He gave me more credit for my business and engineering acumen than I actually possessed.

After returning home, Angie and I discussed the pros and cons of this job opportunity. On the positive side, Bob outlined a long range scenario in which he would sell me the business when it came time for him to retire. This appealed to me.

On the negative side I would have to take a large cut in pay.

I worried that, should things not work out, I’d be stuck in Marceline, a very tiny burg located in the center of Missouri, equidistant from Kansas City and St. Louis. Aside from Bob’s large modern factory, every other structure in town looked ancient. The home movies I took while visiting there confirmed my opinion.

I had observed Bob enjoying an ice-cold martini during breakfast. He had a fetish about germs and used a straw to sip it. That straw broke the back of any intention I might have had to work for him.

A few weeks later, I advised Bob of my decision to remain in California. This did not deter him. He seemed even more intent on hiring me, and phoned me every few weeks over the next two months. He wrote me a lengthy letter in October 1963, making one more impassioned pitch for my services. During a long and painful phone conversation, I told him under no circumstances would I accept his offer. He told me my decision disappointed him.

About five or six years later, Bob called and asked me to write his attorney a letter attesting to his moral character. He needed it to support his ongoing efforts to divorce his wife. I ignored this request, not wishing to become involved in his personal affairs.

What ever happened to Bob Moore?  For years, I did not know. Once, perhaps in 1990, I tried phoning the company but could find no listing either in Marceline or anywhere else. I concluded his business enterprise had expired.

While reviewing this yarn (April 2011), I surfed the net for Moore Fan Company. What a shock! Not only does the company still exist, it even has an office in England. The company website provided me with the following information: Bob remained President and C.E.O, until 1971 at which time the older of his two sons from his first marriage succeeded him. At this writing, the younger brother, John, now runs the company.

I sent John an e-mail, telling him of the association I’d had with his father, and the job offer he’d made. To my great delight, John phoned me. “If you’re ever in the area, I’d love to show you around the plant, now a hundred thousand square feet.” The news thrilled me to learn how successful the business had become.

This discovery did not change my perspective. I had made the correct decision to reject Bob’s 1963 job offer. Moving to Marceline, even with the prospect of one day owning his fan business, would have led to my ruin. In no time at all, Angie would have fled to New York, taking all the kids with her. I would have wound up sipping martinis for breakfast. Furthermore, I had no chance of emulating the business success of that other Missourian, Harry Truman, as I clearly lacked the requisite nasal twang.

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SEND IN THE CLOWNS

This story describes some of the unique cooling towers we sold during my final years of employment. They often produced clown-like effects. 02/29/2019

SEND IN THE CLOWNS

In the summer of 1961, Angie and I spent my two week vacation in NYC. During our entire stay, the temperature topped 90 degrees F. and the humidity edged even higher. We cursed the weather. However, our relatives loved seeing our four children, especially my mother. She died later that year, but I took some solace knowing she had spent time with them, ever so briefly.

When we returned to San Mateo, I began to worry even more about my future in the cooling tower industry. Over time, cooling tower designs had changed from forced draft to induced draft. Cooling tower fans that normally rotated in a vertical plane now had to spin horizontally. A rash of induced draft fan failures began to occur that culminated when one of FWC’s steel fan blades broke off from its hub and flew some distance before crashing through the roof of a power plant building almost killing a worker. As a result, the company decided to discontinue making its own fans in favor of purchasing them from other suppliers, including the Moore Fan Company. Later on, this firm figured in my life in an interesting way.

FWC managed to sell a number of cooling towers that had to meet strict or unusual operational conditions. Many failed to meet specifications.

As an example, we built a very large tower for Dow Chemical Company that had to cool exceptionally hot water. Our design incorporated the use of forty-foot long polypropylene ropes intended to hold in place a multitude of redwood splash racks. We had never sold a tower that incorporated this feature, nor had any other company in this business.

The rack suspension system required us to insert one smaller diameter rope inside a slightly larger diameter one. Every two feet or so, the inner rope had to be pulled through the outer one, forming a two-inch loop. Rather than perform this work on site using carpenters, we contracted with the State of California to utilize patients housed at the Napa State Hospital for the Criminally Insane to handle this task. I considered this to be an act of sheer brilliance bordering on madness. It spoke volumes about my days in this industry. Much to my surprise, the locked-in work force did a great job for us, completing the work on time and under budget.

Once the ropes arrived at the job site, carpenters encountered great difficulty in attaching the looped ropes to the wooden splash racks. There were hundred and hundreds of racks that had to be hung in proper alignment. Eventually, the work force managed to complete the tower’s construction.

As soon as Dow put the cooling tower into service, disaster struck. The ropes began to stretch due to the extreme heat of the circulating water. As a result, some sections of splash racks collapsed. Hot water streamed directly down to the concrete collection basin, hardly cooled at all. Dow had to stop their manufacturing process in order to fix the tower, which they chose to do without our help. They removed the ropes and resorted to conventional wooden structural members. I could never understand why they didn’t sue. Perhaps they did. If so, no one told me.

Later, Southern California Edison awarded us a contract to build two identical towers to cool condenser water at their Fontana Generation Plant. Each measured seven hundred feet long and stood seventy feet high. By any measure, these units were very large. To transport hot condenser water along the length of the towers, our design incorporated a four-foot diameter wooden stave pipe, or flume. We had never built a tower incorporating this feature.

Bechtel Engineering, representing SoCalEd, thought water in the flume would impose a live load we had not accounted for in our earthquake design. We stumped their Ph.D. Structural Design representative by alleging the load would not affect the tower, claiming the force of surging water would break the end plate of the wood stave pipe, dissipating its energy. They could not find a flaw in this logic and let us proceed.

When the first railcars arrived at the job site, our industrious field superintendent started erecting hundreds of columns without bracing them adequately. A Santa Ana windstorm roared through Fontana that weekend and knocked down what he had put up. We had to replace the damaged lumber which set back the construction schedule.

After the plant went on line, true to form, SoCalEd claimed the towers failed to meet performance design criteria. This did not surprise me. Measuring cooling tower performance is not an easy thing to do because there are so many variables involved and steady-state conditions are not easy to maintain. I don’t recall the outcome of this dispute. Customers wanted cold water not hot arguments.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company asked for bids to build a cooling tower to serve a new power plant at their Geyser’s geothermal facility in Northern California. We were the only bidder. The sulfurous atmosphere surrounding the site destroyed many of our tower’s metal structural parts. In addition, the tower did not meet its cooling performance design guarantee. Where have I heard that complaint before?

Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) bought a twenty-cell tower for use at its Vera Cruz refinery. Each of its twenty fans measured twenty-eight feet in diameter, the largest fans our supplier, The Moore Fan Company, had ever made. The blades were made of Monel, a very difficult alloy to weld.

A year after we shipped the unit to Mexico, we began to get heated letters complaining that the fan blades supplied with this tower were failing at weld joints due to excessive vibration. Also, the mercury switches we had designed to shut down the equipment when excessive vibration occurred had failed to operate. In addition, the towers were not providing cold water at the specified conditions. We dispatched representatives there, on two occasions, to assess the situation. Nothing had been resolved when the company decided to send me there, perhaps just to show PEMEX we still loved them. I had never been on a field trip, and had absolutely no idea what to say or do when I got there.

FWC authorized me to bring Angie along, giving us an opportunity to combine business with pleasure. We got our immunization shots but at the last possible minute, all four kids came down with chicken pox forcing Angie to remain at home.

Upon my arrival in Mexico City, a company representative and interpreter met me. He toured me around this fascinating city. The following day we boarded an old DC-3 and flew to Vera Cruz. On the flight, a male cabin attendant dispensed bottled Mexican beer.

PEMEX officials met me at the airport and took me immediately to the cooling tower to inspect it. Dutifully, without knowing exactly what to look for, I entered every cell while 90 degree water rained down on my noggin. It would have been easier for my lungs to absorb oxygen from the ocean than to obtain any from the 95 % humid air in this tropical environment.

To keep the towers in operation, PEMEX's employees had re-manufactured the vibration switches and re-welded broken fan blades. Some of the fans were new ones they made themselves, copied from the Moore Fan Company design. They had more confidence in theirs than Moore’s. It may have been illegal, but I found their decision understandable.

After inspecting the towers, they took me to lunch at a beachside cafe that looked uninviting. They served me the house specialty, red snapper. Despite my disdain for fish, this one tasted great, as I took a slug of beer with each mouthful, swallowing both as quickly as possible. The spicy snapper did not heat me to the same level as the ordeal that followed.

After lunch, officials escorted me to a large conference room filled with PEMEX engineers and operational personnel who began grilling me, asking me question after question about the tower’s mechanical faults.  

After a few minutes of dreadful silence, my voice whispered truthfully, “I have no idea why the vibration switches and fan blades failed.  From what I could see, everything is working properly now.”   

A PEMEX employee said, “Tests indicate the tower is failing to meet its design criteria.”

No kidding? How odd.

“Please send us your data and we will report back. The tower appears to be functioning properly now.”

The torture ended when it became apparent that my inspection had been a farce. I slunk out of the refinery and returned to Mexico City where I stayed at a high-rise American hotel in a room that provided me with a spectacular view of the traffic. Buses crawled along the streets in every direction, so densely packed together that they looked like a series of connected train cars, crammed with people. That evening, my interpreter took me to dinner. We took a “peso” cab, so called because that’s all you paid no matter how far you rode. Our taxi had to stop every so often to allow the driver to pull up the hood and fill the cap-less radiator with water from a supply he carried in another container. Not a car in town appeared to be newer than thirty years old.

I felt equally as old and worn out. This experience in Mexico made it self evident I had to find a different job.

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