Equipment World

August 2016

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EquipmentWorld.com | August 2016 9 L ucas Stewart is the newest member of our staff, but recently he had the privilege to interview one of the oldest superintendents in construc- tion. As I reviewed the transcript of his conversation with this 74-year-old gentle- man, it occurred to me that this was a voice that more than our staff needed to hear. At his request, he will remain anonymous. "If I had a lot of money," he told Lucas, "I would go out there and do this kind of work for nothing, because of the sense of having done something that people can see. That building is there. I can go by there and say, 'I built that.' I'm not behind a desk 24/7. I'm out in the atmosphere, creating. Everyday you get a sense of ac- complishment. "Besides that," he continued, "when the company is bidding a job, the architect is going to want to know who's going to be the superintendent. And if the archi- tect knows me by name, it's either a good selling point or a deterrent. Right now, I would not hesitate to sit down to lunch with any architect or contractor I've ever worked with. Even the ones who don't like me have a respect for my knowledge of all the trades. You can't be a good superinten- dent, especially on a large project, with- out that depth of knowledge. If you don't know how to do it yourself, you sure as hell can't tell another man how to do it. "I started out about as low as you could get, with a pick and shovel. Then my brain, as small as it is, kept saying, 'The more you do, the more you learn, and the further you'll advance.' So I made it a habit of always looking to increase my knowl- edge of what was going on around me. And that brought me to the point where every time I finished a job, I knew more than I started. "In the past 10 years, people my age were filtered out because of how much it costs just to have us on the job. Ten years ago, I was making the same amount of money as I am now. Contractors are hir- ing less expensive personnel, but that's in every industry, not just construction. But in construction, that less expensive person really isn't helping you much, especially if everything has to be built on a tight schedule. There's not a question that is go- ing to come up that I haven't lived through before. Not one. It becomes a credibility issue. All it takes is one question for those on the jobsite to figure out that someone doesn't know something. You can't get that kind of information in a book, a seminar or a lecture. You actually have to have been out there and seen it before." His advice to younger workers? "Pay at- tention to someone that knows more than you do. Get all the field experience you possibly can, in all phases of development. Keep your pride in your work. Don't go out and build just to pay the bills. Do it for the experience, so the next time you'll be more productive and more at ease in your mind. You can go home with the knowl- edge that you learned something that will impel you into the future. "I don't plan on retiring," he declared. "I've already retired, and came out of it, so I'm just going to keep on working." on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle MGruver@randallreilly.com The view from a 74-year-old superintendent

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