My First Time

Industry veterans recall their career starts

My first in front of a class

By Sharon Verbeten

Robert Lemke, 52, lives in Wauwatosa and is an associate professor in the Architectural Engineering and Building Construction Department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. He has worked there for 16 years and also runs his own real estate and consulting business, Envision Consulting Inc., Milwaukee. He holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a master’s degree in engineering management from MSOE.

He recalls his first time in front of a class. …

It was September 1991. I didn’t plan on teaching, but I had gone for my master’s degree at MSOE and was offered a chance to teach part time.

My chairman at the time brought me in and said they didn’t have a textbook, so he handed me a packing box full of stuff related to the class.

The class was Office Practices, a senior-level business class held three times a week, where we covered construction finance, time value of money, etc. These things aren’t particularly interesting to architectural engineers, but I tried to relate it to their profession.

I had never taught before, and I remember walking into the classroom. It was very warm, and bowls of sweat were rolling down my back. I still recall that. I don’t know if I was nervous, or if it was just hot.

Then, after that fine opening, I proceeded to conduct class following the five-page outline I had drafted. But when I got to the fourth page, I realized I didn’t have enough to fill the remaining 20 minutes.

I didn’t know what to expect, and it was hard to gauge. I knew the students were engineers, but I didn’t know their capacity for business. But I was pleasantly surprised at how engaging, interested and motivated the students were.

At the end of the quarter, you always look at how the students evaluate you. I thought it went … well. You always want perfect scores, but then you worry they might like you but not be learning anything.

So how’d I do? I think you just get better at it. You never want to get stagnant, and I hope that’s true for me. That first one-hour class grew into teaching three classes per quarter, and now I’ve been there 16 years.

My first Deep underground

By Sheila Llanas

Jeff Weakly, 50, is the president of Super Excavators Inc., Menomonee Falls. He joined the company in 1990.

Weakly grew up in Ohio and graduated in 1979 from Miami University — near Oxford, Ohio — with a bachelor’s degree in botany. Shortly after graduation, he took a job with Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer and Associates Inc., Milwaukee. About a year later, he signed on with Walsh Construction, Chicago.

And it was on a Walsh job that Weakly got his first taste of working deep underground. …

It was in April 1980 at 81st and Lincoln in West Allis. I went down a 40-foot deep shaft, walked up to the heading. Guys were in there hand-mining with clay spades, loading it onto a handcar. I’d never seen this in my life.

I was out of college and so undecided about what I wanted to do. I had bills to pay off. That’s when I knew what my career would be.

I wasn’t so much claustrophobic as I was worried there would be a catastrophic cave-in and I would die. The first time, looking at the ribs and boards used to support the earth, it’s kind of creepy.

I went down a 24-foot vertical shaft, then into a 72-inch diameter tunnel.

It was lit by electric lighting. It was damp, of course, with all kinds of fungus and mushrooms.

I was assisting a surveyor. I was down there about an hour. I got a taste of it, the heavy equipment, the smell of hydraulic oils and sweat.

Hand-mining heavy clay is hard work. I was amazed to see a miniature locomotive hauling the mud away. There was a mucking machine, an electric-powered shovel that scoops the dirt on the floor and rotates backwards 180 degrees to drop it into a mud car. I’d never been exposed to this methodology in my life. I was fascinated.

It was loud, with pneumatic clay spades digging through the earth. The ventilation system was loud. The equipment was heavy and dangerous. You had to be aware of everything going on at all times.

It was so nice to get back to the surface. From the bottom of the shaft, the sun and blue sky looked like a lighthouse. It was exhilarating. It was a little bit of a rush the first time.

My first Managing a project

By Lindsey Huster

Dave Stroik, 57, lives in West Bend and is the president and principal in charge of Zimmerman Architectural Studios Inc., Wauwatosa. He has worked at the firm for 32 years. In fact, Zimmerman was where Stroik started working a year after he earned his master’s degree in architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1975. As president, Stroik coordinates a firm that designs structures ranging in focus from health-care buildings to religious facilities. But to get to his position, he had to clear a few bumps in the road.

He recalls his first time managing a project (where, incidentally, he met his wife, Patti). …

After I got licensed, my first design was for the Washington County Jail and Courthouse addition in 1977. I was very nervous. It was the first time I headed a team of peers.

It was a very complicated addition and remodeling. Everything needed to be by the numbers.

In my mind, I was worried about everything. But everything seemed to be going well.

After we finished [designing] the project, we put it on the street for competitive bidding. At that point, I was bombarded by phone calls and questions in regard to every detail.

It was during that phase that I invented the original Cingular commercial. I get this call from a steel fabricator who can’t get a beam inside the building to support a new structure.

In my mind, he’s making some very good points. He can’t get it into the elevator or into the hall. Now I’m scrambling through drawings.

I say, ‘Let’s take a window out of the building and bring the beam through the third floor window.’ But there is only silence on the phone.

Then, I say, ‘Well there is a hatch on the roof. We could lower the beam through that and maneuver it to where it needs to be.’ But there was still silence.

At this point, I’m getting intimidated by silence. I finally say, ‘Here’s what we can do. We’ll find some way to saw the beam in thirds and splice it back together.’ Nothing. Silence.

At that point, I turn back at that phone and notice I pulled the phone out of its cord. I was talking to no one. I felt like the biggest doofus after this.

I think that every architect has that experience of being intimidated by silence.

My first Working with a hot wire

By Kathleen Watson

Tim Hanson committed to the Navy when he was just 16 and joined up after he graduated from high school. He spent four years in Hawaii training and working as a Navy interior communication electrician. When he returned home to the Twin Cities in Minnesota, jobs were scarce, so he hired on with Jones Intercable Inc., Milwaukee. In 1987, he began a five-year apprenticeship to become a construction electrician. He earned journeyman status in 1992.

Today, Hanson, 47, lives in Muskego and serves as one of five business agents representing Milwaukee Local 494 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. It was a long time ago, but he still recalls his first time working with a hot wire. …

I was an apprentice electrician working with a journeyman changing out ceiling light fixtures for a large architectural firm. We got there before the office opened, turned off the power supply to the fixtures and started working.

When the owner arrived, he said we couldn’t leave all of the lights out because he had staff members who had work to do.

[Occupational Safety and Health Administration] regulations then weren’t as strict or as well-taught as they are now, and we wanted to satisfy the customer. So we turned the lights back on and continued our work.

I supported each fixture while the journeyman loosened the bolts. I lowered the fixture about 6 inches — whatever the wiring would allow — and he disconnected it by removing the feed wires from the junction box. I held a new fixture in place while the journeyman reconnected it to the junction box and secured it to the ceiling.

On one fixture, I don’t know if the wire was too short, was loose, or if I pulled too hard, but a live wire brushed against the metal junction box. A blinding flash seared my eyes, and all I could see was white, even though the room had gone black.

I jerked back, my hands flew to my face, and the glass fixture shattered on the desk below. I was sure I was going to be electrocuted — that we both were going to die.

My partner and I survived, and no one else was hurt, so we cleaned up the glass and continued the process. We didn’t finish that day as planned, so when we went back the next day, we started earlier so we could work for a couple hours with the power off.

Nothing like this could happen nowadays. Apprentices get better training, thanks to the IBEW and its program of more extensive education for those going into the field.

My first Wrecking a building

By Janine Anderson

Robert Hesotian, 57, is an estimator and project manager with Champion Environmental Services Inc., Madison. He joined the company six years ago, but he has 34 years of demolition under his belt.

While in his early 20s, Hesotian, who lives in Oak Brook, Ill., abandoned the life of a commercial photographer for his current line of work. He got his first job in the field after doing a brochure for a Chicago company (Hesotian declined to reveal the company name) that his brother worked for. When he finished the photography job, the company’s boss offered him a job.

Hesotian initially turned it down, but he called the boss back a few months later to see if the offer still stood. It did, and “Demo Bob” entered the demolition business.

He recalls the first building he demolished. …

We were in Chicago, and we wrecked a three-car garage. We wrecked it by hand, no machines, and loaded it into a roll-off container by hand. That’s just the way we did things back then.

Of course, you can use a machine, but hand labor was a lot cheaper. It was only a three-car garage. We went in there, got some saws and did it all by hand. It took us two days to wreck it and load it into one container.

I loved it. I like working outside, first of all. I like working with my hands, and you just take out a lot of hostilities. It’s just a great feeling to wreck
something like that, to clear the site and then get ready for a new garage going up.

I was very young. It was something new in my life. It was exciting, and it just escalated from there.

I think the first one with a wrecking ball was in Chicago. I think it was a six-story apartment building. I was using an old friction-type crane. You operated the brakes and hoist by levers.

Now it’s all hydraulic, and the operator doesn’t go through too much work doing that kind of thing. Back then it was a day’s work. You can feel the impact. When that ball hits that building you can feel the impact in your seat.

Now they’re a lot smoother, a lot quieter and, basically, more convenient.

The operator has a much better seat, and the cab is much more luxurious than the old-time cranes. They’re air-conditioned now.

But, you know, we’ve gone away from crane wrecking to backhoes. We don’t use cranes that much — our company doesn’t.

I think there are more efficient ways of wrecking a building than using a crane. On a mid-size building, we use a big backhoe with a bucket, grapple, hydraulic concrete munchers to pulverize the concrete, things to cut steel beams. It’s a very versatile machine.