Professional Engineer for Clean, Sustainable Water & Energy
My photography includes landscape, travel and botanical photography wherever I travel.
This is a panoramic shot of us nearing the pinnacle of Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park:
Here is the Lincoln Memorial as seen from the WWII Memorial:
And here is the Fayette Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan:
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Editor’s note: For more information see the ABC Associated Press Video Footage from January 30, 2024
On January 10, 2011, my sales representative left me at the Pensacola airport and headed home to Birmingham, Alabama to hunker down. This sales trip was scheduled for Mobile, Opelika, and Montgomery then onto the Atlanta area for the last half of the week.
At 9:00 am, I reported in. My boss refused to let me buy a same-day ticket and abandon my trip as the ice storm started crossing into Alabama and Georgia. I was ordered to keep the rest of my itinerary and get to Atlanta.
I rented a car and headed up towards I-65 on the US highways. It was starting to freeze and the roads were slippery. I watched the groups of truckers tracking in in each other’s ruts. I fell in behind one of them, at a respectful distance. I understood that they would set the safest pace, and while my tires didn’t track perfectly in their ruts, I had two wheels in a good place in the lane.
I drove the next 250 miles moving from I-65 to I-85 in Montgomery, Alabama, and was approaching the Atlanta area near sundown. I found an Atlanta radio station carrying the traffic report, and it warned of gridlock conditions on the beltway and in downtown. I exited I-85 10 miles short of the beltway and connected with to US 29 to US 41 to US 19 and then up to Sandy Springs.
At 8:00 pm, my sales rep was quite clear to me that no one was going to be in the office for the next several days and I should just find a hotel. Sandy Springs and Five-Points were all booked. Hilton, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Motel 6, all booked. I called home for internet help.
With help, I was able to book an independent motel room, unfortunately near the airport. At 11:00 pm I checked into the Regency Inn, a pretty humble place, but it was warm, clean, and it had a bed.
The next day I turned in the car at the airport, found a better hotel near a MARTA station where I settled in for the next few days until I could take my regularly scheduled flight home on Friday, January 14th.
I have as much bad-weather winter driving experience as anyone could want. Growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, going to college at Michigan Tech, in Houghton, Michigan, visiting Ogden, Utah grandparents by car over the continental divide on I-90, and now this experience gave me more than my share. During that week, I had plenty of time to reconsider whether it was worth it to risk my life like that for a job.
It wasn’t.
My Second Visit from a United States Marshal*
My company was under contract to design and construct multiple overseas facilities for the military. Because the work was within an area of occupation, my company had been awarded a design fee that many times what the design fee would be in the States. My team had to be really resourceful to get all the drawings completed. We were able to cut design time by setting up a 2 am architectural and structural model synchronization of folders in three offices (this was the 2000’s when that was novel). We also were able to standardize a lot of drawing details and specifications. I had two other projects, water treatment plant design projects with an estimated constructed cost of $55 million. I worked as much as I could but we were all at 60 hours and I had three major projects.
Some time later, a U.S. Marshal came with a search warrant for my original timesheets and those of the design team (it was paper and ink then). More time passed. One day we received an urgent order from legal to complete mandatory time sheet training. All employees had to comply within a short period of time. Those who did not would be terminated. Questions in the final test included:
You worked 4 hours on Project A and 4 hours on Project B on Monday. You record on your timesheet under Monday (a) 8 hours, (b) (b) 6 hours (c) 4 hours (d) ask your project manager how many hours the project can carry or (e) none of the above.
My 20 hours a week on the military project somehow became 40 hours a week in the pay claims submitted to the United States Department of Defense. To avoid being barred from federal contracts, every last employee at the company had to complete remedial training and pledge their oath to always record time accurately and to never falsify timesheet information.
* My first visit from a United States Marshal is another story.
Coveting thy subsidiary’s office furniture
I was a new employee of a company that had been acquired by my former educational institution. I knew the university administration through my time as president of the student body. At my company, we had an unfortunate turn of events where a layoff occurred on the day that the vice president of sales received new Queen Anne style office furnishings were delivered. People were let go and walking out the door as the furniture was being carried in. Not the best timing.
Another round of layoffs came. This time, a vice president from the university holding company announced to the remaining employees that such extravagant furnishings have no place in a university owned company. This time, the furniture left with the sacked employees.
I happened to be at my alma mater and stopped in at the holding company offices. As I entered the room to pay my respects to the university administrator, his office had been decorated with Queen Anne furniture.