VOLUME 15 ISSUE 3
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FROM FIRE TO LIGHT: REFLECTIONS ON THE EVOLUTION OF WORK ZONES DICK COLE’S BARRICADE & LIGHT RENTAL CO. SPARKED BY A WARNING SIGNAL JEFF JOHNSON’S UNIQUE PATH TO TRAFFIC ZONE SUCCESS WITH TRAFFICADE A CONSTRUCTION CREW’S STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL AT THE GRAND CANYON WENDELL MOATE’S WORLD-RECORD CONCRETE CURB & GUTTER INSTALLATION
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CONTENTS Contributors - Manny Loyden & Mohamed Yousuf From The Editor: Auto Trails: How Americans Motored Before Route 66 - Douglas Towne Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices Special Advertising Section: 30 Years Of Building Arizona - Rummel Construction Back When: Smudging Central Avenue Douglas Towne Wing It And Warn ’Em: Arizona’s Early Days Of Traffic Control - Billy Horner From Fire To Light: Reflections On The Evolution Of Work Zones In Phoenix - Douglas Towne The Lone Warning Light That Triggered Dick Cole’s Barricade & Light Rental Company - Billy Horner A Snowbound Construction Crew’s Struggle For Survival At The Grand Canyon’s North Rim Peter Corbett
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Wendell Moate’s World-Record Concrete Placement Company: Part 1 - Billy Horner Saluting Arizona’s Builders: Jeff Johnson Douglas Towne
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Old School Equipment: Roll-Over Protective Structures Billy Horner Building On The Past: 1942 - Slowing Down For Victory: Arizona’s Wartime Speed Limits - Billy Horner Architect’s Perspective: International Style Roots At ASU From 1950-1951 - Doug Sydnor, FAIA Digging Through The Archives: Charles “Wally” Wallace: His Concrete Ready-Mix Story - Billy Horner Bid Results Advertising Index
Front Cover Front Cover - A temporary work zone for Joynt Construction Co. along North Stone Avenue at Pennington Street, in front of Tucson’s Pioneer Hotel, 1956. Article on page 66 Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community MAY JUNE 2026
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MANNY LOYDEN PAGE 41
M
anny Loyden is the founder of HR Fuse, a multi-city HR community created to address the isolation and pressure many HR leaders face. Based in Arizona, Loyden brings a people-centered perspective shaped by firsthand experience working with HR teams navigating growth, workforce complexity, and operational demands. Before founding HR Fuse, Loyden spent years supporting HR leaders in making high-pressure decisions about healthcare, burnout, retention, and compliance. He observed a recurring challenge: HR professionals were expected to shoulder significant responsibility quietly, often without trusted spaces to speak candidly or learn from peers facing similar realities. HR Fuse was built in response, offering a platform grounded in honest dialogue, peer support, and leadership, free from performative networking. Today, HR Fuse convenes HR professionals through curated gatherings and community-driven conversations that prioritize trust, shared learning, and real-world problem-solving. The community has become a valuable resource for HR leaders seeking clarity, connection, and practical insight beyond traditional professional networks, especially in high-demand operating environments. Loyden is also an employee benefits consultant at Amalyn Consulting, where he advises organizations on practical, cost-conscious benefits strategies aligned with organizational culture and long-term business goals. He serves as Vice President of the Homeless ID Project’s Board, supporting efforts to restore access, dignity, and opportunity for underserved individuals statewide.
MOHAMED YOUSUF PAGE 37
M
ohamed Yousuf is the CEO and founder of Smart Workforce AI, a workforce intelligence platform focused on transforming how shift-based industries operate in an AI-driven world. His background is rooted in building and scaling technology-driven systems that address structural inefficiencies in workforce planning, scheduling, and labor utilization across sectors, including healthcare, hospitality, retail, logistics, aviation, professional services, and manufacturing. Through Smart Workforce AI, Mohamed emphasizes shifting organizations away from rigid, approval-heavy scheduling models toward intelligent, adaptive systems that balance operational needs with increased employee autonomy. From airline crew scheduling to distributed operations across various industries, Mohamed has observed what happens when workforce complexity exceeds the capabilities of the tools designed to manage it. Mohamed believes that time is the most undervalued resource in business. When used responsibly, AI reduces friction, improves well-being, and allows for better decisions on a larger scale. He believes that automation is not an end in itself but is meant for clarity, resilience, and giving back time to people. As a thought leader, Mohamed offers a practical perspective on the future of work, human-centered AI, and workforce transformation. He champions responsible AI adoption that emphasizes reskilling and augmentation over displacement, highlighting that AI’s greatest value is in boosting productivity while maintaining dignity, trust, and long-term economic stability.
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EDITOR’S COLUMN:
AUTO TRAILS: HOW AMERICANS MOTORED BEFORE ROUTE 66 DOUGLAS TOWNE
T
his year marks the 100th anniversary of Route 66, a road that has been the topic of a hit song, a TV show, and more kitsch than Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley combined. The highway took travelers from the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, through the Southwest, and deposited them at Santa Monica Pier, creating the shortest, yearround route between the Midwest and the Pacific Coast. But the highway was decommissioned in 1985, when the last section through Williams, Arizona, was bypassed by Interstate 40. Route 66 began in 1926, when the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads stitched together
existing local, state, and national roads as part of the first federal highway system. But how did Americans cross the country by car before the advent of the Mother Road, given that autos had been in use since 1900? The answer is auto trails, an informal network of more than 250 marked routes that developed independently in the early 20th century and guided motorists to their destinations before the Feds took over highway transportation. Auto trails were created, marked, and maintained by private business organizations. Some auto trails might sound familiar, including the Old National Trails Road, part of which later became Route 66. Others
Images Courtesy of Author
Top: Ocean-to-Ocean Highway Bridge, Yuma, 2015. Above right: Map of transcontinental auto trails in the U.S., 1922. Left: National Old Trails Road sign. Below: Progression of road surfaces on Route 66. Image Courtesy of Museum of Northern Arizona
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Image Courtesy of Libra ry of
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that passed through Arizona and have largely faded from popular memory include the Bankhead Highway, the Borderland Route, the Dixie Overland Highway, and the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway. The bucolic names of the auto trails, which often referenced geographic features, politicians, and historical features, conjure up an idyllic motoring past in which private organizations operated the nation’s transportation system before the bureaucrats came in and mucked it up. That’s not quite the story, however. Auto trails were marked with colored bands and insignias on practically anything, including poles, buildings, and trees. They were seldom paved except for brief stretches through towns and were hardly all-weather routes. If motorists managed to get through the mud and avoid the potholes, there was still the matter of fording bridgeless streams. More than the occasional auto had to be hauled out of some road hazard by a farmer’s mule team. Even if these intrepid drivers avoided getting stuck, finding the way to their MAY JUNE 2026
Images Courtesy of Author
destination was difficult. The routes were Left: Spanish Trail Lodge, Ft. Stockton, TX, 1999. Above: Spanish Trail Motel, Tucson, 1960s. often poorly marked and overlapped. Right: On the Old Spanish Trail movie poster, Auto trails were inefficient because towns 1947. lobbied to have them run through their Below: Old Spanish Trail map, 1930s. communities for economic benefits, resulting in zigzags and unnecessary mileage. If by Spanish conquistadors 400 years earthat wasn’t enough, auto trails often offered lier. A 1923 OST conference in New Orleans multiple alternative routes, confusing belea- was kicked off by an over-the-top speech by guered drivers further. W.O. Hart, who declared, Driving cross-country was a DRIVING CROSS-COUNTRY “The Old Spanish Trail! perplexing mess that made What wonderful meaning WAS A PERPLEXING MESS. in those four words! It jintoday’s traffic congestion seem like a quaint problem. gles like bells in the ears and A personal favorite from the era is The brings to mind the days long passed when Old Spanish Trail, which once spanned the Spain was the greatest colonial power in nation, crossing eight states and stretching the world.” 2,750 miles from St. Augustine, Florida, to Three years later, much of the OST San Diego. Founded in 1915, the OST was became U.S. Highway 80. But the auto trail marked by a red, white, and yellow sign with lingered in the romance of cross-country an “OST” symbol. travel, appeared on early U.S. 80 maps, OST promoters could get a bit hyper- and became a popular name for cafés and bolic about its wonders, including wildly motels along the route. But don’t be fooled false claims that it followed the route used into thinking movies were made about it.
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On the Old Spanish Trail, a 1947 Republic Pictures film starring the “King of Cowboys,” Roy Rogers and his horse, Trigger, didn’t take place on the OST. The movie’s title refers to the Old Spanish Trail National Historic Trail, a trade route used by mule pack trains between Santa Fe and Los Angeles from the 1830s through the 1850s. It’s no wonder the Feds opted for highway numbers instead of names when they took over the nation’s cross-country roads in 1926.
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Projects . PEOPLE . PRACTICES
CHASSE BUILDING TEAM PASSES HALFWAY POINT ON THE FIELDHOUSE AT COPPER SKY ALISON BAILIN
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n the City of Maricopa, The Fieldhouse at Copper Sky is reshaping a former municipal building into a modern indoor recreation destination designed to serve a fast-growing community. The project is led by Tempe-based CHASSE Building Team as general contractor with design direction and engineering support from BWS and Studio 8 Architects. At its core, the effort is a strategic blend of adaptive reuse and ground-up construction, transforming the former Maricopa Police Department substation into a 44,088-square-foot sports and events facility scheduled to open in late summer 2026 after a 14-month build.
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Rather than demolishing the existing structure, the city chose to preserve approximately 10,853 square feet of the original building and expand east into the former impound yard. That secured outdoor area has been cleared to make way for a 33,235-square-foot pre-engineered metal building, adding height, volume, and unobstructed interior space. By blending the original concrete and copper tones of the former substation with new desert-inspired metal paneling, the design creates a cohesive aesthetic that complements the surrounding Copper Sky recreational environment. Inside, the facility is designed for flexibility and durability. The court configuration can shift among four full-size basketball courts, six volleyball courts, or up to twelve pickleball courts to accommodate changing schedules and community demand. Support
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spaces include a central lobby with controlled entry, a 1,680-square-foot lounge and tournament hub for players and spectators, and a 971-square-foot assembly room for meetings, training sessions, clinics, and small community events. Additional back-of-house areas will house staff offices, storage, electrical components, and modern restrooms to support both tournament activity and daily open play. ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY
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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects Images Courtesy of CHASSE Building Team
From a construction standpoint, the project rebuilds critical systems from the ground up, beginning with new structural steel framing that creates wide-span roof systems capable of supporting sports lighting, acoustic treatments, and HVAC distribution.
Mechanical systems are being upgraded to provide reliable year-round climate control, a key priority in Maricopa’s desert environment. Inside, durable finishes will define the experience, including LED lighting, resilient sports flooring, protective wall padding, and
EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
not shy away from difficult situations, whether it is friction within a team or a client issue. A big part of my role is helping teammates navigate tough moments and stay focused on the goal. Many of our projects take years, so keeping the entire team focused is essential. There are also factors beyond anyone’s control, including soil conditions, weather, material availability, and budget changes.
Tracy Schmuker, Director within the CHASSE Building Team’s Municipal Division Experience: He stepped into this role in the summer of 2025 after serving as a Senior Project Manager since 2022, and works closely with the municipal leadership team to support projects across the region.
Most memorable day at work: There have been many, but the moments that stay with me are the ones that feel like Favorite aspect of the job: I truly value proud-dad moments. Seeing our teambeing part of a team. The people here are mates grow, tackle challenging projects, special, and that’s what makes the work and deliver them successfully is incredibly meaningful. As I move into the next phase rewarding. That look of pride when they of my career, I’ve found great purpose in realize what they’ve accomplished is hard shifting from mentee to mentor. Helping to top. the next generation grow has become something I care deeply about. I have two What they like to do away from work: I’m a proud dad of two boys, so most of young boys and coach outside of work, just as my dad did, so building people up my free time revolves around them. One plays soccer, and the other is into dirt bikhas always been part of who I am. As an ing, which keeps us busy in the best way. Arizona native, I also take pride in buildI also love spending time with my wife ing in the state I call home. I enjoy the and getting outdoors to run, bike, camp, challenges each project brings because and hunt. I’m an avid road and mountain every one is an opportunity to learn, biker and recently stepped into ultragrow, and make something better. marathons. I completed 75 miles at the Most challenging part of the job: Every Mogollon Monster in September 2024 project presents unique challenges. I do and recently finished a 50-mile race.
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clearly organized circulation paths. Beyond the building footprint, exterior improvements include new hardscaping, removal of outdated security fencing, and enhancements to parking and entry points to better accommodate both tournament crowds and daily visitors. The Fieldhouse at Copper Sky represents a roughly $16.2 million investment in Maricopa’s recreation infrastructure. City leaders have made clear that the need is real. Participation in basketball, volleyball, pickleball, and youth programs continues to grow, and existing spaces at Copper Sky are already operating at capacity. The new facility will ease scheduling pressure and open the door to expanded leagues, tournaments, regional events, and group programming that previously lacked dedicated space. Just as important, the project gives a former public safety facility a meaningful second life. Rather than sending materials to a landfill or building entirely new infrastructure elsewhere, the City chose to preserve a portion of the original structure and integrate it with new pre-engineered construction. The result extends the life of an existing asset while delivering the performance and flexibility of a modern sports facility. When complete, The Fieldhouse at Copper Sky will stand as a strong example of how adaptive reuse and thoughtful planning can strengthen recreational opportunities, community health, and long-term city growth within a single project. ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY