Summer 2015

Volume 4 Issue 2

Special Cattle Issue

$4.99 Summer

Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community…

• Tovrea's Phoenix Stockyards • Preserving Scottsdale's DC Ranch • Bill Johnson's Rides into Sunset • Christy to Relight “Cheesy” Sign • Maryvale Links Go Collegiate • Kelton Contracting Legacy • Trafficade Celebrates 25 Years • Windmill Whiz Dale Balow

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Arizona Contractor & Community

Publisher William Horner Billy@arizcc.com

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Editor Douglas Towne Douglas@arizcc.com Contributing Writers Lee Addis Cassidy Campana Christia Gibbons John Jacquemart Katie Mayer Matthew B. Meaker Donna Reiner Luke Snell John Larsen Southard Doug Sydnor

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Production Manager Laura Harley Laura@arizcc.com 623-698-6436

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Circulation Tina Crigler Tina@arizcc.com

Butterfinger and a glass of wine… (but not together)

Magazine Consultant Chuck Runbeck Chuck@arizcc.com 602-881-0907 Advertising Manager Chuck Runbeck Chuck@arizcc.com 602-881-0907

Publisher’s Representatives Tom Hogarty Tom@arizcc.com 480-559-2327

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Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community… Then & Now Printed at Lithotech Arizona Contractor & Community (ACC) magazine is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, & winter). ACC is a professional publication designed for the contracting industry, engineers, architects, equipment rentals, suppliers, and others interested in Arizona and its history.

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Arizona Contractor & Community

Volume 4 Issue 2 Summer 2015

CONTENTS 8.

From The Editor: Wrangling a Vacation: Arizona’s Dude Ranches - Douglas Towne

10.

Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices

33.

A Different Kind of Blade Man: Windmill Whiz Dale Balow - Douglas Towne

38.

Multigenerational Glow: The Christy Sign Company Katie Mayer

42.

Have Hooves, Will Travel: Arizona Cattle Trails John Larsen Southard

45.

Tovrea: From Butcher Shop to Cattle Empire Donna Reiner & John Jacquemart

49.

Architect's Perspective: George H. Schoneberger, Jr: Capturing Scale - Doug Sydnor

53.

A “Long” Legacy: Maryvale Links Get Collegiate Makeover - Douglas Towne

57.

Digging Through the Archives: The Kelton Contracting Story - William Horner

61.

Bid Results - Bidjudge

Front Cover - Downtown Phoenix and cattle feedlot, 1959.

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Summer 2015

Douglas Towne

Christia Gibbons

Donna Reiner

John Larsen Southard

Douglas Towne - Editor Articles on page 8,33 & 53 Hometown - Denver.

Hidden talent - Badminton, I've won one national and numerous state titles.

Comfort food - #6 dinner order of cheese enchiladas at El Norteno in Phoenix.

Favorite AZ town - Salome, once a 24-hour mecca of weddings, gambling, brothels, exotic birds, and hidden tunnels.

Three people you'd invite to dinner - The late University of Denver Geography Professor Joe Beaton, my late partner-incrime, Cathy Weiler, and my wife because no meal is complete without her.

Donna Reiner - Writer Article on page 45 Hometown - Santa Maria, CA and moved to the Valley in the summer of 1982.

Hidden Talent - Playing the harpsichord.

Comfort Food - Chocolate and kimchi.

Favorite AZ town - Bisbee, because I get plenty of exercise while exploring.

Three people I'd invite to dinner My grandmother, Caroline Adams Babcock, her father, Havilah Babcock, and my great grandfather Charles Donald Reiner. They all died before I was born and I have tons of family history questions.

Christia Gibbons - Writer Articles on page 14 & 24 Hometown - Tucson.

Hidden talent - Talking my husband Tom into rescuing just one more cat. We now have 10.

Comfort food - Cupcakes.

Favorite AZ town - Tucson. The majesty of it's surrounding mountains bring me peace and calm.

Three people you'd invite to dinner - My journalist Dad; my hippie Vietnam vet brother Eddie; and, my gentle giant cop brother Jeff. I miss those three so much. They would have all agreed on steak for dinner.

John Larsen Southard - Writer Article on page 42 Hometown - Scottsdale.

Hidden Talent - Planning tea parties, voicing characters from children's books, and answering a string of "Why?" questions (I have a three year old daughter).

Comfort Food - Tacos.

Favorite AZ town - Beautiful and historic Tempe. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Tempe Historic Preservation Officer.

Three people I'd invite to dinner Walter Bimson, Eugene Pulliam, and Frank Snell. If unavailable, I'd love to sit down with Sir Winston Churchill, Bing Crosby, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

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W

ith the fading of the Frontier era, many Americans romantically yearned to experience a cowboy’s life “home on the range.” Sensing the nostalgia for the Old West, astute Arizona ranchers figured that entertaining wellheeled Eastern tourists might be as lucrative as herding cattle—and maybe a little easier work. These hospitality pioneers combined a Western experience with Arizona’s balmy winters, opening the state’s first guest or “dude” ranches in the 1920s.

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“Guests still visit for the sunshine and to learn horseback riding,” Andrew Fine, Director of Operations for Tanque Verde Guest Ranch near Tucson, says. “But there are tons of good reasons they arrive from all across the country, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

We’re very experiential and feature guided mountain biking, hiking, birding, and fishing in our own 'catch and release’ lake.

The activities and meals are all inclusive, like a cruise ship, but we’re not on the water and we have horses.”

The dude ranch concept in Arizona started for financial reasons, when cattle prices plummeted after World War I. Seeking a new revenue source, some cattle ranches built accommodations for guests and opened as dude ranches, especially near Phoenix, Tucson, and Wickenburg.

Considered familyowned homes, visitors were personal guests who were often required to provide references and have advance reservations for a minimum stay, often two weeks. For the new two-legged clientele, the ranchers

Some Valley resorts adopted Western features, hoping to attract the dude ranch trade.

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The Arizona Biltmore’s stables were later closed, influenced by urban development that also transformed some dude ranches into resorts. Casa Hermosa Ranch, originally located 10 miles northeast of Phoenix, was started by cowboy artist Alonzo “Lon” Megargee in the 1930s. The dude ranch featured horseback riding, but a pool, tennis courts, and additional accommodations were added later. Now called The Hermosa Inn, the boutique hotel hosts corporate retreats and features five-star dining at Lon's at the Hermosa. Horseback riding is now outsourced offsite.

A rare dude ranch that continues to thrive near an urban setting is Tanque Verde Guest Ranch, which opened for visitors in 1928 near Tucson. Started as a working cattle ranch in 1868, it’s located

adjacent to the Coronado National Forest and Saguaro East National Monument.

The ranch offers an unmatched setting and excellent service, which explains why some guests have visited every year for over half a century. “We have a legacy walk in front of the dining room,” Fine says.

“Guests that have come annually for 10 years get their own brick with their name and date of their first visit. Our ranch experience is what they want to keep sharing as a family.”

Across page: Guests at Casa Hermosa Guest House, 1949.

Across page inset: Casa Hermosa ad, 1937.

Top left: Wrangler's Roost Guest House, 1957.

Top right: Trail horses, 1953.

Bottom: Flying E Ranch, Wickenburg.

Images courtesy of author

had to expand their knowledge beyond horses and cattle to become adept at managing food, entertainment, and other services for their enthusiastic free labor.

These new Arizona lodgings were popular winter destinations and attracted older patrons. While dude ranches in colder climates tended to focus on active pursuits such as fishing and hunting, Arizona operations emphasized rest and relaxation, notes Lawrence Borne in Dude Ranching: A Complete History. Horseback riding was popular, but some ranches had tennis courts, a swimming pool, and promoted nearby urban amenities.

In the Valley, dude ranches perpetuated Phoenix’s image as a Wild West town. Want-to-be wranglers typically arrived via an “iron horse” at Union Station starting in 1923. At Butler’s Guest Ranch, located near citrus orchards eight miles north of downtown, guests could ride horses in the desert and play golf at nearby courses. El Rancho Grande, located 28 miles east of Phoenix, hyped itself as “just far enough away to enjoy the air, sunshine, and ranch life, yet conveniently located near modern cities.”

Some Valley resorts adopted Western features, hoping to attract the dude ranch trade. “My family would visit the Arizona Biltmore every Christmas in the late 1960s,” Denver native Scott Perlman says.

“We would ride horses from the resort’s stables through the surrounding desert.

Our trail boss was a salty old cowboy named ‘Doc’ Pardee, who was bronco rider, rodeo announcer, and actor in many Westerns with his friend, movie star Tom Mix.”

Arizona Contractor & Community

Construction Around Arizona

Image courtesy of DMB

Construction Around Arizona

Projects ∙ Practices ∙ People

Homes on the Range: DC Ranch Cassidy Campana

F

rom their earliest days, the histories of Scottsdale and DC Ranch were intertwined. E.O. Brown, a businessman from Wisconsin, settled in at DC Ranch and started one of the Valley’s largest cattle ranches in the early 1900s. Brown and his family built their homestead near the only perennial spring flowing off the McDowell Mountains, understanding the importance of water in the desert. The family’s general store became a community hub that served other ranchers and early residents.

Over the next two generations, the Brown ranch grew into a 43,000-acre cattle operation. Brown built pipelines from the spring to supply tanks across the ranch for his cattle.

E.E. “Brownie” Brown succeeded his father in the operations of DC Ranch and shepherded the ranch into a new era.

Standing more than six feet tall, riding a 17-hand sorrel horse named Star, Brownie was the kind of cattleman featured in movies. His lore only grew as he won “Big Man” races at the local rodeos, hunted on his property, and wore an unforgettable fancy silver belt buckle. When he wasn’t riding his range, Brownie could be found ten

in town with the men who gathered at the Pink Pony in Scottsdale and at the cattlemen’s bar in the Adams Hotel in Phoenix.

Following the Depression, DC Ranch’s operations grew and brought in big money.

Brownie recognized that he needed more business expertise and tapped an old

Image courtesy of the Scottsdale Historical Society

childhood friend, Kemper Marley. Already a successful business man, Marley accepted Brownie’s partnership offer.

The two shared a love of ranching and they planned to expand the DC Ranch Company. Much of their livestock grazed

on public lands north and west of the DC Ranch homestead. So the two developed an ingenious plan to purchase lands in California that the government needed, and then trade them for the grazing lands in Scottsdale they wanted for the ranch.

Following World War II, the company extended the water pipeline from the spring at DC Ranch to fill more tanks across the ranch. Four thousand head of cattle relied on that water supply in the 1940s.

Fast Forward 40 Years In the late 1980s, Drew Brown and his partners, Bennett Dorrance and Mark Sklar, were putting together their DMB partnership to create a new kind of land development company. They shared an interest in creating master-planned communities using a different approach to land planning and lifestyle.

In one of the company’s first letters of interest, the DMB team reached out to Kemper Marley, now the owner of the DC Ranch, and asked for a meeting to discuss the potential for developing the property.

Marley agreed to meet with the partners but ended up politely refusing their offer.

After Marley’s passing in 1990, his family heirs reached out to the DMB team about developing DC Ranch and forged a unique partnership to develop the property into something special. The family contributed the land, and DMB agreed to develop the property including planning it, overseeing the zoning, and building the community.

Preserving the McDowell Mountains By the 1990s, Scottsdale’s citizens were exploring measures that would create a dedicated tax revenue stream that would give the city the means to buy sensitive lands in the McDowell Mountains for conservation. Mayor Herb Drinkwater asked Brown if he would hold off on developing some mountainous parts within DC Ranch and give the city the opportunity to purchase them for a preserve.

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Image courtesy of the Scottsdale Historical Society

A Master-Planned Community “DC Ranch was really an R&D laboratory for our community development business,” Freericks described. The DMB team travelled around the country “and looked around at everyone else’s work, what was working and wasn’t working.”

“Our goal was to create the finest master-planned community of its time,” said founding partner and chairman of the DMB board, Drew Brown.

In the early planning stages, the company tapped into the talents of Vern Swaback, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s youngest apprentices, and the principal of Swaback Partners. Swaback’s training in planning desert environments and open spaces guided the thinking about how to develop DC Ranch as a residential community that would honor the Sonoran Desert.

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Image courtesy of DMB

Construction Around Arizona

On a handshake deal with the mayor, Brown agreed to sell the land if the city was able to form a trust and raise the funds to purchase the land. With the first tax approved in 1995, the city moved forward on purchasing 4,600 acres in the upper Windgate Pass area. The city continues to add to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve and, at completion, it will encompass more than 43,000 acres, nearly one third of the land in Scottsdale.

Charley Freericks, president of DMB and DC Ranch’s first general manager, recalled the historic sale. “It was a profound moment for everybody. It set the boundary of DC Ranch so we knew what we had to work with forever. It was a great victory for the citizens of Scottsdale who honored the program with a bond initiative. And it created an amazing natural amenity for the state of Arizona.”

Charley Freericks shared the challenge that DMB partner Bennett Dorrance laid out for the development team at the start of the community’s planning. Dorrance wanted DC Ranch to “look like we gently laid this development on the natural property in a very respectful way, so it looks like it just grew out of the land.” This resulted in the company pioneering ways to incorporate natural materials and use the terrain to shape planning. Rocks and indigenous plants were saved and replanted. The team reviewed water and wildlife patterns, and followed the natural drainage patterns of the land. Streets and pathways followed the natural topography so views were preserved and dramatized.

Brent Herrington, an executive vice president with DMB and a past general manager of DC Ranch, shared this history, “We had a much richer vision for the aesthetic character of DC Ranch. We were focused on this comprehensive understanding of all of those aspects of landscape, architecture, regional

authenticity and to be stewards and advocates for those important touch points of DC Ranch’s vision.”

Honoring its Western and ranching heritage, the character of DC Ranch was easily defined. Mixing the uses within the community, the homes, employers, parks, schools, retail and dining required the planning team to ensure that connections to each use would be easy and natural.

Paths and trails connected neighborhoods to the retail uses on Market Street, to parks and, of course to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

Twenty plus years later, the community continues to grow. This once thriving cattle ranch offers residents of DC Ranch one of the most active and engaging lifestyles in Scottsdale.

DC Ranch Timeline: 1885: Dr. W.B. Crosby registered the DC brand. Doc Crosby (DC) established the first Desert Camp for his cattle.

Early 1900s: E.O. Brown, a Wisconsin businessman, purchased the land and the brand.

1951: Scottsdale incorporates as a city with a population of 2000.

1995: Scottsdale citizens voted to purchase and preserve the first 30,000 acres of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

1995: DMB broke ground on DC Ranch.

1997: DC Ranch first residents move in.

1998: City of Scottsdale purchased 4,600 acres of DC Ranch for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

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Bill Johnson, 1959

Christia Gibbons

B

ill Johnson’s Big Apple Restaurant in Phoenix, which feeds diners hankering for biscuits for breakfast, an Arizona burger for lunch or a Smokehouse Sampler for dinner, remains alive and kicking – for at least a year.

The restaurant, launched in 1956, was sold to the Maricopa Community College District February 23 for $945,000 to make way for expanded parking at nearby GateWay Community College, one of 10 colleges in the district.

It is the original and last of Bill Johnson’s Big Apple restaurants. Previously there were restaurants in north Phoenix, Goodyear, Glendale, Chandler and Mesa.

The restaurant is located at 3757 East Van Buren St. The sale came with a two-year lease agreement, said Tom Gariepy, the district’s director of marketing and communications, which allows for a $1 lease back the first 12 months

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and the option to lease a second year with two months’ notice. If the restaurant opts into the second year, the lease would be $12 per square foot per month for the building.

“The lease option was to give the restaurant a reasonable amount of time to wind down – the restaurant is an icon,” Gariepy said. The property was purchased for 25 percent under the appraised value.

“They get the $1 lease and (we) got a property at a good price,” Gariepy said.

Randi Beswick, the restaurant’s general manager, said, “We’re not real thrilled” with the sale. Staff and customers “are like family” and she hoped the restaurant will stay open the full two years.

She said she would have liked to see the property turned into some culinary avenue for GateWay, but Gariepy said food education is handled at other district colleges.

The 1.25-acre property, which includes the 8,035-square-foot restaurant and some storage buildings, will provide more than 100 parking spaces. GateWay currently has 1,328 parking spaces, and Gariepy said there is not nearly enough for the 12,000 part- and full-time students.

GateWay is built out and parking is at a premium, especially if the district decides to put up any other buildings there, which in turn would eat up existing parking space.

When the college will raze the building and convert the area to parking “is a bit up in the air,” Gariepy said.

After recent financial hard times and a bankruptcy, “we’re holding our own,” Beswick said. She has worked for Bill

Johnson’s since 1987. She praised Michael Braden, president of Bill Johnson’s Restaurants Inc., for curbing the restaurant’s decline and bringing it back to where it should be. “We’ve got good food, good service. … We just can’t get enough people in the door,” Beswick said.

Currently the restaurant has 33 employees.

According to the restaurant’s website (www.billjohnsons.com) , Bill Johnson was an entrepreneur, pilot, actor, stuntman, hypnotist, inventor and cowboy. His wife Gene provided the barbecue recipes, and to this day her chili recipe continues to be served.

“It’s not a Scottsdale restaurant. We have fun, fun with our customers,” Beswick said. “Really, your customers and employees become your extended family.

It’s kind of neat.”

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Sunset for Valley’s Iconic Cowboy Restaurant

Summer 2015

Image courtesy of Skanska

A

portion of Broadway Road, the street that formed the southernmost edge of the original townsite of Mesa, is getting a makeover. The major east-west arterial is being improved from Power Road to Sossaman Road by the Phoenix office of Skanska. The company has started work on a $4.5 million street and utility improvements project for the City of Mesa that includes extensive storm drain and potable water upgrades to the existing system, widening an older roadway to accommodate heavier traffic, and improved aesthetics.

“Public outreach is paramount when doing capital improvement projects of this magnitude. We have relied heavily on Skanska to notify residents when construction will affect their daily living.

Their proactive approach regarding any changes has been a great asset to the Broadway Road project,” said Jaime Otter, Marketing Communications Specialist II, City of Mesa.

“We credit our team and partners with working together to keep this important project on schedule,” said Skanska’s Phoenix Civil Construction Division Manager Chris Halpin. “With these sorts of projects, we know that the end users – Mesa residents – are the ones that will truly benefit from these improvements and we are working to support them and the entire community.”

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Global Commerce Center Comes to Casa Grande Lee Addis

L

ayton Construction has started construction on Phoenixmart, a center combining retail, wholesale, amenity, and entertainment outlets. Phoenixmart will serve as a platform to connect manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to buyers both locally and around the world in the largest sourcing center in the U.S. It is anticipated Phoenixmart, located three miles east of Interstate 10 on Florence Boulevard in Casa Grande, will provide more than 6,000 jobs.

Scott’s Diversified Construction began transforming farm fields into a 37-acre building pad, parking areas, and retention basins on December 22, 2014. The

company completed the rough earthwork, moving more than 500,000 cubic yards of earth in only three months, using four Caterpillar 631E scrapers and a D9R bulldozer supplied by ECCO Equipment Rental.

Crews subsequently built a temporary construction road and did finish grading on the surrounding areas of the site. This phase of the project includes more than 100 acres of the 585-acre master-planned community that is associated with Phoenixmart. Excavation for footings that will be used for structural roof supports is currently underway. The projected opening of Phoenixmart is in the fourth quarter of 2015.

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Skanska to Brighten Broadway Road in Mesa

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Construction Around Arizona

Sonoran Desert Driving Is A Breeze Thanks to Hunter Katie Mayer

T

he Sonoran Desert Drive – formerly called Lone Mountain Road – alignment has been designated a major arterial roadway since 1987. Today, the area between Interstate 17 and northeast Phoenix is undergoing an extensive improvement project thanks to Hunter Contracting and Kimley-Horn & Associates.

The project is scheduled to be completed in the fall and will include a six-lane bridge over Skunk Creek Wash, a six-lane roadway between I-17 and North Valley Parkway, a four-barrel 10-feet by 6-feet drainage box culvert, eastbound and westbound 6-foot bike lanes and a 10-footwide multi-use trail along the north side of the roadway, according to the project’s Web site.

“The project was originally slated to be a public/private partnership and we lined up financing with a bank, but we actually came in well below the expected number, so the City of Phoenix went ahead with standard financing on it and we’re working on that now,” said Hunter Contracting Chairman of the Board Max Taddei.

Taddei’s grandfather William Hunter founded Hunter Ditch Lining in 1948. Max’s father Armando Taddei purchased the company in 1961 and expanded the business to include a road-building company called Hunter Contracting.

The company now includes all phases of highway work, utility relocations, bridges and drainage structures, eighteen

underground pipelines, curb and gutter, sidewalks, parks and sports fields. Under Hunter Contracting is the company ConArch , while Hunter Ditch Lining operates as a separate company, Taddei said.

Taddei and his sister, Amy Ostwinkle, have carried the torch for all of the businesses since their father passed away in 1997. “What sets Hunter Contracting apart is that we are amenable to changes…we work with the owner in a cooperative fashion that, in this industry, sometimes it’s very conflictual,” Taddei said.

Some prominent projects Hunter Contacting has completed over the years include the original Pima Road on the far east side of Scottsdale, constructing part of Mesa High School when it moved to its current location, the Miracle Mile traffic

interchange in Tucson, and the Verde Water Treatment Plant on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

Ironically, the company recently received the contract to demolish the water treatment plant it once built and restore it to its original conditions with native desert plants and trees. The project is scheduled to begin in July.

With a family history in the business, which continues today, Taddei said that culture of family is one that flows throughout his company. “Our President & CEO Steve Padilla comes from GlobeMiami, where there is a strong sense of family and he has brought that here,” Taddei said. “When you couple that with three generations working here, there is a strong sense of family and two-way loyalty.”

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7777 N 70TH AVE GLENDALE, AZ 85303

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Arizona Contractor & Community

I

t’s a rare Arizona construction project that repairs infrastructure that was originally built more than 150 years ago in a different country. But Technology Construction, a Prescott general engineering company specializing in unique projects, has been contracted to repair the granite railing on the famed London Bridge. Originally built in 1831, the English-import is the state’s second-largest tourist attraction after the Grand Canyon.

The bridge was damaged in a singlevehicle accident in Lake Havasu City in December 2014. The driver of an eastbound Ford F-150 pickup lost control of his truck and took out about 40 feet of the bridge railing. The driver of the vehicle was uninjured but pieces of the bridge fell below into the waters of the Bridgewater Channel.

Technology Construction was contracted by Lake Havasu City to repair the 29 granite balusters and top rail that were destroyed in the accident. “The granite balusters were custom turned on rock lathe using granite stored from the construction of the bridge over 200 years ago,” Ron Crites of Technology Construction says. “Each of the balusters is then hand tool finished and reinstalled before placing the top rail.”

Over the years, the company has performed numerous repairs to the historic structure that was designed by

Scottish engineer John Rennie. The 200year-old decorative lamps lining the bridge were removed, rebuilt and replaced in 2007. “Technology Construction used great care during construction as the cast iron lamps and surrounding granite are irreplaceable artifacts,” Crites says.

In 2010 Technology Construction refurbished miscellaneous cracked and broken blocks of granite on the bridge. “In order to match the color of the granite and disguise the repairs, dust from the stockpiled granite was used as aggregate in repair mortar,” Crites proudly notes.

London Bridge spanned the Thames River in England from 1831 until 1967. Not

strafing scars from bullets fired during World War II mar the bridge’s granite surface.

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originally designed to accommodate auto traffic, the bridge sank an average of an inch every eight years. By 1924, the east side of the bridge was three inches lower than the west side, according to the Lake Havasu City website.

By 1967, the bridge was for sale and Lake Havasu City founder and entrepreneur Robert McCulloch placed the $2.4 million winning bid. The bridge was meticulously disassembled; every block was numbered, shipped overseas to Long Beach, and trucked to Lake Havasu City.

The London Bridge was rededicated in 1971. Among the many interesting features for visitors are the strafing scars from bullets fired during World War II that mar the bridge’s granite surface.

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Technology Puts London Bridge Back Together

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Mundall Trucking, Inc. 2102 W Baseline Rd Phoenix, AZ 85041

Mundalltrucking.com 602-276-0331 Dispatch 602-276-9419 Fax 602-276-2129 Office

Family owned and operated since 1968.

NOW HIRING! Visit our website for an employment application, WWW.MUNDALLTRUCKING.COM

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lthough “desert aquarium” sounds like an oxymoron, Valley residents will soon have a marine adventure option closer than Rocky Point or San Diego. The OdySea Aquarium, slated to open in summer 2016, will offer a high-tech, entertaining oceanic educational journey.

The 14-acre attraction will feature a three-level facility designed to accommodate up to 15,000 visitors daily.

A unique layout will move visitors to each level via an acrylic tunnel while viewing some of the world’s most fascinating fresh and salt water animals.

McCarthy Building Companies broke ground for the facility on land adjacent to Butterfly Wonderland on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community this March. The celebration was organized by OdySea founders Amram Knishinsky, Ph.D., and Martin Pollack. “This project involves large-scale aquatic displays and will be a great educational resource and entertainment destination once completed,” Jim Brandt, project director for McCarthy, says. “We look forward to building the aquarium, which is destined to become a community treasure.”

A sampling of the planned exhibits includes Rivers of the World, American Rivers, Amazon Rivers, Shores, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Bizarre & the Beautiful featuring jellyfish, octopus, King crabs and seahorses. The facility will also include a Lighthouse Café and the OdySea Treasures Gift Shop.

The aquarium, designed by Deutsch Architecture Group, will be a for-profit facility employing more than 250 individuals while its 501c3 non-profit foundation will administer educational programs and services. Among the notable features will be the SeaTREK experience that will allow guests to descend deep into Twenty two

the “ocean” where they will be surrounded by sea life. There will also be a state-of-theart 3D theater and a “surprise visitor’s experience that has never been accomplished in any aquarium in the world,” Knishinsky reveals.

Memorial to Honor Fallen First Responders

F

irefighters and paramedics from communities across the state attended the March 10 groundbreaking for the Arizona Fallen Firefighter Memorial at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza in Phoenix.

Governor Doug Ducey participated in the ceremony, along with the construction team comprised of McCarthy Building Companies, Smithgroup, CVL and PK Associates, and major memorial sponsors including Arizona Public Service.

The groundbreaking marks the start of construction on the first statewide memorial dedicated to the memory of fallen Arizona firefighters and paramedics.

The memorial is intended to provide a

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Construction Underway on OdySea Aquarium

quiet place to consider the sacrifice and dedication of the 105 firefighters and paramedics who have lost their lives while in service since 1902. Construction is to be completed in September 2015, with a formal dedication scheduled the following month. This will be the 30th memorial located in the plaza, which was named after the late Governor Wesley Bolin and dedicated on March 9, 1978.

Two Arizona sculptors, Rusty Bowers from Mesa and Paul Olesniewicz from Tucson, are donating their time to create 10 life-size bronze sculptures as part of the memorial representing wildland firefighters, paramedics, volunteers, and professional firefighters. Each sculpture will take approximately 800 hours to finish.

The $1.7 million memorial is being built entirely through donations. To date, approximately $1.25 million has been raised via corporate contributions, about $70,000 has been raised from individual contributions, and $150,000 is being contributed via in-kind donations by the design and construction team.

In May 2013 House Bill 2136, sponsored by Representative Bob Robson and signed by Governor Jan Brewer, created a commission to establish the memorial. The Arizona Fallen Firefighters and Emergency Paramedics Memorial Commission also approve tuition waiver applications from the spouses and children of fallen firefighters. To date, the commission has sanctioned 77 tuition waivers to Arizona public community colleges and universities.

Summer 2015

Christia Gibbons

T

he past will become the future when the Hayden House – better known by many as Monti’s La Casa Vieja (the old house) – becomes a key element in a $200-million Tempe development on the southwest corner of Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway that includes a Kimpton hotel, Class A office space, and shopping.

Kimpton is a national chain of 67 boutique hotels in 31 cities, including the Hotel Palomar in the CityScape area of downtown Phoenix.

Construction of the nearly 900,000square-foot Mill & Rio Salado project is set to start in November with completion in 2017. Built to LEED Silver certification, the development will have two 15-story towers. The hotel tower will have up to 240 guest rooms, an indoor restaurant as well as patio dining; the office building will incorporate high ceilings, open floor plans, and creative spaces.

“The hotel and office design is reflective of the contemporary architecture within the area, such as Hayden Ferry Lakeside, First Solar, and West Sixth,” according to a city staff report. “The predominant building materials are glass, concrete panels, masonry units and metal accents. … The glazing is a cool blue green, reflective of the Town Lake architectural style.”

San Diego-based Douglas Wilson Companies created Hayden House Tempe LLC with Hensel Phelps Development LLC, Twenty four

a subsidiary of Greeley, Colorado-based Hensel Phelps and Karlin Real Estate of Los Angeles to develop the project.

Cassidy Turley, now DTZ, negotiated the $16.9-million transaction for the 2.51acre property on behalf of Michael Monti’s Catering in October. Originally bought by Leonard F. Monti Sr. in 1954 and opened in 1956, the restaurant closed November 17.

La Casa Vieja was built in 1873 for Charles Trumbull Hayden and his family.

Hayden and his Mexican-American workers constructed the single-story row house of adobe in the Sonoran style. Long-time U.S. Senator Carl Hayden was born there in 1877. The family moved in 1889 and the building became a boarding house for the next 35 years.

The structure deteriorated over the years and was in poor condition by 1920 when Charles Hayden’s daughters, Sallie and Mary Hayden, hired Phoenix architect Robert T. Evans to work on what would be the first restoration of an historic home in Arizona. The sisters opened a tea house

and restaurant when the work was complete in 1924.

The Hayden House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, and in 2000 the Tempe City Council designated the C.T. Hayden House/Monti’s La Casa Vieja as Tempe Historic Property Register property No. 11. It is the oldest remaining building in the Salt River Valley. Tempe’s Historic Preservation Office and Historical Preservation Commission will oversee the Hayden House piece of the development.

Nicholas Wilson, Douglas Wilson Companies’ managing director said, “The new restaurant will give homage to the historical Hayden House and provide a great new and unique dining destination for generations to come.”

The first city council public hearing to adopt an ordinance for a Planned Area Development Overlay Amendment to establish development standards, and a Development Plan Review was held April 16. The second and final public hearing is set for May 7.

Images courtesy of Christia and Tom Gibbons

Construction Around Arizona

Historic Hayden House Centerpiece of New Tempe Project

Summer 2015

Construction Around Arizona

Contractors Beware: Major Changes in the Arizona Complaint Process One Year Later Matthew B. Meaker, Sacks Tierney PA MATTHEW MEAKER is focused primarily on representation of those involved in the construction industry.

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ver a year ago, the Arizona Registrar of Contractors (ROC) adopted significant changes to how it responds to complaints against its licensees.

Abandoning its previous complainantdriven process, the ROC now decides whether the evidence provided by the complainant and/or gathered by the agency’s investigator warrants a citation.

The Process The ROC’s previous complainantdriven process allowed the complainant to decide whether: 1. to file a complaint; 2. the ROC should issue a citation, regardless of whether an ROC investigation found merit with the complaint; 3. a hearing should occur; and 4. repairs or settlement agreements complied with the terms of the contract.

Under the current process, when a complaint is filed, decisions regarding steps 2, 3 and 4 are made by the ROC. An investigator will be assigned, tasked with determining whether the complaint has merit. In response to the investigation, the contractor should consider giving the inspector as much relevant information as possible. When the investigation is

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completed, the investigator’s written findings and recommendations regarding a citation will be submitted to the ROC’s legal department.

As part of the investigation, the ROC may issue to the contractor a written “directive” (formerly known as a “corrective work order”) to make repairs.

Under the previous process, if a contractor complied with the corrective work order, the matter would generally be over. Under the new process, even if the contractor complies with the directive, the ROC may still issue a citation.

Upon receipt of the investigator’s written findings and recommendations, the ROC’s lawyers will consider any mitigating or aggravating factors. These factors will include the nature of the claim, the contractor’s complaint history, and the contractor’s response to the pending complaint. The ROC will then decide the appropriate course of action. Possible actions range from a letter of concern, placed in the contractor’s file, to issuing a citation and prosecuting the contractor.

If the ROC decides to prosecute a claim, the complaining party plays an important role as a fact witness and in

helping the ROC’s attorneys prepare for the administrative hearing. If the complainant settles with a contractor and the ROC still elects to prosecute a claim, the ROC may subpoena a complainant’s testimony.

The Bottom Line The game has changed. The ROC, on February 6, 2015, stated that there has been a reduction of citations against licensed contractors. Further, the ROC stated that there has been a significant reduction in hearing time and expenses for contractors due to the implementation of settlement conferences.

The ROC attributes these changes to the modifications in the complaint process. It is also likely that the reductions are due to a decision to pursue a different remedy as this new process causes greater headaches for contractors and seems to take longer than it ever has in the past.

Additionally, the scope of inquiry of the ROC is now broader. For example, if the ROC discovers evidence of violations that were not included in the original complaint, the ROC may elect to pursue the discovered issues independent of the issues raised in the original complaint.

Knowing that the ROC is going to be thoroughly examining everything serves as a good reminder for contractors to review their materials and policies for compliance with the statutes.

The true impact remains to be seen.

Additionally, with the changes in leadership at the ROC, only time will tell as to whether the new Director continues to move forward with the current process.

Summer 2015

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Arizona Contractor & Community

Construction Around Arizona

HOW TO PREVENT PLASTIC SHRINKAGE CRACKS Luke M. Snell, P.E Luke M. Snell, P.E., FACI, is a Senior Materials Engineer at Western Technology in Phoenix, Arizona and Emeritus Professor of Construction, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

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ne of the problems contractors face is to reduce the number of plastic shrinkage cracks on their projects.

Although the mechanism of what causes plastic shrinkage cracks is well understood and the parameters have been researched and well documented, there is disconnect in applying this information on the construction site.

Mechanism of Plastic Shrinkage Cracking The American Concrete Institute (ACI) defines plastic shrinkage cracking as “cracking that occurs in the surface of fresh concrete soon after it is placed and while it is still plastic.” These cracks form because of the loss of bleed water from the surface of the fresh concrete by evaporation. The tensile strength of the fresh concrete is very low since the concrete has not had time to set, thus the volume change caused by this evaporation of the bleed water results in the formation of plastic shrinkage cracks.

The research in the parameters that affect evaporation rates of the bleed water goes back to John Dalton’s research in developing the formula for the evaporation rate from water surfaces in 1802. Delmar Bloem of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association developed a Nomograph that used air temperature, humidity, concrete temperature, and wind velocity to predict the evaporation rates

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from a concrete surface. Nomographs have been published in many sources including “Hot Weather Concrete” (ACI 305) and the Portland Cement Association’s “Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures.”

Recently, a new equation makes it easier to calculate the evaporation rate in concrete: E = (Tc2.5 - r Ta2.5) (1+0.4V) x 10-6 where E = Evaporation rate (lb/ft2/hr), Tc = Concrete (or water surface) temperature (F), Ta = Air temperature (F), r = Relative humidity (percent / 100), and V = Wind velocity (mph).

Evaporation Rate Which Causes Plastic Shrinking Cracking to Form When the evaporation rates exceed 0.2 lbs/ft2/hr, plastic shrinkage cracks are expected. Precautionary measures are almost mandatory, such as erecting a wind screen, cooling the concrete, using a fogging system, and placing concrete at night. When the evaporation rate is between 0.1 and 0.2 lbs/ft2/hr, plastic shrinkage cracking may occur. When the evaporation rates are below 0.1 lbs/ft2/hr, plastic shrinkage cracks are not expected.

Why is the Nomograph and Equation Not Widely Used? ● Most contractors are unaware of the Nomographs: Using the Nomograph and equation are not a part of the ACI’s Building Code, and its use is not mandatory. As stated before, the Nomograph is printed in many publications but most people do not read these until problems occur.

Most textbooks used in university concrete materials courses either omit or give cursory coverage to plastic shrinkage cracking.

Thus, few people know of these resources or have experience in using them. ● The Nomograph and equations are not easy to use: Once a person becomes aware of the Nomograph and equations, they find both are challenging to use. The Nomograph is a series of three graphs which must be examined in order. The equations require experience in advanced mathematics. Neither the Nomograph nor the equations allow the user to do a “what if.” The user needs to know how they can modify the concrete or the construction environment so that the project will not have plastic shrinkage cracks. ● Contractors are unaware of how to get weather information: The Nomograph requires the weather to be measured just above the concrete surface. When consultants are asked to evaluate plastic shrinkage cracking, most will use weather information provided by the nearest airport, which may be different than those that exist on the jobsite.

Thus, using weather information from a potentially distant airport can provide an inaccurate prediction of whether plastic shrinkage cracking would occur at jobsites.

Computer Program I have developed a computer program that makes the Nomograph easy to use.

The user simply enters the weather conditions and the program determines the evaporation rate and warns the user if precautionary methods are needed. The program also allows “what if” questions about plastic shrinkage cracks. If plastic Summer 2015

shrinkage cracking is likely to occur, the user can select one of the variables they would like to control. The program will calculate how much change is required so that plastic shrinkage cracks are not expected and is online: www.wt-us.com/w/materials_testing/ ConcreteCuringEnglish.asp Several handheld weather stations were evaluated that allowed the user to measure the wind velocity, relative humidity, and air temperature at the appropriate location on the jobsite as required to use the Nomograph. Each of these pieces of equipment was found to accurately predict the humidity, air temperature, and wind speed when compared to a certified weather station.

Conclusions With this article, I hope to alert contractors about the Nomograph, the new associated, easy-to-use computer program, and how they can be used to prevent plastic shrinkage cracks. Along with data from a handheld weather station that allows the user to measure the conditions at the jobsite, the program makes the Nomograph easy to use so that plastic shrinkage cracks can be prevented.

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Arizona Contractor & Community

Construction Around Arizona

Q & A: Mike and Gary Smith of Jokake Companies Katie Mayer

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rothers Mike and Gary Smith are most widely known for founding Phoenixbased Jokake Construction and Jokake Real Estate Services, but the third-generation Arizonans have made their mark in many of our state’s toughest industries. From mining to cattle ranching and even the restaurant business, the Smith brothers aren’t afraid to take on a challenge. But they’re especially passionate about Arizona’s history and keeping it alive. As they prepare to take on yet another challenge – renovating and obtaining a historic designation for the old Stockmen’s Bank building – we caught up with them to learn more about their work and its lasting impact on Arizona.

ACC: Tell us about your current businesses.

Mike: I oversee Jokake Companies, which encompasses Jokake Real Estate Services, The Stockyards Restaurant, our holdings company and, at one time, included Jokake Construction Company.

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Gary: Historically, Mike operated Jokake Construction and I operated the real estate services side. Today, Mike focuses on Jokake’s operating companies while I oversee the real estate services and management.

ACC: Describe the formation of Jokake Construction.

Mike: We were raised 50 miles south of Phoenix in a very entrepreneurial environment. Our father ran a feed lot and cattle ranch and farmed several thousand acres. He owned and operated an irrigation well service company along with a tractor dealership. We both earned engineering degrees and went to work in the oil industry, but when it became apparent that we couldn’t start our own business in that line of work, we gravitated toward the construction industry. We very quickly saw an opportunity in the tenant improvement business to specialize in operating in and around occupied environments, which allowed us to become the largest tenant

improvement contractor in the state for many years. It grew from a very small investment of $10,000 in 1983 to the multimillion-dollar company it is today. In 2008, the company was converted to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), but still carries the Jokake name and shares offices with the other Jokake family of companies.

ACC: How did you come up with the name “Jokake?”

Mike: As third-generation Arizonans, we were looking for a name to recognize Arizona. We identified three names that represented our state and selected “Jokake,” because it best represented our rural Arizona background. The name is Hopi Indian and means “construction of a mudhouse.” We went to the trade names department, secured the name, and we’ve had it for 33 years.

ACC: What was your first big job?

Mike: Scottsdale Fashion Square. We did a major remodel for Del Webb and created a whole retail area with them. At the time it was a $200,000 job, but in 1983 that was big for us.

ACC: How did you decide to transition to an ESOP in 2008?

Mike: I had a health scare a few years ago where I had to have a tumor removed from my chest. Without knowing what the outcome would be, I realized that everything would be able to be continued with the exception of the construction company. There was a need for a continuation plan and after evaluating all of the options available to us, the best option was the ESOP plan. It was in the best interest of everyone, including the employees, and unfortunately we couldn’t retain any ownership, but it was still the best plan. They removed the tumor, but the experience made me realize that life is

Summer 2015

too short and we have such a strong family environment, which the company still maintains today.

ACC: Why did you purchase the Stockyards Restaurant?

Gary: We purchased seven acres to build our corporate headquarters and developed additional space to build out the site. The restaurant was a part of the purchase. The previous owners of the Stockyards had the restaurant for 24 years and leased the building from us. One of the owners passed away and the other one wanted out of the business, so we needed to find a tenant. After looking at various options, including many prospective buyers who wanted to tear down the building, we ended up taking it over and running it. We totally renovated it and obtained historical registration. Everyone knows the Stockyards and we were named the Centennial restaurant for the state in 2012.

Mike: We don’t do a good job in this state of preserving our heritage and history…too many buildings have been torn down and we are proud of our cotton and cattle

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history and are doing our part to preserve parts of that heritage and history.

ACC: Is that why you’re renovating Stockmen’s Bank?

Gary: Yes, we are taking it back to its original, historic design. It was designed by William Pereira, a famous architect from Chicago who worked out of Los Angeles and designed the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco and Los Angeles International Airport, among other prominent buildings.

ACC: Tell us about acquiring Paloma Ranch and Gillespie Dam near Gila Bend Gary: We purchased the 100,000-acre Paloma Ranch in 1998. We leased the farm land and operated the water system, Gillespie Dam, and the cotton gin. Paloma had its own school and housing for 200 people. In 2001, we created the state’s last irrigation district, Paloma Irrigation and Drainage District, and began selling portions of the ranch. Gillespie Dam on the Gila River diverted water into a canal that fed the entire ranch. The dam was breached during the flood of 1993, and

now no one wants to own the dam except us.

ACC: Tell us about your Tubac Ranch.

Gary: It’s a 1700 acre ranch we own and operate in Southern Arizona. It was part of a Spanish Land Grant and adjoins the famous De Anza Trail that runs from Culiacan, Mexico to San Francisco. This trail also runs through our ranch near Paloma where it was more commonly referred to as the Butterfield Stage Route.

Mike and I still manage and operate the Tubac Ranch and are currently marketing it for sale.

ACC: How would you describe your experience as brothers working in so many notoriously tough industries?

Mike: As brothers, there is an unconditional commitment to our partnership to work together.

Gary: Mike and I are grassroots, we like to see, feel and touch whatever we do. If we see something we’re passionate about, we’re stubborn enough to make it work and we’re not afraid to tackle it. Wealth is not defined by how much money we make; it’s defined by what we do and doing it right.

Arizona Contractor & Community

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rizona Utility Contractors Association (AZUCA) held a “rodeo” this spring but no steers or bucking broncos were to be seen. The competition involved not cowboy skills but crews performing competitions involving horizontal directional drilling (HDD).

“It was so exciting to have an event that was for the crews,” Ben Goddard, owner of BPG Designs, says. “They work hard in the tough Arizona conditions. Most of the time, their family and friends don’t understand what the crews do with a horizontal directional drill. It was so exciting to see so many families come to the event. This was one of the best events AZUCA has ever put together.”

Arizona Contractor & Community magazine interviewed Ben Goddard, who also serves as President of the AZUCA Board of Directors, about the rodeo.

ACC: Give us a brief description of HDD? Goddard: Horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is a steerable trenchless method of installing underground pipes, conduits, and cables in a shallow arc along a prescribed bore path by using a surface-launched drilling rig, with minimal impact on the surrounding area. Directional boring is used when trenching or excavating is not practical. It is suitable for a variety of soil conditions and jobs including road, landscape, and river crossings. HDD has become the preferred method of underground conduit installation.

ACC: Have there been previous HDD rodeos in Arizona?

Goddard: AZUCA’s 2015 HDD Rodeo was the first. From my research, the last HDD

rodeo that took place in the U.S. was in Ohio in 2007.

ACC: How many crews participated?

Goddard: We had 12 crews from seven companies.

ACC: Describe the competition?

Goddard: The teams started with a written test that consisted of 10 questions on Arizona Blue Stake (AZ 811) laws. Then crews had to complete a 200-foot-long bore that had to be at 48 inches of depth and 50 feet away from the HDD rig. They had to maintain 48 inches for another 110 feet and in the last 40 feet bring the drill head up into a six-inch target that was placed on the ground. They had to keep the drill path in a straight line from the drill rig to the target.

ACC: How did you determine a winner?

Goddard: The crews were graded in four areas. The first was the written AZ 811 test.

The second test was how long it took to complete the bore. The third test was the horizontal accuracy. The fourth test was for vertical accuracy. For the third and fourth tests, once the crews completed

their bore, three potholes were completed to locate the crew’s drill rod. First pothole was at 50 feet from the bore rig, second pothole was at 160 feet from the bore rig, and the third pothole was at a random location between the 50 feet and 160 feet locations.

ACC: How long did the drilling take?

Goddard: The drilling crews averaged 22 minutes to complete their bore. Potholing took an average of 45 minutes and pulling the drill rods out of the ground averaged 10 minutes.

ACC: How accurate were the crews?

Goddard: The accuracy was wide spread.

The first place team was not the most accurate with their alignment but hit the end target perfectly.

ACC: Who won?

MGI North American Services, which has their offices in Scottsdale, took home the first place prize of a beautiful trophy and $1,000. Congratulations MGI! Bottom middle: AZUCA Board of Directors: Bill Tippett, VP; Connie Peretz, Executive Director; and Ben Goddard, President.

Images courtesy of author

Construction Around Arizona

AZUCA’s “Underground” Rodeo

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Summer 2015

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Directing Traffic for a Quarter Century: Trafficade Celebrates 25th Anniversary

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rizona’s largest traffic control company can trace its roots back to 1990 when an industrious Dobson High School senior launched a homespun business in the backyard of his parent’s house in Chandler. Even more amazing is that its founder knew, early in life, that he wanted to run his own barricade company. “About the time I started elementary school, I fell in love with barricades and signs—I thought the flashing lights were so cool,” Trafficade’s founder, President, and CEO Jeff Johnson confesses. He now has more than 200 employees.

“People often ask me why I got into the traffic control business,” Johnson says.

“They want to know if I had this incredible foresight that I’d have this big successful company. No way. I just wanted to do something that I enjoyed and thought that

starting a barricade company would be a neat business.”

But Jeff Johnson was hardly an overnight sensation. For many years, the barricade business was a labor of love, according to his father, Dennis Johnson.

“Early on, I put a pencil to Jeff’s business figures and did some calculations,” Dennis Johnson recalls.

“Afterwards, I asked Jeff, ‘How are you ever going to make any money doing this work?’”

Jeff Johnson, however, proved that following your passion coupled with hard work and shrewd business decisions is the recipe for success. He

“He is truly a leader. I greatly admire Jeff as a person. He’s patient, understanding, and super bright.”

FOUR - TRAFFICADE

also was helped over the years by his mentors on the American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) board. This is an industry association that “Is run like a big corporation,” Jeff says.

Another tremendous asset for Trafficade is Jeff’s hands-on management style, in which he is involved with projects but refrains from micro-managing them.

“Jeff empowers the people who work for him and with him,” Trafficade contract employee Tom Hogarty says. “He is truly a leader. I greatly admire Jeff as a person.

He’s patient, understanding, and super bright.”

From his parent’s backyard, Trafficade has expanded over the last 25 years to become the state’s largest traffic control company with facilities in Phoenix, Prescott, Chandler, Flagstaff, and Tucson.

The company has four divisions: Traffic Control, Work Zone Services, Shoring, and Signs and Sales. The latter division recently opened a new, 25,000 square-feet building that houses a safety-product store and traffic sign manufacturing facility. Located at 2544 West McDowell Road in Phoenix, it’s adjacent to Trafficade’s headquarters at 2533 West Holly Street. “It’s a sign manufacturing compound, not a little sign shop,” quipped a customer on a tour at the facility’s grand opening.

Even with Trafficade’s tremendous growth, the company hasn’t lost sight of its roots. Some feel this family-ownership is a key to its success. “What sets Trafficade apart, in addition to being the state's largest traffic control company, is that it is locally owned and familyoperated,”Hogarty declares. “Both of Jeff's parents, Dennis and Sue, are involved on an everyday basis, with Dennis and Sue both serving as vice presidents. There are many of long-term employees as well, with many having from five to more than 20 years of experience with the company.”

“There is a company pride that shows in its personnel, its products, and in its rolling stock,” Hogarty concludes.

Trafficade’s Roots: Johnson’s Buildup to Launching his Barricade Company

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ithout the General Motors (GM) Proving Grounds in Mesa and the company’s overhead cam engine, Jeff Johnson may have never made it to Arizona. “My father, Dennis, was a truck driver for Central Transport which was a local Detroit company but then later became a national firm,” Johnson recalls. “They moved parts for the auto industry.” But when a relative moved to the Sunbelt State of Arizona, his family followed; Jeff was in kindergarten then.

“My mom’s uncle, Bill, was an engineer who worked on overhead cam engines that they tested at the GM Proving Ground. So he moved out here, and then we did. But my father’s job didn’t work out so we soon went back to Detroit.”

The Johnson family obviously liked their taste of the Grand Canyon State and returned when Jeff was in the third grade.

By the 5th grade, Jeff was already “interning” at a local barricade company.

“I wanted to buy a barricade light and met Dick Cole, who owned Barricade and Light Rental,” Jeff says. He gave me a tour of their facility and let me take some broken lights home. I’d fix them and bring them back as a hobby,” Johnson laughs. “Dick had been in business since 1960 and, ironically, started his company in his parent’s backyard too.” Dick Cole eventually sold out in 1990 to NES Equipment, which was later bought by RoadSafe. “It’s such a small world in the barricade business,” Jeff muses. “Dick’s son, Mark Cole, now works for me.”

Jeff later began assembling handmade barricades by cutting plywood, applying reflector sheeting, and buying premade legs from a firm in California. His senior year at Dobson High School, Johnson decided to test the waters by starting his own barricade business. He made some

company flyers and gave them to small paving and excavating firms he thought might contract for his services. “No one was interested,” Jeff says. “Those companies probably just threw down a few traffic cones and saw no reason to hire someone to do the job.”

Then Jeff received the break he had been looking for when, unannounced, he called on Tim Drexler of Ace Asphalt “I decided to go for one of the biggest outfits, Ace Asphalt. It just happened that Ace wasn’t happy with their barricade service.

They ran twine with flagging between the barricades to rope off parking lots they were grading. Their barricade company never cleaned the twine and flagging when they picked up their equipment. Ace’s customers would complain about the mess.”

Because of this litter, or lack of attention to detail, Johnson got his first job. They had no idea he was still in high school. “I’m a new company and I’ll cater to your needs,” Jeff recalls telling Ace Asphalt.

Getting hired to do Ace Asphalt’s barricade work was the start of some very long days for Johnson. “I received the work orders after school and had to work a lot of late hours, sometimes until two in the morning,” Jeff recalls. “For delivering barricades to Ace’s paving jobs, I just used a pickup truck. The quantities of barricades varied so sometimes I had to run several loads.”

Fortunately, most of Johnson’s work was done after rush hour, making for speedier commutes. The jobs usually required a dozen or so barricades.

Sometimes, however, if Ace Asphalt was repaving a shopping mall parking lot, 80 or more were needed. “I didn’t have any ‘employees,’ I just paid my high school friends to occasionally help out,” Jeff recalls.

When asked about photos from Trafficade’s early days, Jeff is a bit flummoxed. “I was so caught up in graduating from Dobson High School, starting this company, and working on the radio that I never thought of taking a photo for posterity,” he says. “Or saving one of my first flyers to illustrate how far the barricade company has come.”

“Dick Cole let me take some broken lights home. I’d fix them and bring them back as a hobby.” Johnson laughs.

Barricades or Airwaves: Johnson’s Career Decision

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s busy as Jeff Johnson was starting his Trafficade barricade company in high school, incredibly, he had another occupation which he also loved. “I had a short career in radio broadcasting,” Johnson humbly admits. “For elective credits in my sophomore and junior years, I went to Mesa VoTech to study radio broadcasting,” he says.

“I interned and was later hired as a board operator at several radio stations,” Jeff recalls, obviously enjoying the memory.

“The highlight was an occasional bit of on-air work as a disc jockey when someone would call in sick,” he laughs.

It’s easy to imagine the 40-something President and CEO of Trafficade behind the radio mic. He’s energetic, witty, and immediately makes his guests feel comfortable. Johnson began his radio career interning at KZZP – 104.7, which had a top 40 format. His first paying job was at KGRX-FM (The Wave), which had a New Age/light jazz format. “It was one of the first satellite stations, meaning that the same format would be broadcast to about 20 stations around the country,” Jeff recalls. “We still had control of local commercials, kind of like being a disc jockey without talking.

Johnson ended his career at KZRX 100.3, which had a heavy metal format.

“We faced stiff competition from Big Red Radio’s Dave Pratt, the Morning Mayor.

“It was tough. I did both jobs for a year and a half until I was 19. Finally I had to make a decision and I chose my barricade company,” Johnson says, perhaps just a tad wistfully.

Many Services Under One Roof: Trafficade's Four Divisions

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he more than 200 employees of Trafficade are divided into four divisions: ● Traffic Control which started in 1990, ● Work Zone Services which started in 1999, ● Signs & Sales which started in 2009, and ● Shoring which started in 2010.

There have been recent developments in each of the four divisions.

The Traffic Control Division has your message board needs covered. The division recently acquired 90 additional state-of-the-art message boards that feature the latest LED and efficient power consumption technology. Manufactured

by Wanco, these boards are much more reliable than previous models. Trafficade is able to remotely reprogram the boards, monitor their location using GPS, and receive notices of potential low voltage or tampering.

The Work Zone Services (WZS) Division has been busy because of the Valley’s aging infrastructure. Broken water pipes have created numerous sinkholes.

Trafficade’s ability to bundle their expertise with traffic control, paving, milling, and shoring services has resulted in the quick repair of these road hazards.

The Signs & Sales Division features two new products for parking lots, both of which were recently installed at the Amazon Fulfillment Center located in west Phoenix. Traffic-calming speed bumps, selected for their longevity and warranty, were placed in the warehouse’s extensive parking lot.

Also installed were SlowStop Bollards that protect pedestrians in walkways while minimizing potential damage to motor

This barricade was made by Jeff in his parent's garage in 1990. It has old plywood panels (MDO board) and uses the home phone number of Jeff's parents.

vehicles and to the bollards themselves.

Trafficade previously installed the bollards at their own warehouse and tested their resilience with forklift collisions.

Incredibly, there was no damage to the forklift or bollard.

The Shoring Division has been building steel ramps that are compliant with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). “It’s been feast or famine with these new devices,” Division Manager Jack Dodd says. “Some recent larger projects have required dozens of these ramps.” The ramps are used in conjunction with ADAcompliant sidewalks to create a safe path for pedestrians, including those with disabilities, to safely navigate curbs through work areas.

The division also features a new shoring pit training facility at their Phoenix headquarters. “We stuck a little bit of everything in there, including an end shore, a bored shore, a multi-shore, and a regular shore,” Dodd says. “The purpose is to show our customers our flexibility in staggering and aligning them.”

The 12-foot-long by 32-inch-wide shoring pit is available for any company interested in bringing their crews for training. Termed “Tool Box Talks,” the first session was a big hit at Trafficade’s Open House in September 2014. To schedule a class contact Jack Dodd at 602-714-4358.

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Following the Signs of Success: 25 Years of Trafficade

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hen Jeff Johnson decided to leave his budding radio career behind and focus on Trafficade, his barricade company quickly outgrew his parent’s backyard.

Within a year Johnson had moved Trafficade to a rented ½ acre lot at Hardy Drive and Warner Road in Tempe in 1991.

“I just kept on believing that a lot of contractors wouldn’t want to do the barricade work themselves,” Jeff recalls.

“They hired companies that supplied these services and I tried hard to make sure it was my company.”

The following year, Johnson purchased the assets of AAA Barricades in Phoenix and rented a small warehouse and office near Baseline and Kyrene roads. “I thought I had hit the big time,” Jeff chuckles. “The place had a rollup door, a little suite for manufacturing, and an old landline phone.”

Jeff would also soon hire his first full-time, permanent employee—his father. “He really wanted to help and see me succeed,” Jeff says of his father,

Dennis. Twenty-two years later, the fatherson dynamic continues to be successful, as Dennis still works at Trafficade. “I paid my father a salary when he started in 1993 but still hadn’t taken one myself,” Jeff recalls.

“Ace Asphalt was our lifeblood in those days,” Dennis Johnson recalls. “Sunland Asphalt hired us later, maybe in 1995?”

The year 1994 was a momentous time for the company as Trafficade had again

outgrown their facility and moved to new digs near 40th Street and Superior Avenue in Phoenix. Jeff also drew his first company paycheck. “Finally, in 1994 or 1995, I gave myself a salary,” he says.

During these early lean years, Jeff and Dennis developed their sixth sense for locating missing barricades. “We learned to find the hiding places people had put them: behind dumpsters, in planters, along medians,” Jeff says. “We also noticed sometimes apartment managers would ‘borrow’ a few to use on their small projects. Heck, we’ve run into our barricades as decorations in bars and seen them for sale on Ebay,” Jeff concludes, shaking his head.

His father, Dennis, wins the prize for encountering the most creative illegal reuse of Trafficade products. “Some years back, I was watching the races at Manzanita Raceway and a race car flipped over,” he recalls. “On the bottom of the car was a 1/8-inch aluminum barricade sign.

Heck, that’s probably one of our signs, I thought. Later, I made my way over to the vehicle and confirmed this,” Dennis says.

Four years later, Trafficade opened up its first branch office. “We purchased Ace Barricade in Tucson in 1998,” Jeff recalls.

“We rebranded it as Trafficade’s Tucson office.” The following year, Trafficade moved into a larger facility near 30th Street and Madison in Phoenix. This

“Trafficade manufactures tens of thousands of signs, for our own company, ADOT, and various municipalities.”

Vintage Dietz traffic lights include the kerosene torch smudge pot burner (bottom left) and the Dietz Traffic Gard #40 railroad lantern (center). The kerosene torches would shoot across the street like pinballs when clipped by vehicles.

The Light(s) of Jeff’s Life When Dennis Johnson bought his son, Jeff, a Dietz Visi-Flash barricade light (left) at a garage sale while living in Michigan in 1977, he had no idea it would spark his pre-teen son to create a phenomenally successful traffic control company.

The first transistorized light was made with a 12-volt, incandescent bulb by the R.E. Dietz Company in Syracuse, NY . The spray-painted black line was for identification and signified a flashing light rather than a steady-burn light. The markings were needed to identify the type of light during the day since the light’s photocell only allowed it to be illuminated after dark.

In 1982, the Dietz Visi Flash cases were made of a more durable polyethylene plastic instead of the early polycarbonate, which would crack or shatter upon impact.

The “Nightflasher” (right) was an incandescent light bulb using two, six-volt, springtop lantern batteries used by Trafficade starting in 1995. These lights are currently powered by D-cell batteries and LEDs.

coincided with the start of the Work Zone Services division which added steel road plates and pavement milling to Trafficade’s repertoire of services.

“We were the only company to offer full services to mill and install metal plates during the fiber optics boom,” Jeff proclaims. “Then we started buying shoring equipment and got into asphalt patch paving the following year. Trafficade has one of the few trench paver and asphalt laydown machines specifically for trenches in Arizona. We hired experts for all of these new aspects of the company

EIGHT - TRAFFICADE

rather than trying to train barricade guys,” Jeff adds.

By 2001, Trafficade had purchased a 30,000 square-foot building on four acres at 2533 West Holly Street in Phoenix. The company also acquired a competitor, Statewide Barricade Service in Phoenix.

Four years later, the company hired a critical employee. “I knew Jeff Johnson, who had gone to the same high school with my son, was building barricades and working with lights

and things like that,” says Ron Jones, who started with Apache Barricades in 1968. “I kind of followed him and his career. I recognized that his company was one with integrity and good people. So when I left my old company, I contacted Jeff and came aboard in 2005.”

Trafficade next acquired PMA Barricades in Tucson in 2006. The company’s Tucson operations were moved to 2721 North Flowing Wells Road, just east of Interstate 10. Another expansion took place in the Valley when Trafficade purchased a facility at 17046 South Weber Drive, just southeast of Interstate 10 and State Route 202, in 2008. This acquisition started Trafficade’s Chandler branch.

The company’s tremendous growth continued with the formation of their new sign manufacturing and material sales division, Trafficade Signs & Sales, in 2009.

The following year, hydraulic shoring was added to its line of services, known as Trafficade’s Shoring Division. These services expanded with the acquisition of the Arizona division of Traffic Control Service/Allied Trench Shoring in 2011. This added steel boxes and shields to Trafficade Work Zone Shoring.

“I thought I had hit the big time,” Jeff chuckles. “The place had a rollup door, a little suite for manufacturing, and an old landline phone.”

Recently, Trafficade increased its service area with new facilities in northern Arizona. The company purchased a facility in Dewey, which started Trafficade’s Prescott branch in 2013. The company moved into the Flagstaff market and opened a facility in 2015. The unmistakable red Trafficade vehicles and equipment can be spotted all over Arizona.

The company has also focused on its sign facilities in Phoenix. Large overhead extruded guide signs were first produced in Trafficade’s manufacturing division in 2013. This was followed by the purchase of a new facility for the Trafficade Signs & Sales Division on McDowell Road in Phoenix. “Most barricade companies had a sign shop for specialty signs,” Jeff muses.

“We started with a small sign shop, now we have the largest sign shop in the state.

Trafficade manufactures tens of thousands of signs, for our own company, ADOT, and various municipalities. We’re the only guys who do this locally.”

With the company’s growth over a quarter of a century, Jeff Johnson has outlasted competitors including Dick Cole’s Barricade and Light Rental, which was sold to NES Equipment in 1999 and later acquired by RoadSafe. Johnson’s other main competitor was Dana Woudenberg Enterprises. “Dana consolidated a bunch of companies including Starlite, Apache, Early Warner, and Alert before selling the operation to United Rentals in 1999,” Jeff says. “It was eventually spun off to Highway Technologies, which went bankrupt in May of 2013.”

Jeff was asked for his insight on the evolution of the traffic control industry.

“The advances in technology since I’ve started are unbelievable!” he gushes.

“Barricades in some ways haven’t changed at all, but their lights have improved a lot.

They’ve evolved from incandescent lights powered by a six-volt battery that didn’t last long to the new LED lights that last for months. That’s been a huge improvement.”

The reflective sheeting products applied to barricades have also changed drastically for the better. “Microprismatic sheeting is how you’re able to achieve the brightness you get today,” Jeff says.

“There are eight different grades of sheeting, they’re all so bright.”

Always looking for new opportunities for his company, Jeff Johnson still maintains a reverence for the Arizona history of the traffic control industry.

With little prompting, he can reel off the local companies—and the color of the pack that held the light on their barricades. “Star-lite was blue, Apache was green, Alert was red, Barricade and Light Rental was orange, Early Warner was black, Statewide was grey, contractors were yellow, and my lights were originally white but now are red,” Jeff says.

But some things never change in the barricade business -- kids are still fascinated with the flashing lights. Many lost barricades mysteriously reappear when college dorms turnover every year at the end of spring semester. “We buy 30,000 lights a year through attrition or damage,” Jeff winces. “That’s just part of the business.”

What People Say about Trafficade Valley Utilities The storms that occurred in the 2014 late summer monsoon season brought out the best in Trafficade’s services. Their crews encountered downed power lines, freeway floods, broken traffic signals, and potholes, one of which became a sinkhole so large that it trapped a Valley Metro bus.

One of the response scenes was along 59th Avenue, extending from south of Paradise Lane to Greenway Road. High winds had downed power lines and traffic signals were out of commission. “In one area there were downed trees, some of them really old ones,” Trafficade Customer Service Representative (CSR), Ray Galaviz said. “They were leaning as though some mythical giant had pushed them over. Trafficade crews quickly closed down the impacted areas to protect public safety. Thanks to Trafficade’s quick response, utility crews were able to restore the power lines and traffic signals in four days.

flooded by microbursts, including some emergency freeway closures. But the most unusual job that the company performed involved a Valley Metro bus that became stuck in a sinkhole caused by a water-main break at McClintock and Apace Boulevard in Tempe. Trafficade’s CSR Jeff Conant was involved in traffic control at the sinkhole while CSR Vince Trujillo performed the asphalt restoration phase of the project.

Trafficade’s superior emergency performance did not go unnoticed from public service utilities.

“I want to thank you and

continue to rely on Ray and the rest of your staff for their dedication and expertise.”

Arizona Public Service (APS) also praised the company in a letter to Johnson.

“I would like to compliment the Trafficade team for their expertise, support, and quick response in not only establishing an emergency closure near 59th Avenue and Greenway, but for your continued support to APS throughout the storm restoration process in keeping our workers safe and changing traffic control patterns to allow business access,” APS Public Safety Leader Randy L. Bates wrote. “Great job! Thanks again for a job well done.”

“From a resource standpoint, your people at Trafficade for the excellent work have done for the Construction Company they are fully equipped for you Salt River Project (SRP) Sunland Asphalt and Trafficade have group over the any type of project we do.” Water past year,” SRP’s a business relationship spanning a decade.

Later in the monsoon season, Trafficade crews closed down roadways TEN - TRAFFICADE

Construction Consultant John Evans wrote to Trafficade President and CEO Jeff Johnson. “The Mesa Light Rail project and the recent severe storm events have been challenging for us, and your company’s efforts have assisted us greatly.

I particularly appreciate the 24/7 service I have received from Ray Galaviz. He’s always been there when we are in need of a quick response and his quick action has undoubtedly saved us money and time. As we move into our dry-up season, I will

Since 2004, Trafficade has provided traffic control, milling, and steel plates to Sunland Asphalt. Major jobs the two companies have worked on include the City of Phoenix overlays and crackfill projects, 18 miles of State Route 260 near McNary in the White Mountains, University Drive improvements in Tempe, and work for the Tucson Electric Power plant near Springerville.

“For us, they are our ‘Go To’ barricade contractor,” Sunland Asphalt Vice

President of Operations Craig Weems says.

“They are always there when we need them. From a resource standpoint, they are fully equipped for any type of project we do. When we call, even if it’s the day before, they always pull through and take care of us. Jeff Johnson has done a great job and understands exactly what his customers’ needs are and it reflects in the way all their employers go about their business.”

Industry Association Having the title, “The Answer Man” in Las Vegas can be a dicey proposition in a city that’s fueled by gambling. Fortunately, Trafficade’s Jeff Johnson managed to sidestep sports questions like, “Who’s going to win the big game today?” and confined his responses to traffic control topics while serving at the American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) booth at the CONEXPO-CONAGG booth in March 2014.

Man” for the Vegas show that attracts 2,400 exhibitors and more than 125,000 attendees including contractors, dealers, distributors, service providers, engineers, producers, and municipalities. “At our booth, we promote the fact that many of our members are highly skilled, highly trained and knowledgeable people,” ATSSA President and CEO Roger Wentz says. “This was the third time that Jeff has represented his industry in this important endeavor. He pays his own expenses to get there and serves us in the role of a national contractor who can talk to the general

contractors and answer their many questions. This benefits all ATSSA members.”

The Trafficade CEO has also performed more traditional roles for the ATSSA, including serving two terms on the national board from 20062010. “In addition to his board involvement, Jeff has served two tours of duty on the ATSSA executive committee and as a liaison to ATSSA’s Temporary Traffic Control Committee,” Wentz says. “He also served three years on ATSSA’s Audit Committee, chairing it for one year.”

“This was the third time that Jeff has represented his industry in this important endeavor.”

What does ATSSA do? The association establishes best practices, education, leadership and technical standards for the traffic control industry. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, Virginia, ATSSA has represented companies and individuals in the traffic control and roadway safety fields since 1969. Its 1,600 members provide the majority of features, services, and devices used to make our nation’s roadways safer. They include pavement markings, road signs, zone traffic control devices, guardrail, and other roadside safety features.

Johnson has been a major supporter of ATSSA, including being “The Answer

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What's New at Trafficade Grand Opening of Trafficade Sign Shop

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endors, manufacturers, staff, and family descended on Trafficade to celebrate the Grand Opening of the company’s new 25,000 square-foot sign shop, warehouse, and safety products store at 2544 West McDowell Road in Phoenix last September 24th. The more than 300 people were attracted by more than a scrumptious free lunch.

“I always felt that sign shop had a professional look,” General Manager of Trafficade Signs and Sales Tiffany Rizzo says. “The new and improved facility – a 25,000 square-foot sign shop, warehouse, and safety products store – is even more professional.” Tiffany, a 15-year veteran of the company, thinks the company’s current operations are the most exciting she’s experienced.

The open house was a fabulous, fun event that featured Tiffany’s favorite vendors. They included Andrew Bacik from FlaggerJoe, Karen Hentemann from Impact Recovery, Jim Anderson from Designovations, Tim Gibson from 3M, Jim Smith from Checkers Industrial Products, Mark Alvord from SoundOff Signal, Dario Alvarez from Plastic Safety Systems, Bill Brewer from Wanco, Mike Merrill from WorkArea Protection, and Peter Mackenzie from Bone Safety Signs.

“We are very proud of our new building and wanted to show it off to the entire safety and sign industry stakeholders throughout Arizona,” Trafficade President and CEO Jeff Johnson said. “Many of our key longtime vendors and manufacturers were on-site displaying their products. This was a great opportunity for our customers and DOT agencies to learn about the latest safety products direct from the sources, many of which are readily available at the on-site Safety Product Store."

If you missed the grand opening of the sign shop, there are still opportunities to tour Trafficade’s facilities. The company’s guided tours offer customers and potential customers the occasion to see four divisions, meet key personnel, and see what Trafficade is all about. For a tour, contact Tiffany Rizzo at Tiffany @trafficade.com or call 602-431-0911.

Trafficade’s Annual “Marathon” Event More than 22,000 exhausted distance runners from all over the world had Phoenix-based Trafficade Work Zone Services Division to thank for a smooth race in the 12th Annual P.F. Chang’s Rock N’ Roll Marathon. The company provided traffic control services for what is described as Arizona’s largest single urban traffic control event.

Trafficade had an exclusive contract with the cities hosting the January 18th event: Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe. The 26.2-mile marathon course and the 13.1-mile halfmarathon course required 42.2 miles of traffic control through three cities.

“When it comes to about a month out from the event, that’s when I sit in front of my computer, turn off my phone, and put the dog in the kennel.”

TWELVE - TRAFFICADE

Trafficade also provided traffic control on Loop 202 and I-10.

“It went really well,” Trafficade President and CEO Jeff Johnson said. ”Having handled individual portions of this event for several years now, we have this down to a science.”

The marathon used about 20,000 traffic control devices, rented and set-up by the Trafficade team. On the day of the event, Trafficade had over 70 trucks and 100 personnel to control the traffic. Some of the equipment was pre-staged, and all equipment was removed within 24 hours after the last contestant crossed the finish line. Despite the stress of correctly setting up all the traffic control devices, the Trafficade team did enjoy local bands and cheerleaders motivating runners along every mile of the course.

A major player in the Trafficade team was long-time employee Mark Owens, who handled the Phoenix and Tempe portions.

“It is all in the planning,” Owens, a 17-year company veteran, said. “When it comes to about a month out from the event, that’s when I sit in front of my computer, turn off my phone, and put the dog in the kennel.”

Owens then turns out a plan with over 8,000 individual entries—a report approaching 100 pages. “Everything must be in a specific spot,” he said. Owens reports that a couple of days after this year’s successful marathon, “We already began planning next year’s event.”

Dennis and Jeff Johnson

Ron Jones Retires from Trafficade Team

W

hile many people focus on how to overcome barriers in life, Ron Jones has spent 46 years putting up these signs and cones to help keep the public safe during road construction or special events. Jones was called, “…a consummate professional,” by Trafficade President Jeff Johnson. “He has been our general manager for the past nine years and truly will be missed.” Before retiring, Jones provided insights into his career in the traffic control business.

Q: How did you end up in the traffic control business?

A: In 1966, my Explorer Scout leader found a summer job for me working at Star-Lite Barricade. I worked nights most of the summer setting up traffic control for Bentson Contracting, who were hired by the City of Phoenix to overlay 32 major intersections.

Q: How did you come to work for Apache Barricade?

A: When Apache Barricade started in 1968, they asked me to work for them

servicing jobs on weekends and nights. I was a full time student at Glendale Community College and, later, Arizona State University during this period.

When our manager was severely injured, I was asked to take over his job, managing a staff of 30 employees in both the production of equipment and the daily operations scheduling.

Q: What happened to the Apache Barricade Company?

A: In 1979, they were sold to Woudenberg Enterprises which had one office in Phoenix. I was appointed the operations manager, and in 1987 became the vice president of operations. Woudenberg later expanded to Tucson, followed by offices in Yuma, Flagstaff, Kingman, McNary, and El Paso.

United Rentals Highway Technologies purchased Woudenberg and appointed me as the general manager of the Phoenix division in 1999. I joined the Trafficade team as their general manager in January 2005.

Q: So Apache Barricade manufactured barricades and signs?

A: Yes, at that time each company made all the equipment from scratch at their own sign shops.

Q: Was there a standard design for barricade development?

A: The basic specifications were provided by the Arizona Department of Transportation, the City of Phoenix, and the City of Tucson. The specifications were mainly for the panels on barricades, including Type I, II and III barricades as well as vertical panel barricades. The barricade panels were black and white with some Da-Glo stripes. The warning signs were black letters on a reflective yellow background.

Q: How has the business evolved over the years?

A: Besides the changes in the colors of barricades, the biggest impact came from the invention of the lighted arrow board panels in the 1970s. The first units included both truck-mounted panels as well as the

larger 4 x 8 foot panels that were mounted on trailers. The trailer units required a 12-volt generator to power them. We used small diesel powered units in our fleet.

Q: How did the modern changeable message boards come about?

A: These larger lighted units became available later. The first units were also diesel powered and required much more power and a much larger generator system. The cost was over $30,000 then so there were not very many units in use at that time. Both the arrow boards and the message boards began using the newer halogen and then the LED technology, which enabled them to be powered from a bank of 12-volt batteries. They were able to keep the batteries charged for extended use through the use of solar panels, eliminating the need for the high maintenance diesel generators.

Q: What was the longest stretch of traffic control you were involved in?

A: Trafficade has provided traffic control for the PF Changs Rock and Roll Marathon for more than 10 years. This includes both a 26-mile and a separate 13-mile set up for the two races. As this is the largest event

we do every year, almost all of our employees are involved setting up the equipment the week before the race, monitoring it during the race, and removing it after the race.

Q: Were you active in industry organizations?

A: Yes, I was certified as an American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) Traffic Control Supervisor in 1975, and later served twice as the Arizona ATSSA president. I’m currently the chapter secretary, a post I’ve held since 2009. In addition, I served a four-year term as chairman of the national ATSSA Temporary Traffic Control Devices Committee. I’m still on that committee as well as a member of ATSSA’s National Operating Committee. In addition, I’ve served as the president and then chairman of the Flasher Barricade Association.

Q: Tell us about your family?

A: I’ve been married to my wife, June, for 45 years. We have three children, Brandon, Allison, and Tamara, and ten grandchildren.

Trafficade wishes Ron all the best in his retirement!

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Windmill Whiz Dale Balow Douglas Towne

F

rom postcards at a Quartzsite truck stop to paintings at a Sedona fine art gallery, windmills are the featured attraction. People of all backgrounds are captivated by windmills; their charisma is the envy of politicians. Not confined to cattle ranches, their popularity has spread to suburban homes where miniature “toy” models are fashionable yard decorations.

One of life’s simple joys is watching a windmill swing around to meet the afternoon breeze and creak to life, whether you’re a rancher dependent upon them to provide water for the herd or a city slicker enthralled with their vintage ambiance. This is particularly true in the Grand Canyon State where windmills are often situated amidst stunning natural landscapes.

Many windmills have curious notes written unobtrusively on tower support columns or the adjoining water tank. These hieroglyphics describe the details of the well that the windmill sits atop: “TD” is total well depth, “SWL” is static water level, “SETT” is the depth of the pump, and “2 ¼ CUP” is the size of the down-hole leathers. Also included are a date, phone number, and the words, “Balow Pump.”

After encountering these markings many times, I finally called, curious to meet this windmill man.

Dale Balow began working on windmills at his uncle’s ranch near Lovington in southeast New Mexico in the early 1950s. He started his company, Balow’s Windmill, Pump Service & Well Drilling in 1974. Based in Skull Valley, a small town west of Prescott, Balow keeps a full schedule selling, installing and maintaining windmills, as well as drilling and repairing other types of wells and pumps. “Other than areas with tall pines, where there’s typically not that much of a breeze, there are few places that don’t have enough wind in Arizona,” Balow says.

This is a man who found his passion— and he is not alone. Indispensable to ranchers for more than a century and blessed with an undeniable aesthetic www.arizcc.com

allure, the windmill has become an icon of the West. Their use in advertisements is testament to the impressive influence they have on the American psyche.

But the windmill is more than a muchloved slice of Americana. The windmill was cited as one of the three linchpins, along with barbed wire and the Colt 45 revolver, of Western settlement by Walter Prescott Webb in his seminal 1931 book, The Great Plains. In areas devoid of perennial streams or springs, the windmill was used to pump groundwater, thereby opening up huge

tracts of frontier land. Ranchers utilized them to supply water for cattle and their homesteads, a mission that continues to this day.

Windmill technology has changed little since the Civil War. A breeze brings the windmill into action, pivoting the tail to point in the wind direction and swinging the mill, with its typical 18 concave, sheet metal blades around to face the wind. “It usually takes winds of 6 to 8 miles per hour (mph) to start a windmill but it varies with each individual mill,” Balow says. As the blades catch the wind, the rotating mill powers a crankshaft to a connecting rod that strokes up and down in the well. This sucker rod is connected to check valves, which slowly bring the groundwater up the column pipe to the top of the well.

The windmill continues producing water until the wind ebbs—or becomes Dale Balow stands on one of his windmills at his Skull Valley ranch.

Images courtesy of author

A Different Kind of Blade Man:

Arizona Contractor & Community

too ferocious. “At high wind speeds of 30 to 40 mph, a self-braking mechanism called a furling system starts to slow down the mill to protect it from damage,” Balow says. The tail also hinges, turning the blades away from the wind for mechanical protection. This braking safety feature may also be employed by manually operating a lever at the base of the tower, which lashes the tail parallel to the blades.

“The key to a windmill’s long life is maintenance,” Balow declares. He can spend three weeks performing repairs on windmills scattered around a single large ranch. Annual upkeep includes lubricating the mill high in the sky and replacing worn leathers on a check valve pulled from deep in the well. The former can be tricky work for those not enamored with heights. Many a cowboy has the ability to repair almost anything with a strand of baling wire but some are reticent to scale a windmill. “There are fewer cowboys on ranches these days so hiring outside help for windmills is common,” Balow says.

Even with proper maintenance, however, repairs are sometimes needed.

This is especially true when vandalism occurs. Bullet-ridden road signs are common and spinning blades are another favorite target. “Vandalism is increasing,” Balow notes. “Windmills can handle a few holes in their mills but can get badly

damaged if the gearbox which contains the internal parts is hit,” he laments.

Day or night, when the cattle need water because of a malfunctioning windmill, a rancher’s first call is to Balow.

Even with a service area that stretches from the Grand Canyon to the Mexican border and from Winslow to Nevada, Balow does not use maps or a GPS to locate remote windmills.

“After all these years of traveling Arizona’s highways then turning onto some two-track road which meanders out of sight until it ends at a remote cow camp or a lone windmill, Dale has a mental map of these unmarked waters in his head,” Audrey Hankins, his wife, says. “He knows them all by the names that ranch people call them by, and could drive to or from any of them on a dark night.”

Although blessed with working in some of the most scenic landscapes in Arizona, it’s not always hospitable working conditions. Rattlesnakes loiter near windmills and hornets often nest on the tower. Looking at the bright side, Balow laughs, “If the yellow jackets get after you, it just makes you climb a lot faster!”

The repairs themselves can quickly turn dangerous too.

“One of my workers and

“There were around 150 windmill manufacturers in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century.”

Top: Dale Balow on his front porch.

Right: Windmill "notes" left by Balow.

Thirty four

I were trying to tie off a Challenge windmill to do repairs. Before we could finish, a wind came and the chain we had around the mill started whipping around, ripping the wooden platform at the top to shreds.

The debris started flying and in my hurry to get off the structure, I kept stepping on the hands of the other guy who was below me and a slower climber. When we both got to the ground, the chain flew off the mill, missing us. It could have easily killed us both. The next day, the guy showed up for work with swollen fingers and turned in his resignation, having had enough of the windmill business,” Balow mused.

Balow’s favorite windmills include the Aermotor #702 series, Samson, Fairbury, Flint-Walling, and Challenge. “There were around 150 windmill manufacturers in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century,” Balow says. “As the Rural Electric Associations developed starting in the 1930s and submersible pumps became more available, the demand was cut back for windmills,” he says. Only two American manufacturers are still operating, Aermotor, in San Angelo, Texas, and Dempster in Beatrice, Nebraska.

Most of the windmills Balow currently installs are 8 or 12-foot diameter mills that can pump groundwater from 200-400 feet deep. “It typically takes about three days to set up a mill of this size and that includes camping at the site,” he says. Some locations require 16-foot mills that produce water from 600-800 feet deep, or even 20-foot mills that are set atop 60-foot towers that hoist water more than 1,000 feet in northern Arizona.

To compensate for their limited production capabilities and the fickle wind, windmills are piped to storage tanks for a more dependable water supply. For domestic use, an elevated tank is used to provide a gravity-

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Thirty six

manufacturing plant in Buenos Aires. “Old engine blocks were melted down and used for castings.”

The Arizona cattle community has long realized the importance of a good windmill man, which is illustrated by people’s reaction to Dale Balow at livestock auctions, brandings, or neighborhood potlucks. “Anywhere ranch people gather, young and old alike go out of their way to shake Dale's hand, look him in the eye, and call him by name,” Hankins says. “At 78, he doesn't show any signs of retiring soon, though he has mellowed enough to take off a few days occasionaly to attend a country music festival,” she adds.

Far from a one-person operation, Balow is especially grateful to his first wife, Kitty, who passed away in 2005, his son, Buddy, who grew up in the business, and Miguel Treviso, who worked with him for more than 30 years. Reflecting on his vocation, Balow says, "I've enjoyed my years as a well man, and have sure made a lot of friends along the way."

Top: Aermotor windmill.

Below: Star windmill sold by Fred Ronstadt Hardware Company in Tucson.

Images courtesy of author

fed source. Large storage tanks used for livestock supply watering troughs controlled by floats.

How does Balow actually construct a windmill? “We set the four base legs of the structure in concrete,” he says. “Then on the ground we put together the rest of the structure with the mill on top, connecting two of the legs to those already set in concrete. We then raise it up using a crane on one of our trucks and secure the other two legs.” Most windmills use steel support structures but recently some windmills have come back full circle to their original design. “We have recently built wooden towers for windmills for aesthetic purposes,” Balow chuckles.

This relates to a new market for Balow’s services: homeowners wanting a full-size windmill in their front yard. These aren’t connected to a well but spin simply to add ambiance. It seems you don’t have to be a ranch hand to love the hum of a windmill. Star windmills sold by the longdefunct hardware store that was started

by Fred Ronstadt, the grandfather of singer Linda Ronstadt, are especially sought after in southern Arizona. Collectors have returned these historic windmills to service, probably saving them from being melted down and eventually sold in the form of a Korean car.

Even Balow is not immune to the allure of the sun flashing on the blades of a revolving windmill. His property features vintage Samson, Challenge, and Aermotor models that supply his home and cattle.

And he can’t seem to escape them, even on overseas vacations. On a trip to Argentina, Balow toured the factory that makes his favorite brand of windmill, the Aermotor Model #702 Series. “It was an amazing facility,” says Balow of the Fabrica de Implementos Agricolas S.A. (FIASA)

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Multigenerational Glow: The Christy Sign Company Katie Mayer

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hristy Signs owner and second generation sign maker Dane Christensen recently ate a sandwich at vintage Phoenix deli Cheese ‘n Stuff, where on the roof above, one of his father’s vivid neon creations still stands more than 60 years later. The blue, yellow, and red globe sign is hard to miss on a building where signs protruding off of the roofline are no longer permitted. But the sign has fallen into disrepair over the years – and this bothers Christensen.

“It hasn’t had any work done on it for years,” Christensen said while shaking his head. “I’ve offered to fix it…I’ve even offered to fix it for free, but (the owner) Stan has said, ‘No.’” Outside the deli, located at 5042 North Central Avenue, Christensen pointed to lettering on the building itself also painted by his father, Leonard ”L.W.” Christensen. “Dad did mostly sign painting and detailed gold leaf work,” Christensen said. “I wanted to do the macho stuff…go

up on a crane high in the air and do the huge signs.”

L.W. Christensen first started in the sign business by mistake or maybe by luck.

It was the early 1920s in Fremont, Nebraska and a local store owner hired L.W.’s father, Samuel Christensen, to paint his building. When Dane’s grandfather completed the job, he realized he had accidentally painted over the store’s sign.

To fix the mistake, L.W. borrowed brushes and paints from a local store, and repainted the store’s letters from memory at age 14. The experience sparked an idea for L.W. – why not start painting signs for a living?

So L.W. moved to Pittsburg, California, located near the Bay Area, and began a new line of work, gaining experience and sparking his lifelong love for the craft of sign painting. The career L.W. launched eventually took him to Arizona where he worked directly with Del Webb, painted some of Arizona’s most prominent signs, and even crafted the names of many Arizona governors in gold leaf lettering at the Capitol building. He also painted a large Barry Goldwater political sign, in addition to other political signs.

“L.W. was known as ‘Christy the Sign Man,’” Christensen said. “He was kind of a drifter…moving around to different locations and painting.”

L.W. was also brilliantly creative and unafraid to speak the truth. “He was the type that if someone said, ‘I want it to look Top right: L.W. Christensen's original sketch of Cheese 'n Stuff sign, painted with a red sable brush and watercolors, 1949.

Left: Dane Christensen at Cheese 'n Stuff, 2015.

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Images courtesy of Christy Signs

like this,’ and he didn’t agree, he’d say, ‘No, that would look bad,’” Christensen said.

Always with a pencil in his pocket, L.W. sketched many of his beloved creations on cocktail napkins over drinks at local watering holes like the Moose Lodge and Elks Lodge. If the clients liked the sketches, they’d ask L.W. how much the sign would cost and he would simply pencil in the price on the bottom of the napkin. “I still have some of his sketches,” Christensen said.

With such a talented sign maker as his father, Christensen naturally grew up in the business and was mentored by his dad over the years, but the independent young Christensen also worked for nearly all of the big industry players in the Valley, including Eller Outdoor Advertising, Virgil Moss Sign Co., Pearson Signs and Myers

Leiber Sign Co., where he painted under then-art director and renowned sign maker Glen Guyette. “Mr. Pearson was as much a mentor as my dad was,” Christensen said.

William “Bill” L. Pearson, whose grandfather founded Pearson Signs in 1927 and whose father was friends with L.W., has known Christensen for more than 50 years.

“Christy and his dad are both well-respected in the industry,” Pearson said. “I call Dane ‘Christy’ because that’s what I called his father.”

In 1972, Christensen bought out his father’s company and L.W. passed away seven years later. Christensen continues to operate Christy Signs in south Phoenix, where his daughter Candise “Candy” Christensen runs the office operations. The company focuses on large signage for towers, fast food restaurants, car

dealerships, and major developers as opposed to the more intricate work Christensen’s father did.

While the industry has changed dramatically over the decades – from neon to LED and from painting to vinyl printing – the Christy Signs shop, located near the Durango Curve, still retains much of its vintage charm. In Christensen’s office, old photos and memories, including a sketch of the great Christy himself, cover nearly every wall. In the shop, a collection of illuminated neon signs with everything from “No Vacancy” to “Discovery Channel” and the first Arizona Diamondbacks sign

Images courtesy of author

“Christy was the best sign painter in town,”

Above left: Christy: The Sign Man shop at 1919 West Grant Street, Phoenix, 1958.

Above right: L.W. Christensen with Pug, 1943.

Below left: Christy Sign’s sign collection.

Below right: Scott Frazier bends neon tube, 2015.

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hang overhead.

The most charming is the old 7th Ave Hotel sign which towers above the shop’s work area.

Upstairs, there is an old neon work area where Christensen’s neon artisan heats and bends the long tubes of glass to form letters and designs. Although neon signs are rarely built these days, some businesses such as the pizza restaurant Mellow Mushroom still like to have them and others need their neon repaired.

Scott Frazer, operations director for Christy Signs, has worked for Christensen since he was 20 and moved to Arizona after studying commercial art in Pennsylvania.

“I wrote to 20 different companies for a job and got a call from Christy Signs to come out here for two weeks,” Frazer said.

Forty years later, Frazer remains an integral part of Christy Signs, helping as a manager, salesman and weighing in on the creative aspects of the work. “I like coming to work every day and I like that I kind of grew up with the company,” Frazer said.

Frazer chuckles as he remembers Christensen’s father occasionally coming into the shop to grab the brush out of his hand and show him how it’s done. “Christy was the best sign painter in town,” Frazer said.

Today, Christy Signs has about 25 employees who restore, create, and install signs. Many of the larger companies, such as fast food chains, have their signs created in bulk in other locations and then ship them to Arizona for local companies to install.

The company’s sprawling location was once shared by Eller Outdoor Advertising Company, which later merged with Clear Channel Communication, which remains there today. On the property, Christensen kindly allows a veteran to live in a trailer out back free of charge and, in return, the veteran’s presence keeps burglars away from a valuable collection of old signs, cars, engines and gasoline pumps sitting in the lot. “People would come in and steal the letters off the signs,” Christensen said, while shaking his head.

Then there are the folks who want to sift through Christensen’s collection and purchase items to make a profit. And Christensen doesn’t much care for them either. “People come and want to buy things, but if I don’t like their attitude I just tell them to leave,” Christensen said.

As a nostalgic Christensen strolled around his property out back on a recent sunny day, he stopped to recall memories sparked by various items – the old bread truck he drove as a youth, the Cadillac that belonged to his stepmother, who once owned the Wayne’s Midway restaurant that today is Durants, and a whole shed of items which Christensen said he hasn’t opened in years. An old Maroney’s Cleaners sign also sits out back, which reminds Christensen of his mother, who once worked there before owning her own dry cleaner business, Band Box Cleaners at 6204 North Seventh Street.

“I’m 80 percent happy to come out here and see all of this, but 20 percent stressed because it’s not as organized as I’d like,” Christensen said.

At 73, Christensen has a vivid memory and can speak in detail about old signs, the

Top left: Christy Signs phone book ad, 1940s.

Right: Cheese 'n Stuff sign, 2015.

Opposite page: Former location of Christy Signs on Seventh Avenue north of Indian School Road. forty

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history of the Valley, and even current construction projects around town. He is quick-witted and funny, tough and smart, but also compassionate, especially when it comes to his wife, two daughters, and grandchildren, as well as the veteran’s community.

“He has a mind for detail and his mind is very sharp,” said Ken Treguboff, who owns Ken’s Sign Service & Lighting Specialists near Christy Signs.

The company is a competitor of Christy Signs, but the two owners, along with most of the old time Valley sign makers, are friends. In fact, a whole group of them, including Pearson, often take days-long motorcycle rides around the country together. “One of the common rules is that we don’t talk business,” Treguboff said. “If anyone hears anyone else talking business, they buy dinner.” He added with a chuckle, “In the sign business, it’s like an old woman…they all talk about each other.”

Pearson said the guys are always excited when Christensen organizes their motorcycle rides. “He always plans out the routes and maps them really well,” Pearson said. “He is very knowledgeable

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about roads and everything in Arizona.”

Despite the changing landscape of the sign industry and the evolving technology in the business, Christensen said he has no plans to retire just yet. There are still signs to be made, signs to be installed and many in need of repair – and he’s sure as heck not giving up on fixing the broken neon tubes and electrical components of the Cheese ‘n Stuff sign.

As Christensen finishes up his favorite cold cuts sandwich and side of macaroni salad on his recent trip to the deli, he stands up to leave Cheese ‘n Stuff and thanks Stan for another good meal. “Hey, why don’t you let me fix that sign up there?” Christensen yells across the counter to Stan. “I’ll do it for free.”

And this time Stan says “Yes.”

Arizona Contractor & Community

Have Hooves, Will Travel: Arizona Cattle Trails John Larsen Southard

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uring the peak years of Arizona’s cattle industry, Valley residents were often accosted by a gutwrenching whiff of manure and other slaughterhouse scents. One visitor described the odor as “overpowering,” and “god-awful,” a “noxious, vile thing, almost with a life of its own” that made it seem as if “all of Phoenix must have been built upon a layer of [manure].” This foul description was not uttered by a

cantankerous 19th century stagecoach traveler, but was a colorful recollection of an Illinois transplant deplaning at Sky Harbor, courtesy of nearby Tovrea yards in 1956.

Despite the stench, Phoenix was actually a relative latecomer to the live industry compared to other parts of the state. The first cattle to

enter what is now Arizona arrived with Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado during his unsuccessful quest for the Seven Cities of Gold in 1540. Little more than 50 years later, Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate brought in the first sizeable herd. Father Eusebio Kino was the Johnny Appleseed of southern Arizona’s burgeoning late 17th century cattle population. Later still, 18th century Spaniards introduced Longhorn cattle to Arizona.

The California Gold Rush of the late 1840s brought hordes of prospectors to the Golden State, a rich mineral land acquired by the U.S. following the MexicanAmerican War. Demand for beef in mining camps far outstripped supply, inflating prices to more than $100 per head of cattle. As cattle sold for under $6 per head in Texas, many adventurous souls opted to forgo a potential gold strike for a chance to make a fortune on the hoof. Between the 1840s and the 1870s, the bulk of Arizona’s live industry consisted of lengthy cattle drives traversing the state from Texas to California.

Most of these legendary cattle drives followed the Gila Trail, later known as the Southern Emigrant Trail. The Civil War, however, disrupted the Texas cattle trade allowing live to roam free. The unbranded calves became the foundation of many an upstart cattle rancher’s enterprise. These newly-minted cattle barons sought refuge in places such as Arizona.

Military personnel and the Native Americans they moved onto reservations

DC Ranch, once known for their cattle drives down Scottsdale Road, stopped using the once quiet roadway in 1952.

Left: Cowgirls at Sky Harbor Airport, 1961.

Across page: Tovrea Stockyards, Stockyard Restaurant, and Farmers and Stockmen's Bank, 1969.

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throughout Arizona presented local cattle ranchers with a steady customer base.

Most cattle were driven rather lengthy distances to market. Henry Hooker, the proprietor of Graham County’s Sierra Bonita Ranch, was known to many as the “Cattle King of Arizona.” Controlling a quarter million acres of grazing land, Hooker’s outfit faced long rides just to herd their four-legged assets, let alone get them to rail stations for travel to larger markets.

Ranchers in Pipe Spring on the Arizona Strip drove cattle 100 miles to the rail stop at Lund, Utah. Early Payson residents witnessed the spectacle of cattle drives clogging the town’s Main Street. Northern Arizona cowhands drove their herds to various Santa Fe rail depots.

Ironically, it was the same rail lines to which late 19th century cowpokes directed their herds that proved to be the demise of the epic cattle drives. Aside from a much-storied 1890 drive along the Gila Trail undertaken in protest of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s drastically increased freight rates – a fight the cowhands won – most cattle traveling long distances did so by rail at the end of the 19th century.

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Perhaps in anticipation of the increased cattle activity from the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railroad reaching the Valley, the Phoenix Town Council passed an ordinance in 1893 that limited “the bringing through the city herds of horses,

mules or cattle except upon Van Buren, Jackson and Seventh Street or Seventh Avenue.” The rail line allowed Yavapai County ranchers to transport their to “feed and fatten” them in Phoenix, which became a cattle-raising center. The Valley

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Image courtesy of the Scottsdale Historical Society

had a ready supply of water after the completion of Roosevelt Dam in 1911. Crop diversification, intended to prevent a repeat of the post-World War I cotton bust, led to a ready supply of alfalfa for cattle feed. This allowed the establishment of feedlots, including Tovrea yards in the 1920s.

By the early 1930s, Arizona cattlemen contacted the railroad prior to moving their herds to “make sure the cars are ready, and notify the brand inspector at least 24 hours in advance.” Mid-century standard practices included shipping cattle to train depots by truck and, in the case of Flagstaff-area rancher Ernie Chilson, patrolling herds from the air.

As the 1950s drew to a close, any thought of the industry resembling its 19th century form could be quickly dismissed.

A 1959 Arizona Republic piece showing a cowboy in rural Willcox herding cattle into pens at a railroad loading point was presented as “a scene reminiscent of oldtime cattle drives.”

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The 1960s cemented the demise of the cattle industry of yore, as exemplified by a longtime rancher’s experience while managing a spread near Cave Creek.

Instead of looking out to a broad swath of dark sky speckled with an innumerable sea of stars, he looked down upon the lights of Phoenix, Paradise Valley, and Scottsdale.

Population growth presented challenges to the industry in many parts of the state. DC Ranch, once known for their cattle drives down Scottsdale Road, stopped using the once quiet roadway in 1952. A wayward pilot crashed his plane at the Tovrea yard, mistaking the wide open space for nearby Sky Harbor In 1958.

Although the Arizona Republic jokingly cited the cause as a “bum steer” received from an air traffic controller, the incident called the feed lot’s location into question.

Ranchers still occasionally drove cattle across sparsely populated rural areas, creating anachronistic scenes. Such was the case with a drive in 1968 involving 30 miles and 1,000 cattle accompanied by railroad officials, deputies from the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, and Arizona Highway Patrol troops to facilitate highway and rail line crossings.

Similarly, a drive, reported as having been “organized as much for sentimental reasons as for economic ones,” tied up traffic and drew odd looks from spectators in New Mexico in 1969. The journey involved 750 cattle, 150 people, and two newsmen on a Route 66 frontage road over Memorial Day weekend.

That the cattle-drive era was over is best exemplified by operations at Tovrea

yards. By the time its Phoenix operations shuttered in the 1970s, cattle had to be trucked from the feed lot to the packing plant. This journey involved loading the herd into a truck and driving them across a city street, giving new meaning to the term, driving cattle.

A Hardscrabble Life: Ranching in Arizona The first cattle to graze in the Salt River Valley probably did so in the spring of 1868. In the years following, as the cattle industry waxed and waned both locally and nationally, Arizonans were encouraged to seek work in the field. A 1901 Arizona Republican article pushed the trade, proclaiming, “If a man has all the land and water he needs for the purpose in this part of the world, there is no good reason why he should not go into the cattle business, especially as that is one of the most remunerative industries in Arizona.”

Popular culture, too, celebrated those that don “a sombrero and can sit on a bucking bronco [sic] with all the grace of [the cowboy of dime novel lore].” Real cowboys, those whose “shooting irons are for use in guarding his herd from cattle thieves rather than the terrorization of peaceful citizens,” were hailed as being “as hard worked and industrious a citizen as you will meet.” Despite the positive press, however, the trade proved tough for many Arizonans.

As with most industries, economies of scale are advantageous in cattle ranching.

A drought doomed many small cattle operations in Arizona in the 1920s.

Cowboys often sought out mesquite patches because the tree’s bean pods “come on in May and June when there’s no grass.” Inexpensive, protein-packed foods such as cotton seed cake also helped to sustain herds during lean times, but typically just delayed the inevitable for many nearly insolvent cattlemen.

As stated by Jim Burnett, descendant of an Arizona ranching family, “the history of the cattle business in this country is that nobody ever made any money on it ‘til they sold the real estate.”

Summer 2015

Tovrea: From Butcher Shop to Cattle Empire

Images courtesy of author

Born in Illinois in 1861, E.A. moved to Kansas 10 years later to work on a cattle ranch. He came to Arizona in 1883 and his early business ventures included hauling freight between Ash Fork and Jerome.

After homesteading land near Arlington, west of Phoenix, he and his brother, J.C., became meat suppliers for the construction crew of the Wolfley Dam. This earthworks diversion on the Gila River was destroyed by a flood and later became the site of Gillespie Dam. Aware of opportunities to establish new business ventures that built upon

Image courtesy of

W

hen the name Tovrea is mentioned, most people today think of Tovrea Castle. But that has not always been true. Talk to old timers who attended Arizona State Teachers College (now ASU) and they will remember what accompanied the prevailing westward winds: the stench from the Tovrea livestock feeding operation. The aroma of manure, while foul to college students, meant prosperity to E.A Tovrea, who founded the Phoenix stockyard that operated from 1920 until the late 1970s.

Phil E. Tovrea III

Donna Reiner, PhD and John Jacquemart

prior successes, E.A. opened a butcher shop in Gila Bend in 1889 and later one in Phoenix, located at 115 West Washington Street. He sold these businesses and moved to Jerome in 1898. There he purchased an existing meat market, renamed it Tovrea and Clay, and was quickly elected as Jerome’s first mayor.

Two years later, E.A. sold his share of Tovrea and Clay and moved to the booming copper mining town of Bisbee.

He purchased the Overlock and Company butcher shop and renamed it E.A. Tovrea and Company. During his years in Bisbee, E.A. also was the general manager of Sonora Packing Company which was headquartered in Cananea, Mexico, with southern Arizona branches in Top: Sketch of Tovrea Packing Plant.

Mid right: E.A. Tovrea in 1926.

Left: Tovrea Stockyards, 1965.

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Tovrea then returned to a rapidly growing Phoenix, where his newest venture was the Arizona Packing Company, which was incorporated in 1919. With E.A. Tovrea as president, the company initially purchased 50 acres about five miles east of downtown Phoenix on what was Tempe Road (now called Van Buren Street). The proposed company, Arizona Packing, was highly touted as “an enterprise [that] will stabilize the industry throughout the state and provide a solid and substantial outlet

Image courtesy of author

Lowell, Bisbee, and Douglas. Tovrea continued his foray into politics in Bisbee, being elected a delegate from Cochise County to the Arizona Constitutional Convention in 1910. By 1917, the operation, now called the Tovrea Packing Company and headquartered in Bisbee, processed more cattle than any other meat packing operation between San Antonio and Los Angeles. Tovrea’s butcher shop continued to supply area residents with quality meat.

for all livestock grown in Arizona,” by the Arizona Republican in 1919.

Arizona Packing Company opened on September 27, 1920 and started off small with the ability to process about 300 head of cattle per day. E.A.’s health deteriorated so he appointed his son, Philip, as head of the company. The Arizona Packing Company was renamed Tovrea Packing Company shortly before E. A.’s death in 1932. By then the feed pens had expanded.

The company also developed feed pens just south of Washington Street that fattened the cattle in preparation for butchering at the adjacent processing plant. Over the years, the company expanded the feedlots next to the plant to accommodate up to 30,000 head of cattle a day in 396 pens. The feedlots used eight miles of feeding troughs covering 175 acres, all carefully monitored to maintain high-quality Tovrea meat.

The company had contracts with the Army to supply meat to many Western military bases before and during World War II. The plant and feed pen operation continued to expand and was considered to be the largest such entity between Fort Worth and Los Angeles. At its height, the lots encompassed the area from the plant, (located on 46th Street between Van Buren and Washington streets), east to approximately 50th Street north of Washington Street, the western boundary of Tovrea Castle. South of Washington Street, the pens covered the area from the Grand Canal to 52nd Street.

Tovrea Packing Company continued to grow and diversify. They could guarantee the quality of the meat primarily because Top: Fenix lard produced by Arizona Packing Company.

Across page: Tovrea Castle.

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Image courtesy of Steve Weiss

they raised the feed and processed it. In addition to the meat, which was primarily beef and pork, they produced products such as shortening made from the cottonseed oil from their 14 cotton gins and lard from the processed hogs. At one time the company owned nearly 75,000 acres of farmland on which they grew cotton. Tovrea also operated several ranches in the Southwest to condition their cattle before returning them to the feed pens for fattening. The Double O Ranch near Seligman, Arizona, purchased in 1940, was more than 250,000 acres.

Philip’s sons, Edward and Phil Jr., served in the armed forces during World War II. Edward, a pilot, was shot down over the English Channel and was captured by the Germans. As a POW, he actively organized the construction of underground tunnels. Remember the movie, The Great Escape? That was about one of his tunnels although he had been transferred to another stalag before the escape.

Returning from the war, the sons began to take more responsibility in the business.

Tovrea sold the packing plant to Cudahy Packing Company in 1947, which operated it until the mid-1980s. There were several reasons for the sale including price controls on meat during World War II, the threat of Cudahy opening up a competing packing plant in the Valley, and neither Tovrea son was particularly interested in the meat packing business.

However, the Tovreas retained ownership of the feed-pen operation and continued to raise cattle on the various ranches, even purchasing more land in New Mexico. The company changed its name to Tovrea Land and Cattle to better reflect its new purpose.

The Tovrea Land and Cattle Company also briefly became the world’s largest

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private owner of oil tanker vessels.

Following the end of World War II, the company began to purchase and resell war surplus. At one point, Tovrea owned 19 oil tankers although their total capacity would be nowhere near that of a modern supertanker.

The family then created a one-stop center to serve the clients of the Tovrea Land and Cattle Company. This started in 1947 with an administration building containing the company’s offices, a livestock exchange, and a restaurant. A fire gutted the building in 1954, but it was quickly rebuilt and reopened on New Year’s Eve in 1955. The building is still home to the Stockyards Restaurant. At one point, a small pen held a few cattle in front of the restaurant. A large sign overhead read: “Your Steak on the Hoof. Fed for Stockyards Restaurant.” The family also formed the Farmers and Stockmen’s Bank, which was located adjacent to the company’s administration building. A branch bank was later constructed at 313 North Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix.

As Phoenix and Tempe expanded and encroached near the feedlots, complaints

about the odor were common. This encouraged the company to liquidate some of their land in 1958. Still, Tovrea Land and Cattle ran the feed pen operation for nearly 20 more years.

By 1959, the feed pens north of Washington Street were gone. But even in the 1960s, the Tovrea operation was still deemed to be the largest feed pen in the world, housing nearly 40,000 cattle per day. Finally, in the late 1970s the feed pens

south of Washington were removed and the Tovrea cattle operation closed.

Today look west from State Route 202 towards Tovrea Castle and the U.S. Post Office’s main handling station and, try to imagine those extensive feed pens and odor, which were once a significant economic sector of Phoenix’s history.

Top: Mrs. Tovrea's Stockyard Mural for the State Capital War Memorial, 1963.

Summer 2015

Architect’s Perspective: George H. Schoneberger, Jr.: Capturing Scale Doug Sydnor, AIA Doug_sydnor@gensler.com

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cale is always difficult to define, but is about good overall building proportions and the relationship among the components. Despite it being difficult to quantify, it is still vital to an architecture that respects its context, fits the street, and is visually effective at a distance and at close range. In Phoenix, some architecture has an understanding of scale that relates to people, is appropriate, and communicates the craft of how it was assembled. Some of this fine work is from the architect George H. Schoneberger, Jr., AIA, ASID. Schoneberger received Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Architecture from Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. He later taught at Catholic University and Arizona State University (ASU) and was known as a good teacher and constructive critic. He founded Schoneberger Associates, Incorporated, Architects & Planners in 1961.

The architect was known to think big and be a dreamer, which may be the root of his creativity and imagination.

Schoneberger also dressed impeccably and raised award-winning roses. Both suggest his pursuit of perfection in architectural design and celebrating how various

building materials intersect and deliver an appropriate human scale for people to enjoy.

The following works of architecture by Schoneberger have resonated with me over the decades, and all occurred from 1961 to 1966. They demonstrate the architectural design skills and confident handling on a sensitive scale not often seen and experienced.

The Medical Plaza at 2200 West Bethany Home Road in Phoenix was completed in 1961. The project included 11 medical and dental suites that were among seven structures that were spatially knitted together by an outdoor plaza. Each structure reads as an intimate pavilion with steeply-pitched roofs. Roofs rest gently on a concrete structure with slump block infill

panels and recessed glazing. The exposed structure is well crafted with angular surfaces which refer to the roof pitch. The cluster of pavilions is raised on an elevated plinth wrapped with continuous steps.

Such steps are a delightful visual and functional transition from the site to the structures. The relationship of the building components and overall scale are very striking and teach us many lessons about sound building proportions.

Royal Towers at 2323 North Central Avenue in Phoenix was completed in 1964.

The project was later renamed the Regency House and included 118 luxury, high-rise apartments in this 21-story structure with below-grade parking. Units have two or three bedrooms, range from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet, and have

Images courtesy of author

Top right: George H. Schoneberger, Jr. Right: Regency Tower, 1999.

Below: Medical Plaza, 2015.

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ASU’s Whitney Hall at 800 South Cady Mall in Tempe was constructed in 1966. It later became the College of Nursing until 2007 and is currently the Global Institute of Sustainability. Having had classes in this building, I enjoyed the opportunity to discover its overall order, structural system, and crafted detailing. The main structure consists of exposed brick masonry walls supporting concrete waffle slabs, which is a durable and natural material palette. The space between the below grade level and upper levels provides an outdoor breezeway that cuts entirely through the first level, allowing natural breezes that cool the outdoor space. The brick is a visual reference to earlier ASU structures and, by its nature, brings an intimate human scale that breaks down the larger building volume. Use of brick fin walls to break up the wall surfaces, vertical windows that minimize heat gain, and custom louvers all deliver a comfortable and appropriate scale for the building situated at the southwest corner of the campus main mall and University Drive.

The architect was known to think big and be a dreamer, which may be the root of his creativity and imagination.

Top: ASU's Whitney Hall, 1976.

Right: Royal Willetta East, 2015. www.arizcc.com

Images courtesy of author

outdoor balconies with spectacular city views. Supportive uses include a library, lounges, and recreational facilities. The project was planned as “a residential extension of the social-cultural attitude of the nearby Civic Center area.”

The building’s main structure is concrete with flat slabs and vertically-ribbed wall panels. Northern and southern exposures have balconies that shade glazing below. Solid walls clad the east and west exposures to minimize the heat gain.

At the first level, the building has an inviting concrete entry canopy, pool area shade structures, courtyard walls, and landscaping. The building proportions, cantilevered balcony trays, and smaller window arrangement all contribute to a well-scaled composition. First level improvements include subtle grade changes, low retaining walls, and an outdoor entry breezeway that achieve a pleasant pedestrian scale.

The circa 1960’s Royal Willetta East are four-story apartments located at 336 East Willetta Street in Phoenix. They are constructed of four-inch concrete masonry bearing walls, sound-deadening concrete upper floors, and cantilevered balconies for each apartment. There are 10 efficiency units and eight one-bedroom apartments.

Amenities include a swimming pool, an elevator, and a common lobby area.

The structure has held up remarkably well over the past 50 years due to the low-maintenance masonry.

This architecture addresses the street with a calm confidence and dignity, which is achieved with a simple straightforward composition. First floor line is elevated above the natural grade, low retaining walls define the public zone, a recessed area identifies the entry, and the private apartments are above and behind the front facade. Architectural design and construction methods exploit the nature of the materials and are brought together in a coordinated and crafted manner.

Greater Arizona Savings Banks at 1920 North Scottsdale Road in Scottsdale and at the southwest corner of 24th Street and Camelback Road were built circa 1966.

Unfortunately the Phoenix facility has been demolished. Both structures appear to be prototypes with symmetrical plans: onestory, and exposed aggregate concrete walls supporting a cantilevered wood-

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Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

framed roof lid. Built results provide a well-proportioned pavilion with extremely elegant and crafted details. The relationship of the building components to each other is masterfully handled and composed. This small bank is one of finest local examples in the proper handling of architectural scale.

The above examples demonstrate Schoneberger’s comprehension of structural systems, how to exploit and feature them, and how different materials suggest varying forms, textures, and shadows. In addition, there is his skill at choreographing the details to respect the modularity and size of the components, whether brick, concrete masonry, or cast concrete. Ultimately they deliver a wellscaled built result.

I intended to interview Schoneberger for this column, but was prevented by his poor health. He passed away on March 19, 2015 at the age of 87.

Douglas B. Sydnor, FAIA is a Senior Architect at Gensler and author of three architecture books.

Right: Greater Arizona Savings Bank groundbreaking ceremony, Schoneberger directly behind sign on left, 1966.

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A “Long” Legacy: Maryvale Links Get Collegiate Makeover Douglas Towne

Over the next few issues, Arizona Contractor & Community magazine will spotlight builder John F. Long and his master-planned community of Maryvale, including its subdivisions, amenities, and commercial development.

G

rand Canyon University is looking to bring birdies and eagles back to west Phoenix in a big way.

GCU, a private Christian university, has leased Maryvale Golf Course from the City of Phoenix for 30 years. As part of the

“The biggest challenge has been cleaning out the muck from the existing lakes,”

Images courtesy of JFL Properties

Top: Architect Victor Gruen rendering, 1960.

Bottom left: Architects rendering of the Maryvale Clubhouse.

Bottom right: John F. Long poses for a publicity photograph during the grand opening of the new course, April 15, 1961.

agreement, GCU will have naming rights and upgrade the course, which will become the home of their men’s and women’s golf teams.

The renovated golf course, located less than five miles from campus at 5902 West Indian School Road, will continue to be open to the public after improvements are completed by 2017.

“We want to make west Phoenix a golf destination,” Brian Mueller, President and CEO of GCU, says. “This will just give people another reason to come to this side of town. With the changes we’ve got planned, we believe this will be one of the premier public golf courses in the state at very affordable rates.”

The renovation will not only improve the golfing experience, it honors the legacy of the person synonymous with west Phoenix: John F. Long. The Arizona homebuilder, who passed away at age 87

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JFL Properties Image courtesy of

The Maryvale golf facility offered some unique programs. “Maryvale Head Professional Bill Farkas created a 'one-ofa-kind' Bill Farkas Swing School in the summer for junior golfers,” Godfrey says.

“Each year, for almost a decade, two junior players were selected to visit the island of Samoa for two weeks in exchange for two Samoan junior golfers who visited Phoenix.”

Image courtesy of JFL Properties

Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

in 2008, started the Maryvale development in 1954. Seven years later, he added golf links to the neighborhood that now includes more than 5,000 homes. “The golf course was a partnership of John F. Long and the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department,” William Godfrey, Phoenix golf course historian, says. “Long sold the land to the city at his cost and built it at his cost under an initial lease-purchase agreement with Phoenix.”

The Maryvale Golf Course was one of more than 200 designed by William F. Bell, most of them in the Southwest and many of them with his father, William Park Bell.

“They also designed Papago Golf Course, Mesa Country Club, Randolph Park in Tucson, and Torrey Pines in San Diego, home of the 2008 United States Open,” Godfrey says.

John Long, although not a golfer, posed with a club in hand at the grand opening of the Maryvale course in 1961.

The new golf facility was described as "a handsomely groomed 140 acres” by Bob Allison, the Phoenix Gazette sports editor.

The Maryvale Golf Course eventually fell on hard times however, losing $250,000 in 2014. “The surrounding neighborhood went through a dramatic demographic shift over its 50 years,” Godfrey says. “Many golfers shied away from playing Maryvale due to security concerns.”

Renovations by GCU include replacing the original clubhouse with a 10,000 square foot, two-story state-of-the-art facility which will expand the restaurant, locker facilities, and incorporate a Grand Canyon University room for its golf teams.

“The renovations will provide opportunities for students in GCU’s new academic program in hospitality and golf management to get hands-on, real-world experience,” Bob Romantic, GCU Executive Director of the Office of Communications and Public Affairs, says. “GCU has purchased a hotel at 27th Avenue and Camelback that also serves this purpose.”

Golfers might have a challenge recognizing the course after renovations.

“The course will feature all new greens, tees, and bunkers. The new bunkers with

Top left: John F. Long at the grand opening, 1961.

Top right: Maryvale billboard advertisement.

Right: Maryvale Golf Course, 1970s.

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Summer 2015

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

their tall white sand faces will be especially stunning,” John Fought, the new golf course architect, says. “The fairways have been re-shaped to add movement, which not only creates interesting shot-making but also builds valuable drainage structure.”

The $5.5 million course renovation is being done by the Golf Division of Duininck Incorporated, a family-operated Minnesota firm that was established in 1926. Initially, 255 dead eucalyptus trees were removed by a subcontractor. “The biggest challenge has been cleaning out

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the muck from the existing lakes,” Travis Quisberg, Duininck general supervisor, says. “We are finding more than four feet of sediment. To do a quality job, the muck needs come out before we can install the liner.”

Sediment is removed and loaded onto a rock truck by a Caterpillar 330C track hoe and spread out to dry by a D8R Caterpillar dozer. Once the lake beds are cleaned, a bed lining is put down. Course renovations are scheduled to run from January-July 2015.

Editor’s note: Maryvale’s former 484-yard, ninth hole, was the memorable site of a rare eagle by the author, courtesy of two impeccable three-woods followed by a long putt, while playing with cohort Mark Lundgren in 1989.

Left: Duininck Supervisor Travis Quisberg and Surveyor interns Justin Zylstra and Grant Loeffelbein.

Middle: John Stovall uses a track hoe to load muck into Richard Quisberg’s 740 rock hauler.

Right: Scraper operator Frank Peralta, Red Mountain Sales Manager Patrick Hazelton, and a Duininck project supervisor.

Arizona Contractor & Community

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Bill Kelton, 2015

Images courtesy of Bill Kelton

Pearl Rose posing with her grandson, Bill Kelton, by an ESKCO Cat blade, 1960.

Digging through the Archives: The Kelton Contracting Story William Horner

K

elton Contracting is a name I remember from my youth, as my construction elders would talk about their family companies doing jobs around the Valley. My uncle recalls Kelton’s equipment constructing Westridge Mall at 75th Avenue and Thomas Road in 1979. My father also pointed out subdivisions which Kelton had worked on in the West Valley.

Recently, I spotted a No. 12 Cat blade with Kelton Contracting painted above the rear tires on static display at a local sand & gravel pit. This equipment discovery from the 1950s provided an opportunity to speak with Bill Kelton about his family’s work in the construction industry.

The Kelton family moved from Arkansas to Arizona in 1923 because of Bill’s great grandfather John C. “Bud” Kelton’s reputation as a skilled logger. The

ESKCO belly dump being loaded with ABC at plant, 1960s.

Image courtesy of Bill Kelton

Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Supervisor Ray Travis of TMK Construction on Arizona Highway 84 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, March 1959.

Cady Lumber Company in McNary offered had several more children and became Bud a well-paying job. Skeptical about the grandparents. A fifth round of pneumonia, offer, Bud quickly trained his brother, Ed, however, prompted Bud to move to the and sent him in his place. Later, without warmer weather of Mesa in 1938. realizing the switch the brothers had Bud eventually became manager and made, the company asked Ed to part owner of Tribe Lumber Company in recommend another Mesa.

Building To expedite the log loader man. At materials were in that point, Ed work, an earth-fill short supply during confessed his true War II, reservoir was built World identity and however, so Bud suggested they send across a ravine near formed the John C. for the real Bud Kelton Company to the job site.

Kelton. work on government Bud, his wife, Alma and their six contracts in 1942. His oldest son, Andrew children motored from Arkansas to Kelton, joined the business, now called McNary in a two-seater touring sedan, John C. Kelton and Son Construction after sleeping in bedrolls and cooking over open the war ended in 1945. fires. Working in the White Mountains One of Kelton’s biggest projects was between 1923 and 1937, John and Alma the Jacks Canyon Bridge completed on

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Barber Greene Conveyor loading Euclid Scraper on AZ Highway 84, February 1959.

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Cat crawler pulling Barber Greene Conveyor Loader on AZ Highway 84, February 1959.

Image courtesy of Bill Kelton

State Route 99 southeast of Winslow in Navajo County in 1949. The span over Jacks Canyon had a steel plate deck girder superstructure supported by concrete abutments, wing walls, and steel pile piers with concrete inserts. The concrete deck was bordered by steel beam guardrails with concrete bulkheads.

Another project built were railroad branches that connected to a 2.5 mile Southern Pacific spur line in south Phoenix in 1952. These branches served the Acme Materials Company plant, Arizona Sand & Rock Company, the A.J. Bayless warehouse, and the Hooper Concrete Pipe Company. The spur connected to the Southern Pacific tracks just west of

Seventh Street, extended southwest to Third Street and Yuma, and then continued south along Third Street to just north of the Salt River.

The John C. Kelton Contracting Company was reorganized into the T.M.K. Construction Company in 1957. T.M.K. got its name from the initials of the owners: Phil Tovrea, Jr., President, and Frank Maddox and John Kelton, Vice-Presidents.

The reorganization was marked by the purchase of $400,000 worth of road building equipment from the Arizona Sand & Rock Company.

One of T.M.K’s first projects was building a new alignment on State Route 77 south of Globe in 1957. The $577,884

contract was the firm's first project with the State Highway Department. T.M.K.'s project began 14 miles north of the town of Christmas and extended south through Pinal Pass. The highway improvement was to better link the copper mining towns of Globe, Winkelman, Hayden, and San Manuel. The project’s biggest challenge was hauling water 15 miles from the Gila River. To expedite the work, an earth-fill reservoir was built across a ravine near the job site. At some unknown time, T.M.K. Construction closed.

Bill’s grandfather, Edward S. Kelton, joined the John C. Kelton Contracting Company in 1950 and worked until the company was dissolved in 1956. Edward

Caterpillar dozer with “headache bar,”John C. Kelton Contracting, 1950s.

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Summer 2015

would go on to run Edward S. Kelton Contracting in Phoenix until he retired in the late 1980s. In retirement, Edward flew airplanes and did small grading work around his home in Camp Verde until his passing in 2000 at the age of 84.

The family legacy lives on in his grandsons Bill, John, Wade, and Pat. They all continue to work in the construction business and three have been licensed contractors. John, Wade, and Pat currently are senior managers for construction

construction firms that are not in competition with Kirkland Construction.

Several of Ed’s great grandchildren are now in the business as well, securing the Kelton construction legacy into the new millennium.

ESKCO belly dump.

Images courtesy of Bill Kelton

Kelton belly dump truck dropping ABC on road project, 1960s.

companies and material suppliers in the Southwest.

Bill, whose career has included management positions for Fisher Contracting, Sundt, and R.E. Monks Construction, is currently general manager for Kirkland Construction, headquartered in Rye, Colorado. Bill works from their Scottsdale office. He and his wife, Sharon, founded Bill Kelton Consulting in 2000 and continue to operate that business in support of trucking companies and other

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Sixty

Summer 2015

4/8/2015 Citrus Vista Park Nickle Contracting $1,422,016

4/1/2015 Roosevelt Street Box Culvert RK Sanders $658,567

5/4/2015 (CMAR) West Street and Arrowhead Ave Hunter $2,000,000

4/8/2015 Bonito Street Water & Sewer Falcone Brothers $1,254,444

4/1/2015 Pavement Rehabilitation Neighborhood Sunland $1,409,450

4/30/2015 2015 District Wide Pavement ACE Asphalt $732,697

4/7/2015 Phoenix Goodyear Airport Runway Shift CSW $4,594,729

3/30/2015 Police Department Parking Pima Paving $185,989

4/28/2015 Extreme West Pressure Zone Pump Redpoint $1,738,405

4/2/2015 Annual Overlay Yavapai County Combs $1,592,997

3/27/2015 Pima Canal Gila River Siphon Brosamer & Wall $7,000,000

4/24/2015 Flagstaff Holbrook Hwy FnF $9,379,363

4/2/2015 Surface Water Treatment Plant Garney Companies $9,166,800

Road Progress under Consruction

4/21/2015 Phoenix Goodyear Airport Runway Rehab Combs $4,256,271

4/2/2015 Pavement Rehabilitation McClintock Drive Nesbitt $1,704,547

4/21/2015 Site Improvements Kyrene School DNG $605,610

4/2/2015 Western Canal Trail Talis $1,007,399

4/16/2015 Arterial Reconstruction P3 University Nesbitt $2,386,732

4/2/2015 (CMAR) Vail Elementary School Lloyd Construction Co. $9,000,000

Looking Back to 1948 Clear Creek-Winslow Hwy John C. Kelton & Son Co. $25,461 Prescott-Kirkland Hwy W.J. Henson Const. Co. $134,103 Yuma-Gila Bend Hwy Western Constructors Inc. $240,042 Flagstaff-Winslow Hwy Phoenix-Tempe Stone Co. $320,327

4/9/2015 FY 2015 Pavement Rehabilitation Asphalt Paving & Supply $2,039,609

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PRSRT STD U.S. Postage PAID Phoenix, AZ Permit No. 3418

PAUL C. HELMICK 9/17/19 - 4/19/15 Paul C. Helmick passed away peacefully surrounded by his loved ones. Raised in Wisconsin, he was the oldest of 10 children. A self-made man, his life was a testament to the value of hard work and dedication.

For over 60 years, Paul was a recognized business leader in the mining and equipment industries sharing his wealth of knowledge, business experience, and friendship with customers and colleagues.

Valuing the importance of education he gave generously to schools and high school literacy programs.

He was preceded in death by his daughter, Judy, three brothers, and three sisters.

Paul Helmick is survived by his wife, Mary Jo, his son, Dennis, his daughter, Jan, four grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild. Paul is also survived by his brother, Herb, his brother, Pat, and his sister, Arlene.

A family memorial was held May 2nd. Remembrances can be made to the Sojourner Center, a domestic violence shelter. Their address is P.O. Box 20156 Phoenix, Arizona 85036.

Among Paul Helmick’s many mining equipment companies is Conveyor Sales Company.

The next generation of the Conveyor Sales family, Dennis P. Helmick and Duane B. “Joe” Mead will continue his business legacy.

Joe Mead is the son of Jean B. Mead, who co-founded Conveyor Sales Company with Paul Helmick more than 25 years ago. Jean B. Mead passed away in March 2010. Joe Mead has worked for the Helmick companies for more than 50 years and now is President of Conveyor Sales Company.

Dennis Helmick is Paul Helmick’s son and serves as Vice President of Conveyor Sales Company.

C SC CONVEYOR SALES COMPANY

602-273-1455 Phoenix, AZ

inquiry@conveyorsales.com

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