Jan/Feb 2021

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 1

$5.99 Jan-Feb 2021 Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community. . . Then & Now

Downtown Phoenix’s Lost Neon Outposts David Murdock Banks on the Future of Downtown Phoenix Taking Phoenix to the Next Level: Porters Western Wear Giddy-Up to Porters Saddle Shop for Leather Craftsmanship The Heart of Phoenix: Three Iterations of the Hotel Adams

Arizona’s Timeless Magazine

Skousen : Three Generations of arizona road contractors

a look at DOWNTOWN PHOENIX

Dicey Construction:

The Security Building’s Scandalous Financing Scheme Katerra creates a “Kenection” downtown

Chasse starts John Mccain school

Cliff Co’s New Workshop Keeps the Valley’s Machines Running

Elite Sports wins top honors

Insurica SW has contractors’ backs

PAGE

Jan-Feb 2021

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Completed my January goal by finishing the garage addition A nine-month ‘date night’ with my wife!

Editor Douglas Towne douglas@arizcc.com

Helping sea turtle hatchlings return to the ocean in Cabo More time to write The arrival of our second grandson!

THE LEADER IN PROVIDING TEMPORARY POWER GENERATION SYSTEMS IN THE GREATER PHOENIX AREA

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Contributors Andrew Atkinson Alison Bailin Michael Bernstein Jeff Kronenfeld Luke M. Snell Doug Sydnor Bill Tippett

Our agency learned to work so well together, while apart Donated New Jersey fossil collection to Drexel Univ Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

Production Manager Laura Horner laura@arizcc.com

Publisher’s Representative Spending more Barry Warner time at home barry@arizcc.com with my wife In Memoriam Charles “Chuck” Runbeck 1928 - 2020

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Advertising 602-931-0069 arizcc.com/advertise Subscriptions: Online at arizcc.com Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community… Then & Now Arizona Contractor & Community (ACC) magazine is published bi-monthly (Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct, Nov/Dec). ACC is a professional publication designed for the contracting industry, engineers, architects, equipment rentals, suppliers, and others interested in Arizona and its history.

Content including text, photographs or illustrations may not be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. The publisher does not assume responsibility for unsolicited submissions.

ACC reserves the right to reject any editorial and advertising material and reserves the right to edit all submitted content material.

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Contents 12 14

37

YEARS IN BUSINESS SINCE 1984

480-641-3500

17

39

40

46

54

60

66

68 BELLY DUMP-SUPER 16-END DUMP-LOW BOY SIDE DUMP-EXCAVATOR-LOADER-GRADER

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From The Editor - Lost Neon Outposts of Downtown Phoenix - Douglas Towne Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices Back When - Giddy-Up to Porters Saddle Shop Douglas Towne Skousen: Three Generations of Arizona Road Contractors - Douglas Towne Taking Phoenix to the Next Level: Porters Western Wear Store - Douglas Towne Dicey Construction: The Security Building’s Scandalous Financing Scheme - Douglas Towne The Heart of Phoenix: Three Iterations of the Hotel Adams - Douglas Towne Building on the Past - 1960: Banking on the Future of Downtown Phoenix Architect’s Perspective - Arizona’s Round Architecture - Doug Sydnor, FAIA

Digging Through the Archives - W.R. Skousen and His Blue-Ribbon Blacktop Crews - William Horner

76

Bid Results

78

Advertising Index

Front Cover - Chris Pachen Corp. of Chicago refinishing exterior brick face of the Security Building, 1957.

Inset - Security Building 1930s postcard

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Image courtesy of ACC

“TELL US WHAT YOU NEED AND WE WILL WORK WITH YOU TO MAKE IT HAPPEN”

Contributors - Andrew Atkinson & Bill Tippett

Jan-Feb 2021

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Andrew Atkinson Article on page 29

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ndrew brings to INSURICA Southwest a thorough and practical understanding of commercial insurance, with a specialization in workers’ compensation. He engages with clients to improve their Experience Modifier (E-Mod) score, lower their total cost of risk, and win contracts at the bidding table.

As a thought leader and Master Workers’ Compensation Advisor (MWCA), Andrew is frequently invited to speak to various trade associations, symposiums, panel discussions, and conferences. He takes complicated workers’ compensation and commercial insurance concepts and breaks them down into easily understandable decisions.

Andrew has been with INSURICA Southwest since 2008.

In that time, he’s implemented his “E-Mod Lowering and Stabilization” techniques into more than 100 businesses. These methods have directly resulted in E-Mod reductions of 20 to more than 100 points, which have saved millions of dollars in unnecessary work comp premiums. Workers’ compensation is the only line of insurance coverage that carries a definitive score, and Andrew enjoys delivering measurable results.

Outside of the office, Andrew enjoys spending time with his three-year-old daughter Adalyn, his wife Ann, and their three dogs. He competes in Arizona Golf Association tournaments and is ranked as one of the top amateurs in the state.

Andrew worked alongside Wink Ames for many years and considers him a mentor who taught him a lot about how to help, and more importantly, treat people.

Bill Tippett Article on Page 25

B

ill enjoys adages like “You get what you inspect, not what you expect,” and “We’re hired to solve problems, not cause ‘em.”

He not only tries to live by these maxims but uses them as guiding principles at his company Networx Cabling Systems (dba NCS, Inc.), which he founded with his father and brother in 1988.

While the original intent was to install local area networks, Bill decided he preferred working outdoors and changed the companies direction to providing outside plant construction services. His decision was influenced when he landed his first gig trenching for Bob Lawson of Greenway Construction to build cable television plant in North Scottsdale, Carefree, and Cave Creek.

Raised in Yuma and schooled in Tucson, Bill’s career has taken him to the state’s four corners. From Portal to Littlefield and Mexican Water to San Luis, Bill has experienced just about every city and town in Arizona.

But Bill feels that he’s only just scratched the surface of what he thinks is the greatest state in our country to live in and explore.

The past president and board member of Arizona Utility Contractors Association, Bill believes we have an obligation to our industries and communities to be good stewards. His long run in the utility construction industry has provided him with a great network of industry specialists and professionals whom he also considers good friends and confidants.

When he’s not working, Bill enjoys spending time with his family, reading, or riding one of his motorcycles off the beaten path on Arizona’s back roads.

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Images courtesy of Author

Image courtesy of John Margolies

From the editor:

Lost Neon Outposts of Downtown Phoenix Douglas Towne

I

High Chop Suey was the place for late-night food, located at Third and Madison streets.

The restaurant, which opened in 1928, was a remnant of Phoenix’s Chinatown. Top left: Sing High Chop Suey House, 1979.

The menu seemed unchanged since those Top right: King’s Cocktails, 1991. early years, which was part of its allure. or a “shot of Jack with a Coke back” to When the America West Arena was built help make the world seem a better place. in the early 1990s, Sing High moved to a The most evocative sign, new location a few blocks King’s Cocktails at 434 the tennis facility has at away. It closed in 2018.

North Central Avenue, Another option was similarly double-faulted boasted a blinking neon the Matador Restaurant, Manhattan served with a perfect for chips, salsa, and a cold cerveza cherry that even teetotalers found alluring. after a serve-and-volley workout three The building was briefly repurposed before floors above. The street-level eatery was being razed to make space for Civic Space located in a four-story parking garage at Park. the southeast corner of First and Adams For those seeking a livelier venue, streets, which featured four city-owned there was the Silver Dollar Club at 417 tennis courts on the rooftop. The Matador East Madison Street. The bar became a closed after 35 years of operation in 2012, hotbed of underground music during its with a reported hefty back tax bill, and the short existence, before closing to make tennis facility has similarly double-faulted. way for Bank One Ballpark in 1993. Notable And then there were those beacons bands appeared at the industrial nightclub, for barflies who were looking for a Schlitz including Green Day, Meat Puppets, Fugazi, Dead Hot Workshop, and personal favorite, Below: Silver Dollar Club, 1991.

Left: Silver Dollar Club concert poster, 1991.

Tucson’s River Roses, who performed there while touring behind their 1991 release, When We Fall.

These places are all history now, products of urban renewal and changing tastes.

It’s easy to get nostalgic about the establishments and their customer mix of hipsters and a previous generation living on the margins. At times I miss their ambiance and certainly their neon displays, but not the stale cigarette smoke.

Images courtesy of Author

t’s stylish, and it’s trendy. People want to eat and party in Downtown Phoenix and work and live there too. But in the notso-distant past, this high-rise landscape had a far different vibe.

Thirty years ago, the business district rolled up its sidewalks after 5 p.m. Weekends were equally quiet. The only signs of life were the occasional happy hour celebrations at Tom’s Tavern, visiting conventioneers, and Herberger Theater or Phoenix Symphony patrons.

But the lack of commercial activity did allow some old-timey businesses to survive, and low rents attracted edgy new venues.

When I lived near Downtown, Sing

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Jan-Feb 2021

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Projects . PEOPLE . PRACTICES

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA

Revving Up: Cliff Co’s New Workshop Keeps the Valley’s Biggest Machines Running Jeff Kronenfeld

C

liff Wixson is a throwback to America’s burly industrial past, much like the big machines his company keeps alive.

When he started the business, it was just Wixson and a service truck. Now Cliff Co Repair boasts 20-plus employees, a fleet of vehicles, and a new 16,000 square-foot machine and repair shop. While standing beneath one of the shop’s multi-ton bridge cranes and the massive metal frame holding them up, it’s hard to imagine that Wixson and another employee built most of the internal apparatus in four months. Of Above: Cliff Co’s workshop floor.

Right: Cliff Wixson. arizcc.com

course, for Wixson, who rides rodeo to unwind, doing what others might call crazy is old hat.

Growing up, Wixson’s mother told him stories of hardworking individuals starting business empires with little more than a vehicle and gumption. Before Wixson could emulate them, he had to gain the necessary know-how. To this end, he got an associate’s degree in agricultural science from Central Arizona College and an automotive and diesel technologies degree from the Arizona Automotive Institute. After saving money and selling a motorcycle and other vehicles, Wixson started Cliff Co in 2008.

Only 23-years-old at the time, he already had a vision for what his company could become.

In the beginning, it was just Wixson driving around repairing diesel engines, but he also built the occasional horse corral, pool fence, or whatever else needed

welding. Slowly but surely, he branched out into heavy equipment repair. He established a reputation as a hard worker, not afraid to tackle complicated jobs. This ability to engineer unique solutions on the fly is still at the heart of Cliff Co’s success, although the jobs and problems have gotten a little bigger over the years.

As Wixson hired more employees, he

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Jan-Feb 2021

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

busy floor. “They had to replace the whole axle, or that’s what they were trying to do.

They brought it to me, and I pulled it apart.

I mean, it was egg-shaped. We welded it up and machined it back perfectly. The thing is running today. Saved the customer about 8,000 bucks.”

Business boomed so much over the next few years that Wixson needed to level up his workshop again. Having leased progressively larger buildings over the years, he wanted to buy something much larger that could be customized. Initially, he couldn’t find anything on the market that was quite right. One day, Wixson serendipitously took an unusual route to work and spotted a massive building for sale. The real estate agent connected Wixson with a bank that agreed to finance the purchase of the building, an adjacent lot, and fund his dream build-out.

Wixson and Underwood wasted no time in putting the plan into motion. The pair constructed a mezzanine office in the building, while the rest was filled by a massive metal frame, which now supports two, five-ton cranes and three, two-ton cranes.

They plasma cut the 40-foot I-beams to size, poured internal footings, and welded it all together.

Only two months after finishing, Wixson has filled the building with industrial-scale presses, lathes, and other machines, as well as the numerous big vehicles the company was repairing. While Cliff Co continues to grow, Wixson’s commitment to simple virtues like honesty, punctuality, and hard work will never change.

needed to keep them busy when not in the the U.S. Air Force Research Lab. field. This concern led to the company leasUnderwood proved both an invaluable ing its first workshop, which allowed Cliff employee and a kindred spirit to Wixson.

Co to take on additional jobs and acquire Together, almost no job was too complimore tools, trucks, and even a few toys. cated or big for their team to figure out.

When a client wanted to sell a huge cable The machining side of the business began dozer that had been rustto increase exponen“We welded it up and machined tially. Cliff Co can not ing away in a yard for decades, of course, he only repair something it back perfectly. Saved the contacted Wixson. customer about 8,000 bucks.” like hydraulic cylinders; Wixson was not they can build them from interested at first. The client eventually scratch. This capability allows the company said if Wixson could move it, it was his. Of to find alternative solutions for clients by course, the stubborn mechanic brought getting crucial hardware back online faster the old contraption screaming back to and more inexpensively than shops lacking life. Despite this, it’s currently serving as such extensive fabrication capacity. a multi-ton lawn ornament at the horse “There was a tractor that came in with ranch Wixson calls home. Whether it’s a blown-out differential,” Wixson said as we reviving an antique earthmover, World War sat in his office looking out over the shop’s II-era lathe, or any other potentially useful tool, Wixson seems to revel in restoring old machines genuinely.

The ever-increasing volume of repair work led naturally to Cliff Co’s business’s machining side. Wixson got tired of taking hydraulic rods and other components to outside vendors. All too often, these contracted companies didn’t complete jobs on time or failed to communicate openly about delays. These issues made Wixson look bad to his clients, something the straight-talking cowboy couldn’t abide.

Four years into running Cliff Co, Wixson started teaching himself how to make hydraulic rods by watching YouTube videos.

The company’s machining capabilities grew slowly at first, but things picked up in 2015.

That is the year Wixson hired Michael Underwood, who previously worked for arizcc.com

Top left: Michael Underwood working with another employee.

Top right: Cliff Wixson and his dog, Cowie.

Below: Cliff Co’s workshop.

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Alison Bailin

L

Science, Technology, Engineering, and important teachers were to him becoming Math) based curriculum that will also who he was. He was a guy that sometimes uniquely balance critical thinking, human- wasn’t always on the right path and would ities through history, and social skills. get himself in trouble, but teachers always “There are schools that feature coding helped guide him back.” as part of their curriculum, for example, but After hearing remarks from other digthere is so much more to a well-rounded nitaries, including Buckeye Mayor Jackie educational experience.

Meck and Governing Learners must also learn “I’m excited to get these shoes Board President Jane how to empathize, colHunt, guests of honor and dirty and turn some dirt!” laborate, relate, and be of district leadership particiservice to their families and their commu- pated in the ceremonial first dig, officially nities. They must not only have the techni- launching the project that is expected to cal know-how to solve problems, but they last nine months. must also be able to work with others, to Mrs. McCain summed up the energy understand the world around them, and and enthusiasm of the morning as she be able to actually leverage those skills closed her speech by telling the audience, to impact their world, engage in a future “I’m excited to get these shoes dirty and economy that is not yet clearly defined, or turn some dirt!” before donning a hard hat, be of maximum service to their communi- participating in the dig. ties,” Dr. Wilson explained.

Cindy McCain also spoke of the project’s importance and how her family has Top: Cindy McCain speaking at the embraced the school as part of her late groundbreaking. husband’s legacy. “John often spoke of how Bottom: Dr. Kristi Wilson and Cindy McCain.

Images courtesy of Author

ocal dignitaries and special guest, Mrs. Cindy McCain, gathered at the site of the Buckeye Elementary School District’s newest school on November 4 to celebrate the official groundbreaking for its 9th school, John S. McCain III Elementary.

This state-of-the-art school has been designed by the Orcutt Winslow Architecture Firm and is being constructed by the Chasse Building Team. It is scheduled to open to students in August of 2021. The school will be located on land donated by the Walton Group, near Miller and Lower Buckeye roads in Buckeye. Against a backdrop that featured renderings of the school, ceremonial and commemorative items, and a colorful display of balloons and decorations that showcased the school’s official colors of navy blue and gold, a series of speakers addressed the crowd on a clear morning in the West Valley suburb.

Superintendent Dr. Kristi Wilson spoke to the attendees about the district’s ongoing commitment to creating a school like none other.

“We are determined to have Senator McCain represented by more than his name on the front of the building. This will be a school that reverberates with his presence. His energy. His curiosity. His honor.

Not as some sort of memoriam, rather, as a place where students aspire to exemplify the traits so identified with Senator McCain. A place where students could aspire to be their best selves, just like the Senator. A place that provides students a way to achieve lofty goals for themselves, their community, their state, and their country,” Dr. Wilson told the 50 people gathered to hear the remarks.

John S. McCain III Elementary will feature a cutting-edge C-STEM (Coding,

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Chasse Set to Build John S. McCain III Elementary School in Buckeye

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Images courtesy of Elite Sports

lite Sports Builders has proved a stellar role model for athletes at West Point High School in Avondale. The company had a significant part in creating the newly constructed stadium at the school, which has been awarded the coveted American Sports Builders Association’s (ASBA) 2020 Track & Field Facility of the Year award.

“I believe it is the first and only high school in Arizona to be awarded the Track & Field Facility of the Year award,” says Troy Randolph, president of Elite Sports Builders. “We are very proud of it.”

The stadium project was a collaborative effort by Elite Sports Builders with ADM Architects and Chasse Building Team in coordination with the Tolleson Union High School District. These firms analyzed the stadium’s plans to assure compliance with ASBA and National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) standards and specifications by the local team.

Elite Sports Builders provided the expertise of an ASBA Certified Track Builder (CTB) and Certified Field Builder (CFB) to assure that the design and construction of the facility met all governing body requirements while exceeding the expectations of the school district and ADM Architects.

The company worked with Chasse Building Team to ensure the facility’s construction coordination went forward without any

significant issues and met the project time- The projects that meet these conditions line requirements. are then judged again for several criteria, The stadium project features a Revo- including the complexity of the project, lution 360 multipurpose synthetic turf field challenges in the design or construction, provided and installed by FieldTurf. This quality of the construction materials and turf is bordered by a Stobimethods, performance tan SSC high-performance “I believe it is the first and characteristics related to track surfacing system by the owner’s expectations only high school in Arizona to as well as other factors Stockmeier Urethanes and installed by Elite be awarded the Track & Field for consideration of an Facility of the Year award” upper-tier award.

Sports Builders. Other participants in the project The Facility of the included sports equipment by Sportsfield Year award is given to the project deemed Specialties, construction components by the very best of all the facilities submitted.

SportsEdge, and turf cleaning and cooling Elite Sports Builders greatly appreciates system by Hunter Industries. the work and dedication of all of the parThe Facility Awards are presented by ties involved with the project for helping to the ASBA, which consists of the sports con- create a world-class sports facility for West struction companies, sports construction Point High School. designers, and sports construction manufacturers.

The awards process is stringent and requires a lengthy application process detailing all aspects of a facility’s design and construction supported with the construction plans and photographic journal.

The applications are reviewed and scrutinized by an awards committee for compliance with industry standards and governing body requirements.

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Elite Sports Builders Avondale Project Wins Top Honors

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Excavators Delicately Probe Arizona’s Past Bill Tippett

S

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uppose you asked an excavator what superpower they’d like to have; it would probably be X-ray vision. Projects are most commonly delayed by unknown and variable factors that we can’t see buried in the ground. Usually, these are the conditions nature has provided, but sometimes it’s the buried treasures and trash of the past.

At my company, Networx Cabling Systems, we’ve dug up a fair amount of trash, mostly from previous construction jobs.

We’ve also encountered buried cars and animal carcasses but never any treasure.

Over the past 30 years working in Arizona, I’ve fantasized about finding a conquistaDiscretion should be used when dor’s sword or helmet, which are rumored encountering items from these ancient to have been uncovered in the Verde Val- civilizations buried under Phoenix. Protect ley. I now doubt the story, but still, keep these culturally significant areas by keeplooking anyway. ing their locations secret. If discovered, Most major cities are built atop the contact local historical and archaeological ruins of previous civilizapreservation societies for tions, which were often we’ve dug up a fair amount guidance on how to handle buried with little concern the site. of trash, mostly from for their value or future There are also other historical significance. At previous construction jobs. more recent relics to be but never any treasure. the time, these items were found beneath Phoenix. just considered waste and Building the Valley Metro debris, even though some have incredible Light Rail unearthed construction debris, beauty and value. old trolley tracks on Van Buren, and layThe Valley is no exception to this trend, ers of concrete and asphalt more than as the Hohokam previously inhabited the two feet thick on some of the city’s oldest area. Other Native American tribes were roads. In Scottsdale, excavators discovered also later attracted by the Salt and Gila riv- old wooden water mains. One associate ers. Phoenix’s name recognizes that the found a buried oil tanker, installed around city was built atop and partially re-used the 1948, which represented a potential danabandoned ruins of a former civilization. ger. Before its discovery, he was standing Shifting sands, washes, and riverbeds bur- atop the tank, which could have collapsed. ied much of the Hohokam’s remnants.

Projects in Flagstaff can be incredibly

exciting. Every time we lose pressure and flow on a job there, I worry we’ve bored into one of the old abandoned tunnels underneath downtown. Most likely, it’s just a large void in the basalt or a lava tube, but we still look around nervously for any signs of a frac-out in unexpected places.

I’ve always done my best to restore the earth to its previous condition and leave no trace, trash, or otherwise. “We must value what’s in the ground and protect everything we can by all means possible,” Arvid Veidmark III, owner of Specialized Services Company, recently told me. “This also includes what we’re putting in the ground and covering up. We must be good stewards for the future.”

What will we bury with our past?

Images courtesy of Author

Above: Gas main installation, Second Avenue and Washington Street in Phoenix, 1920s.

Bottom left: Trash unearthed during excavation.

Below: Roadside excavation.

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oing to the office is so 2019. But remoting from home could mean that the kitchen counter, cluttered with last night’s weak attempt at beef bourguignon, has become the de facto desk. A fresh business model offers the best of both worlds in the COVID-19 landscape, with fitness and fun tossed in too. “Kenect is a disruptor,” Carroll VanHook, director of leasing and marketing, says. “We are the next generation of apartment living.”

Kenect, which opened in November at 355 North Central Avenue, near Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus, defies easy description. The concept combines a social club with stylish apartments outfitted with customized furniture, coworking spaces, a gym, and a rooftop pool all in one high-rise, along with onsite retail and restaurants.

The Kenect community offers commonality and diversity. “We attract so

many types of busy professionals: freelance techies, traveling nurses, entrepreneurs, international workers on temporary assignments, and ASU students,” VanHook says. “It’s a great mix of people.”

The $55 million project took two years for Katerra, a construction firm headquartered in Scottsdale, to finish. The most unusual aspect of building the 23-story high-rise with 320 apartment units was incorporating the Building Information Management (BIM) process to capture the most accurate representation of the mechanical and electrical design, according to Tad Bulin, Katerra’s senior project manager.

The most challenging aspect of the project was creating new team relationships. “We also mitigated any big surprises and had proper planning of material deliveries with no staging areas or street closures,” Bulin says. The company had focus meetings with neighbors, such as ASU, Westin, and Hampton Inn Suites. These interactions included updated schedules, delivery coordination, and construction activities.

Subcontractors used on the project include ProForce Survey, Suntec Concrete, Stehl Corp, StoneCold Masonry, RMSII Roofing, True Metal Solutions, ACM, AK& J Waterproofing, IAP Enclosure Systems, MOS Glass, Contractors Door & Millwork, DH Pace, Hilton Cabinets, Boreal Contractors, InterCo, Apodaca Wall Systems, FKF Corp, Ferguson, Signs of the Times, Home Décor, Thyssen Krupp Elevator, Aero Automatic Sprinkler, JFN Mechanical, HACI Mechanical Contractors, Specified Electrical Contractors, AME Landscape, and Jessco Electric.

Katerra is happy with the finished building. “It’s a great innovative project adding to Downtown Phoenix,” Bulin says.

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Project

Katerra Creates A “Kenection” in Downtown Phoenix

This is the second Kenect project for Chicago-based Akara Partners, after theie flagship operation in Nashville was launched in 2019. Plans are underway to open additional Kenects in Denver, Miami, and Cleveland. Each Kenect, however, caters to locavores. “We like to showcase local vendors,” Jenna Gottlieb, director of brand experience, says. “Our leasing office features Cartel Coffee.”

Employee Spotlight: Alex Hurst, Project Engineer

Images courtesy of Kenect

Experience: 8 years with Katerra Favorite part of the job: Seeing the project develop from an empty lot to the final product.

Toughest job task: Working through the punch-list items during the final rush.

Most memorable day at work: Finding the job site office cleaned by homeless people.

Favorite off-job task: Being a couch potato and visiting shooting ranges.

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

We Have Contractors’ Backs: INSURICA Southwest Andrew Atkinson

M

Image courtesy of INSURICA

ention construction, and people think of hammers, hard hats, and big yellow machines. Insurance is not a typical response. But it should be, that is, if you value knowledge, training, security, and peace of mind.

As agents, we provide insurance and bonds for contractors to take on the multitude of risks associated with construction – the details of which can be very complex.

We take these concepts and make them easy to understand because our clients are not expected to be in the insurance business. As one of our founders, Wink Ames, said for decades: “We do not sell insurance.

Rather, we help our customers through the buying process.”

Another vital role is that of an educator. Insurance and bonding are complicated and necessary evils, as most contractors would say. “One of the functions we take very seriously is helping our contractors through the confusion so that they can make the right decisions, Blake Johnson, president of INSURICA Southwest, says.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, specialty agency helping contractors with there is the role of a trusted advisor. “When both their insurance and bonding needs,” you only work with contractors, in some Johnson says. He adds that this was also ways, you start thinking like one,” Johnson the beginning of what is today, expertise says. “This is a concept that the late Wink in Captive insurance arrangements, a speAmes imparted on all of us. How can you cialty led by Eric Pach. As Minard-Ames, properly counsel and advise a contractor the agency continued its commitment to on a project or their daily risks if you don’t and involvement in various construction understand their business? You can’t.” trade associations. They did so through INSURICA Southwest does understand their active participation on committees contractors, as evidenced by the firm’s long and in providing ongoing educational semihistory in the Arizona construction industry nars to their members. that dates back many decades.

The agency’s perpetuation plan In the early 1980s, there were two prompted the name change from Minardoutstanding, construction-oriented insurAmes to INSURICA. ance agencies in Phoe“Wink had retired, and nix: Ames & Associates “We do not sell insurance. Steve was looking to do and Minard Insurance, the same thing,” JohnRather, we help our run by Wink Ames and son says. “After being customers through the Steve Minard, respeccourted by many large tively. Wink and Steve buying process.” publicly traded brokerboth had strong surety, age firms where the coras well as insurance, porate values fell short of ours, in 2007, backgrounds. “The two agencies seldom the management team at Minard-Ames competed against one another, based on decided to partner with privately-held their tremendous mutual respect,” JohnINSURICA, whose values were very much in son says. line with ours.”

Steve and Wink decided to join forces When we joined INSURICA in 2007, it and form Minard-Ames Insurance Services immediately provided more access to carin 1989. Their passion for construction only rier markets and more options for our cligrew with the new agency. “Minard-Ames ents, additional resources, and countless became known as a true construction other advantages, according to Atkinson. arizcc.com

INSURICA Southwest partners Andrew Atkinson, Blake Johnson, Mike Specht, and Eric Pach (L-R).

“The plan from the beginning of the merger was to change the name to INSURICA here in Phoenix eventually,” he says. “In 2020, we officially did, with our current name and name going forward: INSURICA Southwest.”

The current ownership team consists of four guys who share the title of agency partner/owner: Blake Johnson, Andrew Atkinson, Mike Specht, and Eric Pach.

Together, we have 73 years of experience in the insurance industry.

INSURICA Southwest has been busy with many large projects across the region, ranging from Spring Training baseball complexes to large-scale apartment complexes to road construction. Specific jobs include Marina Heights and the State Farm office complex, both in Tempe, The Amazon fulfillment center in Albuquerque, and the Salt Lake City International Airport expansion. “Importantly, we work with dozens of residential contractors, who have built the largest and most highly acclaimed residential communities around Phoenix and throughout the Southwest,” Johnson says.

“Today, we are very well known for being the agency of choice for Workers Arizona Contractor & Community

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Compensation, and scientists of the Experience Mod Score, or ‘E-Mod,” Atkinson says.

“In the past decade alone, we’ve taught over one hundred seminars on the Workers Compensation Experience Mod score, the only agency in Arizona to do so.”

INSURICA Southwest specializes in construction and ancillary industries such as equipment dealers, materials handlers, real estate developers, CPA firms, and law firms specializing in the field. Areas of specialization include Builder’s Risk; General Liability; Contractor’s Equipment; Worker’s Compensation and Experience Modification Analysis; Captive Insurance Programs; Cyber Liability; Employment Practices Liability; OCIP’s, CCIP’s and Project Specific liability policies; Group Health Insurance; Professional Liability; Risk Management; Surety Bonds, and Umbrella and Excess Liability.

In Memory of William “Wink” Adams, Our Co-Founder

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ink Adams recently passed away at the age of 87. As one of the founders of Minard-Ames Insurance Services, now INSURICA Southwest, Wink spent his days working as a trusted advisor to his clients and as a mentor and friend to so many in the construction industry. You could always expect to see Wink at anything associated with construction, making him a fixture in the industry.

He served as a board member of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) and the Arizona Builders’ Alliance (ABA), eventually inducted as a Life Director in ABA. He brought his wisdom, inspiration, and guidance to the board, often asking after most topics, “Who will do What and by When?”

Top left: Minard-Ames display booth at the AGC spring convention, 1991.

Top right: AGC spring convention with Wink Ames and guest, 1991.

Wink started in the insurance and bonding business for contractors for a bond company in San Francisco when he was 26.

He subsequently moved to Lake Tahoe and Reno before starting in Arizona as Corroon & Black—Miller & Ames. Their first clients were Tanner Companies and Sundt.

“Teaching the finance in construction course, probably 250 times in the last 40 years, has changed how many contractors have done business,” Wink said. He told azbigmedia.com in 2013 it was his greatest success. “Even though we use finance to teach this material, it really uses finance as a method for learning the operations systems used by contractors at the job level.

Many contractors have told me that the changes they have made because of what they learned in this workshop are a large part of their success.”

When asked what his best business advice was, Wink replied, “The construction industry is a business, not a trade.

The entry barriers are almost nonexistent, which has made it necessary for successful contactors to also become successful business people, just like in other industries.”

Wink will be remembered as an inspirational leader in the construction industry, a giving mentor, and as a generous friend to many. He changed people’s businesses, careers, and lives in the most positive of ways.

Left: Fun times at an AGC affiliate breakfast with Kelly Swanston, Traffic Marking & Striping Co.; Wink Ames, Minard-Ames; and Lisa Wormington, ADOT, early 1990s.

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

engineering and setting grade layouts.

Coworkers still fondly recall his first day at RoBil. The crew stopped at a fast-food joint at lunch, but Roer told them he would yatt Roer didn’t let cancer get in the eat his sack lunch. Gary Head peeked into way of achieving his impressive life the paper bag and found only a raw potato. goal: hiking the length of the 800-mile Ari- When questioned, Roer let on that he was zona Trail. broke. “Lunch is on me for the first week,” The retired Ace Asphalt earthmov- laughed Head, as he chucked the spud into ing operations supervisor accomplished a nearby field. his trekking objective and went on to hike Roer could handle different equipment along the Pacific Coast Trail in Washing- but had a passion for a specific machine. ton and Baja California. Roer posted about “He was the best water truck driver I’ve these trips, and many other outdoor adven- ever seen in the Valley,” says Candelaria. tures on his Facebook page, until his recent “He knew how much water to use, where passing from heart failure. to put it, and how to set the sprinklers; Roer lived a remarkable life, including he took great pride in operating it. Whenhis childhood traveling throughout Arizona ever Wyatt got into something, he became with his father, who was a cattle buyer. His obsessed with it.” mother died when Roer was around eight Candelaria, who first met Roer while years old, and he basically raised himself. they were kids in 1977, recalls his lunchAn early passion was the Prescott Frontier time habit. “Wyatt would eat while workDays Rodeo, where he worked every year ing, and when we took our 11 a.m. lunch in various jobs, including as a rodeo clown. break, he’d lay out a chaise lounge in the “One year, Wyatt was back east work- shade of his truck and take a 30-minute ing when he was probably 16, and hitch- nap, instantly falling asleep.” hiked back to Prescott,” says Richard CanAfter leaving RoBil, Roer worked for delaria, president of Sharp Ricor, Sharp Creek, and Creek Contracting. “This “Whenever Wyatt got into Ace Asphalt, quickly risyoung, skinny cowboy kid ing to foreman and then something, he became wound up getting picked supervisor. ACC magazine up by an elderly couple obsessed with it.” publisher William Horner and driving their car most recalls bonding with Roer of the way across the country even though at Ace Asphalt on a job in Casa Grande. he didn’t have a driver’s license.”

“I was on the blade mixing subgrade in Roer was grooming horses at the Key- several residential streets, while Wyatt was stone Racetrack in Philadelphia when his running the 2,000-gallon water truck,” he uncle, Bill Sudbrack, offered him a labor says. “We mixed every street ‘the old-fashposition at RoBil Contracting in 1976. For ioned way,’ with no radios just hand sigthe next 15 years, Roer learned grading and nals.” Horner explains that this process, paving at the company, but his forte was done correctly, can take a while, and both

Former Ace Asphalt Superintendent Wyatt “Two-Step” Roer Dies at 60

were amazed that each other knew how to do it.

Ace Asphalt coworker, Barry Warner, recalls Wyatt as a great guy who was always engaged in the job and was quick with a joke. “Wyatt was very good at surveying,” Warner says. “He managed to engineer a parking lot to drain that had no drainage.”

After a throat cancer diagnosis in May 2017, Roer began treatment. “Even though the radiation treatment lasted for six weeks, the two weeks after the treatment ended were the worst ones,” he told PHOENIX magazine in 2019. “And then, with months and months of side effects, it took me a year to put my weight back to normal. To get my strength back, I’d do country dancing, which is where my trail name, ‘Two-Step,’ came from.”

Roer finished his Arizona Trail trek on June 4, 2019, on Passage 34 in Flagstaff.

Afterward, he went with friends on a celebratory hike to the summit of Humphreys Peak, Arizona’s tall­est mountain.

“I spent an hour or so on top enjoying the view,” Roer told PHOENIX magazine.

“My friends finished much earlier than I did, and I figured they had all already gone home. When I came down, I saw them at the trailhead [where they had] set up a tunnel – like they do for the kids at the soccer games – for me to run through. The beer at the end was the coldest one I’ve ever had.

It was so cold it hurt, but in a good way.”

Roer was successful and well respected in the industry and was a wealth of knowledge even though he never graduated from high school. “Wyatt was a unique guy, and I miss him,” Candelaria says. “And he was a great dad for his four kids.”

Top right: Richard Candelaria, president of Sharp Creek (left), with longtime coworker and friend Wyatt Roer, 2015.

Left: Wyatt Roer chasing stakes for operator Steve Johnson at RoBil, 1982.

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1909 and was advertised as a “safe” hotel because the he discovery of gold and silver in the primary buildWest attracted countless people hoping ing materials to get rich. Boomtowns sprang up over- were concrete night as newcomers flocked to where the and brick. next perceived opportunity existed. Hotels, However, the to accommodate the influx of people, were lobby and dinquickly constructed. ing areas were Wooden structures were built with e l a b o r a t e l y a saloon on the ground floor and rooms finished with varnished wood paneling on the upper floors. Lanterns and candles and upholstered chairs. After midnight on provided lighting. For those who grew up June 5, 1946, a fire started in the Silver watching Westerns, you will undoubtedly Grill Cocktail Lounge and spread quickly recall the drunken cowboy or miner stum- through the lobby and mezzanine balcony, bling up to his room with a burning flame fueled by the wood paneling and furniture. in his hand, a disaster waiting to happen.

As a result, there were 61 fatalities, many Not surprisingly, there were many of whom suffocated from the thick smoke. deadly hotel fires. Hostelers realized the Later that year, another hotel was the need to develop a fireproof hotel to assure site of a tragedy. The Winecoff Hotel was the public of their safety. Since concrete, constructed with structural steel in Atlanta brick, steel, and masonry did not burn and in 1913. Although steel does not burn, it were becoming available, will lose its strength in a they became the materials blaze, so brick and concrete “The public is being of choice for building a firedefrauded when a hotel is were placed around it for proof hotel. protection. A late-night fire These new hotels were advertised as ‘fireproof,’ erupted, fueled by combusmarketed for their safety. but really isn’t” tible burlap wallpaper. Since Some hotel advertisements the stairways lacked doors, in the early 1900s proclaimed, “[the city’s] they acted as chimneys allowing the fire Only Fireproof Hotel,” “Largest, safest and to spread to other floors. Of the 304 hotel most modern hotel west of New York,” or guests, 119 died, and 65 were injured.

“Absolutely Fireproof.” In 1946, however, The Winecoff Hotel fire highlighted two disastrous fires changed the approach another issue: 32 deaths resulted from to constructing fireproof hotels. people jumping or using makeshift bed The LaSalle Hotel opened in Chicago in sheets as ropes to escape the blaze from

History of the Fireproof Hotel Luke M. Snell, P.E.

the upper floors. The Atlanta Fire Department did not have ladders tall enough to rescue people from these heights.

A student from Georgia Tech took pictures of people jumping from the burning hotel; he won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in 1947. This image galvanized public opinion to improve hotel safety.

The Winecoff Hotel’s “Completely Fireproof” statement on its stationery was accurate insofar as it described the building. Buildings were considered ‘fireproof’ if they could withstand a severe fire and be returned to service once refurbished. Thus, the emphasis was to save the building, not to protect human life.

“The public is being defrauded when a hotel is advertised as ‘fireproof,’ but really isn’t,” Georgia’s governor said. “Responsible agencies should prohibit the use of the word ‘fireproof’ when a hotel is not really fireproof as the Winecoff obviously was not.”

These two fires in major cities had extensive news coverage and highlighted the need for change. In 1947, President Truman requested a national convention on fire prevention to ensure the public of the safety of hotels. This event resulted in the 1948 fire-safe code that addressed issues, such as the combustibility of the materials used, detection and warning systems, hotel capacity, and exits.

The declaration of a fireproof hotel proved to be only partially correct. Materials can be used so that the building itself can survive a fire. But since hotel guests bring luggage, and there are flammable materials in the room, hotel fires still occur.

Thus, there are no genuinely fireproof hotels.

It’s essential to realize that since hotel fires still occur, one should review and follow (if necessary) the fire escape plans in each room. Doing so will significantly increase our chances of surviving a towering inferno.

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Michael Bernstein

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his is the story of an Environmental Health & Safety manager who was so preoccupied with current operations at his plant that he neglected the site’s environmental history. His inattention nearly cost his employer the approval of a bank loan, and he paid for his error with his job.

The company was a manufacturer of wire products. An important industrial employer in an otherwise rural county, the company was seeking a loan for expansion. I was assigned to lead a scientist team to perform a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment for the lender.

To satisfy insurance company requirements and government regulations, the EHS manager was busy maintaining records of air emissions, chemical usage, employee health and safety, and related matters.

Focused entirely on the plant’s active operations, he never thought to consider the possibility of historical concerns. He had a one-dimensional perspective of time – the present. But the plant had been operating since the 1970s. I was primarily concerned with the potential for environmental contamination resulting from historical operations. Potential problems with current recordkeeping were strictly secondary.

The plant had its own water-supply well. Rarely had the water been sampled for laboratory analysis. Trichloroethylene – a notorious environmental contaminant – had been detected years earlier. One of the other managers gave me an old environmental report that noted the former use of a TCE degreaser. A photo of it, along with an honest employee’s help, enabled us to find the exact location. That’s where we collected soil gas samples and found TCE – about 80 feet from the well. Was the employee cafeteria using tainted water? If so, did the TCE concentration exceed the

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Business Perils of Environmental Negligence

applicable standard for drinking water? No case had not been closed because docone knew. umentation regarding the contaminated Two outbuildings, which were still in soil’s fate had never been submitted. Had use, pre-dated construction of the plant. the soil been properly disposed of, or had it Each had a heating oil been dumped somewhere? underground storage tank.

LETTING SLEEPING DOGS LIE My research revealed that Had the USTs leaked? No another company had IS NOT A WISE COURSE OF one knew as their integrity bought the tank removal ACTION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL contractor. I told the reguhad never been evaluated.

MANAGEMENT. The plant was listed on lator that we offered to pay a state regulatory agency someone to search the old database as an open-case leaking UST site. files but were told there were no files to Contaminated soil had been encountered be searched. At best, the old files had not and excavated when a regulated gasoline been transferred to the successor firm. At UST was removed about ten years ear- worst, they had been discarded. lier. Why had closure approval not been Fortunately, the regulator’s supervisor granted? The EHS guy did not know about wanted her to resolve these lingering open the case. cases. So she was pleased to be contacted The bank had two viewpoints regard- by a cooperative party that wanted to do ing these issues. The TCE question and precisely that. Nobody wanted a regulathe heating oil USTs were concerns known tory enforcement action’s unpleasantness, only to the private parties; the confidential and everybody wanted to accommodate holding of this information gave the lender the company’s expansion. Satisfied that a a cautioned degree of relief. But the leaking good-faith effort had been made to obtain UST case was public record. The loan offi- the documentation, the agency administracers regarded it as a stigma for all to see, tively closed the case. The regulators were with the possibility of eventual enforce- happy, the bank was happy, the business ment action and additional expense. They owner was happy, and I was happy. warned the owner that the loan would not The EHS manager was fired. The owner be approved if the case remained open. was angry and embarrassed that outsiders I learned from the regulator that the had found serious problems unknown to his own EHS manager.

Permit compliance, regulatory reporting, and adhering to insurance requirements are, of course, priorities. But the possibility of dormant or forgotten environmental concerns should not be ignored. If a sale, a loan, refinancing, or partial divestiture is proposed, lingering or overlooked environmental issues could arise and present serious complications. Total absorption with the present day, deliberate or unintentional ignorance of the past, or letting sleeping dogs lie is not a wise course of action for environmental management.

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THIRTY eight

Jan-Feb 2021

Back When Giddy-Up to Porters Saddle Shop DOUGLAS TOWNE

T

o “saddle up” in Downtown Phoenix these days likely means swiping your credit card to unleash a lime-green GridShare bike. The term had a different meaning, however, when the N. Porter Saddle & Harness shop was one of the region’s leading manufacturers of saddles.

Porters first shop in Downtown Phoenix opened in 1891. After World War II, they launched a separate saddle shop at 406 South First Street in a building adjacent to the Southern Pacific railroad tracks.

“I recall when a truck would deliver a huge stack of tanned leather hides to the shop; it was so aromatic,” says Tony Kulina, who worked there as a 19-year-old in 1949.

“You never forget that smell.”

The shop employed a half-dozen saddle makers, mostly men who learned the craft from their fathers, and usually in Mexico. “I was fascinated by the skill of the shop foreman as he expertly sliced the leather hides into rough shapes for the saddle

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makers to use,” Kulina says. “It was like a polished to a shiny finish.” miracle to see a saddle take shape day by Porters manufactured saddles at that day as they built it, following strict mea- location until it declared bankruptcy in surements provided by the buyer. Then to 1962. The business closed a few years later. see the finished product expertly dyed and

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e

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Arizona Contractor & Community

Skousen:

Three Generations of Arizona Road Contractors Douglas Towne

Forty

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“I

f all the roads that W.R. Skousen Construction paved were taken up, Arizona would be in pretty rough condition,” Ed Erck says. The 87-year-old worked for the company for 25 years, starting as a truck driver and finishing as an asphalt plant foreman. “We probably laid 25 million tons of asphalt.”

But W.R. wasn’t the only Skousen in the construction industry. Three generations of the Skousen family, Willard, W.R., and Bob, along with other family members, were transportation contractors. Each had different talents, but the firm hit its apex under W.R., whose tenure coincided with the Interstate highway system’s construction in the 1960s. “Over the years, we paved almost every mile of Interstate 10 from New Mexico to Casa Grande,” Erck says.

The Skousen contracting story begins with Willard Skousen, a Danish immigrant who arrived in Draper, Utah with his father, Jenes Skousen, in 1864. Willard moved to Joseph City, Arizona, in 1877 and became a railroad and highway contractor. His first significant job was building a section of the Santa Fe railroad line in northeastern Arizona in the early 1900s.

Willard’s job could get exciting, as revealed in an article in the Tucson Citizen in 1906. While working in Mexico as a sub-contractor under R.R. Coleman on a Southern Pacific Railroad project along the Guaymas-Guadalajara road, two thieves stole his horse and fled across the Yaqui River. They ignored Willard’s calls, but not the warning shot from his Winchester rifle.

They dismounted, and his horse returned.

His contracting company, Skousen Bros., did road work across Arizona. Projects included portions of the Phoenix-Yuma road, the Douglas-Rodeo highway, the Pine-Winslow highway, and stretches of Route 66 from Kingman to Williams. During this time, 1926-1935, Skousen Bros. was located in Mesa, El Paso, and four locations in New Mexico: Albuquerque, Glenwood, Santa Fe, and Silver City.

Road construction was dangerous work. At the Skousen Bros. camp on Route 66, a driver’s truck rolled on him in 1934, according to the Williams News. Another

Truck driver Bill Hardin hauling material from Skousen’s crushing operation in Holbrook, 1963.

Jan-Feb 2021

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Above: Skousen’s hot plant operations on W.J. Henson’s highway job near Bylas between Safford and Globe, 1956.

Left: W.R. Skousen Jr., 1969.

Bottom left: W.R. Skousen Jr.’s father, Willard Skousen Sr. Bottom right: Bob Skousen.

accident involved a 1929 Ford coupe that caught fire. Soon after the employees abandoned the vehicle, the gas tank exploded, scattering car parts.

In 1947, Willard died at age 87 in Mesa. Two sons, Jess E. and Willard R. (W.R.) Skousen Jr., operated the contracting firm that he had started nearly 50 years ago, according to his obituary in The Arizona Republic. W.R. graduated from Mesa High School in 1933. A talented athlete, he was All-State in football and basketball and later attended Utah State College.

Three years previously, W.R. took over the company. His brothers, Jess and Nate, became contractors in Albuquerque, and W.R. allowed them to bid using his license. This transition came during a massive expansion of the nation’s road system.

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Skousen did road construction in Arizona, California, and New Mexico.

Former Skousen employees give a thumbs up to the company. “A lot of outfits hated the owner, but W.R. was a good, very outspoken guy,” says John Baehr, who was a crusher operator and electrician from 1968-1978. “He put together a good company, and we just clicked. We were the third largest asphalt road building firm in Arizona.”

Baehr didn’t interact with W.R. much except for one memorable occasion when he was working a crusher on the Hassayampa River near Tonopah in the mid1970s. “W.R. came walking up the dirt road and said, ‘My Cadillac is stuck. I own all this equipment out here, and no one has a damn chain to pull me out!’” Baehr recalls.

“W.R. would stutter when he was excited, and he was pretty worked up then,” he says. “I pulled his car out with my Jeep. I still have the chain I pulled him out with, but not the Jeep.”

Dave McNeil, a paving operator with Skousen from 1967-1981, recalls that W.R. took care of his workers. After safety meetings on the job, he often treated everyone

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Right: Ruthe and W.R. Skousen; Isabelle and Bill Naumann of M.M. Sundt; and Col. James (Mel) Goodson of Arizona Refinery Co. (L-R) at AGC spring convention, 1953.

Middle right: L.D. McNeil operating Skousen’s hot plant operations on road project near Bylas between Safford and Globe, 1956.

Bottom right: Arizona Highway Department sign for Heber-Overgaard road improvements on State Route 260, 1961.

Bottom left: Newspaper profile of Willard R. Skousen, 1965.

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Skousen operations during job in Casa Grande on I-8 and I-10 interchange project, 1965.

Images courtesy of Bill Rucker

Skousen employees and their wives relaxing after work during a project in Kingman, 1967.

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Skousen belly dump on project building the road to the Kitt Peak Observatory, 1961.

Forty Four

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Bob Skousen, #35, setting the BYU single game scoring record against UCLA, 1961.

Skousen employees during job in Casa Grande on I-8 and I-10 interchange project, 1965.

Skousen paving crew of Joe Johnson, Randy Chacon, and Joe Pacheco (L-R) working on the Tohono O’odham (Papago) Nation, 1976.

Jan-Feb 2021

to dinner. “He was good with people and honest,” McNeil says. “It made all of us work hard because we knew as long as he was making money, we had a job.”

Skousen’s crews laid a lot of asphalt during the 1970s and 1980s. “If we didn’t lay 3,000 tons a day, there was something wrong,” McNeil says.

“That’s what the company was known for; we had a Cedar Rapids track machine that could lay asphalt 24-29 feet wide in one pass.”

Erck chalks up the company’s success to Mr. Skousen. “He (W.R.) understood people and recruited some of the best workers,” he says. “Because Skousen could offer steadier work and more hours, all the good people wanted to come work for him.

He also allowed the employees to have a say so in what was going on. That was his biggest achievement.”

And there was no squabbling between divisions at Skousen. “Bill Dobell was W.R.’s office man, and they worked closely together,” Erck says. “We didn’t have anyone going the wrong way at Skousen; we always were together achieving things.”

Besides contracting, W.R. had a large farm in Queen Creek where he raised cotton and potatoes. He also had several ranches in eastern Arizona.

When W.R. died at age 71 in 1986, Skousen Construction had already transitioned to his son, Willard Robert (Bob) Skousen. Bob was born in 1939 and had a different set of talents and interests.

A star basketball player at BYU, he set a single-game scoring record of 47 points against John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins in 1961. Bob’s mark stood for 48 years until Jimmer Fredette eclipsed it with the aid of the 3-point line.

The company hit a rough patch, however, when Bob took the reins of Skousen Construction from his father in 1979. Bob reportedly had more passion for unearthing Indian ruins than laying asphalt, and accumulated a vast collection of Native American pots. “By 1981, Skousen was going downhill,” Erck says. “Bob didn’t have the foresight over who should be in charge.

When some superintendents tried to run everything, the old hands didn’t like that, and things started deteriorating.”

Baehr concurs with this assessment.

“Skousen went south in a hurry because everyone left. Bob ran the company into the ground,” he says.

Bob was a nice guy who had a successful materials outfit in Flagstaff, but when

his dad gave him the big asphalt crew, it didn’t work out, according to McNeil. “Bob got out of asphalt and crushing and had a guardrail crew for a while.

But the company never really did big stuff after that.” Skousen’s guardrail business was lucrative, as the federal government had mandated them wherever highways didn’t cover flat ground. Bob died in 2016.

All three generations of Skousens were talented contractors, but W.R. was the most successful businessman. “He had the

“He put together a good company, and we just clicked”

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foresight to see the potential in people and let them manage themselves,” Erck says.

“He wasn’t a hands-on person; he’d seldom override the superintendents on a job.”

W.R.’s management style was illustrated when one of his friends at Sundt stopped at a Skousen job in Topock. “Everyone was working, and even the superintendent was operating a roller,” Erck says. “He wanted to know who was running the project, as there was no one sitting in a pickup.

We told him everything was OK; that’s how we operated.”

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Forty six

Jan-Feb 2021

Taking Phoenix to the Next Level: Porters Western Wear Store Douglas Towne

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D

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owntown Phoenix was a bustling shopping district until the 1960s.

One unique store, which opened in 1891, attracted both locals and tourists as its fame spread worldwide. The N. Porter Saddle and Harness Company, commonly known as Porters, was described as “The West’s Most Western Store.” It was renowned for quality saddles, boots, chaps, and luggage.

After World War II, however, Porters became the talk of the town for something other than cowhides: Arizona’s first escalator. “Some people came in just to ride it up to the second floor,” recalls William Linsenmeyer, the building owner’s grandson. “A lot of people in those days didn’t travel much and had never seen an escalator.” This innovation is one example of how Porters helped transport Phoenix from Territorial Days to the Space Age over its more than 70-year run before ridding off into the sunset.

The Porter family founded the N. Porter Saddle and Harness Company in Texas in 1875 and relocated to 142 East Washington Street in Phoenix in 1891. Porters frequently moved as the city grew: 40 West Washington Street by 1904, the newly constructed Luhrs Building in 1914, and into its own building on the northeast corner of First and Adams streets in 1928.

In 1940, Porters moved to the northwest corner of First and Adams streets, where the store would remain until eventually closing. Developer Ottilia Linsenmeyer, widow of Ernest Linsenmeyer, had a modern building constructed for Porters. The Linsenmeyers had been active in Phoenix real estate since 1906 and had previously operated a meat market at that corner.

The site was cleared by the Heyne Lumber and Wrecking Company. The $65,000 Streamline Moderne style, two-story structure was made of brick, reinforced concrete, and stucco, and designed by the architecture firm of Lescher and Mahoney.

Porters featured Western wear and outdoor equipment on the first floor and basement, while the second floor had a leather shop. “I went in there as a kid just to Porters store with a stagecoach, 1940s.

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Jan-Feb 2021

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Top left: Bob Irwin loads Porters western luggage at the Arizona Biltmore, 1952.

Far left: Porters match cover.

Left: Stylish leather luggage in Porters.

Above: Models pose by saddle wearing Porters summer wear, 1957.

enjoy the aroma of the leather,” Joe Agnew, who works in the retail industry, says.

Advertisements for the store’s grand opening in 1940 featured a broad range of outdoor products. Brand names included Simon Pure sleeping bags, Victor tennis rackets, Hendan shirts, Field and Stream sportswear, Martin bits and spurs, Ralph-Pugh leather coats, and McCabe Silversmiths.

But the store was famous for its saddles. “The life of an N. Porter saddle is so long that the cowboy, rather than the saddle itself, is the first to wear out,” said 25-year-employee Walter King to The arizcc.com

Arizona Republic in 1940. “Consequently, our saddle business volume depends on a far-flung market that reaches from Africa to Canada and receives orders from places few people have heard of including Jiffs, NV; Pie Town, NM; Bromide, OK; Spur, TX; Consumers, UT; and Wolf Hole, AZ.” “The policy of the N. Porter Company always has been to make every saddle so thoroughly good that it will be a constant advertisement and the means of bringing in additional orders,” King, the saddle department manager, added. “The N. Porter Company gives each of its saddles an individual number and keeps a permanent record of each saddle by that number.

At present, we have in our files complete descriptions of more than 14,000 saddles that we have made.”

The store was a tourist destination.

“Those who had visited from the East wanted to return wearing their Western duds, to be able to show their friends where they went,” Linsenmeyer says.

Phoenix residents wanting to look like would-be wranglers also patronized the shop. “My dad used to buy all his Western shirts there when I was young,” Maureen Huntimer says.

“Every year I got a new pair of ‘Porter Thongs’ [leather sandals] and sometimes a new Rodeo Days outfit,” recalls Phyllis Elaine Bush-Ford.

The store also sold dress clothes, a style that Linsenmeyer preferred. “In grade school, they sold me a double-breasted suit,” he says.” I received a 10 percent discount because my grandmother owned the building.”

Porters elevated shopping to a new Arizona Contractor & Community

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level when Ottilia Linsenmeyer had an escalator installed in the store in 1947.

The Phoenix Elevator Company added the latest technology with help from the E.W. Duhame Construction Company. “I loved to ride the escalator to the second floor, but we had to walk down the stairs,” recalls Barbara James, who grew up in Phoenix.

The escalator only took shoppers up— with one exception. “When Ottilia stopped by on rare occasions and wanted to come down from the second floor, Porters flipped the switch,” recalls Linsenmeyer. “The escalator reversed direction and took her down.

All others had to take the stairs.”

Ottilia died in 1951, and her two daughters, Irma Linsenmeyer and Marie (Rae) Linsenmeyer Melton, inherited the Above: Porters store decorated with cattle brands, 1957.

Left: Porters display of rodeo trophies.

Fifty

building.

Kay Butler and her sisters remember Porters as being their favorite Phoenix store in the 1950s. “We’d leave early to meet our mom, who worked at Culver’s Records, on Saturday so we could ‘ride’ on the escalator and the saddles at Porters.

We were 6, 8, and 10 at the time, and the employees let us sit on the saddles, but we had to ‘behave.’ When we got older, we purchased shirts and sandals there.”

But shopping patterns and clothing preferences in Phoenix changed, as customers gravitated to shopping centers.

Porters closed their downtown store when the company declared bankruptcy in 1962.

Porters also closed their five other shops in the metro area, Tucson, and Corona del Mar in California. Valley stores were located at Park Central, Uptown Plaza, 16th Street and Camelback Road, Scottsdale on Brown Avenue, and Tempe.

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The Downtown Phoenix Porters building was vacant until it was razed to make way for the high-rise Hotel Adams, which opened in 1975. It is currently the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel.

Joe Porter, whose grandfather, father, and uncle founded N. Porter Saddle and Harness Company, died in 1998. Porter’s obit quoted his theory about the store’s successful 71-years of operation. “I make my own rules. I treat everyone as I would want to be treated, and I work hard.”

Although Porters has been closed for almost 60 years, its former employees remain fervent in their love for the business. “In my opinion, it was the greatest family store in Phoenix,” declares Roger Anderson, who retired from Qwest. “I was one of the last two employees to work for Porters at their Downtown Phoenix store,” he says. “If they were still open, I would still be there. I loved that place!” arizcc.com

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Jan-Feb 2021

Dicey Construction:

The Security Building’s Scandalous Financing Scheme Douglas Towne Fifty Four

Jan-Feb 2021

Central Avenue with American Kitchen on the right and the Security Building in the distance on the left, 1940s.

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fifty six

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T

he Security Building was the toast of Downtown Phoenix when it opened in 1928 at the southwest corner of Central Avenue and Van Buren Street. Arizona’s tallest building was an ornate structure financed by a 15-person syndicate headed by powerbroker Dwight B. Heard, the then-Arizona Republican publisher. His

newspaper labeled the building an “architectural gem” and devoted pages describing its amenities, from the gilded groundfloor marble lobby detailed in gold trim to the copper tower’s beacon light visible for 30 miles to guide travelers to Phoenix.

The newspaper, however, neglected to mention the booze-fueled revelry that

transpired inside the Security Building while it was still under construction. A half-century would pass before it was publicly revealed that the funds used to finish Above: Original rendering by Curlett & Beelman Architects, late 1920s.

Right: American Kitchen ad, 1917.

Far right: American Kitchen match cover.

Jan-Feb 2021

or Images courtesy of Auth

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the project came from allowing a political operative to run an illicit casino and brothel on the building’s top floors for a fortnight.

Senior government officials reportedly approved the audacious plan. “The full story is one of the better skeletons in Arizona’s closet,” Arizona Republic columnist Paul Dean wrote in 1978.

Such shenanigans were not uncommon during the Roaring ‘20s. The decade was a transformative time for Phoenix as it morphed from a backwater farming community to a compact, bustling city with paved streets and high-rise buildings. The city’s economic progress was accompanied by the merriment associated with the decade, including a roller-skating craze, vaudeville shows at the Orpheum Theatre, and the city’s pretty young things dancing the Charleston at the Riverside Ballroom.

For those seeking less wholesome activities, there were speakeasies, gambling dens, and brothels. Prohibition had outlawed booze, but spirits still flowed in Phoenix. Gambling and prostitution flourished, facilitated by police kickbacks and fines that enriched municipal coffers. “The 1920s was mostly known for vice, not violent crimes in Phoenix,” historian Heidi Osselaer says.

It was in this permissive landscape that the Dwight B. Heard Investment Company announced plans to construct the eight-story Security Building to be named after Heard’s 15-person syndicate called

the Security Improvement Company at the site of the Central Schoolhouse. Business offices would be situated between merchants on the ground floor and a rooftop restaurant. Groundbreaking for the Second Renaissance Revival-style building, which drew inspiration from 16th Century Italian architecture and consisted of a reinforced concrete structure sheathed in handmolded multicolored brick, took place in December 1927.

“Phoenix Sky Line Soars,” proclaimed the Republican on its front page, when the Security Building opened in July 1928. The issue featured many details of the project, listing the building’s first 50 tenants, including the Fuller Brush Company, the brand of paint used, and noting

Top left: Dwight B. Heard.

Above: Wirt Bowman.

that local bandleader Clinton Julian and his Orchestra performed on the eighth floor, to the delight of dancing couples. This conventional storyline remained the building’s official history for a half-century.

The Security Building’s secret past finally leaked out in 1978 during a celebration commemorating its 50th anniversary. Henderson Stockton, an attorney who was the building’s first tenant and who still maintained a fifth-floor office, was interviewed as part of the festivities by the Republic. The 85-year-old Stockton had become a lawyer at age 17. He was regarded as an outstanding trial attorney and a dapper dresser, known for donning a boutonniere when in court. Stockton was also a political insider who challenged Carl Hayden and Ernest McFarland in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in the 1940s.

Stockton initially told the journalist some folksy anecdotes about the building’s history, such as how sightseers visited his office to enjoy the view. The attorney then dropped a bombshell, describing how a casino and brothel were temporarily set up in the building to help finance its completion. The pop-up nightspot abruptly moved elsewhere when a working girl was tossed out an upper-floor window and landed on Stockton’s windowsill, which saved her life.

This wild tale caught the attention of Paul Dean, who subsequently interviewed Stockton for his column in the Republic.

The lawyer, who was the Heard group’s

“One corner of Phoenix in 1928 became busier than any block of Las Vegas in 1978.”

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fifty eight

Jan-Feb 2021

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legal counsel, told Dean he was free to talk about the event since his clients’ deaths and the statute of limitations had waived attorney-client privilege.

“Stockton is a delightful, priceless antique still practicing law from a little museum in the kind of building that makes many thank God for preservation policies of local historical groups,” Dean wrote.

Dean listened as Stockton revealed how Heard’s syndicate lacked $100,000 to complete the Security Building construction. The group had run out of options to raise the money, and the building was three-quarters finished and in danger of becoming an eight-story shell. Stockton suggested they contact his friend, Wirt Bowman of Nogales – an influential and wealthy national Democratic committeeman who owned several gambling establishments in Tijuana, including a share of the opulent Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel.

The attorney set up a meeting between his clients and Bowman in a backroom of the American Kitchen, a famous Chinese restaurant run by Sing Yee at 33 N. Central Avenue since 1902. Bowman told Heard’s group that he wasn’t in the money-lending business but would provide the funding in exchange for a two-week franchise to run a gambling club on the eighth floor of the still-unfinished building.

Stockton then told Dean he called the governor’s office, looking for off-the-record approval. “’Stock, there just isn’t anybody smart enough in the governor’s office or the attorney general’s office who could find the Security Building in two weeks,’ Governor George Hunt allegedly said. According to Stockton, his next call was to the state’s attorney general. ‘If the governor says he’s speaking for me, then he’s speaking for me and if the governor doesn’t know where the Security Building is, then neither do I,’ white-lied attorney general John Murphey.”

Maricopa County Sheriff Jefferson Davis Adams, Phoenix Mayor F.J. Paddock, and Phoenix Police Chief George Brisbois parroted Hunt’s remarks. So Bowman provided the money.

Dean writes that the shady penthouse club quickly materialized. “Bootleg booze was trucked in from Mexico and Mogollon Rim stills. Roulette wheels and dice tables and chuck-a-luck cages were imported from Bowman’s operation in Tijuana. With

the games, naturally, came the girls. Word traveled like a gully washer, and so did the customers. One corner of Phoenix in 1928 became busier than any block of Las Vegas in 1978.”

The dicey party lasted for eight days until it was halted by the flying courtesan who landed on Stockton’s windowsill. The near-death incident didn’t make the police blotter, but the high-elevation locale had become too dangerous

“The full story is one of the better skeletons in Arizona’s closet”

Left: Looking at Central Ave and Van Buren from the Security Building during new elevator construction, 1955. arizcc.com

for the festivities. Bowman transferred the remaining six days on his lease to the nearby, one-story, Paul Bennet Auto Supply Company building at 328 North Central Avenue.

As the attorney and journalist talked about the larger structures built after the Security Building, Stockton noted that there was one aspect these new buildings could never surpass. “They can’t possibly have as much fun as we had building this one,” he said. Stockton passed away five months later.

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The Heart of Phoenix: Douglas Towne

G

reat hotel nicknames are usually the result of innovative marketing campaigns or are obvious, such as San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado, known as “the Del.” But one Downtown Phoenix building branded itself. As the soaring rooftop sign atop the Hotel Adams flickered to life one evening in the 1950s, four letters malfunctioned and remained dark. The crimson neon spelled out, “HOT DAM.” The phrase sums up the love affair between Arizona and three iterations of the hotel, which have provided upscale hospitality for more than 120 years at the northeast corner of Central Avenue and Adams Street. Twice, the Adams has been destroyed only to rise from its ashes. No other building better embodies the spirit of Phoenix, the city that sprouted from the ruins of the Hohokam civilization and continues to flourish despite hellish heat, Sixty

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Three Iterations of the Hotel Adams

Towne

a handsome structure of complete equipment and lavish appointments,” proclaimed The Arizona Republican in 1896.

The Queen Annestyle building extended over the sidewalks brackish politics, and wily to form a colonnade, haboobs. while the top three Arizona was still a territory, floors featured baland Phoenix was but a hardconies. Many rooms scrabble community of 5,000 private bathrooms, an residents, when J.C. Adams arrived from i n c l u d e d Chicago in 1894. Adams was a lawyer who extravagance at the time. Fireplaces prohad wealthy, Windy City clients such as vided heating, and a primitive cooling Marshall Field, of department store fame.

Unimpressed by Phoenix’s rudimentary accommodations, Adams nevertheless recognized the community’s potential.

Using his financial connections, he built the city’s first luxury hotel. The elegant Adams Hotel was a 200-room, four-story, wooden building that brought immediate respectability to the dusty frontier city. “It’s Top: The first Adams Hotel is destroyed by fire, 1910.

Right: Taxis parked at the Hotel Adams, 1920s.

Jan-Feb 2021

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Top: The second Hotel Adams, 1920s.

Left: Construction of the 9-story annex, 1926.

system used electric fans to blow air over 300-pound blocks of ice in the lobby.

The stylish hotel was the site of presidential visits, elegant social events, political deals, and business meetings before its premature demise in 1910, succumbing to a blaze called the city’s most spectacular fire. The inferno that was probably caused by a chemical combustion in the basement could have been much worse. “The firemen were favored by the absence of wind.

If the conflagration had occurred five hours later, it would have swept the entire town,” noted the Republican.

All that remained of the building were two rickety-looking chimneys. Adams, worried they would collapse on onlookers, took up a miner’s offer to remove the hazards for $75. The miner purchased $2 worth of dynamite and brought the stacks straight down without further damage. The miner, reportedly, headed off to a bar with his unexpectedly easy earnings.

Adams started construction on a new hotel on the site but halted work before a potentially ruinous vote on Prohibition in arizcc.com

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1911. In a full-page ad in the Republican, Adams claimed that hotels in dry states didn’t make a profit and warned he might not complete the hotel if the law passed.

The legislation failed, though Arizona would vote to go dry in 1915.

The new hostelry, now named Hotel Adams, opened 18 months after the fire, in time for the statehood celebration in 1912. The five-story Mission Revival-style building was constructed of fireproof, reinforced concrete. The lobby again became the city’s meeting place and featured the state’s first commercial radio station. The station closed when the hotel sold the radio equipment to the U.S. Navy for use in World War I. The Roaring ‘20s were boom years for Phoenix, with many new hotels constructed. To remain competitive, the Hotel Adams was remodeled and a new ninestory annex opened in 1926. Renovations included an air conditioning system, which added to its popularity. “The Hotel Adams was the hub hotel of downtown,” writer Kathryn Runbeck says. “When we visited Top left: Smithsonian-sponsored Operation Moonwatch group looking for artificial satellites atop Hotel Adams, 1957.

Top right: Chanen Construction Co. building the third Hotel Adams, 1975.

Above: Hotel Adams pool, 1950s.

Left: Demolition of the Hotel Adams, 1976.

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Jan-Feb 2021

from Clifton to shop in the 1930s, the For some, the loss of the Adams grater” building, it is now called the Adams was always our meeting place. The marked a tipping point. “Downtown then Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel. An lobby was full of ranchers dressed in suits, was real and organic, with stores like Han- upscale hotel, it nonetheless has an edgy ties, and cowboy hats.” ny’s and Switzer’s across vibe with art exhibits such as “26 Blocks,” During World War II, the street,” Hall says. in which photographers and writers reflect During the Cold War, the Hotel Adams adopted the Adams touted itself “Downtown didn’t die all on Downtown Phoenix. a policy that there was once, but when the old Many have deep feelings for the as the Phoenix building at always to be an open room hotel was imploded, it imploded hotel. “I was young, but I recall for a serviceman. When “most able to withstand marked a transition that the hotel as being very impressive and eleGerman prisoners of war it never quite recovered gant,” Bayless says. “I never thought I’d see an atomic attack.” escaped from their camp from.” the day they would tear it down.” at Papago Park in 1944, one fugitive took Within two years, a new 17-story, a liberal interpretation of this measure. 538-room Adams Hotel opened on the “He was apprehended after relaxing in the site. Sometimes referred to as the “cheese hotel lobby,” Rhonda Benston-Showman, a longtime bartender at the hotel, says.

The Adams added a rooftop pool and shuffleboard courts in 1948. The amenities proved popular with hotel guests—and nearby office workers. “The hotel was popular with airline crews,” Walter Hall, a City of Phoenix retiree, says. “I recall seeing the stewardesses sunning themselves on the pool deck.”

After college in 1966, former Arizona Secretary of State Betsey Bayless worked for Valley National Bank in the Professional Building, which overlooked the hotel pool.

“Men who came into our office would often go straight to the windows with their clients to check out the women in the swimsuits lounging around the pool,” she says.

The hotel continued to be the place where politicians plotted Arizona’s future.

“The Adams was as important a location for legislative business as was the State Capitol,” says Athia Hardt, press secretary for Governors Babbitt and Mofford.

The Adams had a popular independent bookstore, Martindale’s, in its retail space, according to Hall. “There was a pop/jazz singer named Lee Meza who was very popular in the late ‘60s in Phoenix,” he adds.

“I recall seeing her perform in the Adams.”

During the Cold War, the Adams touted itself as the Phoenix building “most able to withstand an atomic attack.” But Downtown was on the decline as a shopping and entertainment destination, and after sevSBE Certified City of Phx "Dump Trucking" eral ownership changes, the hotel’s popularity ebbed. In 1973 the new owners Super 16s and Super 18s Demo and Material Beds decided to replace the Adams with a modern hotel to support the new Civic Center.

We estimate Import, Export, ABC, Pipe Bedding and Spectators amassed Downtown to Sand deliveries to your project watch the first building to be razed with explosives in Arizona. Letters were removed from the rooftop sign to again display “HOT Newer Fleet DAM” before the implosion. “I feel it’s better for a building to bow out gracefully in a Please contact matt@mattbrowntrucking.com few seconds rather than be hacked to death for several weeks,” demolition expert Doug or 602-361-2174 Loizeaux told the Republic. arizcc.com

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Building on the Past

1960: Banking on the Future of Downtown Phoenix

I

n the late 1950s, about the time Downtown Phoenix started its decline, a young financier decided to build-up the district’s financial infrastructure. David Murdock, who would soon move to Los Angeles and become a billionaire developer, purchased the two-story Bank of Douglas building at Monroe Street and First Avenue. The building, designed by Lescher and Mahoney, was constructed in 1947. The financial institute dated back to the 1880s when it opened as the Bank of Bisbee.

Murdock contracted with the Henry C. Beck Co. to add eight stories to the building. The bank remained open and curiously, hosted a display of rare orchids.

The Beck Co. followed architect Charles Polacek’s plans, creating an addition of porcelain steel and glass walls. Before work could commence, 600 tons of gunite were poured to reinforce the foundation. Alfred Hitchcock captured the building’s construction on film in the opening shot of the movie, Psycho.

Construction of the $3 million, 111,000

square-foot building was completed in 1960 and it had a new name. The Arizona Bank better conveyed the institution’s statewide operations. The building’s grand opening revealed a lobby décor focused on seven Arizona Bank kachinas that were created by the Hopi Tribe. The roof featured “The Arizona Bank Skyline Weather Forecaster,” which used colors and motion to provide temperature and precipitation predictions.

Neither the bank nor the building survived. The Arizona Bank moved to a 31-story building across the street at 101 North First Avenue in 1976. Six years later, the financial institution was acquired by Security Pacific Bank, which merged with Bank of America in 1992.

The former bank building housed new tenants, including the Phoenix Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, but had been vacant for some time before redevelopment started in 2004. Grace Communities planned to convert the building into the Monroe Place Lofts residential condominiums and began by stripping

the building to its steel frame. The building’s 60-units sold so quickly that the developers canceled the remodel and razed the remaining structure. Grace Communities then built 44 Monroe, a 34-story residential high-rise at the site. It was completed in 2008.

Jan-Feb 2021

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Top left: Rendering for David Murdock’s Bank of Douglas addition, 1959.

Top: Construction of the addition to the Bank of Douglas by the Henry C. Beck Co., 1960.

Left: Long-time Guaranty Bank employee Ruby Condron is hoisted in a barrel to place an American flag on the top floor, 1960.

Above: Fisher Contracting employees assist Ruby Condron into the barrel, 1960.

Top right: Foundation work before construction of the Bank of Douglas expansion, between the Security Building and San Carlos Hotel, 1960.

Right: Construction of the 10-floor addition along Monroe Street, 1960.

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T

he circle has been informing global architecture for centuries. Examples of round structures include the ancient Etruscans in 8th-4th century B.C., Stonehenge in 3rd-2nd century B.C., circa 126 A.D. Pantheon Temple in Rome, stone granaries, medieval fortresses, and defensive castle towers.

In the Southwest during 650-1300 A.D., the Ancestral Puebloans constructed the sacred ceremonial round Kivas at Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde near Four Corners.

Much later, in 1932, Mary Colter designed the cylindrical-shaped Desert Watch Tower at the Grand Canyon’s south rim.

The underlying reason for this consistent and prolific use of the circle is to generate an architecture rooted in a circular floor plan. Humans have come to believe that the circle symbolizes Mother Earth, represents the spirit of feminine energy, and is a universal, sacred, complete, and divine space. Our ancient ancestors viewed a circular aspect to the cycles of time and, specifically, in the season’s movements.

When the circle plan is translated into building form, it can create basic shapes such as domes, cylinders, spheres, and cones. Beyond the symbolic content, the circle has evolved to a design that can be spatially efficient when minimizing the viewing and walking distances in correctional facility cell blocks, health care nursing units, theater seating, religious

Architect’s Perspective:

Arizona’s Round Architecture Doug Sydnor, FAIA Doug_sydnor@outlook.com

sanctuaries, and sports venues.

Here are a few excellent Arizona examples: Frank Lloyd Wright designed the 1952 David and Gladys Wright House at 5212 East Exeter Boulevard in Phoenix for his son, David, and his wife, Gladys. The floor plan is based upon a circle with a raised semi-circular wing and a carport below.

The open east half has a curving pedestrian ramp from the natural grade to the upperlevel entry, creating a spiraling movement around a courtyard. The home was located within a citrus orchard and was elevated to capture the dramatic sunsets and Camelback Mountain views. This circular plan with an integrated spiraling ramp is a crucial precedent that informs Wright’s own Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum completed later in 1959. Wright is also known for his “organic” approach to architecture, which metaphorically references nature, including its circles.

In 1958 the Arcadia High School Classrooms and Library at 4703 East Indian

School Road in Phoenix were completed.

Designed by architect Mel Ensign, it utilizes a donut-shaped plan with single-loaded outdoor circulation and a series of radiating classrooms on two levels. Classrooms focus on a circular library at the donut centroid. After taking a high school algebra course here during the summer, I appreciated the perimeter glass for the light, and the exterior blades, which minimized the heat gain and provided privacy for the students. As the focal element, the library was very accessible, functional, and the plan’s symbolic heart.

Film director Steven Spielberg attended this school, and these buildings influenced his alien spaceship designs in the 1977 movie Close Encounters of a Third Kind. Unfortunately, the classrooms were demolished for a new “modernization” program, but the library was retained. The circular plan mitigated the large building volume, softened the aesthetic, and suggested an arrangement with its own inner order not influenced by the context.

The Los Angeles-based architect Perry Neuschatz with Gary Call Associate Architects designed the 1963 Phoenix Star Theater (now Celebrity Theater) at 440 North 32nd Street in Phoenix. The theater’s circular plan and creative building section with multiple levels provided an intimate interior setting. The seating minimized the distance to the stage, offered excellent sightlines and superb acoustics. I can attest from having attended concerts, including Gordon Lightfoot and Johnny Rivers, this venue provided Phoenix’s most enjoyable live

Sixty Eight

Image courtesy of Author

Image courtesy of SCottsdale Historical Society

Left: David and Gladys Wright House, 1952.

Below: David and Gladys Wright House during the 150th Birthday Celebration of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Jan-Feb 2021

Image courtesy of SCottsdale Historical Society

Above: Arcadia High School, 1958.

Left: Phoenix Star Theater, 1963.

Image courtesy of Author

musical experiences. The exterior character is a “brutalist� style with exposed concrete, tree-like piers, and a precast concrete roof tee structure that radiates around the plan.

Such tees cantilever beyond the exterior walls, shade them and provide a dramatic, iconic profile.

The popular 1963 Phoenix Financial Center rotundas are at Central Avenue and Osborn Road in Phoenix. The master plan and architecture were designed by Wenceslao A. Sarmiento, who worked previously for Brazilian Oscar Neimeyer, known for his expressionistic architecture. The original plan proposed a pair of curved office towers flanking a circular courtyard, but only the south tower was built. The rotundas address Central Avenue, serve as courtyard sentry posts, and present cylindrical volumes wrapped in glazing. The flattened roof dome extends beyond the glass line to cut off the sun angles and minimize heat gain. The canopy is supported by curved concrete columns that gracefully sweep up to delicately support the roof lid. Exterior arizcc.com

Arizona Contractor & Community

Images courtesy of Author

elevations integrate the playful columns that visually refer to the circular plan. The ultimate effect is quite dramatic, theatrical, and memorable. The building is one of the best examples of exploiting the circle geometry in Arizona.

Ingo’s Tasty Food was completed in 2013 at 40th Street and Campbell Avenue in Phoenix. The infill site suggested a minimal and efficient structure, which a circular plan and an extruded cylindrical form would provide. The design by Will Bruder Architects also responds to its location on a corner property and the movement of vehicles around it. The structure delivers a straightforward, almost primal form that is well-proportioned and scaled. Construction is composed of lower walls with exposed remnant masonry units and alternating colors in a stacked bond pattern. Above, the horizontal glazing wraps the interior public space. The upper, perforated screens project off the central massing, shade the glazing below and step back at its top edge.

The architecture communicates elegance and craft with numerous creative details.

Someone cared a great deal about how it was assembled.

Above: Phoenix Financial Center, 1963.

Far left: ASU Music Building, Tempe, 1970.

Left: Glass and Garden Church, Scottsdale, 1966.

Below left: Ingo’s Tasty Food, 2013.

Other Round Buildings in Arizona: • 1950 Mrs. Wood Dome House, Phoenix

by Paolo Soleri • 1961 City of Phoenix Council Chambers

by Edward L. Varney Associates, A.I.A., and Ralph Haver • 1963 VFW Post 2066 Building, Nogales

by Gonzales and Ludlow • 1964 ASU Gammage Auditorium, Tempe by Frank Lloyd Wright • 1966 Glass and Garden Church, Scottsdale by E. Logan Campbell • 1970 ASU Music Building, Tempe by Taliesin/William Wesley Peters • 1974 Western Savings and Loan, Metrocenter, Phoenix by W. A. Sarmiento • 1977 NAU Walkup Skydome, Flagstaff

by Rossman Schneider Gadbury & Shay Douglas B. Sydnor, FAIA, is Principal at Douglas Sydnor Architect + Associates, Inc. and the author of three Arizona architecture books.

Seventy

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Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community Image courtesy of AGC

Images courtesy of Ed Erck

Digging through the archives

W.R. Skousen and His Blue-Ribbon Blacktop Crews William Horner

W

.R. Skousen Construction was a top-notch asphalt-laying operation, and their success wasn’t a secret in the industry. “We had companies from all over the world come to watch our paving operations, especially in the winter when it was cold up north,” Ed Erck, a Seventy two

Top: Skousen’s new Cedar Rapids hot plant on U.S. Highway 60 road project for contractor Flickinger Bros., 1959.

Above: AGC event at the Executive House, Scottsdale with Willard Skousen, W.R. Skousen Co.; Bill Price, cocktail waitress; Karl Ronstadt, New Pueblo Constructors; Halsey Royden, H.L. Royden Const.; and Wink Ames, Minard-Ames (L-R), 1970s.

Above left: Floodwater from the Salt River inundates the Skousen yard near Buckeye, 1979.

long-time employee, says. “They were welcome, as long as they adhered to our safety rules and were fascinated by the amount of material we processed.” we would have 15 people disassemble a And it wasn’t just Skousen’s blacklaydown machine and have it ready and top production that impressed observassembled to go on a Monday morning,” ers. “There were times on a weekend, Erck says.

Jan-Feb 2021

Image courtesy of Lonnie Hamberg Image courtesy of John Baehr

What was unique about Skousen and why was the company so productive? “The foremen didn’t have to tell people what to do, as all the employees besides the grunts knew their jobs,” Erck says. “The busier you stayed, the shorter the time was, and you accomplished more.”

The owner, W.R. Skousen, wasn’t shy about giving credit for the company’s success to his employees. “A factory guy came in to try and sell some equipment and told W.R. that he had a great operation,” Erck says. “W.R. responded that he really didn’t know what those guys were doing; they’re arizcc.com

all on their own.”

And Skousen achieved some impressive milestones. “We had great production and a good maintenance program; everyone kept their equipment in tip-top shape, and our asphalt plant was never down,” Erck says. “Today, 2,000 tons a day is considered impressive. Back then, we were running 5,000 tons a day with a stack plant.

Drum plants even occasionally managed 6,000 to 7,000 tons a day.”

According to Erck, Skousen set up close to 100 asphalt plants and never got caught with an unfinished job in the high country

Top: Skousen employees Roger Hamberg, Curt Prestridge, Charles Fitzpatrick, and Allan Bryant (L-R) on a project in Florence, 1965.

Above: Skousen belly dump truck, 1965.

before the onset of winter. “We ran five solid years without a break; the only downtime was moving the asphalt plant from one job to the next.”

John Baehr, who worked as a crusher operator for Skousen, mentions Bob McGowen, a sales rep for Cedar Rapids heavy equipment, as helping out Skousen.

McGowen, who passed away last year at the age of 93, is described as a real sweetheart Arizona Contractor & Community

Image courtesy of Ed Erck Images courtesy of Dave McNeil

by Baehr. “Bob was intelligent and would say about W.R. It was all good,” Dave help anyone. He was a deep thinker and McNeil, a Skousen paving operator, adds. came up with new ideas,” Baehr says. He “Our crew at Skousen was just like family; describes how their Cedar Rapids track we weren’t just working for a paycheck.” machine used a hammer mill to grind up McNeil enjoyed the jobs around Ariasphalt, but the gooey zona and getting to mass became stuck “Our crew at Skousen was just know the locals in comnext to the door. They like family; we weren’t just munities like Kingman, mounted a grouser bar Sells, and Willcox. He’d working for a paycheck” to break it up, and the play baseball and later addition increased production nine-fold. party with the residents. “The motels and “The machine’s engineers came out and restaurants took care of the working peoput a high-speed camera on to take photos, ple,” he says. “A sandwich, pie, and fruit and redesigned it,” Baehr says. cost “$1.50. Now those places are just out Skousen made sure their employees for the money.” had the best equipment and were appreBut it wasn’t all work and no play. ciated. “We were all treated like people When Skousen was paving Interstate 19 instead of a number. I have nothing bad to south of Tucson, McNeil and Baehr had Seventy four

Top left: Skousen screed operator, Clifton McNeil, working on a laydown machine, 1970s.

Top right: Sediment left by Salt River floodwater at the Skousen yard near Buckeye, 1979.

Above: Skousen truck driver Irwin Russel with Kenworth belly dump, 1970s.

rented a trailer near the greyhound track in Amado. “Some of the crew guys were real gamblers, and we went with them one night,” McNeil says. “I bet a $2 quinella and my dogs were quickly way behind the pack. I almost threw my ticket away.” But the lead dogs took a tumble near the finish, which halted the pack and allowed the two laggards to finish one-two. The result was a $606 winning ticket for McNeil.

McNeil’s wildest memory, however, is Jan-Feb 2021

Image courtesy of Dave McNeil Images courtesy of John Baehr

from a time when Skousen was widening U.S. 89 near Cameron in 1976. After work one day, McNeil tested his 1974 Kawasaki motorcycle on the highway and a Coconino sheriff pulled him over just off Navajo tribal lands by Gray Mountain. “’That thing is fast!’ the officer said. ‘Would you let me take a quick ride on it?” The officer reached 110 m.p.h. on his motorcycle test drive, and McNeil avoided a speeding ticket.

Perhaps Skousen’s bleakest day occurred in 1979. The company had an operation set up near Jackrabbit Road around Buckeye, while paving a section of Interstate 10. A major flood ripped down the Salt River and quickly inundated Skousen’s operation center. “We moved what we could to the trotting track, but most of arizcc.com

our equipment was in the water,” Erck says. “The place was like quicksand, and we had to build roads to get into the yard to disassemble some of the engines.” Erck recalls that W.R. thought he had lost all his machinery and was out of business. But after the water receded, the only thing that was damaged was the feeder.

The flood had a silver lining. Baehr recalls rewiring equipment damaged by water, and the crew decided to put plugs on the extension cords instead of physically taping wires. The increased efficiency didn’t go unnoticed. “W.R. took us out to dinner at a steakhouse in Pinetop,” Baehr says. “He’d make you feel good about working for him.”

Sometimes the Skousen crew was

Top left: Skousen paving foreman Darrel Styles with mechanic Bob Steel, 1970s.

Top right: Cedar Rapids crusher operation on Skousen’s I-8 project in Casa Grande, 1965.

Above: Belly dump loaded with asphalt on Skousen’s I-8 and I-10 Interchange project in Casa Grande, 1965.

better at managing projects than the owner. W.R., who had a summer home in Pinetop, decided to handle a job in Show Low himself but needed Erck to truck a grader up to his high country house. Erck left the equipment there and stopped by the next day. “W.R. asked me where the heck was his blade?” he says. “I pointed at the grader parked nearby. It had been sitting there all day, and no one had noticed it.”

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Seventy Six

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Cliffco 602-442-6913 cliffcorepair.com DCS 480-732-9238 dcscontracting.com

Westrax Machinery P. BC 800-411-4717 westraxmachinery.net

P. 64,65

Preach Building Supply 602-944-4594 preachbuildingsupply.com

P. 38

WillScot 800-782-1500 willscot.com

P. 38

P. 71

Quip-Cal 212-536-5339 equipmentdecals.com

P. 34

Woudenberg Properties 480-620-8555 woudenbergprops.com

P. 3

Keystone Concrete 480-835-1579 keystoneconcretellc.com

P. 22

Reuter Fabrication 602-415-0449 reuterequipment.com

P. 26

WSM 623-936-3300 wsmacutioneers.com

P. 9

P. 3

Landco Power 480-788-1333 landcorental.com

P. 8

RT Underground 602-622-6789

P. 22

P. 4

Law Enforcement Specialists P. 15 623-825-6700 offdutypoliceofficers.com

Shanes Grading & Paving 602-992-2201 shanespaving.com

P. 77

P. 52, 53

Diamondback Materials P. 22 Lithotech 623-925-8966 602-254-2427 diamonondbackmaterials.com lithotechaz.com

P. 12

Sharp Creek Contracting 602-437-3040 sharpcreek.com

P. 32

DitchWitch 602-437-0351 ditchwitchaz.com

P. 16

Marrs Construction 602-282-4007 marrsconstruction.com

P. 6

Sitech 602-691-7501 sitechsw.com

P. 34

Dynamic Diesel 602-376-1448 dynamicdieselrepair.com

P. 26

Matt Brown Trucking 602-361-2174 mattbrowntrucking.com

P. 63

Solterra Materials 602-531-0454

P. 11

E&E Companies 480-251-8929

P. 34

MDI Rock 602-569-8722 mdirock.com

P. 13

Southwest Asphalt 480-730-1033 fisherind.com

P. 6

ECCO Equipment 602-276-2040 eccoequipment.com

P. 45

Metro Engineering & Survey P. 15 623-466-6640 metroaz.net

Seventy eight

P. 20, 22, 24 & 26

For Advertising Inquires contact: William Horner 602-931-0069 Billy@arizcc.com

Specialty Companies Group P. 6 623-582-2385 specialtycompaniesgroup.com Jan-Feb 2021

HIGH-CAPACITY TRUCK VAC The VXT500 truck vac has 8-cu yds of debris capacity and 850-gallons of water.

The truck’s engine, through an OMSI soft start transmission, powers a 4,800-cfm @ 27 hg vacuum blower and 13-gpm @ 3000-psi water system. The 54,000 GVWR rated axle connguration allows for maximum utilization of the 8-yd spoil tank.

Visit us at vermeersouthwest.com/vermeer-vxt-vacuum-excavators to learn more!

GILBERT, AZ 480.785.4800

TUCSON, AZ 520.574.3400

LAS VEGAS, NV 702.365.1144

Vermeer and the Vermeer logo are trademarks of Vermeer Manufacturing Company in the U.S. and/or other countries. Atlas Copco and the Atlas Copco logo are trademarks of Atlcas Copco. arizcc.com © 2020 Vermeer Sales Southwest, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM 505.345.8787

EL PASO, TX 915.213.1750

Arizona Contractor & Community

PRSRT STD US Postage PAID Permit #1662 Phoenix, AZ

HEAVY EQUIPMENT SALES AND RENTALS We Listen. We Deliver.

Articulated Dump Trucks · Dozers · Excavators · Scrapers Motor Graders (grade control available) · Wheel Loaders Water Wagons · Water Trucks · Fuel & Lube Trucks Mechanics Trucks · Stand Tanks · Water Pumps · Compactors

Rental Account Manager

Rental Account Manager

General Manager

Account Manager

James Bagshaw

Tyler Denton

Brian Collins

Larry Swanson

jbagshaw@pacwesttrading.com tdenton@pacwesttrading.com

602-723-6838

602-541-3633

bcollins@pacwesttrading.com lswanson@pacwesttrading.com

602-620-2383

480-737-4885

3105 N Maple St. Mesa, AZ 85215 | www.pacwesttrading.com

Phone: 480-832-0855