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VOLUME 14 ISSUE 3

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THE FLAGSTAFF STREET HONORING STEVES BROTHERS CONSTRUCTION CO. ARIZONA SNOWBOWL: A SKI AREA CREATED BY WINTER ENTHUSIASTS CHARLES WHITTLESEY’S RUSTIC ARCHITECTURE IN NORTHERN ARIZONA THE EVOLUTION OF FLAGSTAFF’S LAKE MARY WATER TREATMENT PLANT WINSLOW’S MOTOWN MILESTONE: THE JACKSON FIVE’S SECOND HOME

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A CATERPILLAR D9G BULLDOZER CONSTRUCTING INTERSTATE 40 NEAR FLAGSTAFF SUNLAND ASPHALT OVERHAULS ESTES TRUCKING TERMINAL

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THE EVOLVING COST DYNAMICS OF ADOPTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES

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10 12 17 47 48 54 58 64 70 74 76 80 84 88 90 94

CONTENTS Contributors - John Bueker & Mark Edelman From The Editor: A Tiger Searches Arizona for the Ultimate Pu Pu Platter - Douglas Towne Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices Back When: Smooth Landings in Flagstaff Billy Horner Isbell’s Work on Interstate 40: A Route Trailblazed

by Camels and Wagon Trains - Douglas Towne Winslow’s Motown Milestone: The Jackson Five’s First Concert “Tour” Stop - Douglas Towne Winslow Elks Lodge Returns Its Namesake Ungulate to Arizona - Douglas Towne Arizona Snowbowl: A Homespun Ski Area Created by Winter Enthusiasts - Mark Edelman, AICP The Flagstaff Street That Honors Steves Brothers Construction Co. - John Bueker Saluting Arizona’s Builders: B.L. “Gus” Gustafson Douglas Towne Old School Equipment: Twin-Stack Caterpillar D8 Bulldozer Mystery Solved? - Billy Horner Building on the Past: 1965 - The Backwash Tank at Lake Mary Water Treatment Plant - Billy Horner Architect’s Perspective: Northern Arizona’s Rustic Architecture by Charles Frederick Whittlesey Doug Sydnor, FAIA Digging Through the Archives: Flagstaff Paving & Equipment Co. - Billy Horner Bid Results Advertising Index Front Cover -

Ralph Kriese is operating one of Fisher Contracting’s many Caterpillar D9G bulldozers during their construction phase along I-40 and I-17, 1965.

Article on page 48 Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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retired educator living in Glendale, John Bueker has earned a reputation as a midcentury Phoenix history enthusiast with a curious fondness for celebrating vanished local shopping malls and amusement parks.

Decades ago, John transferred his collection of Phoenix historical photos and artifacts into cyberspace, creating a notable assemblage of websites that pay homage to such iconic places as Legend City and Chris-Town Mall. He has been a staff writer for Arizona Contractor and Community magazine since the magazine’s inception in 2012 and published the book Legend City (Images of America) in 2014.

John enjoyed an idyllic childhood in Surrey Heights on the then dusty outskirts of Phoenix. Steves Brothers Construction built the small subdivision, a company he covers in this issue.

Based on the Phoenix neighborhood newspaper he created as a child, John’s online Joan De Arc Crusader garnered a Phoenix New Times “Best of Phoenix” award in 2012.

When not writing about Phoenix history or tinkering with his nostalgic websites, John enjoys traveling with his wife, Susan. In 2024, the pair made a pilgrimage to Salem, Massachusetts, to pay their respects at the site of the old Parker Brothers factory, where many of the games in John’s extensive vintage board game collection were produced.

M

ark Edelman is a professional planner with over 25 years of land development experience in Arizona. He joined the Arizona State Land Department in 1997 while completing his graduate studies at Arizona State University. He went on to work in consulting and homebuilding before rejoining ASLD in 2008.

Since then, Mark has served ASLD’s customers and Trust Beneficiaries through rezoning and developing infrastructure solutions to enhance the value and market-readiness of State Trust land. In his current role as ASLD’s Executive Planner, he focuses on large-scale land and infrastructure development in the Phoenix metropolitan area to provide housing and attract and retain major employers, including Nationwide Insurance, Discount Tire, and TSMC. Notable projects include the Rawhide Wash floodplain channelization in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Desert Ridge (Phoenix), Cavasson (Scottsdale), Superstition Vistas (Apache Junction), and the Peoria Innovation Core.

Outside of work, Mark enjoys researching historic photos and stories and writing about the development of the infrastructure, cities, and recreational areas that shaped modern-day Arizona. He produces a biweekly social media feature highlighting Arizona’s development and periodically contributes to Arizona Contractor and Community magazine.

He and his wife, Janet, enjoy outdoor activities and traveling. Last summer, they explored Vancouver Island, Canada, and have their sights set on Norway in 2026.

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Images Courtesy of Author

Left: Grand Canyon Café, 110 East Route 66, Flagstaff, 1996.

Above: Hong Kong Restaurant, 2328 East Indian School Road, Phoenix, 1993.

Below left: Jade Restaurant, Route 66, Kingman, 1950s.

Below: China House, 3275 South Broadway, Englewood, CO, 1992.

EDITOR’S COLUMN A TIGER SEARCHES ARIZONA FOR THE ULTIMATE PU PU PLATTER DOUGLAS TOWNE

T

he Southwest is famed for its Mexican food, but Chinese cuisine was my go-to option on my initial visits to Arizona. This trend started in Flagstaff in 1981 when the ample neon display of the Grand Canyon Café on Route 66 inspired me to pull over for my first meal in the state after a long drive from Denver.

I was weary from piloting David Cordova’s Olds 88, a gas-hog luxury sedan with an iffy suspension that tended to drift from its lane. After an all-night journey on Thanksgiving, followed by a dreary winter day cruising past Shiprock and deserted

roadside Navajo curio stalls, this Chinese eatery that opened in 1942 provided muchneeded comfort food before we completed our journey to San Diego.

Three years later, en route to Tucson, I stopped at the Hong Kong Café in Show Low for my second meal in Arizona. Eating by myself, a Chinese zodiac paper placemat proved an entertaining dining companion.

I learned that as a Tiger, I was compatible with Dogs and Horses and should beware of Snakes and Monkeys. Such life-changing insights were typically not available at a burger joint.

These feasts came with a complimentary pot of tea and a fortune cookie, along with a choice of soup, appetizer, and entrée. But these choices often weren’t labeled as such; it was selecting one item from Columns A, B, and C. This method proved easy for ordering food with sometimes exotic-sounding names, all for one low price.

Of course, what arrived at the table was something that people in Beijing or Taipei would rarely recognize as Chinese cooking.

These mom-and-pop restaurants offered blander, Americanized versions of traditional dishes. Their featured entrée, chop suey, had been invented stateside and was a stir-fry that usually included meat, celery, onions, water chestnuts, bean sprouts, and soy sauce.

One item always stood out on the menu. Whether for taste, presentation, or its fun-to-pronounce name, there’s no Image Courtesy of Gunnison Library

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denying my weakness for a pu pu platter, that glorious and now hard-to-find flaming appetizer. At its pinnacle, it featured egg rolls, skewered beef, crab Rangoon, wontons, and chicken wings served around a sterno-fueled blaze within a cast iron mini-bucket.

Having Chinese food as my first two food stops in Arizona was likely influenced by their impressive signage and was a fond relic of my days in Denver. A typical weekend night default in high school was the $1 movies at the Gothic Theater on Broadway.

Above: ABC Chinese Restaurant, 2890 East Andy Devine Avenue, Kingman, 1998.

Top right: Golden Moon Palace Chinese Restaurant, 1408 West Van Buren Street, Phoenix, 2005.

Below: Sing High Chop Suey House, Madison and Third Streets, Phoenix, 1979.

Bottom right: Uncle King’s Chinese Mandarin Cuisine, Stockton Road, Kingman, 2003.

In the venue’s small parking lot was China House, a little hut serving “carry-out” meals.

We often saw the restaurant’s proprietor policing its few parking spots from theatergoers, which we once made the mistake of attempting to use, much to his dismay.

Influenced by wild rumors of what went on in its kitchen, no one in our crowd had ever eaten at China House. Finally, about to start a long road trip for a surfing adventure in Galveston, Roy Cohen and I decided to launch the journey in the most memorable way possible by getting to-go orders from the place. The food turned out to be surprisingly delicious. If weird things happened in the kitchen, it just made the chow taste better. So, it was that I often turned to Chinese cuisine when on the road.

These Chinese restaurants featured Cantonese-style cooking. But starting in the 1970s, Mandarin, Szechuan, Hunan, and additional styles have become more

popular, along with cuisines from other Asian nations. The old-school Chinese eateries and their simple cooking have become challenging to find as their original owners retire and shutter the business.

Flagstaff’s Grand Canyon Café closed in 2016 and is now Proper Meats + Provisions.

The Hong Kong Café in Show Low closed at least a decade earlier and is now Bertie’s Café. Unsurprisingly, the spot where China House once stood in Denver has become additional theater parking for what is now a live music venue. The same fate has occurred with old-school favorites in Kingman, Phoenix, and Tucson.

When I travel these days, I keep an eye out for a place with a vintage sign that might serve General Tso’s chicken or moo goo gai pan. These old recipes might not be as yummy as the offerings at trendy fusion restaurants, but nostalgia can still be pretty tasty.

Images Courtesy of Author

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lanes on the eastbound and westbound Interstate 10 mainline in the Broadway Curve area. The extra travel lanes on the eastbound I-10 mainline are located he I-10 Broadway Curve Improve- between I-17 near Phoenix Sky Harbor ment Project is quickly closing in on Images Courtesy of ADOT its completion date, which is spring 2025,” says Arizona Department of Transportation Community Outreach Project Manager Marcy McMacken. “During this last phase of construction, crews will focus on opening an additional high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane on mainline I-10 through the Broadway Curve area and completing the I-10 and SR 143 interchange HOV flyover ramps. Crews will also complete work on signage, lighting, landscaping, and roadways.”

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Images Courtesy of ADOT

Above: Concrete pour on Broadway Road bridge over I-10.

Below: Milling on the eastbound I-10 on-ramp at Warner Road.

Bottom left: “Shoofly” traffic shift on southbound State Route 143.

Bottom right: New Broadway Road bridge under construction.

Project was widening the I-10 mainline from four to six travel lanes and adding an additional HOV lane, bringing the total number of HOV lanes to two in both directions through the I-10 Broadway Curve area. These additional HOV lanes opened to motorists in March. Also, in March, crews finished work on the I-10 and SR 143 interchange, completing construction of the new

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HOV flyover ramps that will connect I-10 and SR 143.

Last summer and fall, the project completed the construction of the Collector Distributor (CD) Roads that run along I-10 in both directions through the Broadway Curve area. These roads separate mainline I-10 traffic from traffic entering and exiting the freeway. The CD roads were also a major component of the I-10 Broadway Curve Project.

The I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project runs along 11 miles of Interstate 10 between Loop 202 and I-17 near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Approximately 300,000 vehicles pass through the Broadway Curve between Baseline Road and

40th Street on an average weekday, according to McMacken. “This number is projected to increase 25 percent by 2040,” she says.

The I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project is identified in the Maricopa Association of Governments’ Regional Transportation Plan, funded by a half-cent sales tax approved by Maricopa County voters in 2004 through Proposition 400. MAG identified the need for this project to reduce travel times on I-10 during peak hours, improve airport access, support ridesharing and transit, and prepare the region for future growth projections.

The Broadway Curve project is a Public-Private Partnership (P3) and Design-Build (D.B.). Unlike traditional design-bid-build projects, D.B. projects are delivered by teams with one contract with ADOT for design and construction services. For this project, the D.B. team is known as the Developer. The Developer is a joint venture of Pulice Construction Inc., FNF Construction Inc., and Flatiron Constructors, Inc., known as Broadway Curve Constructors.

The project designers are T.Y. Lin International Group, Stanley Consultants, and Aztec Engineering.

“ADOT would like to thank the project partners, stakeholders, and the public for their patience for the last three and a half years,” McMacken says. “The size and scope of this project were a huge lift that required several necessary weekend freeway closures that impacted many. Still, as the project ends, motorists will experience the many benefits of the project, including reduced travel times, reduced congestion, and a safer driving experience while traveling through the Broadway Curve area.”

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Jesse Shroyer Project Consultant Experience: 6 years with Sunland Asphalt Favorite job task: Meeting with people from all walks of life and business while working with clients to maintain and improve their properties, thereby enhancing our community.

Most challenging job task: At times, I can spread myself too thin and overcommit my availability. I want people to know that if they need me, I’m always there, and they can count on me, whether it’s a client, a peer, or someone in leadership. At times, this leads to making or answering calls at 3:30 a.m. during the week, or at 7:30 p.m. on a Sunday, or offering my time when I know I’m at capacity. However, if that’s the biggest pain point in my career, I have it good, and I don’t take that for granted.

Most memorable day at work: My first day in the construction industry (June 17, 2019), which changed my life forever.

Favorite off-job task: Traveling the globe and discovering different cultures through food, drink, and conversation.

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SUNLAND ASPHALT & CONSTRUCTION OVERHAULS ESTES TRUCKING TERMINAL IN PHOENIX

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unland Asphalt & Construction’s sterling reputation is known in some distant places, including the World’s Country Music Capital. “Sunland Asphalt was leveraged by Chase Construction Group of Nashville, Tennessee, to perform extensive construction work for the Estes Express Lines Phoenix project,” says Jesse Shroyer, project consultant at Sunland Asphalt.

Chase Construction Group is listed as one of the nation’s largest logistics builders, having completed over $1 billion in projects. It is ranked in the top 400 general contractors by Engineering News-Record.

“With Sunland Asphalt’s extensive footprint and expertise in Arizona, we were entrusted with performing a wide range of work, both in scope and scale, that exceeds what a typical asphalt company can manage,” Shroyer says.

The $15 million Estes Express Lines truck terminal project, located at 2425 South 43rd Avenue in Phoenix, took Sunland 10 months to complete. According to Shroyer, the project was a complete overhaul and expansion of their existing trucking terminal, spanning over 35 acres.

“Raw land sections were developed into new employee parking and added trucking areas,” he says. The main scopes of the project include mass demolition and site grading, underground utilities, concrete flatwork, a new aggregate base course, and asphalt paving. These additions created space for higher freight capacity to operate in and out of the site, resulting in smoother day-to-day operations for all employees.”

Shroyer states that the demolition portion of the project involved the hauloff and removal of some sizeable existing fuel storage cells, as well as the removal of approximately 3,000 cubic yards of asphalt and concrete. “The mass excavation, moving cuts to fills, and import/export activities on the project resulted in the movement of approximately 20,000 cubic yards of material.”

Images Courtesy of Sunland Asphalt

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects Images Courtesy of Sunland Asphalt

Underground utility work comprised over 3,000 linear feet of storm drain piping of various dimensions to accommodate the yard’s expansion.

After completing the underground work on the new pavement sections and concrete finishes for the project, a significant amount of materials was required.

These materials included pouring approximately 20,000 cubic yards of concrete, placing nearly 100,000 tons of ABC material, and paving approximately 40,000 tons of asphalt. “These both reconstructed the existing parking lots on the site, as well as EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Paul Bunnell Project Manager

contributed to the addition of new parking areas for both employee parking and tractor-trailer parking,” Shroyer says.

Shroyer adds that miscellaneous job security included entry and exit gates, over 1,000 linear feet of chain-link fencing, and a 2,100 linear feet CMU perimeter wall with a 2-foot-tall fence on top of the wall. “The installation of four new dual-chamber dry wells, striping and signage work, and other project elements will help ensure the turnkey project adheres to the high standards of all parties involved, including Chase Construction Group, Estes Trucking, and Sunland Asphalt,” he says.

The most challenging aspect of the project was logistics and phasing, according

to Shroyer. “Working with hundreds of semitruck deliveries in and out of the facility is no easy task,” he says. Constant communication between project management, terminal management, and the general contractor has proven vital in allowing for as minimal disruption as possible.”

Sunland Asphalt utilized subcontractors for underground utilities and stormwater management, structural demolition, landscaping, masonry, fencing, and gates.

“Sunland Asphalt is grateful for the opportunity from Chase Construction Group and proud of the partnership between two incredible employee-focused organizations,” Shroyer says.

Experience: 3.5 years with Sunland Asphalt Favorite job task: The people I work with and seeing jobs come together from start to finish.

Most challenging job task: Meeting schedules and ensuring crews always have everything they need to ensure their success on every project.

Most memorable day at work: Completing large or complex projects that I’ve spent a significant amount of time on, and seeing the final product that I was a part of.

Favorite off-job tasks: Baseball, hunting, spending time with family, and flying.

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TWENTY FOUR

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

HAYDON GOES OVERHEAD FOR EFFICIENCY IN CONSTRUCTING QUEEN CREEK CENTER

“I

n the retail industry, it’s not just the physical space we are building that can be unusual but the tenants that give a center its unique character. With Vineyard Towne Center bringing a premier tenant line-up, including the first Zaxby’s in Arizona, it’s clear that Vestar is aiming to create a destination that stands out from other retail centers. For an experienced contractor like Haydon, such notable tenants really signal a project that is designed to draw in both attention and business, which makes

it unusual to us,” says Sarah Leas, project manager for Haydon, about the 23-acre retail center located at the northwest corner of Gantzel and Combs roads in Queen Creek.

Haydon broke ground on Phase II of the $104 million project in May 2024, which is expected to be completed in fall 2025. Vineyard Towne Center offers a mix of shops, services, and restaurants and is owned by Phoenix-based Vestar, the largest privately held shopping center owner and manager in the Western U.S. Leas says that the Phase II expansion of Vineyard Towne Center is attractive to the community and is anchored by Target to bring steady customer traffic. “As a result,

this will benefit nearby businesses, including exciting new additions like Zaxby’s and Better Buzz Coffee,” she says. “These unique destinations will further establish Vineyard Towne Center as a popular gathering spot in Queen Creek.”

Haydon took to the air to construct the Vineyard Towne Center. “Commercial projects come with a lot of moving parts—site grading, utilities, permitting, and more and this one was no different,” Leas says. “Haydon utilizes drones so that from the aerial perspective, it allows us to analyze elevation changes, identify potential grading challenges, and optimize earthwork planning. By mapping out cut and fill areas early Images Courtesy of Haydon

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Sarah Leas Project Manager Experience: 3 years with Haydon Companies; 24 years in the industry Favorite job task: Construction is a career that involves constant change and problem-solving. No one chooses this path because it’s easy or predictable—we thrive on challenges.

We take pride in finding solutions where others see obstacles and bringing visions to life. The tangible results of our work don’t just shape skylines; they become the heart of communities for generations to come.

Most challenging job task: Effectively communicating realistic timelines, monitoring progress, and acting when deviations arise. Balancing these ARIZCC.COM

responsibilities while managing the inherent risks of construction requires constant attention, adaptability, and strategic problem-solving. It’s a perfect job for a mom, don’t you think?

Most memorable day at work: I’ve had the opportunity to lead several projects as a Superintendent, a role where women are still rare in Arizona. That adds a bit of extra pressure—but it’s a pressure I put on myself to succeed. With each project I’ve completed, my trade partners have shared how smoothly things went—like I had been doing this for decades. Those words, along with the appreciation from the field crews who do the hard work, are something I will carry with me for a long time.

Favorite activities away from work: I like to relax by spending time with my family and occasionally hunting.

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects Images Courtesy of Haydon

in the process, the team minimized waste, Masonry (site), and Grazak Mechanireduced costs, and improved overall site cal (shops). efficiency.”

Coordination was key, Leas says, Subcontractors used on the project to keeping the project on track. “With included OMNI Electric (dry multiple teams working utilities), AME Electrical (site HAYDON TOOK TO THE AIR simultaneously, open comelectrical), ELS Maintenance munication and collaboration TO CONSTRUCT THE & Construction (landscape/ ensured that challenges were Irrigation), Integrity Electrical VINEYARD TOWNE CENTER addressed efficiently and Services (building electrical), progress remained steady.

McCain Construction (site utilities), Scotts Having a strong team made all the difDiversified Construction (earthwork/pav- ference in navigating the complexities of ing), Waibel Masonry (shops), Stone Cold the build.”

Haydon touts that they are more like a family than a company. “Since 1991, we have valued our trade partners and the lasting relationships we’ve built in our communities, and we look forward to forging new ones in the future,” Leas says. “Our success is rooted in integrity, quality, and collaboration, and we remain dedicated to these principles in every project we undertake. By upholding these values, we ensure the best possible results for Vestar and its tenants.”

HAVE AN IDEA FOR A CONSTRUCTION OR HISTORY ARTICLE? CONTACT US: BILLY HORNER, PUBLISHER: BILLY@ARIZCC.COM DOUGLAS TOWNE, EDITOR: DOUGLAS@ARIZCC.COM VISIT US ONLINE AT: WWW.ARIZCC.COM ARIZCC.COM

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MAY JUNE 2025

“T

he AZP3 Data Center stands as a landmark achievement in sustainable data infrastructure,” says Carly Ruben-Stahr, Marketing Manager for the Weitz Company. This innovative two-story facility, spanning 10.2 acres at 5100 East Roosevelt Drive in Phoenix, Arizona, holds the distinction of being North America’s first data center to receive BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) design certification.”

The building features premium architectural elements, including precast insulated concrete walls, curtain wall glazing, and composite insulated metal panels.

The facility features four specialized data halls, complemented by interior electrical support rooms and mechanical chillers, which are positioned on a roof platform with full-height, painted metal screening.

The robust structural system features a concrete slab-on-grade foundation reinforced by steel columns, joists, precast shear, and screen walls. “With an impressive total power capacity of 36 MW supported by EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Frank DAscanio VP/GM – Arizona Experience: 20 years with Weitz Company Favorite job task: Leading with safety is a fundamental part of his leadership approach, ensuring every team member thrives in a secure and supportive environment. The most rewarding aspect of his role is fostering the growth and development of his team.

DAscanio finds fulfillment in mentoring individuals, helping them achieve their professional goals, and ultimately driving the company’s success. He strategically supports his team’s development by providing guidance, coaching, and training, aligning with Weitz’s core value of respect for people.

Most challenging job task: As a senior leader, one of the most challenging aspects of DAscanio’s role is managing human relations and talent. Guiding diverse teams and fostering collaboration among individuals with different personalities and perspectives requires skill and experience. Fortunately, his extensive career—spanning roles as an assistant superintendent, superintendent, project manager, and leadership positions, as well as earlycareer experience in preconstruction ARIZCC.COM

Images Courtesy of Weitz

21 emergency generators, this state-of-theart facility seamlessly blends operational excellence with architectural sophistication while maintaining the highest efficiency and security standards,” Ruben-Stahr says.

The most challenging aspect of the project is the constant deliveries of large equipment into a constricted site, requiring meticulous pre-planning and logistics and estimating—has given him a wellrounded understanding of various roles and challenges within the industry. This breadth of experience allows him to navigate complexities effectively and unite teams to work toward a common goal.

Most memorable day at work: Throughout his 20-year tenure at Weitz, DAscanio has experienced numerous significant moments, but two stand out.

One was being interviewed along with the Chancellor of Texas A&M by the news about a major student housing project the Weitz team delivered ahead of schedule. At the time, it was the largest student housing development in the country. Another unforgettable moment was seeing his son step into the industry, working as a project engineer on a Weitz data center project. Watching him take on responsibilities and manage logistics was a proud and meaningful experience.

Favorite activities away from work: DAscanio enjoys unwinding at his cabin in West Virginia, where he spends quality time with family and friends. He enjoys outdoor activities, including hunting, ATV riding, and boating in Florida. A devoted husband, he cherishes weekly date nights with his wife, Rose, whom he has been married to for 28 years. When time allows, he also enjoys traveling and exploring new destinations.

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

WEITZ RECEIVES BREEAM DESIGN CERTIFICATION FOR PHOENIX DATA CENTER

management, according to Ruben-Stahr.

“We focus on some key elements that are crucial to maintaining efficiency when executing a project with a tight site and schedule, including just-in-time deliveries, obtaining special permits, managing remote worker parking, coordinating with trade partners, and ensuring smooth utility coordination,” she says.

A valuable insight for Weitz has been working closely with FM Global to align design requirements with insurance standards. This collaboration has provided a deeper understanding of integrating insurance considerations into the design and construction process.

According to Ruben-Stahr, the Weitz Visual Design and Construction team utilizes cutting-edge technologies to enhance project efficiency and deliver greater client value. “On this project, we utilized Dusty Robotics, an advanced robotic system that automates site layout marking, improving accuracy and efficiency,” she says. “Additionally, we leveraged drone mapping, 3D modeling, 360-degree cameras, and augmented reality to enhance project visualization, coordination, and execution. These tools represent a transformative approach to construction management.”

Subcontractors on the project include Cannon & Wendt, Bel-Aire Mechanical, West Coast Partitions, Suntec Concrete, Carlson Glass, Automated Logic, WW Clyde, and West States Fire Protection. Corgan was the project’s architect.

May 2026 is the estimated completion date for the project. “We appreciate the opportunity to partner with forward-thinking clients like this who share our vision of creating innovative, sustainable, and community-focused projects,” Ruben-Stahr says.

“Their collaboration allows us to push the boundaries of construction while prioritizing safety and efficiency.”

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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MAY JUNE 2025

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

GORMAN COMPLETES CENTERLINE ON GLENDALE, ARIZONA’S FIRST STATEFINANCED AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

​“O

ne of the most rewarding aspects of my job is witnessing individuals in need move into their new homes,” says Mike Ritter, Director of Project Management for Gorman & Company. “Seeing the relief and joy on their faces as they step into EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Joseph “JD” DiCarlo, Superintendent Experience: 9 years with Gorman Favorite job task: Creating new relationships, training new superintendents, and meeting new residents needing affordable housing.

Most challenging job task: Coordinating with six superintendents, including training younger superintendents in a fast-paced environment.

Most memorable day at work: Coordinating and communicating with our vertically integrated team (Development, Architecture, Construction, Portfolio Management) alongside our partners to truly celebrate the completion of an epic project and grand opening event. What an incredible day!

My favorite off-job tasks: Spending time with my kids, ages 16 and 23, along with playing softball, baseball, and golf with friends.

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a beautiful, safe space makes all the hard work worthwhile.” ​Ritter is referencing the grand opening of Centerline on Glendale, Arizona’s first affordable housing community financed using state low-income housing tax credits.

The Arizona Legislature established these credits with the passage of bi-partisan S.B. 1124 in July 2021. Located at 6775 North 67th Avenue in Glendale, Gorman built the $122 million project in two phases over a 21-month schedule. ​Centerline on Glendale is a 368-unit affordable housing development that includes a community building with on-site resident services, a playground, a splash pad, a dog park, and a fitness center. “We have retail space for lease along the West Glendale corridor and an on-site commercial kitchen operated by Local First Arizona, providing a spectrum of opportunities for local food industry entrepreneurs,” Ritter says. ​According to Ritter, one of the more challenging aspects of the project was the overall amount of work completed on any given day. “As Phase I and II of the project were being completed simultaneously, we enlisted seven superintendents to oversee and coordinate the scheduling and scope of the daily work done by our subcontractors.” ​One of the most innovative aspects of the project is that it incorporates photovoltaic panels installed on the community’s carports to cover 100 percent of the electricity used within the common areas. ​Trade partners on the Centerline on Glendale project included AA Security, ADAIS Company, Alcal Specialty Contracting, Allied Forces, Arizona Appliance & Home, Arizona Prestige Cleaners, Arizona Recreation Design, Behmer Roofing & Sheet Metal, Bill’s Pest, Blue Phoenix Mechanical,

Central Valley Specialties, Century Sign Builders, Cookson Door Sales of Arizona, Demers Glass, Design Center Blinds, Destiny Painting, Edge Building Services, Encore Cabinets, Felix Fire, Fierro Contracting, Frontier Door & Cabinet, GD & Son’s Construction, Hashknife Hotshots, JFN Mechanical, J Ginger Masonry, KBB Steel, KLASS Services, Kone Elevator, Lemme Associates, McCain Construction, Mirasol Paint and Drywall, Nunez Contracting, P. E. Drilling, Phoenix Window & Door, Red’s Plastering, Roadway Electric, Scott Fire, Select Interiors, S & S Sealants, Sun Valley Solar Solutions, Splash Zone, Standard Restaurant Supply, Vann Engineering, Westcore Electric, and Western Acoustics. ​As for takeaways from Centerline on Glendale, Ritter says there are always new things to learn on any project. “In this case, I feel the strong, collaborative relationships built with our trade partners and the City of Glendale team were integral to our on-time, on-budget completion.”

Images Courtesy of Gorman

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NOLIMIT PERFORMANCE: A CONSULTING FIRM SERVING THE AEC INDUSTRY AND BEYOND

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rian Ruffner, former director of sales and top sales leader at Comfort Systems USA, has launched NoLIMIT Performance, a premier consulting, training, and coaching firm tailored to the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry—and far beyond. It’s all about transforming organizations with leadership development, team building, and scalable growth strategies.

With over 35 years of experience, Ruffner has a proven track record of driving transformational outcomes in industries ranging from construction and manufacturing to professional services and technology.

During his tenure at Comfort Systems USA, Ruffner grew the sales team from four to 26 members, increased revenue by 10 times, and improved profitability by more than 200 percent.

He is now using the same performance psychology strategies to help organizations of all sizes—from Fortune 500 companies to early-stage startups—improve leadership, foster teamwork, and achieve sustainable growth.

“Leadership and teamwork are the cornerstones of organizational success,” says Ruffner. “At NoLIMIT Performance, we help organizations build an emotionally intelligent (EQ) scalable growth culture that inspires employees to perform at their best.

By improving mindsets as well as behaviors for better performance and providing tailored strategies, our ultimate goal is not just growth but sustainable success that transforms every aspect of a company’s culture.”

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times higher than baseline levels through Above: Brian Ruffner performance psychology. From professional development and leadership coaching to underscoring the importance of teamwork high-impact sales, customer experience, and leadership. NoLIMIT Performance proand group emotional intelligence (EQ) actively delivers initiatives that empower training, the firm delivers customized solu- educators to cultivate collaborative environtions that drive measurable ments that drive student growth, enhance collabo- “LEADERSHIP AND TEAMWORK success. Furthermore, as ration, and build cohesive sports psychologists, Ruffer teams equipped to thrive ARE THE CORNERSTONES OF and his team equip players in today’s competitive ORGANIZATIONAL SUCCESS” and coaches with the vital environment. tools required.

The firm’s certified High-Flyer affiliate Through the application of perfortrainers bring more than 100 years of com- mance psychology, NoLIMIT Performance bined industry expertise. They specialize in enables individuals and teams to conquer DISC-based personality programs, which CV challenges, embrace a growth mindset, and Magazine recognized as the “Best Personal- consistently reach peak performance both ity Training Styles Program in the U.S.” The on and off the field. team includes leaders in the top 1 percent of According to Ruffner, “The goal of this sales, marketing, leadership, team building, human adventure is to see what we can operations, OSHA/safety, and high-perfor- become with all we’ve been given.” For mance business consulting. more information on NoLIMIT Performance, Ruffner’s approach encompasses busi- visit nolimitperformance.biz. nesses, schools, and sports organizations, Images Courtesy of NoLIMIT Performance

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or decades, commercial construction has relied on tried-and-true methods. However, the field is changing, and our project approach must change with it. ​Today’s new technologies promise to make our work faster, safer, and more efficient. However, along with all the benefits, there is a downside. We all need to consider the cost of adopting these tech advancements.

The Initial Investment Headache As we move to adopt the widening array of new technologies, one of our biggest hurdles is always the initial cost. New gadgets and software do not come cheap.

The cost of buying the latest equipment and setting up new systems adds up, especially for smaller companies. ​New technology is ready to enhance project management, cost control, reporting, finance, vendor tracking, safety, and many other areas in commercial construction. However, building a comprehensive and cohesive technology program is extremely costly. In addition, the new technology often proves challenging to integrate with current operations.

Take Building Information Modeling (BIM), for example. To switch to using it, you need more than just the software. You also need the hardware to run it on and train your crew to use it properly. Training takes time and money. Beyond that, while your folks are getting up to speed, they will not be as productive. Clearly, there is a huge investment to put in before you can even hope to see any benefit. ​Understanding cost dynamics and how jobs absorb technology costs is key. Cost structures can differ wildly between technologies; the most popular are subscription,

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cost per project, cost per dollar, and full purchase. Each of these costs is estimated and expensed differently in construction projects. Some pricing models act more like a fixed cost, while others are variable.

The Labor Shift and Training Costs In many cases, new technologies utterly change the way we work. Employing automation and advanced tools requires a workforce with new skills, which means more costs for training current workers or hiring experts. Training does not come cheap, and it’s not a one-time deal. As technology evolves, you’ve got to keep your team up to date. Transitions to new technology can be challenging. Don’t be surprised if productivity dips while your team gets used to new systems. When creating your project budgets, make sure to account for these factors.

Long-Term Payoffs Although the upfront costs of new technology in commercial construction can be tough to swallow, the long-term benefits can be huge. Expensive tech like BIM, 3D printing, and drones make work more precise, reduce mistakes, and keep projects moving. Over time, these advantages can save a lot of money.

When we start to use BIM, for example, we begin to spot problems before we start building. This sophisticated technology alerts us to issues we used to only catch midway through a project. Correcting problems early means we run into fewer on-site surprises and waste less money returning to fix mistakes. ​As another example, additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, can create custom parts quickly and accurately. In many cases, this offers significant savings on materials and labor. ​Much of the new tech benefits our industry by helping us to collect, analyze, and use data. Commercial construction projects struggle with elongated timelines. The initiation, ideation, budget allocation, public votes, bidding, and completion stages can take years. This extended planning

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

THE EVOLVING COST DYNAMICS OF ADOPTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION

Above: Clark Lowe

makes accurate budgets and timelines extremely tricky. However, AI and big data are changing that. ​Modern software tools collect vast amounts of data to help us make more informed decisions on the job site. These AI systems synchronize our schedules with the supply chain, enabling us to avoid storage and hold fees. They process decades of weather patterns, availability trends in materials and staffing, and shifts in the supply chain to deliver highly accurate predictions that make our long-term projects far more efficient.

Economies of Scale When it comes to new technology, bigger companies have the upper hand.

They can spread out the initial costs, buy in bulk, and use the new tech across multiple projects. Smaller firms might find it hard to justify the expense unless they get some financial help or spread the costs over several jobs. ​But here’s the good news: Prices will drop as these technologies become more common. While the early birds will face the highest costs, they will gain a competitive edge by mastering these tools before everyone else. ​If smaller companies prepare to adopt the new technology as soon as they can afford it, they will quickly catch up. Although the upfront investment may be steep, the long-term efficiency, safety, and savings benefits are usually worth it. The challenge is balancing the short-term costs with the potential for long-term rewards.

A ​ s the industry evolves, the companies that get this balance right will lead the way.

Commercial construction is changing fast, and adopting these new tools is an investment in the future.

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

GIFT A SUBSCRIPTION & PUT A SMILE ON SOMEONE’S FACE BOOKS ON 7TH AVENUE CELEBRATES 35TH ANNIVERSARY DOUGLAS TOWNE

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ho is the coolest person in the Valley? According to famed author Tom Robbins, it might be Mary Anne Ramirez, owner of Books on 7th Avenue. He wrote in Tibetian Peach Pie, “Nothing the human race has ever invented is more cool than a book.” And Ramirez has over 200,000 titles in stock at her Sunnyslope store, likely tops in the metropolitan area. ​Customers might tease Ramirez for lacking “shelf control” or being “overbooked,” but many have fallen in love with her creation, where it’s easy to find a book to change your life—or live a second life.

Authors David Gerrold, Carolyn Hart, Joan Hess, and rock star Alice Cooper have been customers. Four movies and a few commercials have also been filmed at the store. ​Books on 7th Avenue recently celebrated its 35th anniversary with cake and coffee, goodie bags, and an opportunity for customers to read passages from their favorite books. This milestone is a fantastic achievement for a mom-and-pop used bookstore in a world dominated by Amazon.

“The bookstore has been a cornerstone of the Phoenix community since 1990, fostering a love of reading and bringing people together,” Ramirez says. “We have cultivated a passion for literature and served as a gathering place for book enthusiasts of all ages.”

The sprawling store, located at 9201 North Seventh Avenue, brims with books, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it from its nondescript building, which initially served as a medical laboratory. Ramirez cleverly uses a signboard along the busy street to attract people seeking an escape

from reality —or perhaps more information. Rotated weekly on it are witty sayings such as “We Have All the Best Stories” and “Books Are a Uniquely Portable Magic.”

“I have been a bibliophile since I was a small child,” Ramirez confesses. “When I wasn’t reading, I rearranged the books on my shelf, sorting them by author, genre, size, or color…basically practicing to own a bookstore!”

After attending Occidental College in Los Angeles, Ramirez apprenticed at The Bent Cover used bookstore, which her aunt, June Patton, owned at Westown Shopping Center. At Books on 7th Avenue, she is assisted by her mother, Marlene Clinton, the head of the shipping department; her son, Jose Ramirez, who is in charge of IT; and a loyal staff of fantastic booklovers.

Customers find the store both “A Great Place to be Stranded” and where “You’re Bound to Find More.” “Through its carefully curated selection of books and welcoming atmosphere, Books on 7th Ave has fostered a love of reading and created a space where individuals can connect and share their literary discoveries,” Ramirez declares.

Despite more people reading on their electronic tablets, Ramirez is upbeat about the store’s future. As English actor Stephen Fry once said, “Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.”

According to Rameriz, customer service and organization are the keys to the bookstore’s success. “Plus, many people prefer the thrill of hunting for a book versus ordering a copy online.” In this manner, many readers have discovered Arizona Contractor & Community, of which Books on 7th Ave is the exclusive distributor in the Valley. And for this, the magazine is eternally grateful for Ramirez’s support.

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LUKE M. SNELL, P.E.

T

here are many instances where temperature measurements are required on a concrete construction project, but the thermometer to be used is usually not specified. An exception is the temperature test for fresh concrete, where the thermometer must measure the temperature of the concrete to ± 1° F accuracy and must be inserted 3 inches into the concrete to take its internal temperature. An infrared (IR) thermometer cannot be used for this test.

There are many instances, however, where measuring temperature with an IR thermometer is appropriate and even recommended: 1. M ​ easuring the temperature of the contact surface before concrete placement, which must be above 35° F. 2. ​Monitoring the temperature under curing blankets to ensure the concrete is kept above 40° F, especially at the blanket’s edges where cold spots could form. This reading should be taken at least twice daily while the concrete is curing.

3. ​For adhesive anchor installation, the concrete must be within the required temperature range specified by the adhesive manufacturer.

4. ​Fresh concrete placed on the ground must be no more than 30° F warmer than the ground.

5. ​Water used for curing should not be more than 20° F warmer than the concrete surface.

6. ​Estimating the concrete temperatures for each truck by measuring the temperature of the concrete as it enters the chute from the truck without getting a sample.

The list goes on, with many other uses for an IR thermometer. These can be trivial, such as making sure coffee is hot enough, or complex

determining where there might be a hot spot in a motor.

Recently, I was on the internet looking for IR thermometers and found that my favorite, which fit conveniently in my pocket and was accurate, had been discontinued.

The number of varieties and their costs can make looking for a new instrument overwhelming. Here are some specifications to use when selecting one: 1. Can it measure temperatures ranging from at least -10° C to 200° C? Most will cover this range; some expensive ones will have more extensive ranges not needed for construction.

2. It has an accuracy of at least ± 4° F. Although the display gives the temperature to 0.1° F, the actual accuracy is ± 4° F. I recommend avoiding those that do not have this accuracy.

3. It should use commonly available batteries that are easy to replace.

4. It should be compact and easy to carry and store. Many IR thermometers look like starter pistols and have holsters. Others are compact and can be carried in your pocket, keeping them warm during cold weather.

5. It has a laser pointer, which helps define precisely where you measure the temperature.

6. It has a Distance to Spot ratio (D:S) of at least 4:1. This means you must be relatively close to the object from which you are taking a temperature reading.

7. Consider mid-priced IR thermometers made by companies specializing in them. In eval- my experience, they are the most durable uations, and accurate. such as Once you have purchased your IR thermometer, you now need to gain confidence Images Courtesy of Author in using it. I recommend that you do the ice Top right: Infrared thermometer. cube test: Above left: Starter’s pistol infrared 1. Fill a cup with ice and add cold water to thermometer.

Above right: Pocket infrared thermometer. cover the ice.

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Practices

INFRARED THERMOMETER USES FOR CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION

2. Wait a few minutes, push the ice aside, and measure the water’s temperature with the IR thermometer about 2 inches above it, holding it perpendicular to the water’s surface.

3. Repeat this five times.

The IR thermometer works properly if all the readings are 32° F ± 4°. If it fails this test, return it to the supplier for a refund or replacement. Repeat this test regularly to ensure the instrument provides reliable readings, especially if any temperatures are questionable.

To successfully use your IR thermometer, here are some best practices to remember: 1. They measure only the surface temperature of an object, not its internal temperature.

2. Although the temperature reading is given to 0.1° F, the accuracy is ± 4° F. 3. To measure its temperature, you must be relatively close to an object.

4. Keep the thermometer as close to perpendicular as possible.

5. In cold weather, keep the IR thermometer warm between uses, such as keeping it in your pocket between readings.

6. Do not try to measure temperatures on shiny objects such as glass, mirrors, aluminum, or metal decks unless you put black tape on them. Then, wait a few minutes for the temperature to stabilize, and measure the temperature with the IR thermometer pointed at the black tape.

7. Be careful with the laser since it can damage eyes by hitting them directly or reflecting off shiny surfaces.

8. The IR thermometer is not a toy and should not be used by children without adult supervision.

I’m confident your infrared thermometer will be both valuable and enjoyable.

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ASSOCIATION OF EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURERS (AEM) STAFF

A

EM’s new report, “Benefits of Construction Technologies and their Impact on Society,” details how four key innovations are helping construction sites become safer and more productive while reducing their environmental footprint.

One of those technologies, machine control, is changing how earthmoving and paving tasks are completed. Previously unimaginable levels of accuracy and efficiency have been achieved, resulting in job sites that are safer and more productive and projects that are completed faster and with less waste.

LESS REWORK, LESS WASTE Everything starts with the accuracy a machine control system helps deliver.

Take grade control, for instance. The most advanced system, 3D grade control, deserves much praise. But even a more entry-level 2D system produces meaningful results.

A 2D-grade control system helps eliminate inaccurate digging by guiding the operator as they dig. The operator specifies vital parameters such as depth and slope in the software. A sensory system on the machine then measures those data points as the machine digs, providing visual and/or audible coaching to the operator via a display screen in the cab.

“This level of machine control is based on plane and slope,” says Sean Mairet, group product manager for Grade Control Image Courtesy of Author

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at John Deere. “It’s an ideal solution on projects that don’t require a complex site design, such as sloping terrain away from a house. The operator tells the machine they want to maintain a 2 percent slope, for example, and the 2D-grade control system controls the blade or bucket to achieve that.

From this standpoint, even a 2D system can help save a lot of time and material by not over-cutting or over-digging.”

Modern 3D grade management takes accuracy to another level with systems that can help equipment operators achieve accuracy up to a millimeter. 3D systems are also more sophisticated and tie into position information and a site design to pinpoint where a machine is located. The position information is provided by either satellite (i.e., GNSS) or an onsite surveying instrument called a total station. Each has its own advantages. Regardless, the precision accuracy of 3D grade control can lead to even greater gains in efficiency and resource optimization.

Industry estimates suggest that construction projects see a 10-20 percent reduction in material use when grade control is deployed. That means the amount of asphalt and concrete saved on public road construction projects each year is enough to pave a two-lane highway from Chicago to Phoenix. That has direct financial implications for construction companies and citizens. By increasing accuracy and reducing waste, taxpayers saved approximately $3.6 billion in material costs on public road construction projects in 2022 alone.

Grade control can also have a positive impact on project scheduling. Time is money on construction projects. Adam Woods, general manager of Innovation and Product Portfolio Strategies at LBX Company, manufacturer of Link-Belt excavation

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HOW MACHINE CONTROL HELPS CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONALS REGAIN CONTROL OF PROJECT ACCURACY AND WASTE: PART 2

equipment, has seen some construction companies improve productivity by 30-50 percent when woperating equipment with machine control.

“Think about a project like an irrigation canal,” says Woods. “If that canal is 1,000 feet long with a 0.3 percent slope, that slope isn’t changing much from spot to spot.

Machine control can constantly check that slope, so it’s accurate. That’s where productivity can really climb because the operator doesn’t have to stop and check grades repeatedly. It’s almost unheard of anymore, but some contractors even finish projects ahead of schedule using this technology.”

“We’ve found that 35 percent of working time on a job site is spent on non-value-adding activities,” adds Brad Viernow, OEM director for North America Heavy Construction at Leica Geosystems. “Additionally, rework can create an average of 10 percent schedule growth. Machine control helps reduce a lot of this waste throughout the construction process. Correctly moving the dirt can reduce job site waste.”

REFILLING THE SKILLED OPERATOR PIPELINE In addition to making equipment safer and more productive, machine control also makes equipment easier to operate. By improving accuracy and taking over certain functions, machine control can help operators become proficient in less time and fatigued far less often.

“It isn’t easy to hop into a piece of construction equipment and start doing what these operators are asked to do,” Mairet says. “Technology like grade control can help operators get comfortable and productive much faster. Even people who’ve been operating equipment for many years will benefit from technology that lightens their workload. That leads to happier and more productive operators.”

“With machine guidance, you can take a proficient operator and make them distinguished,” Woods adds. “With machine control, a novice operator could learn to cut grade within a day or so of using the equipment. Without this type of technology, the necessary training could take months, if not years.”

To that point, machine control is one solution to the growing skilled labor shortage the construction industry faces. Machine control allows equipment operators to rely on real-time data and semiautonomous operation instead of intuition and decades of skill refinement.

“Machine control technologies are modernizing the workflow,” Mairet says.

“Good operators and surveyors have always been able to maintain grade. Machine control is just making that process much safer and more efficient. Machine control is a modern approach to shaping our world.”

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FULTON HOMES TRANSFORMS MODEL HOMES INTO STORYTELLING SPACES FOR A CAUSE

F

ulton Homes, a family-owned Phoenix builder with a reputation for building quality homes with a loyal following, just introduced a completely new concept for the traditional model home. They’ve found a way for buyers to envision their life in the house and connect on a deeper level to the issues that matter most to the local community. In 2024, they launched cause marketing rooms in their models, as Fulton Homes found a gap and opportunity in the industry and was brave enough to do something different.

Charting New Territory Entering the builder’s new community in Avondale, a city in the West Valley, there will be a surprise inside a model home. An entire bedroom that details the builder’s philanthropic efforts and the impact it’s had on the community. Furniture and interior design details have been swapped out for an immersive experience that takes a potential buyer on a journey to something bigger than floor plans and design finishes.

For over 45 years, Fulton Homes has built homes throughout the Valley, kick-starting growth and business around each neighborhood and supporting local causes to help the communities thrive.

The builder is a strong proponent of giving back and continues to place causes at the center of its marketing efforts. The support has coalesced around education, water safety, pets, and veterans, so they decided to design a room around each.

An Education Legacy Education has long been at the heart of the Fulton family’s philanthropic efforts.

They’ve donated over $300 million to the cause. Their contributions have developed the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, which is today recognized as one of the nation’s top engineering schools.

That theme continues down to the K-12 level locally, sustaining programs that recognize outstanding teachers with small grants for their classrooms (School Salute), Images Courtesy of Fulton Homes

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collecting enough school supplies each year to fill a school bus (Stuff the Bus), and helping restock the shelves at local libraries (Load the Library).

By visually stepping into a classroom, the education-themed cause marketing room shows the impact of all those programs, highlighting the importance of education not only as a personal cause for the Fulton family but as an integral piece of any community.

Proud to Support Veterans The Fulton brand is patriotic. Honoring the military and veterans is a core value of the company and is even inherent in its tagline, “You’re Proud to Own, We’re Proud to Build.” Over the years, Fulton Homes has developed close relationships with the Pat Tillman Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project, among others.

A room is being designed to tell that story visually. It will detail how Fulton has helped the veteran community directly through American flag donations, veteran scholarships, and service animal support.

One very successful veteran community program Fulton Homes funds is Operation K9 Companion. Each year, Fulton covers the costs of pairing and training a new service dog for a combat veteran struggling with

PTSD. But the work with pets and Fulton Homes doesn’t stop there—thus the theme for another room.

Pets are Family With so many pet causes, Fulton Homes took on a public service campaign to help pups in Phoenix exposed to extreme heat.

Through their annual and highly anticipated “Cause for Paws” initiative, Fulton Homes addresses the dangers of Arizona’s scorching summer heat for pets. They provide free booties to protect dogs’ paws from dangerously hot sidewalks, showing their commitment to the health and well-being of animals.

Saving Lives Around Water Fulton made the choice years ago to be an advocate for protecting children around water and to prevent accidental drownings.

With community pools central to many of the Fulton communities, promoting water safety is one of the first cause marketing campaigns Fulton Homes undertook. Over $3 million has been donated to the cause over two decades, providing free pool fences (Fence Patrol), swim lessons (2 Seconds 2 Long), and CPR (Everyday Lifesavers) to the broader community. This fourth and final cause marketing room takes the home buyer underwater, showing sobering facts of drownings and using the room as a public service announcement on why it’s essential to be vigilant around water.

Community First By transforming model homes into purpose-driven spaces, Fulton Homes set a new benchmark for integrating philanthropy and a community-first mindset. These cause-marketing rooms demonstrate how homebuilders can go beyond construction, creating homes that tell stories, support causes, and leave a lasting impact.

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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n the world of home services, contractors often find themselves at the heart of families’ lives—transforming houses into homes, creating safe spaces, and ensuring the functionality of living environments. But what happens when a gap in communication turns a routine project into a life-altering tragedy? For Julie Kessler, founder of Oakley’s Oath, this question became deeply personal in 2021, leading her to create a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that seeks to protect families, pets, and home service providers through improved communication and safety standards.

Julie’s story began with heartbreak. Her beloved dog, Oakley, tragically drowned due to a roofing contractor’s failure to communicate the unsafe placement of a pool tarp.

Oakley wasn’t just a pet but a cherished member of Julie’s family. The loss was devastating but also revealed a critical flaw in how contractors and homeowners interact. “It was a preventable tragedy,” Julie explains. “If there had been better communication and safety protocols in place, Oakley would still be with us today.”

Motivated by her loss, Julie founded Oakley’s Oath to address this systemic issue. The nonprofit’s mission is simple but powerful: to close communication gaps between homeowners and service providers, ensuring the safety of families, pets, and contractors themselves. By fostering a culture of accountability and proactive communication, Oakley’s Oath aims to set new industry standards that prioritize safety and transparency.

Below: The Kessler family: Maury with Oakley, Renee, Julie with Spex, and Faith w Panda (r-l).

Images Courtesy of Oakley’s Oath

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Partnering with Contractors for a Safer Future At the heart of Oakley’s Oath is a commitment to collaboration. The nonprofit actively partners with contractors across various trades, from roofing and plumbing to pool maintenance and landscaping, to create a unified approach to safety and communication. These partnerships are built on a foundation of education, certification, and mutual respect.

One of Oakley’s Oath’s flagship initiatives is its contractor certification program, which awards the Oakley’s Oath Seal of Approval to service providers who complete rigorous training in safety protocols and communication best practices. This certification helps contractors stand out in a competitive market and gives homeowners peace of mind knowing they’re working with professionals who prioritize their family’s safety.

“Contractors play such a vital role in the lives of homeowners,” Julie says. “By equipping them with the tools and knowledge to communicate effectively and prioritize safety, we’re creating a win-win situation for everyone involved.”

The training provided by Oakley’s Oath covers a wide range of topics, including: • Best practices for identifying and mitigating safety risks on a job site.

• Clear and effective communication strategies for working with homeowners.

• Proactive measures to prevent accidents and ensure compliance with safety standards.

Supporting Families and Pets While Oakley’s Oath focuses heavily on contractors, its ultimate beneficiaries are families and pets. By addressing the root causes of miscommunication and unsafe practices, the nonprofit is creating safer environments for everyone involved. Julie

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OAKLEY’S OATH: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN SAFETY AND COMMUNICATION IN THE CONTRACTOR COMMUNITY

emphasizes that the organization’s work is about more than just preventing tragedies—it’s about fostering trust and building stronger relationships between homeowners and service providers.

To further this mission, Oakley’s Oath provides resources and educational materials to homeowners, empowering them to ask the right questions and advocate for safety during home improvement projects.

Looking Ahead As Oakley’s Oath grows, Julie remains focused on expanding the organization’s reach and impact. One of her key goals is to increase the number of certified contractors across Arizona and beyond, creating a ripple effect that transforms the home service industry as a whole.

In addition to its certification program, Oakley’s Oath is exploring new ways to engage with the contractor community.

This outreach includes partnerships with trade associations, participation in industry events, and collaborations with businesses that share the nonprofit’s commitment to safety and communication.

How You Can Get Involved Oakley’s Oath always seeks new partners, supporters, and advocates to help further its mission. Whether you’re a contractor interested in becoming certified, a homeowner looking to learn more about safety protocols, or a business seeking to sponsor the organization’s initiatives, there are countless ways to get involved.

Julie’s passion and dedication to Oakley’s Oath serve as a powerful reminder that even in the face of tragedy, positive change is possible. By working together, contractors, homeowners, and advocates can create a safer, more connected world—one project at a time.

Visit oakleysoath.com to learn more about Oakley’s Oath, support its mission, or explore partnership opportunities. Together, we can honor Oakley’s legacy and make a lasting impact on families, pets, and the home service industry.

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Back When

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​F

lagstaff Paving Company donated equipment and materials for a new runway at Koch Field in Doney Park, located about 10 miles outside Flagstaff. The construction took place in 1963 and was overseen by the company’s manager, C.M. Shearer. Only model airplanes, however, were allowed to land on the blacktop there. ​The Flagstaff Model Airplane Association, affiliated with the National Academy of Model Aeronautics, raised $200 to help offset the expense. The project at the Old Flagstaff Airport involved leveling an area

of 80 by 150 feet, which workers then covered with one inch of asphalt.

“Before paving, the [model airplanes’] small engines and propellors were easily ruined in landings and take-offs by small rocks or rough terrain,” noted an article in The Arizona Daily Sun. At that time, radio-controlled and control-line airplanes with seven-foot wingspans cost between $200 and $700. Interest in flying model planes continues today, supported by groups like the Flagstaff Flyers R/C Club.

Above: Megow’s Model Airplane advertisement, 1950s.

Below: C.M. Shearer, Flagstaff Paving Co.; Elmer Hubbard, chairman of the Flagstaff Model Airport Association; and Myron Wells, owner of the model airplane (l-r), 1963.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

ISBELL’S WORK ON INTERSTATE 40:

A ROUTE TRAILBLAZED BY CAMELS AND WAGON TRAINS DOUGLAS TOWNE

I

n 1962, Isbell Construction Co. employees and their subcontractors were gearing up to build Interstate 40 near Flagstaff, likely unaware that they were part of the world’s largest construction project. This was the Interstate Highway System, championed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, which created a transportation network that would forever alter the nation’s travel patterns and the American motoring experience.

What these construction workers did know some 63 years ago was that FORTY EIGHT

the four-lane freeway they were building across northern Arizona traversed terrain as challenging as it was beautiful, with the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks serving as a backdrop. When the first official notice to build a section of Interstate 40 between the Arizona communities of Flagstaff and Williams was announced, it was near routes that travelers had traversed for at least a century by other means.

In 1857, Congress commissioned retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Edward Beale to design and construct the first federally

funded road through the southwestern U.S. In a bold decision, Beale acquired 22 camels from the Middle East to transport supplies for his 50-man crew. The camel proved adept at their task, but Beale’s crew was untrained in handling the animals, so their utility in the Southwest was brief.

Beale still managed to create a 10-footwide track with rocks pushed to the side to smooth the way for wagons through northern Arizona, according to a U.S. Forest Service brochure, Beale Wagon Road Historic Trail. “It provided a serviceable route for 1,240 miles, from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to the Colorado River near Needles, California, all for the bargain price of $210,000, an amount that would produce feet rather than miles of interstate highway today. History and wagon ruts tell us that uncounted thousands followed its simple tracks.”

MAY JUNE 2025

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Above: Isbell Construction crews cutting and filling a large stretch of roadway to build Interstate 40, 1962.

Right: Isbell Construction supervisors and employees during the construction of Interstate 40, 1965.

Camels and wagon trains became outdated modes of transportation in 1883 with the completion of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad across northern Arizona. The tracks, now owned by BNSF Railway, were initially used to haul both freight and travelers, although passenger service declined after World War II. Rail passenger service began facing competition in 1912 from travelers using the National Old Trails Road across northern Arizona. In the Grand Canyon State, this roadway was officially designated as Route 66 in 1926. The so-called Mother Road ARIZCC.COM

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Left: Copper State Construction Co. is building the John Wesley Powell Boulevard bridge over Interstate 17, just south of Interstate 40, near Flagstaff. A Copper State LeTourneauWestinghouse scraper uses the unpaved Interstate 17 as a haul road, 1960.

Below: Beneath the snowcapped San Francisco Peaks, Isbell Construction’s crushing operations along Interstate 40 between Flagstaff and Kingman in 1965.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

became a cherished and essential two-lane highway, revered in songs and TV shows.

Traffic on Route 66 surged to such an extent that by 1962, plans were initiated to construct Interstate 40 in Arizona.

Much of Interstate 40 near Flagstaff, and it’s connection to Interstate 17, was built by Isbell Construction Co. of Phoenix and its subcontractors. Other companies such as Fisher Contracting of Phoenix, worked on portions of the interstate project Isbell was formed in San Diego as a partnership between John Wesley (J.W.)

FIFTY

Isbell and his four sons, Clement (C.V.), Wilmer (W.J.), Guy (G.V.), and Roy (R.S.), around 1910. Isbell Construction, which performed highway and mining work, relocated to Nevada in 1924. Besides Nevada and California, the company worked on construction projects and mines in Arizona, where it had a regional office, as well as in other Western states.

Isbell Construction was the low bidder at $1.8 million to build 3.4 miles of Interstate 40 between Williams and Flagstaff in 1962. Three other contractors submitted

bids for the stretch of freeway located 15 miles east of Williams.

Isbell Construction would eventually receive six contracts totaling $11.1 million to build 25 miles of Interstate 40 between Flagstaff and Ash Fork, located west of Williams. Included in the construction were 21 consecutive miles stretching from 6 miles east of Williams to 5 miles west of Flagstaff.

The remaining stretch was 4 miles from U.S. Highway 89 east toward Williams.

Along with the interstate, Isbell Construction was responsible for building eight interchanges, one grade separation, and an overpass for the Santa Fe Railroad near Flagstaff. Casa Grande Materials was subcontracted for the concrete work.

“Traffic is using the old highway [Route 66] during construction, being held up periodically during blasting in tough malpais rock cuts,” according to an article in the July 1963 issue of Arizona/New Mexico Contractor and Engineer. Isbell Construction moved 3.3 million cubic yards of roadway excavation, with at least half of it blasted using a mixture of Apache Powder and ammonium nitrate.

According to the magazine, Isbell Construction had 200 employees working on the project and operated its crusher plant in two shifts. Equipment included 20 Caterpillar crawler tractors (mostly D8s), 11 Euclid

MAY JUNE 2025

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Above: Isbell Construction Caterpillar and Hough loaders, filling rock trucks along Interstate 40, 1965.

Right: Morrison Knudsen’s extensive soil cement operation along Interstate 40, as a tank of cement hauled by James Bond Trucking, feeds two Pettibone-Wood mixer machines, 1966.

Bottom right: Morrison Knudsen using a CMI machine during paving operations on Interstate 40, 1967.

Below: A vintage S&H Green Stamps sign, 2023. or Images Courtesy of Auth

scrapers, 8 Euclid dump trucks, 10 Timpte dump trucks, two Hough Payloaders, and two crushers (Cedarapids and Pioneer), as well as a Bucyrus-Erie electric shovel.

Isbell Construction encountered an issue that had long-bedeviled contractors working on Route 66: a shortage of water.

Initially, the company had an adequate supply from Williams but they later switched to wells at Bellemont, near Flagstaff, which quickly strained the local water supply, according to Arizona/New Mexico Contractor and Engineer.

To promote job safety, Isbell Construction used an old-school incentive program.

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Employees were rewarded with 100 S&H Green Stamps each week they worked without an accident. These trading stamps were commonly given to customers when they purchased groceries and could then be redeemed for products from the Sperry & Hutchinson company. S&H Green Stamps faded from use by the late 1980s.

Despite the water issues, Isbell Construction was touted as “way ahead of schedule” on 7 miles of grading on Interstate 40 in an article in the November 1964 issue of Arizona/New Mexico Contractor and Engineer.

In the same issue, excess water was cited as a problem for Mesa’s Copper State Construction Co. $283,221 project, which involved building a two-lane, 235-foot bridge spanning Canyon Diablo east of Flagstaff on Interstate 40. Heavy summer rains made it challenging to complete the threespan, four-steel-girder structure on time,

Above: A Morrison Knudsen paving crew near Flagstaff, 1966.

Right: The evolution of travel in northern Arizona: camels, trains, and Route 66.

Below: Morrison Knudsen using Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to push a fleet of 631 scrapers along Interstate 40 near Seligman, 1966.

which featured a 7.5-inch concrete deck.

After the completion of the Interstate 40 project, Isbell Construction and Interstate 40 took different trajectories.

The company faced challenges due to aging ownership, family animosities, and accounting issues with the Internal Revenue Service. In 1965, the Isbell family decided to sell the company to A. N. Pritzker of Chicago.

He quickly sold all the mining equipment to the Duval Company and, in 1966, auctioned Isbell’s Arizona division highway construction equipment in Peoria. When Isbell Construction closed and liquidated its assets in 1966, several employees joined Morrison Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

FIFTY TWO

Images Courtesy of Author

Knudsen (MK), to help complete the Arizona projects Isbell had started. These jobs included building sections of Interstate 40 across Northern Arizona.

Interstate 40 soldiers on, six decades later. Travelers have several options when crossing northern Arizona, but I-40 is direct and fast.

Those intrigued by the path Lieutenant Beale and his camel corps created can walk the original roadbed, visible as a slight depression and sometimes lined by rocks.

Train enthusiasts can hop aboard Amtrak to “See America,” including a comfortable, scenic journey through northern Arizona. Those enamored with the vintage roadside can still get “Their Kicks” on segments of Route 66, including the longest bypassed section that stretches 87 miles between the Arizona communities of Seligman and Kingman.

Most travelers and truckers, however, prefer the quick journey on Interstate 40, many sections of which were built by Isbell Construction and its subcontractors. The freeway hasn’t inspired any iconic songs, but it does help you reach your destination faster. And who doesn’t want to save time?

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featured the elegant La Posada Hotel, a busy airport designed by aviator Charles Lindbergh, and Arizona’s first divided stretch of highway, Route 66.

Within a decade, however, La Posada had closed, and Winslow was shedding residents—a decline that lasted until 2000. Still, the city managed to attract at least two new residents in 1966: Samuel Jackson and his wife, Crystal Lee King Jackson—elderly Midwesterners who yearned to be close to their daughter, Lula Hawkins, a nurse who moved to Arizona with her daughter in 1961 to alleviate the child’s asthma.

The Jacksons moved into a house kitty-corner from where Zach Thomas grew up on the northeast corner of Snider Avenue and Fourth Street, a block off Route 66. “My mother, Lila Thomas, worked in the kitchen with Mrs. Jackson at Winslow Head Start,” Image Courtesy of Linda Kor the 63-year-old retired construction engineer said in 2018.

Their son, Joe Jackson, and his family visited the couple that summer. The entourage included his wife Katherine, daughters Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, and sons Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Michael, collectively known as the Jackson Five in Gary’s up-and-coming R&B scene. The the Painted Desert” was competing with band’s drummer, Earl Gault, also fit into (now uber-hip) Flagstaff for preeminence the crowded Volkswagen van that made in northern Arizona. The cities had similar the 1,600-mile journey from Gary. They populations as late as 1950 when Winslow made only one stop, a five-hour break to

WINSLOW’S MOTOWN MILESTONE: THE JACKSON FIVE’S FIRST CONCERT “TOUR” STOP DOUGLAS TOWNE

W

inslow’s passing mention in the 1972 song “Take It Easy” by the Eagles has long kept the struggling Arizona community along Route 66 afloat in our pop culture consciousness. In 1999, the city transformed a vacant downtown lot into Standin’ on the Corner Park, which annually attracts an estimated 100,000 visitors.

The site features statues of two guitarists, including the song’s co-writer Glenn Frey of the Eagles, and a mural of a blonde female driving a “flat-bed Ford.”

However, the park salutes a song about an event that didn’t occur in Winslow. Jackson Browne, the song’s co-author, said the image of the girl driving the truck happened in Flagstaff, according to a Los Angeles Times article in 2015 Less well-publicized is another piece of Winslow’s musical history that also involved some folks named “Jackson.” Just a block from the park is the venue where a legendary Gary, Indiana, group performed in 1966. Most rock fans making pilgrimages to Winslow are not aware of this unmarked site of an early Jackson Five performance, one of Arizona’s most surprising musical claims to fame.

Although an unlikely locale for a milestone Motown concert, Winslow was a vibrant place in 1966. The “Gateway to

Image Courtesy of mjarchives.com

Above: An ad for the Jackson Five’s concert at the Elks I.B.P.O.E. in the Winslow Reminder on August 20, 1966.

Right: Michael Jackson in an Arizona bar.

FIFTY FOUR

MAY JUNE 2025

Image Courtesy of Gilles Petard-Redferns

Left: The Jackson Five in 1969.

Above: The Jackson Five in 1966.

Below: The Black Elks Lodge in Winslow, 2016.

Image Courtesy of Retro

visit relatives in Oklahoma City, according to Steve Knopper’s 2015 book MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson.

The Jackson kids had never before left the Gary area and were happy for a break from the crime-ridden industrial city. The future “King of Pop,” Michael, in particular, was amazed by Arizona’s landscape.

“Michael used to like nature-type stuff,” said Gault, in Knopper’s book. “He ended up putting some of that red dirt [from Northern Arizona] in this jar and bringing it back.”

The Jackson Five formed in 1964 at the behest of their father, who managed them in a notoriously domineering—by many accounts abusive—manner. The group had

previously ventured only as far as Chicago’s South Side for gigs in clubs, “playing between bad comedians, cocktail organists, and strippers,” Michael recalled in Knopper’s book.

The Jackson clan visited the Grand Canyon, fished at nearby Clear Creek Reservoir, and frequently rehearsed while in Winslow.

Image Courtesy of Author

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“I was closest to Tito, who was my age, and Jermaine,” Thomas said. “Every night, a group of neighborhood kids would play baseball at the rodeo grounds ballfield, and the Jacksons occasionally joined us.”

One evening, when the Jackson Five hadn’t rehearsed enough to satisfy their father, Joe showed up. “He walked onto the

field, halted the game, and started spanking all his sons,” Thomas said. “The rest of the kids stood there in shock. For him, it was all about having his sons practice their music, but I guess it paid off for them.”

“The Jacksons knew how to play baseball,” their cousin Wendell Hawkins, Lula’s son, concurred. “We fielded a team of the

Images Courtesy of Author

Jacksons along with a few friends and relatives and beat Winslow’s best. The locals were so mad, there was a big scuffle afterward.”

The band’s rehearsals at their grandparent’s house attracted an audience.

“They were unbelievably good,” Thomas said. He recalls the group playing at the Elks I.B.P.O.E.W., or Black Elks Lodge, located a block from the Standin’ on the Corner Park.

On August 18, 1966, the group’s concert two days later at the lodge was promoted in the Winslow Reminder, a mimeographed advertising sheet. “The Reminder was published three times a week and was the Twitter or Instagram of its day,” says Docia Blalock, the Winslow city librarian whose staff discovered the ad.

The announcement urged everyone to “Dance to the music of the Jackson ‘Five’ (ages 7 to 14) and Gault, the drummer, from Gary, Indiana for ‘$1.25 per person.’” The performance drew an enthusiastic, racially diverse crowd, according to Thomas. “People threw change on the stage, which was common back then for good performers so they could make money,” he said.

Above: The Standin’ on the Corner Park in Winslow, 2015.

Left: “Visit Winslow” sign, 2015.

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“I vividly remember Michael performing a James Brown dance routine, where he’d do the splits on stage to kick the money back to his brothers,” Wendell Hawkins said in 2018 of the concert.

The group performed covers of hits by James Brown, Sam and Dave, and Motown artists. The Motown selections were prescient: The Jackson Five’s first four singles were written for the group after they were signed by Motown Records in 1969. “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There” all reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top 40.

Thomas recalled the Jacksons also performing concerts at Winslow’s since-demolished Prairie Moon tavern and the Winslow Armory. He says the family revisited Winslow in the summer of 1967 and made a brief stop still later. “They were looking for their cousin, Lula,” Thomas said.

“Tito told me they were on their way to Los Angeles to record music, but I didn’t believe him. Next thing, I saw them on The Ed Sullivan Show.”

The Jacksons’ grandparents moved to Phoenix around 1968, where they passed away in the early 1990s. As the decades passed, memories of the Jackson Five in Winslow faded. After Michael Jackson died in 2009, Thomas contacted the local newspaper about the story. “It was exciting to have the information verified and see legend become fact,” said Linda Kor, managing editor at The Tribune-News/Silver Creek Herald, who wrote an article on the rock history apocrypha. “Winslow has had this jewel of information hidden away, and no one really talked about it.”

After Kor’s article, Thomas experienced the opposite problem. “Many residents wanted to write themselves into the history of the Jackson Five,” he said. “The stories just kept getting crazier and crazier.”

A tribute to Michael Jackson was held as part of Winslow’s Standin’ on the Corner Festival in 2009. Thomas’s cousin, Mary Alice Hayes, and her gospel group, Sounds of Faith, performed at the tribute. “I invited Michael Jackson’s cousins, Wendell and Martell Hawkins from Phoenix, to visit, and they joined us onstage to sing a few of his songs,” she said.

Travelers now have another reason to stop in Winslow and envision how the city hosted both country rockers and future Motown artists who visited via Route 66 when the highway was the Main Street of America. “After learning about the Jackson Five story, I could almost picture the neighborhood kids hanging out on the sidewalk down from Samuel’s house, getting into the music emanating from the garage,” Kor said.

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Image Courtesy of Linda Kor

counterparts,” wrote Michael Furtman in his 1997 book, Seasons of the Elk. But Merriam’s elk proved a bit too popular with settlers in Territorial Arizona. The animals’ meat, hide, and ivory teeth provided sustenance and income. The state’s native elk population, which was described as “very plentiful” in 1876, rapidly became scarce. The Territorial legislature, encourWhen Europeans arrived in North aged by the Tucson Gun Club, banned elk America, six subspecies of elk—approxi- hunting in 1887, but it had little impact; the Image Courtesy of Library of Congress mately 10 million animals—roamed the continent. These subspecies included an Eastern variety found east of the Mississippi River, Roosevelt or Olympic elk in the Pacific Coast mountains, Tule or Dwarf elk in California’s San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, Plains elk in the western plains, and Rocky Mountain elk in the Intermountain West.

The sixth subspecies, Merriam’s elk, thrived in the mountains of Northern Arizona and ranged into New Mexico. Much of what is known about the subspecies is based on historical accounts and a paltry two specimens. “The Merriam was thought to be larger than other elk subspecies, which contradicts Bergmann’s Rule that southern animals are smaller than their northern

WINSLOW ELKS LODGE RETURNS ITS NAMESAKE UNGULATE TO ARIZONA DOUGLAS TOWNE

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heartbreaking loss occurred in Arizona’s northern forests at the turn of the 20th century: the crisp autumn air no longer thundered with the calls of bugling elk. The majestic and mysterious Merriam’s elk, a subspecies endemic to the Southwest, had gone extinct. “The decline and likely extirpation coincided with the expansion of human settlement, which led to competition with livestock and unregulated hunting,” said Amber Munig, big game management supervisor at Arizona Game & Fish Department in 2019.

After the tragic extinction of Arizona’s native Merriam’s subspecies, no elk cast a shadow in the state for more than a decade.

During their absence, the perception of this statuesque ungulate evolved from a mere commodity to a revered creature that rightly belonged in the Arizona landscape. To fill the void, an unlikely source lived up to its name by facilitating the restocking of another subspecies to the state, as the Elks did elk.

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Above: Winslow Elks Lodge, 2019.

Right: A Rocky Mountain subspecies of elk in Yellowstone National Park, 1907.

MAY JUNE 2025

Images Courtesy of The Old Trails Museum

Left: Yellowstone elk unloading in Winslow, 1913.

Below left: Elk in Arizona.

Below: Winslow Elks Lodge, 2019.

last Merriam was likely killed by a hunter in 1898. This decline mirrored the continent’s overall decrease in elk, which had dropped to 90,000 animals by 1900.

Reestablishing elk in Arizona was the idea of Dr. Robert Nelson Looney, the state’s health commissioner and an avid outdoorsman, who was fond of the ungulate. In 1912, the frontier doctor discovered that another subspecies, the Rocky Mountain elk in Yellowstone National Park, were Image Courtesy of AZGFD

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available to replenish areas where the herbivores had once thrived. Looney’s relocation plans gained support from Arizona Governor George Hunt and an unexpected but poetically suited ally, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of which he was a member.

BPOE was an unlikely group to assist with wildlife conservation, as it was founded as a mutual-aid society for New York actors in the 1860s. The fraternal organization Image Courtesy of Linda Kor

adopted the elk symbol because it represented American strength, and its members often wore elk teeth made into rings cuff links, and hat pins, as part of their official attire.

BPOE is not a wildlife advocacy group like Ducks Unlimited; however, the fraternal order eagerly embraced what they called a “noble and tremendous task” of reintroducing the animal that represented their brotherhood. Led by Winslow Lodge No. 539, the 11 Arizona Elks lodges took charge of the logistics and financed the reintroduction.

The Elks assessed each of their members 50 cents to help cover the $2,125 relocation cost to transport 86 elk from Gardiner, Montana, to Winslow by train.

“They were shipped double first class, traveling 24 hours and resting the same period accompanied by a hired competent keeper the entire distance,” according to the BPOE’s Meteor newspaper. In 1913, three elk died during the 1,500-mile railroad trip

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from Gardiner to Billings on the Northern Pacific, from Billings to Denver on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, then from Denver to Flagstaff on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroads. A total of 68 cows and 15 bulls, whose antlers had been sawed off to prevent them from harming each other during transit, arrived at Winslow’s Santa Fe Railroad shipping yard.

The Elks had built 12 horse-drawn, specially adapted freighting wagons to transport the animals to the forest. “We certainly had a hard time loading the elk into the crated wagons,” an Elk member stated in the Meteor. The ungulates can weigh over 1,000 pounds, run at 40 mph, and leap 8-foothigh obstacles. The Elks hauled the animals 50 miles south through a blizzard to Cabin Draw in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. They fed them in a corral before the elk were released that spring.

The herd thrived even though the Arizona Legislature voted down a proposed elk preserve south of Winslow. Game wardens would have supervised this sanctuary to dissuade hunters from illegally killing the animals.

Despite opposition from cattle ranchers, BPOE sponsored 202 additional elk transplants from Yellowstone, released at Mt. Graham and the San Carlos Apache Reservation in 1918, at Alpine and Kingman in 1927, and near Williams in 1928. The reintroductions were not without controversy.

The Kingman animals were initially destined for Williams, but local stockmen opposed their release, fearing they would compete with cattle for forage, so the Elks

delivered them to the Route 66 town further west. The surprised Kingman Elks made plans to herd the elk to a suitable habitat.

“The men opened the gate, and that was all. The animals had ideas of their own and made it to the Hualapai Mountains well ahead of the escorting cavalcade of riders,” according to an article in Arizona Days and Ways in 1958.

Today, Arizona has a healthy population of 60,000 of these animals. The Arizona Game & Fish Commission authorized an annual elk hunt in 1935. “About 9,000 Image Courtesy of Charlene Myers

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Images Courtesy of The Old Trails Museum

Above: Yellowstone elk loading in Gardiner, Montana, 1913.

Below: Al Carter with Arizona Sand & Rock Co. posing with an elk he shot, 1951.

elk are currently harvested annually by hunters,” Munig said. Elk are now so plentiful in Arizona that animals from the state have repopulated the habitat initially occupied by the Eastern elk, which went extinct around 1880. Arizona shipped 26 elk to Kentucky in 2000 and 60 animals to West Virginia in 2018.

But one fascinating question continues to stir debate among elk enthusiasts: Did any Merriam’s elk survive to interbreed with the Rocky Mountain elk transplanted in 1913? DNA analyses have not revealed evidence to support this hypothesis. The DNA testing also examined the validity of Merriam’s elk as a legitimate subspecies.

Results indicate that native Arizona elk differed from those farther north, based on a limited sample population of two specimens of Merriam’s elk.

This lack of a genetic connection to Merriam’s elk hasn’t dulled the enthusiasm of modern Arizonans who perform animal conservation work.

“As an elk lover, I am glad the BPOE Elks Lodge had the wisdom and foresight to bring the elk to Arizona,” Stephen Clark, executive director of the Arizona Elk Society, said in 2019. “I’ll never forget being able to take my dad out to see elk and having him be in total awe of their majestic presence. I wish more people would get out to appreciate these animals and then volunteer to help us conserve their habitat.”

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SIXTY FOUR

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F ARIZONA SNOWBOWL: A HOMESPUN SKI AREA CREATED

BY WINTER ENTHUSIASTS

MARK EDELMAN, AICP

lagstaff is unique among Arizona cities. It stands above the rest of the state, with the San Francisco Peaks as a forested and sometimes snow-covered backdrop. The city is a transportation hub, the home of Northern Arizona University, and an outdoor recreation, leisure, and tourist destination.

Arizona Snowbowl, a key piece of Flagstaff’s recreation offerings, is an alpine ski resort established on the western flanks of the San Francisco Peaks in 1938. It is located 15 miles north of Flagstaff, has an average annual snowfall of 260 inches, and is the state’s oldest downhill ski area. Arizona Snowbowl’s base elevation is 9,200 feet and lifts transport skiers to an impressive 11,500 feet. While Flagstaff and skiing seem an obvious fit today, skiing first had to evolve from a winter survival tool to a standalone recreational pursuit.

From its founding through the early 20th century, Flagstaff was a working-class town of lumberyards, stockyards, and railyards that was separated from Tucson and Phoenix by days of arduous road or rail travel. There wasn’t much demand for leisure pursuits, and skiing before the advent of motorized rope tows or ski lifts was a strenuous activity.

Skiing was introduced to Flagstaff by brothers Pete and Ole Solberg, who had emigrated from Norway’s Telemark region, where the eponymous style of skiing is more akin to the Nordic – or cross-country version of the sport than the Alpine (downhill) skiing that occurs at ski areas like Arizona Snowbowl. Ole gave an interview in 1975 where he described cross-country skiing as the most practical way to get around on frozen fields and roads during the Norwegian winter. He also recalled building ski jumps that were the source of childhood thrills and occasional serious injuries.

The Solberg brothers eventually settled in Flagstaff, where they first worked in the Riordan lumberyard before establishing themselves as skilled carpenters. Heavy snowfall during the winter of 1914-15 led to reduced work and income. To survive, the brothers hunted rabbits and small game in the forest using homemade skis. One day, they took a break from hunting and brought their skis to Mars Hill near the Lowell Observatory, where they took downhill runs and performed ski jumps.

Since many townspeople had never seen skiing, word spread quickly, and they persuaded the Solberg brothers to return and put on another demonstration. The exhibition was newsworthy enough that the Coconino Sun published an article about it, and Pete and Ole Solberg were recorded Left: Arizona Snowbowl, 1958.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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Above: The snowcapped San Francisco Peaks, 1961.

Right: Contractor B.L. Gustafson took this photo of his wife Van (center) and friends at Arizona Snowbowl in 1931.

Below: Arizona Snowbowl Lodge, early 1950s.

as the people who introduced skiing to Flagstaff.

Through the 1920s, Flagstaff grew, and new state and federal highways increased the number of travelers and tourists. The same gasoline engine technology that was being used in vehicles was also being applied to winches and tow lines, allowing skiers to spend less time climbing and more

time skiing. Although interest in downhill skiing grew, developed ski areas were still relatively rare. It was more common for skiers and sledders to share the same space on hills or unplowed streets. The irregular nature of these temporary arrangements could be unsatisfying, dangerous, and sometimes deadly to their users.

The U.S. hosted the 1932 Winter

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. It marked the first time the games took place outside Europe and exposed many Americans to competitive skiing, which sparked greater interest in downhill skiing as both a sport and a leisure activity.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, he championed the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps to Images Courtesy of Author

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Left: Edward C. Groesbeck, Arizona Snowbowl’s “father” (standing, second from left) at a U.S. Department of Agriculture awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., 1949.

Above: U.S. Postage stamp commemorating the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.

Bottom: A Coconino rotary snowplow clearing Arizona Snowbowl’s parking lot of 46 inches of hardpacked snow, 1941.

address the Great Depression’s rampant unemployment. Under the CCC, young unmarried and unemployed men were typically organized into camps of 100200 members to construct infrastructure, recreational facilities, and other public improvements. These camps developed numerous ski areas in the National Forests and Parks during the 1930s.

The interest in skiing and the availability of CCC labor in Flagstaff during the mid1930s led to the development of the Arizona Snowbowl. On the demand side, Flagstaff High School and the Arizona State Teachers College (now Northern Arizona University) had ski teams that wanted improved facilities. So did the newly-formed Flagstaff Ski Club and the city’s 20-30 Club for

young adults. On the supply side, Coconino National Forest’s timber staff officer and avid skier Ed Groesbeck oversaw a CCC camp and needed projects to keep it busy.

In 1935, the college ski coach wanted to hold a Winter Carnival in the city park at Mars Hill. There wasn’t much snow in town that winter, but there was ample snow at Hart Prairie on the west side of the San

Images Courtesy of Author

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Above: Snow Ranger Jay Shoemaker at Arizona Snowbowl, 1961.

Right: Forest Ranger Harold Pilmer operating a radio at the finish line of ski races at Arizona Snowbowl, 1941.

Below: Skier atop Humphrey Saddle at Mt. Agassiz, 1941.

Francisco Peaks. The relocated event was successful, but the ranch roads to Hart Prairie were inadequate for heavy usage.

In 1936, the 20-30 Club and the Flagstaff Ski Club set up a seasonal ski area with a winch lift on the ranch road a few miles below Hart Prairie, with their ultimate goal of developing a permanent ski area there.

Groesbeck recognized the local demand for a ski area and the opportunity that it presented for the CCC, so he worked with the

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clubs to submit a formal proposal to construct a graded, cinder-surfaced road from Fort Valley to Hart Prairie and to build a ski lodge at its end. The Forest Service approved the project, and CCC construction began in 1938.

While the road and lodge remained unfinished, Arizona Snowbowl was officially established in 1938 when the 20-30 Club and the Flagstaff Ski Club obtained a Forest Service use permit and brought a V-8

car engine to Hart Prairie to run a rope tow.

The volunteer-led operation was only open on weekends. The clubs sold coffee and sandwiches to raise money while charging skiers 50 cents per day to use the rope tow and another 50 cents per day to rent ski equipment.

Snowbowl Road and the lodge were completed in 1939. The paved road still follows the same route the CCC established, but the CCC’s Hart Prairie lodge was Images Courtesy of Author

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After the Snowbowl road and lodge were completed, the 20-30 Club turned Arizona Snowbowl operations over to the Flagstaff Ski Club, which sold $25 bonds to raise money for a purpose-built rope tow motor. A few weeks after the new motor was installed in December 1939, Arizona Snowbowl drew capacity crowds on weekends, and the Flagstaff Ski Club quickly repaid the bonds.

After achieving relative success in their part-time volunteer operation and surviving World War II’s gas rationing, the Flagstaff Ski Club sold their Forest Service special-use permit and Arizona Snowbowl’s buildings and operations to Flagstaff businessman Al Grasmoen in 1946. In 2010, the Arizona Daily Sun noted that while Ed Groesbeck was the “father” of Arizona Snowbowl, Al Grasmoen had the vision and business acumen to build it into the continuing commercial venture that it remains today.

In the late 1940s, Ed Groesbeck helped create another ski area on Bill Williams Mountain in the Kaibab National Forest and received the Forest Service’s Superior Service Award. Other key players in Snowbowl’s founding would later contribute to developing other Arizona ski areas at Mount Lemmon near Tucson and Sunrise Peak near Greer. Arizona Snowbowl continues to thrive within its 777-acre permit area, serving skiers and snowboarders throughout the Southwest.

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THE FLAGSTAFF STREET THAT HONORS STEVES BROTHERS CONSTRUCTION CO. JOHN BUEKER

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hoenix’s fabled summer heat apparently dictated the destiny of one of the more extraordinary home construction outfits in Arizona history.

When the Steves brothers George, James, and Leon completed their military service after World War II, the trio returned home to the Buckeye area with homebuilding ambitions and formed Steves Brothers Construction Co. However, the men soon perceived the need to resettle their lives and construction business in cooler climes and decided in 1955 to transition to the frostier environs of Flagstaff. “It just got too hot in the Valley, so we moved up here,” George mused many years later. This relocation proved to be a most fateful decision.

Leon Steves assumed the leadership position as president of the new building firm, with James as the vice president

and George as secretary-treasurer. The Steves Brothers Construction Co. would ultimately develop over 2,000 residential units in Flagstaff, Sedona, and Phoenix, in addition to several significant commercial

developments. Such was the lasting impact and influence of this construction business that a principal street in East Flagstaff would be named for the trio: Steves Boulevard.

Convinced that future growth in Flagstaff would favor the east side of town, the brothers targeted their initial developments accordingly. The original Steves subdivisions were situated far to the east of the thencity limits of Flagstaff in a largely forested area, nothing less than a visionary move Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Top: George, Leon, and James Steves (l-r), examining plans for Flagstaff projects, 1960.

Right: Ken Wayman, sales manager, and Leon Steves, president of Steves Bros. Construction (l-r), view plans at their Greenlaw Estates No. 7 residential tract, 1961.

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Above: The Steves Bros. Construction Inc. company logo, late 1950s.

Right: James Steves, Layton Beamer of Greenlaw Co., Leon Steves, and Thomas Knoles, Jr. of Greenlaw Co. (l-r) review plans for Steves’ new Greenlaw Shopping Village, 1964.

Bottom left: John Bueker’s childhood home at 3227 West Eugie Avenue in Surrey Heights, 1960.

Bottom right: Steves Brothers advertisement for their Surrey Heights residential tract, west of 31st Avenue and south of Thunderbird Road, 1961.

at a time when the area’s growth was still highly speculative. The brothers moved forward with their venture amidst a persistent chorus of naysayers who dismissed the company as opportunistic fly-by-nights, an opinion the men would soon decisively dispel.

The original Steves-built developments were the Pine Park Manor and Greenlaw Estates subdivisions in East Flagstaff. In their first four years, the company built and sold over 900 homes in the area. Within their first decade, the Steves would produce more than 1,000 homes in Flagstaff, Winslow, and Phoenix. From the outset, the Steves’ homebuilding ethos emphasized using high-quality materials and construction combined with attractive home features.

When the company built Greenlaw Estates No. 7 in East Flagstaff in 1961, the Steves’ home models had become Image Courtesy of Author

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Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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increasingly sophisticated, with a handful of floor plans, two-car garages, stylish foyers, divided dressing rooms, and three types of fireplaces. “It is our desire to offer buyers the latest in building design in the most modern subdivision in this area,” observed Leon Steves as No. 7 neared completion.

In 1960, Steves Brothers Construction shifted gears, electing to establish its presence in Phoenix by breaking ground on an ambitious subdivision in the Deer Valley area, west of the Black Canyon Freeway and south of Thunderbird Road. Built nearly simultaneously with the Staggs-Bilt Westown homes directly to the south, the new Steves project would be dubbed Surrey Heights.

Surrey Heights was so named because the plot of land upon which it was built was found to be slightly elevated compared to the surrounding terrain. An October 1960 advertisement for the new subdivision in The Arizona Republic enticed prospective home buyers with the alluring tidbit: “Surrey Heights is higher than Phoenix proper, and therefore cooler.” The notion that Surrey residents would detect a perceptibly lower temperature outdoors during the sweltering summer months was certainly dubious; yet, the grandiose branding for the new neighborhood proved to be both memorable and enduring.

A total of 168 homes were built during Phase I of the Surrey Heights project, with plans to erect 500 units ultimately. By August 1962, 225 houses had been built when the Steves sold the Surrey Heights subdivision to B.L. Shuffler and E.A. Kerley, who would develop the remaining 256 lots as Surrey Heights Phase II. A half-dozen

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

phases of Surrey Heights would ultimately be built around the original subdivision by various developers, ending with the completion of Phase VI in 1971.

The Steves Brothers’ knack for promotional wizardry attained its zenith with the fabled pair of hot air passenger balloons they procured for the Surrey Heights

grand opening festivities. Constructed of vinyl film, each measuring 14 feet in diameter and containing 3,500 feet of helium gas, the balloons were specially built for the construction firm in Phoenix by Goodyear Aircraft. Since they were the first balloons of this type ever built for use in Arizona, special permission from the Federal Aviation Agency was necessary for their deployment in promoting the Surrey Heights homes.

An enduring legend recounts the day one of the unoccupied balloons escaped from Surrey Heights during a Grand Opening event and ascended high into the atmosphere, traveling as far as Oklahoma before being reported as a UFO and subsequently shot down. Jim Steves was exceedingly fond of recounting this story for many years thereafter, although his daughter Kathryn Willis has cautioned that the story may be “slightly exaggerated.”

The Steves’ fascinating legacy will rest primarily on their remarkable homebuilding achievements. Yet, the company also made significant forays into commercial construction, most notably Flagstaff’s Greenlaw Above: A bulldozer clears land for Steves Brothers’ apartment complex near Flagstaff’s Coconino Estates, 1967.

Left: Two Euclid 14TDT scrapers and a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer clear land for Steves Brothers’ Greenlaw Shopping Village, 1964.

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Shopping Center and the Americana Inn Hotel. Other notable projects included the Pinewood Country Club in Munds Park, south of Flagstaff, and Sedona’s Wild Turkey Townhouse.

The Americana is undoubtedly the company’s most historic and iconic commercial creation. Situated along the fabled Route 66 as it winds through Flagstaff, the landmark 151-room motor hotel was built in 1962 with state-of-the-art amenities, including air conditioning, television sets, a banquet hall, a supper club, and 24-hour coffee service. The hotel also saw its share of renowned guests and visitors through the years, including Elvis, Robert Kennedy, Peter Fonda, and B.B. King.

The motel was reopened in the summer of 2023 after a two-year, $20 million top-tobottom renovation by Practice Hospitality, a property management company. The facility was rebranded as the Americana Motor Hotel, featuring a sophisticated “retro-futuristic” theme that emphasizes dynamic color schemes and geometric carpet patterns, accentuated with dramatic lighting effects, in a laudable attempt to recapture the atmosphere of the vintage American roadway and the motel’s historical roots.

According to General Manager Zach Miller, the ultimate goal of the renovation was to “give that nostalgia back to people.”

In the late 1960s, the Steves building partnership came to an end, with the brothers opting to move on and pursue individual business interests. “George took over ownership and operations at the Americana Motel and stayed there until he died while Leon and Jim remained in the building business,” says Greg Steves, Leon’s son. Leon began construction of condominiums in the Oak Creek area. At the same time, Jim continued with James E. Steves Construction, which later evolved into a family-owned corporation called Steves Built Homes Inc. The company ultimately expanded to include Steves’s four daughters and their spouses.

Jim Steves continued to work in the business until he passed in 1991.

Jim Steves’ rich homebuilding legacy was honored by the National Association of Home Builders in 1992 with the establishment of a scholarship fund and memorial golf tournament sponsored by United Metro Materials, Arizona Public Service, and Steves Built Homes. In its inaugural year, the fund provided $1,000 in support to the Construction Management program at Northern Arizona University.

Readers can still enjoy the Steves Brothers’ unique construction achievements by visiting the extant bounty of their inspired work in Flagstaff, Phoenix, and other Arizona communities.

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SALUTING ARIZONA’S BUILDERS: B.L. “GUS” GUSTAFSON DOUGLAS TOWNE

T

hough Phoenix contractor Buford Leon (B.L.) “Gus” Gustafson had a talent for building roads, by some accounts, that wasn’t his true passion. Gustafson might have found more happiness as a cowboy since he seemed most content in the saddle with a dog by his side. “Gus loved horses and dogs and had plenty of them,” says Mary Head, his adopted daughter. “But he couldn’t stand cats.”

Gustafson was born in 1905 and raised in southwestern Minnesota. “He never went past third grade and started working by age 14. He continued to work for the rest of his life,” Head says. “His first job involved carrying buckets of water for the workers to drink.”

At some point, Gustafson married his first wife, Van, and relocated to California.

He worked on the Hoover Dam but established his own firm after an earthquake in California. “He purchased a bobtail truck and loaded it by hand, taking several loads of the rubble each day to the dump,” says Shane Dikoff, president of Shane’s Grading & Paving Service, Inc. “He decided to move to Phoenix around 1945.”

In Phoenix, Gustafson founded B.L. Gustafson Construction with the advertising jingle, “Nothing Too Big or Too Small: Just Give Us a Call.”

The Gustafsons lived on a 10-acre homestead in the country at Campbell Avenue and 16th Street, where they raised horses and chickens. Gustafson’s passion for equestrian pursuits motivated him to help improve the Murphy Bridle Path along Central Avenue in Phoenix. In 1948, he organized the 16th Annual Phoenix Horse Show at the Arizona Biltmore Stables, attracting 5,000 spectators.

Gustafson’s horseback riding days ended abruptly during a rodeo parade in the late-1950s. “Gus was hurt riding with the Maricopa Sheriff’s posse,” Head says. “His horse reared up and fell on him, crushed his pelvis. He didn’t ride much after that.”

His company, B.L. Gustafson Construction, however, continued to thrive, building and resurfacing highways across Arizona.

“He was the best,” Bob Gustafson, his nephew, declares. “He could look at a piece of property and know exactly how much it would cost to build a road through it.

During the mid-1960s, the company’s work included State Route 96 south of Bagdad, State Route 77 south of Globe, State Route 177 south of Superior, State Highway 160 between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, State Highway 77 north of Show Low, U.S. Highway 60 east of Show Low, U.S. Highway 70 east of Globe, Route 66 between

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor

& Community

Kingman and Ash Fork, State Route 79 from Cordes Junction to Flagstaff, U.S. Highway 60 east of Aguila, and State Route 65 southwest of Winslow.

Working for Gustafson could be a roller-coaster ride, according to Dikoff, who helped him run scale operations at a crushing plant north of 35th Avenue and Cave Buttes Dam in 1984. “After an altercation with one of his supervisors, Gus let him go,” Dikoff says. “He told me that I was running the company now! I was only 20 years old, Above: B.L. Gustafson, 1955.

Below: Fleet of B.L. Gustafson’s dump trucks hauling dirt, mid 1940s.

Image Courtesy of Mary Head

MAY JUNE 2025

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

nervous, and he kept reassuring me I could handle it.”

Gustafson was a good man with a sense of humor but was easily distracted.

“I remember riding in his truck as he veered towards oncoming traffic because he had turned around to give treats to his black labs in the back seat,” Dikoff says. “I would have to yell at him to get his attention. I always tried to avoid riding with him after a couple of those trips.”

Dikoff recalls that Gustafson bought a new truck and, a week later, had scraped the entire side.

“He said a fence got in the way,” Dikoff says. “He didn’t get too bothered by much at his age.”

Gustafson’s life changed after his wife, Van, died in

1990. Velma Fulton, whose husband, Bob, had recently passed away, stopped by to offer her condolences. “We all went to Bob’s Big Boy,” Head says. “Gus’s eyes lit up and sparkled in her presence. Velma just made his life.”

They married a few months later, and Gustafson tried to bestow gifts on his new wife. “Gus wanted to buy Velma a brand-new Cadillac,” Head says. “But she declined, declaring that his dogs would have just jumped into the car and ruined the leather seats.”

The couple were members of the First Southern Baptist Church near Grand Canyon University. Gustafson generously paved the church’s parking lot at no cost. Gustafson closed his construction company around 1990 to devote more time to his second marriage. He died in 1998. “Those were the best years of his life,” Head says.

Head says that, while Gustafson always treated her wonderfully, that kindness didn’t always carry over when you had to deal with him in business. “Gus didn’t get to where he was without stepping on a lot of people,” she says. “He seemed to prefer animals to humans.”

Above: Van Gustafson beside a billboard announcing her husband was the contractor for an 8-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 87, 1951.

Top left: Leveling a hill to build a custom home at 11th Street and Butler Drive in Sunnyslope, 1971.

Top middle: B.L. Gustafson at a job in Northern Arizona, 1939.

Top right: B.L. and Van Gustafson at Christmas, 1969.

Images Courtesy of Mary Head

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OLD SCHOOL EQUIPMENT: TWIN-STACK CATERPILLAR D8 BULLDOZER MYSTERY SOLVED? BILLY HORNER

W

riting a last-minute article can be a real challenge, especially when I realize that my previous piece on the twin-smokestack Caterpillar D8 bulldozer was based on good faith but contained inaccuracies. In the March-April 2025 edition of the Old School Equipment column, I highlighted Caterpillar’s D8 bulldozer from the 1950s, providing an explanation of its design. However, after reviewing new information, it’s clear that my assessment wasn’t entirely correct.

A text message from Buddy Escapule said, “I saw this, and it made me think of you,” prompting me to take a second look at the twin-stack D8. The message also included a picture of a twin-stack machine and offered some insight into why such a machine existed. I thought I had exhausted all my sources by asking others, scouring the internet, and checking vintage D8 service manuals. However, I had only come across one image out of hundreds showing a twinstack D8, with no explanation beyond the fact that it was a D8 machine.

Below: In 1960, Vinnell Corp. utilized a twin-stack Caterpillar D8 15A bulldozer on an Arizona road project, pushing a towed scraper connected to an early Cat D9 bulldozer.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

In his February 29, 2024, article in NZ Contractor Magazine titled “A Legendary Tractor – The Caterpillar D8,” Richard Campbell dives into the history of the D8 Hi-Output (HO) machines. The 2U series, produced between 1946 and 1951, was part of Caterpillar’s development. In my previous article, I correctly noted that twin-stack machines were first seen in pictures from the early to mid-1950s. Still, I made a key error when I stated that Caterpillar never produced a factory D8 bulldozer with twin smokestacks. In fact, they did, just not on a large scale.

As Campbell points out, “Special production variants also began to appear ex-factory, such as the D8 Pusher and D8 HO machines.” These modified machines kept the same D13000 engines but had increased output to accommodate Caterpillar’s new line of larger scrapers. The modifications Campbell mentions include higher fuel rack settings, idle speeds, and ratio transmission. Caterpillar equipped these machines with twin stacks to accommodate these changes and reduce back pressure in the cylinder heads.

A thread on the ACMOC Forums discusses twin stacks’ potential benefits and drawbacks. One forum member mentioned,

“As far as the dual prefilters and twin stacks, they are of questionable value. In fact, the dual stack may be detrimental in terms of exhaust scavenging, and were not used on the 2U successor, the 13A series of 180 horsepower.” One of our illustrations shows the Vinnell Corp. using a 2U successor 15A model with twin stacks in 1960.

YouTuber Mike McWilliams also has videos featuring a 1951 D8 HO in operation. In the comments, a variety of cynical opinions are expressed about what these machines were or weren’t. McWilliams notes, “The High Output was a dealer modification to help the D8 horsepower. This old Cat was turned up as a dealer option from 140 to 180 horsepower.”

While it’s now clear that Caterpillar did offer a lesser-known factory twin stack D8 bulldozer, it’s still possible that individual dealers had a hand in the modifications or contractors added or made their own field modifications. Some images show stack pipes at varying heights, indicating that they may have originally housed a spark arrestor.

Others feature rain caps or welded sections between the stacks for support; some have twin air cleaners. These twin-stack D8 bulldozers were not only seen in the United States but also spotted in British Columbia and New Zealand.

One lingering question remains unanswered: why was the twin-stack D8 airbrushed out of a 1952 advertisement, leaving only one stack visible?

We’re grateful for the tip from the multitalented Mr. Escapule, and we hope he’ll add the 1:25 scale 1951 D8-2U Hi-Output machine to his diecast collection.

MAY JUNE 2025

Top: Mike McWilliams with his 1951 Hi-Output D8, 2019.

Above: The twin air filters on Mike McWilliams’ 1951 Hi-Output D8, 2014.

Left: Mike McWilliams’ 1951 Hi-Output D8 during maintenance, 2015.

Below left: Operators with L.M. White Construction Co., Tucson, with a twin-stack, twin air cleaner D8, 1956.

Below right: A 1:25 scale model patterned after McWilliams’ 1951 Cat D8-2U Hi-Output machine, 2025.

Image Courtesy of Contractor Magazine

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BUILDING ON THE PAST

1965 - THE BACKWASH TANK AT LAKE MARY WATER TREATMENT PLANT BILLY HORNER

A

key piece of Flagstaff’s water infrastructure is along Lake Mary Road at the Lake Mary Water Treatment Plant. In 1941, a large water tower was built and painted white at the facility, then known as the Flagstaff Water Treatment Plant. It was used to treat and store surface water from intermittent flows in Walnut Creek, providing drinking water to the city.

In 1965, the facility underwent a significant upgrade. A 200,000-gallon Backwash Tank was constructed to hold water used for backwashing the plant’s filters. Backwashing removes sediment and impurities from the filters, ensuring the water remains clean and safe for consumption. This new tank could process up to 4 million gallons of water every 24 hours, significantly improving the plant’s capacity to provide municipal water for Flagstaff.

Alongside the Backwash Tank, four chemical storage units, each with a 25,000-gallon capacity, were constructed.

These tanks stored chemicals required for treating water, ensuring a safe resource for Flagstaff residents. The H&R Transfer Co., Flagstaff division, was contracted to erect the structures, which remain a prominent feature of the plant.

In 2023, the Backwash Tank underwent a significant facelift to maintain its functionality and appearance. The project involved pressure washing the exterior and adding a coat of paint. This restoration ensured that the tank continued to meet health regulations.

Right: H&R Transfer crane erecting the Backwash Tank along Lake Mary Road, 1965.

Below: H&R Transfer crane hoisting up one of four chemical tanks into place, 1965.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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n northern Arizona, there are two iconic examples of early 20th-century “Rustic” architecture, one of which influenced future National Park Service structures in other scenic locations such as Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. Charles Frederick Whittlesey is the architect responsible for these structures, along with others in Illinois, New Mexico, and California.

Whittlesey was born in 1867 in Alton, Illinois, and his family moved to Chicago in 1882. At age 15, he apprenticed with Addison and Fieldler Architects, a job that lasted for eight years. Afterward, Whittlesey became a draftsman at Adler and Sullivan Architects, where the famed architect Louis Sullivan influenced his future work. He then formed his own Chicago-based firms, Whittlesey and Terwilliger Architects and, later, Charles F. Whittlesey Architect.

In 1892, Whittlesey married Edith Mable Cruver, and they had four children: Enid, Beatrice, Austin, and Harold. Austin also became an architect.

Architect’s Perspective: Northern Arizona’s Rustic Architecture

by Charles Frederick Whittlesey Doug Sydnor, FAIA Doug_sydnor@outlook.com In 1900, Whittlesey became the Chief Architect for the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe Railroad Company, designing railroad stations and hotels. Three years later, he moved to Los Angeles and then San Francisco around 1907 to assist with the reconstruction efforts after the devastating earthquake. Over the years, his work included custom residential, hospitality, auditoriums, and commercial.

Whittlesey’s civic involvement included chairing the Los Angeles Building Code Revisions, particularly concerning reinforced

concrete construction. He also presented a paper titled “Concrete Construction” at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) meeting. Whittlesey passed away in 1941 in Los Angeles at the age of 73.

Two featured Arizona projects from the early part of his career include the 1904 Riordan Mansion in Flagstaff and the 1905 El Tovar at the Grand Canyon.

The Riordans were an Arizona Territorial family with a strong interest in lumber, but they also dabbled in railroads, cattle, banking, and politics. They played a key role in Below: Riordan Mansion, 2022.

Images Courtesy of Arizona State Parks

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Images Courtesy of Author

the development of Flagstaff and northern Arizona. Brothers Timothy and Michael Riordan married sisters Caroline and Elizabeth Metz, and they had architect Charles Whittlesey design a luxurious residential duplex for their two families near Northern Arizona University. The project included 13,000 square feet with two wings at 6,000 square feet each, linked by a large living area.

The Riordan Mansion’s architectural character is rooted in an Arts and Crafts or rustic style. Building volumes were mitigated with a casual floor plan and a sculpted roofscape. Exterior materials used native stone on some lower walls and defined arched openings on outdoor porches. Exposed wood log plank construction was used at the first level, with layered wood shingles on the second. Wood beam extensions are fully expressed on the exterior and demonstrate how the structure was framed. Varied pitched and wood-shingled roofs with overhangs shed the rain and snow. A series of stone fireplaces provide heat for the interior spaces.

In 1978, Arizona State Parks received a warranty deed conveying the Riordan Mansion and most of its contents and five acres. Riordan Mansion State Historic Park opened in 1983 with Timothy A. Riordan’s east wing. In 2002, Michael J. Riordan’s west wing opened for self-guided tours. The park was slated to close in 2010 due to state budget cuts, but the contract was renewed for another three years with a requirement that it be self-funded. The Riordan Action Network Group was created as a team of local volunteers to fundraise to keep the park open and pay staff salaries. The park now relies on a few staff and volunteers to ARIZCC.COM

maintain the mansion and provide public tours. In 2022, it had 29,268 visitors.

In 1902, Charles Whittlesey designed a Harvey House on the Grand Canyon’s South Rim for the Santa Fe Railroad. Three years later, it opened near the Grand Canyon Depot as one of a chain of hotels and restaurants owned and operated by the Fred Harvey Company in conjunction with the railroad. This Harvey House was named El Tovar after Spanish explorer Pedro de Tovar, who inspired a Garcia Lopez de Cardenas expedition to a “large river in the area,” presumably the Colorado River.

Following the hotel opening, the Grand Canyon Game Preserve was established by President Theodore Roosevelt’s executive order in 1906, which expanded protections

by President Benjamin Harrison in 1893. The Grand Canyon National Monument was proclaimed in 1908, and Congress established the Grand Canyon National Park in 1919.

The hotel is on 20 acres at the South Rim, about 20 feet from the canyon rim.

It was built as a “destination resort” that would provide a luxurious retreat. El Tovar is one of the first hotels situated within a national park, and it started the National Park Service creating hotels in parks to accommodate railroad tourists.

The original plan was for 103 guest rooms and 21 guest bathrooms, but it evolved to 78 guest rooms, each with a private bathroom. In 1983, a significant renovation replaced the original wood casement windows with dark bronze anodized aluminum units.

El Tovar is similar in character and material to the Riordan Mansion as it also has the rustic character adopted by the National

Above: El Tovar at South Rim, 2025.

Park Service in the following years. Exterior materials included massive local limestone arches at the porch corners, Oregon pine log planks in lower walls, and wood shingles at the upper levels. Building heights vary from two to four stories and adapt to the sloping topography. The lobby is behind a broad, inviting entry veranda flanked by stone walls and topped with a symmetrical and outreaching pitched roof. An extensive dining room features framed canyon views.

The overall character is rustic but a hybrid blend of other influences, such as a Western-Swiss theme, a Mission Revival style, and Arts and Crafts furniture. Over the years, Southwestern Native American themes have become more prevalent.

El Tovar was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Hotels have become a vital component of the Grand Canyon Village Historic District, which includes the Bright Angel Lodge, designed by architect Mary Colter.

I had the pleasure of attending the 69th Arizona Town Hall at El Tovar in October 1996, just as the first winter snow blizzard arrived. Spending four days at the historic hotel and experiencing the Grand Canyon under differing environmental conditions, such as fresh snowfalls, sunrise and sunset, storms and fog rolling through, and varied and dramatic lighting, was unforgettable.

Douglas B. Sydnor, FAIA, is Principal at Douglas Sydnor Architect + Associates, Inc. and author of four architecture books.

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Above: Cale M. Shearer Jr., 1954.

Right: Shearer posing with a new Cedar Rapids asphalt plant, set up on the east side of Flagstaff, 1963.

Below right: Blade operator Jerald Edge and Carter pose with a new Adams 660 blade for a Road Machinery Co. advertisement, 1959.

Below: Carter’s business card for Flagstaff Paving & Equipment, 1957.

DIGGING THROUGH THE ARCHIVES:

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

two bandits robbed him at gunpoint after hiding in the rear seat of his auto while he was in a buffet near 32nd Street and East Van Buren. According to The Arizona Republic, they tied Shearer with heavy rope and a leather belt and left him at Papago Park.

Five long hours passed before a couple disThe third key figure behind Flagstaff covered and freed him.

Paving & Equipment Co., was Cale M. By 1950, Shearer was the vice president Shearer Jr. A native of Kentucky, Shearer of Bentson Contracting Company, a job that moved to Phoenix with his family in 1910.

He graduated from Phoenix Union High School, followed later by the University of Arizona. In 1928, Shearer was hired by the Arizona State Highway Department’s engineering division. In 1935, he joined the U.S. Soil Conservation Service as an engineer and conservationist.

In the mid-1940s, Shearer left government employment and became part-owner of Bartol & Shearer, a successful Phoenix contractor specializing in roadwork and materials. He had a scare in 1945 when

FLAGSTAFF PAVING & EQUIPMENT CO. BILLY HORNER

“I

f it were up to me, it would be 1955 forever,” stated Arthur Fonzarelli, the iconic character from Happy Days. It was a good year for the Fonz, and it also marked a pivotal time for three longtime business associates who decided to establish Flagstaff Paving & Equipment Co. Arizona Sand & Rock Co. (ASR) employees have been featured regularly in our magazine. We’re even planning a special issue in early 2026 to celebrate the Phoenix company’s legacy, timeline, ventures, and notable projects. However, let’s now examine how ASR connections led to Flagstaff Paving & Equipment Co. James Bond, who predated the “other” 007, owned a massive fleet of dump trucks that worked throughout Arizona. While not technically an employee of ASR, Bond rented his trucks to the company for various projects. During these collaborations, he befriended C.A. “Al” Carter, a self-taught engineer who progressed from a night watchman to general manager at ASR. The upcoming special issue dedicated to Arizona Sand & Rock will highlight Carter’s full story.

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Mye Image Courtesy of Charlene

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Images Courtesy of Charlene Myers

lasted for four years. Although not an ASR employee, Shearer’s experience in construction brought him into contact with Bond and Carter, leading to a business partnership.

By early 1956, Flagstaff Paving & Equipment began bidding on and securing projects around the city. The company offered hot-mix asphalt, paving, and equipment rentals. At this time, Shearer was winding up his commitments with other contractors, preparing to focus entirely on the new venture.

The company also provided community service to those entities dear to its heart.

In 1957, Al Carter, a longtime auto racing enthusiast, paved Arizona’s only asphaltpaved midget racing track outside Flagstaff at Fort Tuthill. That year, the fourth annual Northern Arizona Midget Racing Championships were held at the track.

Flagstaff Paving’s main office was initially located at the corner of Second Avenue and Main Street in Flagstaff. The company operated a plant and equipment yard just down the street between Route 66 and Interstate 40, where the current Nestlé Purina plant is today.

In early 1959, a fire broke out in the yard, destroying the facility. Despite the setback, Flagstaff Paving & Equipment persevered, continuing its contracting, paving,

and material supply operations. In addition to providing asphalt and aggregates, the company supplied scoria for block-making operations in Phoenix. Carter took charge of mining and processing the volcanic aggregate found in the Flagstaff area.

While all three men were partners in Flagstaff Paving & Equipment, they continued to be involved in other businesses and side ventures. In 1961, Carter and Bond parted ways with Flagstaff Paving & Equipment. The following year, Phoenix contractor W.R. Skousen acquired the

company. Shearer remained as the general manager under a new name, Flagstaff Paving Co. Under Skousen’s ownership, Shearer secured a first in Flagstaff with a new $100,000 Cedar Rapids asphalt plant.

Flagstaff Paving Co. continued to lay asphalt in the Flagstaff area until it was liquidated in the mid-1960s. In 1967, Shearer shifted his focus to his company, Shearer Paving Co., which he founded in the mid1950s. He continued to run the business until he died in 1973.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Above and top right: Flagstaff Paving & Equipment warehouse fire, 1959.

Above right: Bond and Carter (l-r) were friends long after working together at Flagstaff Paving & Equipment Co., as shown here on vacation in Rhodes, Greece, in the 1970s.

Right: Barber-Greene laydown machine used

by Flagstaff Paving Co. in its improvement plans for the City of Flagstaff, 1964.

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Cordes Junction Flagstaff Sunset Pt William Charles Construction 4/4/25 $6,054,382

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R.E. Miller Paving, Tucson $4.61 million Alvernon Way, Ft. - Lowell and Grant City of Tucson

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Hill Street Kloss Ave Improvements ERC Environmental Construction 4/1/25 $313,667

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CAT 745 Next Gen CAT 740B CAT 621G CAT 725C CAT 613C II WATER TOWER

9,000 gal 8,000 gal 8,000 gal 6,000 gal 5,000 gal 12,000 gal

190,000 lb 145,000 lb 115,000 lb 110,000 lb 110,000 lb 87,000 lb 82,000 lb 82,000 lb 80,000 lb 78,000 lb 65,000 lb 54,000 lb 54,000 lb

CAT CAT CAT

34,000 lb 18,500 lb 11,000 lb

315FL CR 308E2 CR 305E2 CR

Options: Thumb, Hammer, Vibraplate, Wheel, Ripper Shank, Skeleton Bucket, Rubber Pads, Sheet Pile Driver

SCRAPERS

Options: Forks, Boom, Side Dump, Skeleton Bucket, Scales

WATER EQUIPMENT

CAT 385CL CAT 365CL CAT 352FL CAT 349 Next Gen, GPS CAT 349FL, GPS CAT 340 Next Gen CAT 336 Next Gen, GPS CAT 336FL, GPS CAT 335FL CR, GPS CAT 328DL CR CAT 326FL Long Reach 60’ CAT 325FL CR, GPS CAT 321DL CR Compact Models Now Available

CAT CAT CAT CAT

631G/E 627K, GPS 623K/G, GPS 613C II

34 yd, Open Bowl 24 yd, Push Pull 23 yd, Elevating 11 yd, Elevating

MOTOR GRADERS CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT

14 Next Gen 14M 150 Next Gen 140M3 140LVR (Levers)

GPS, 16 ft, Rippers GPS, 16 ft, Rippers GPS, 14 ft, Rippers GPS, 14 ft, Rippers GPS, 14 ft, Rippers

ARTICULATED TRUCKS CAT CAT CAT

745 Next Gen 740B 730 Next Gen

45.2 ton, 34.7 yd 43.5 ton, 33.5 yd 21.0 ton, 23.0 yd

Greater Phoenix

Southern California

Los Angeles-San Diego

Riverside-San Bernardino

Wyn Henderson

21880 Temescal Canyon Rd

Mark Fotheringham

Vince Castellanos

(602) 762-6438

Corona, CA

(951) 893-7176

(909) 602-3389

ARIZCC.COM

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX PLEASE PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS, THEY MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE! Aggregate Machinery 480-730-1212 aggregatemachinery.net

P. 73

Dynamic Diesel 602-376-1448 dynamicdieselrepair.com

P. 9

Madco Rentals 480-280-0364 madcorentals.com

P. 83

Solterra Materials 602-531-0454 solterramaterials.com

P. 82

Arizona Materials 602-278-4444 arizonamaterials.com

P. 38

E&E Companies 480-251-8929

P. 20

MDI Rock 602-569-8722 mdirock.com

P.20

Sonsray Machinery 844-sonsray sonsraymachinery.com

P. 44

Arnold Machinery 385-503-4114 arnoldmachinery.com

P. 53

Earnhardt 480-926-4000 nobullfleet.com

P. 24

Metro Engineering & Survey P. 10 623-466-6640 metroaz.net

Southwest Asphalt 480-730-1033 fisherind.com

P. 6

Asphalt Busters 623-936-8800 asphaltbusters.com

P. 63

ECCO Equipment 602-276-2040 eccoequipment.com

P. BC

Metro Traffic Control 623-879-0610 metrotrafficcontrol.net

P. 36

Southwest JCB 602-454-9808 SWJCB.com

P. 9

Baja Ready Mix 602-503-9391 readymixconcreteaz.com

P. 18

EES 480-809-4687 emergencyenv.com

P. 11

NCS 928-567-6585 networxcs.com

P. 28

Specialty Companies Group P. 7 623-582-2385 specialtycompaniesgroup.com

BidJudge 602-456-BIDZ bidjudge.com

P. 40

Elite Sports 602-899-9200 elitesportsbuilders.com

P. 18

NECA 602-263-0111 azneca.org

P. 26

SSG Equipment Services 480-404-0446 ssgequipmentservices.com

P. 79

Bingham Equipment 623-850-6000 binghamequipment.com

P. 36

Empire Sales Center 520-582-2050 empirecat.com/eloy

P. 30

New West Oil 602-759-5559 newwestoil.com

P. 62

Statewide T&T 602-368-8797

P. 86

Blueline Grizzly 928-308-1901 bluelinerockgrizzly.com

P. 83

Fisher’s Tools 800-390-4063 fishertools.com

P. 40

New Western Rentals 623-847-3594 newwesternrentals.comw

P. 90

Sunland Asphalt 602-323-2800 sunlandasphalt.com

P. 10

Borderland 520-623-0900 borderland-inc.com

P. 86

Forrest Rents P. 34 602-620-2383 forrestequipmentrentals.com

Pacwest Rentals 480-832-0855 pacwestrentals.com

P. 57

Sunstate Equipment 888-456-4560 sunstateequip.com

P. 22

Branco Machinery 480-892-5657 brancomachinery.com

P. IFC

GenTech 800-625-8324 gentechusa.com

P. 38

Powerscreen 602-772-1419 powerscreenwestern.com

P. 20

SW Barricade 602-788-2222 swbarricades.com

P. 87

Buesing Corp 602-233-3339 buesingcorp.com

P. 14

GFT Ready Mix 602-269-9206 gftmix.com

P. 69

Preach Building Supply 602-944-4594 preachbuildingsupply.com

P. 61

Trench-Ade 833-384-1176 trench-ade.com

P. IBC

CalPortland 602-817-6929 calportland.com

P. 42

GoodFellow 623-594-5401 goodfellowcorp.com

P. 22

Purple Wave Auction 866-608-9283 purplewave.com

P. 3

TSR 602-253-3311 tsraz.com

P. 34

CAMS 602-331-5455 cams-az.com

P. 79

Insearch Corp 480-940-0100 insearchcorp.com

P. 46

Reliable Portable Bathrooms P. 5 602-601-2222 reliableportablebathrooms.com

Vermeer Mountain West P. 40 480-785-4800 vermeermountainwest.com

Castle Hot Springs 844-276-8052 castlehotsprings.com

P. 42

Insurica 602-273-1625 insurica.com

P. 30

Reuter Fabrication 602-415-0449 reuterequipment.com

P. 8

Westroc 480-550-1815

P. 42

CED 602-437-4200 cedphx.com

P. 8

JS Cole 602-633-0990 jscole.com

P. 92, 93

RT Underground rtunderground.com 602-622-6789

P. 36

WillScot 800-782-1500 willscot.com

P. 61

Cemex 602-416-2652 cemexusa.com

P. 46

KE&G 520-748-0188 kegtus.com

P. 7

S&S Paving 602-437-0818 sspaving.com

P. 83

WSM 623-936-3300 wsmauctioneers.com

P. 16

Curry Fluid Power 602-661-6596 curryfluidpower.com

P. 32

Keystone Concrete 480-835-1579 keystoneconcretellc.com

P. 10

Salt River Materials Group 480-850-5757 srmaterials.com

P. 78

Curry Supply 800-345-2829 currysupply.com

P. 32

Landco Power 480-788-1333 landcorental.com

P. 36

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

P. 26

Custom Truck 602-527-4088 customtruck.com

P. 15

Lang, Thal, King & Hanson 480-534-4900 lang.law

P. 73

Shanes Hauling 602-992-2201 shanespaving.com

P. 28

DCS Contracting 480-732-9238 dcscontracting.com

P. 8

Lincoln Carriers 602-849-3164 605-220-9224

P. 4

Sharp Creek Contracting 602-437-3040 sharpcreek.com

P. 18

DitchWitch 602-437-0351 ditchwitchwest.com

P. 91

LogoWear Express 480-545-5900 logowearexpress.com

P. 9

Sitech Southwest 602-691-7501 sitechsw.com

P. 63

NINETY FOUR

FOR ADVERTISING INQUIRIES CONTACT BILLY HORNER 602-931-0069 BILLY@ARIZCC.COM

MAY JUNE 2025

ARIZCC.COM

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

PRSRT STD US Postage PAID Permit #1662 Phoenix, AZ

w

602-276-2040

Providing Rentals and Service in AZ, since 1998

Frank Alvarez

Operations Manager

Ryan King

Service Manager

Jason Turner

Lance Wallace

C: 602-769-6725

C: 480-356-1275

C: 480-487-0563

C: 602-708-1948

franka@eccoequipment.com ryank@eccoequipment.com

Inside Sales

Outside Sales

jasont@eccoequipment.com lancew@eccoequipment.com