August 2023
P1 C NNECTION
Associate Newsletter
P1’s Longest Working Associate: Q&A with Consultant Ken Beebe Ken Beebe has been with P1 since 1963, when he joined P1’s founding company, AD Jacobson. Assistant Marketing Manager Jeremi Strasser had a chance to catch up with Ken, capture his stories, and hear what he has to say to the next generation thinking about a career in the trades.
I interviewed with Herb Jacobson but after the interview I met AD Jacobson, and he asked me if I knew what the square root of two was. I had a good geometry teacher in high school, so I knew the answer and I have always said that is how I got into the union. I actually took a cut in pay when I became an apprentice. I was making $2.35 working the midnight shift as a welder and started at $2.25 as an apprentice. Q: What were you doing before you came to AD Jacobson in 1963? I graduated from high school in 1961. I went to college at MU that fall to be an electrical engineer. In the summer of 1962, I got married at nineteen. I got a job as a welder at a farm equipment manufacture working the midnight shift and was going to Central Missouri State during the day.
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Q: Why did you want to go into the trades?
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I continued working at midnight and going to school throughout the 1962 school year. It took me awhile, but I said to myself, there has to be a better way. My brother-in-law worked as a service tech for AD Jacobson and had just moved into the office as a project manager. I said I couldn’t spell pipefitter let alone know what they did, but I figured it had to be better than what I was doing.
Q: Describe the roles you have held at ADJ and P1 over time.
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The first two years I worked in the field as a pipefitter on several jobs, telling everyone I would work all the overtime that was available and trying to learn as much as I could. Back then, apprentice school was five years, and the 3rd and 4th year Kansas City had a contest for best apprentice, who would compete with the winner of