Have stack-test equipment, will travel
February 13, 2004
When I graduated from college in 1992, the job market was dreadful. I graduated with a degree in Meteorology, but I knew that I didn�t want to be a weather forecaster. The only other option was in the environmental field specializing in air quality. So I sent out about 5-kazillion resumes to companies that were listed as environmental in nature. Then I started to do call-backs to these companies because the first round of harassment didn�t seem to catch their interest. I got rejected on calls from June through August, until one day. I proceeded to call-back Hemeon Associates, Inc. The owner, Art Black, was happy to hear from me and invited me in the office for a meeting. I assumed that this was an interview, but when I got there, it was almost as if I was interviewing the company as many MIT graduates do when they finish their PhD programs. They were that desperate and I was too.
The next day I came in to work and found out why I was hired on the spot. The staff of half-a-dozen had all quit on the same day right before I called and now there was only one straggler left other than Art, the owner. I went back to the work area to greet him and that was the last I saw of him. The next day, my second day of work, I was back cleaning the stack test equipment with acetone, and I wasn�t sure if it was the fact that the room was not ventilated and the fumes were making me loopy, but I am pretty sure Art promoted me to second in charge. I was on the fast-track at this company�in just three days I went from unemployed to Vice-President in charge of everything at Hemeon Associates, Inc.
Art was overjoyed to hear that I was still willing to continue my work and I was elated to hear I still had a company to work for. Art was about 65 or 70 years old at the time so climbing up stacks of any size was not in his cards at this point in his life, but he loved the business. He bought the company in the 80s from the name-sake after working for him for a decade or so and Hemeon had owned the company and developed many of the testing regulations in the 70s. This company was a Pittsburgh legacy in stack testing and Art did not want it to die an insignificant death, you could see it in his eyes. Also, you could tell by the way he completely handed over the service-end of the company to me, someone who had no experience at all and had not ever stepped foot on an industrial stack in his life. Art informed me that we needed to hire another sucker and did I know of another that would be willing to work for peanuts and endanger themselves by climbing up the side of a stack in order to calculate the amount of harmful pollutants that were exiting (I don�t think he used these words�that wouldn�t be good marketing). I immediately thought to myself, �Well, Rich is in college�he is not busy and probably needs the money�. I called him and he agreed, without knowing all the details of course.
We both spent the next couple weeks trying to figure out how to put the pieces of the stack-test equipment together, finding the missing pieces, and trying to figure out how the stuff worked. We also had to learn the test methods�these are the regulations that govern the way the test is run. We were baffled to find out after a couple days of thinking we knew how the stuff worked to find out there were guidelines that must be followed�you don�t just shove this probe into the stack (and that is not a euphemism) and start sampling. Our first test was only about a month after we joined the company, so we had time restraints working against us too.
The first test was at Quickrete, which is a cement-in-a-bag company, just add water. We arrived at the site to find that the scaffolding was all set up. We did rock-paper-scissors and Rich was in charge of going up on the platform to plunge the probe (again, not a euphemism) and I would run the equipment that siphoned the flue gas through the line of impingers filled with water to capture the impurities. With this type of test, communication is the key to success and luckily Rich and I had a great relationship to fall back on and only had to recall how to do the test acceptably.
With each test, we got better and better. We did this job for about six to nine months together and I could tell that Rich wanted to get back to going to school more. The tension between us started to grow because he was there as a part-time employee, but he was putting in just as much time as I was as a full-time employee. I remember he was living with Mark from the Nixon Clocks at the time. I would drive over to pick him up and wait literary 30-minutes in the car after the first beep. I know he wasn�t a morning person, but he always said that he could get up if it was for something he really wanted to get up for�this meant he really didn�t want to do this work any longer. By the time our last job came around, we were experts and now Rich was teaching some one else how to do the job. The situation never damaged our relationship, but I think it may have caused some temporary atrophy because Rich had a sense of apathy and I wanted him to stick around. It was a short time period, but we were together a great deal during that time because the tests often took place an hour or two or even a night�s stay away from Pittsburgh and we got to travel together in the beat-up old van. In the end, it helped build both of our characters and made our bond stronger. I know that because later we would reminisce about these days and a smile always came to both our faces.
I remember Art pulling us aside by maybe the 3rd or 4th test and saying, �You two are the best stack-testing team I ever had work for me or with me.� I respected Art immensely, he is the reason I have a career that I am pleased with. In all my years as an environmental professional, this was the best compliment I have ever received for two reasons. One, Art was a genuine person, so I know that he truly meant every work he said. Two, Art had more experience at that time in that field than anyone I have met since then, so you know he knew what he was talking about. I would have never got that compliment, or job for that matter, if it weren�t for Rich taking time away from his schooling to help his friend in a jam and I thank him for that gift. I believe that Rich could have done anything in the world that he put his mind to�he was that talented. |
