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A few years ago, I read an excellent book on the Great Depression of the 1930s authored by Amity Shlaes titled The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. It was a study of the depression and the economic policies enacted under the administrations of Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt that, in the author’s opinion, proved to be counterproductive and served to prolong the Great Depression.
However, what really stuck with me at the time and even today was what I expected to read about and who it was actually about. I was expecting, based on the book’s title, to read about people who had lost their jobs, traveled from town to town on railroad boxcars, lived on the edge of society, and stood in long lines at soup kitchens hoping to get something to eat. Think Woody Guthrie and his famous song Hobo’s Lullaby.
What I read instead was a book about the people that through the tough times got up each day, went to work, earned enough money, however they could, to support their families and quietly, stoically kept the country plugging along. They are The Forgotten Man.
In any business, in any society, a mass of forgotten men and women make everything function. Today we think of the firefighters in Los Angeles, who, as we speak, are working thanklessly to save the homes of people they don’t know or will likely never meet. Their lives had to take a backseat to their job of protecting others. There was no other option for them. And then there are the countless individuals who serve others in some capacity or another—drive the bus, deliver the mail, serve our meals, make us fancy coffees, grow and pick our food, make sure the grocery store is stocked, build our buildings, etc.
Bringing this back to my own career, I want to recognize a group of people who weren’t famous and never got their names published but without them, we structural engineers, and I, would not have been successful.
My career started at Degenkolb in 1982. Frankly, looking back, my knowledge of the company itself and how an engineering company operated was embarrassingly limited. Basically, I figured if I kept my head down and didn’t speak, my ignorance would be hidden. I was happy to have a job. And then I prayed.
After a few introductions, I learned there were the principals, a handful of engineers with varying amounts of tenure, the drafters, and the office administrative staff. Slowly it sunk in that the principals were quite well regarded, Henry Degenkolb being the most famous of them all. I learned not to mess with Henry’s secretary Doris Helterhoff. Doris answered all incoming phone calls, and you learned quickly if the number of your social calls exceeded her patience. She was our pit bull at the front door. If I wanted my letters and reports typed, I also better be on good terms with our shared secretary Diane Quirley.
But the key to success for a young engineer was to work with the drafters in producing engineering drawings. I learned a great deal from the drafters, how to depict the design intent and how contractors liked to build things. They left work at 5 p.m. and hated it when we engineers made corrections to “their drawings” in the afterhours.
After all of these years, I still remember their names and faces as if it were yesterday:
Don Smith—Head drafter. Don grew up in Oakland, helped his dad make moonshine during prohibition and was map maker in World War II. His drawings were works of art. He preplanned the sections and details in his mind before he started to draw. No erasing. No moving details around in CAD/Revit like we do today.
Stuart Bowles—Stu was a Captain in the Army Air Corp and flew bombers over Germany in World War II. He loved his cat more than anything in the world, and when his cat was sick or dying, production came to a halt. When the cat died, we designed a reinforced concrete burial tomb.
Jessie Wallace—The old “prune picker” from the Central Valley. Before I knew there was a difference between an engineer and a drafter, I asked him a question about designing a retaining wall. His response was “you better ask an engineer.”
Lionel Robinson—His famous saying was “they pay me the same amount to draw it as to erase it.” His wife was a security guard. She occasionally visited the office, and it was clear to all that she was a person that you didn’t want to mess with.
Manuel Micaller—Manuel was trained as an engineer in the Philippines but because of the education rules for licensure, he had to settle for being a drafter. He was a bit of a card shark, but he didn’t cheat any more than everyone else. He was famously adept at taking unannounced vacations. When he wasn’t in the office on a Monday morning, we would run to the vacation calendar and discovered, lo and behold, that he was going to be gone for a week. But what about the deadline?
Ramon Padre—Ramon was also from the Philippines. I loved working with Ramon because his speed of drafting matched perfectly with my speed of designing. Ramon was the youngest of the Degenkolb drafters and the only one who, through self-education, made the transition to CAD. How many people have extended their career this way?
So to sum up, I think it behooves us to appreciate all of the forgotten men and women who make our lives, professionally or otherwise, possible. They are critical to your business functioning or your community thriving. Let’s not forget. ■
About the Author:
John A. Dal Pino is a Principal with Claremont Engineers, Inc. in Oakland, California. He serves as the Chair of the STRUCTURE Editorial Board (jdalpino@claremontengineers.com).