WEBVTT 00:00:05.339 --> 00:00:07.339 My name is Val Peterson. I, I was director of facilities management at 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:19.967 issue and I arrived Early in the year 1988 and left in the year 2000. The 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:26.006 date of my birth was June 201938 and I was born in uh, in the Snake River 00:00:26.039 --> 00:00:32.317 Valley in Idaho. I grew up on a farm uh, in a rural community, worked very 00:00:32.350 --> 00:00:40.350 hard with my other brothers and my parents too raised potatoes, alfalfa 00:00:41.350 --> 00:00:44.896 and wheat. What's a good life was a good life. There were five boys in the 00:00:44.929 --> 00:00:50.626 family. Five boys. Now your parents, how did they come to be at this? Uh, 00:00:50.659 --> 00:00:57.177 Snake River Valley Location. My grandparents moved there. Uh, we'll 00:00:57.210 --> 00:01:02.487 probably the early part of the 1900s and homesteaded an area in Idaho, 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:09.036 Idaho would had been developed by some settlers who came there and found 00:01:09.069 --> 00:01:15.986 that the volcanic soil was ideal for raising produce and crops And so they 00:01:16.019 --> 00:01:19.816 developed irrigation canals to go with the ample supply of water that ran 00:01:19.849 --> 00:01:25.846 through the valley and through the use of irrigated farms. People made a 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:30.176 living. Our, our farm was a little larger than some most. Most farms back 00:01:30.209 --> 00:01:36.156 in those days were 40 acres But we had 120 acres that was all cultivated 00:01:36.189 --> 00:01:44.189 and irrigated. I have driven horse equipment raking hay. I've also driven 00:01:44.700 --> 00:01:49.307 tractors when we gathered and harvested wheat to take into the threshing 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:55.516 crew and so I learned to, I learned to make that transition fairly easy to 00:01:55.549 --> 00:02:01.876 learn how to fix things. I learned how to fix things on a, on a farm. You 00:02:01.909 --> 00:02:08.976 , you grow up quick. Uh you need to be able to do anything that comes to 00:02:09.009 --> 00:02:15.957 mind on our farm, we had a jeep and I was driving that jeep by the time I 00:02:15.990 --> 00:02:20.017 was eight, the legal driving age in Idaho at the time was 14 if it was in 00:02:20.050 --> 00:02:24.767 the daytime, 16 if it was at night, but nobody worried about that. Now on 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:30.397 this farm, How close was the school? I guess you walked uphill. We always 00:02:30.430 --> 00:02:36.506 uphill both ways to and from like, like most stories of the old days. And 00:02:36.539 --> 00:02:40.797 uh if I went, uh most of our roads were graveled in those days, but there 00:02:40.830 --> 00:02:45.066 was a, there was a highway paved highway running through the community. 00:02:45.099 --> 00:02:49.846 Now this community was known as taylor and it uh it consisted of a country 00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:56.256 store, a small country store, a brick schoolhouse, two room schoolhouse in 00:02:56.289 --> 00:03:01.936 a church. And uh I went my first eight years of schooling in that little 00:03:01.969 --> 00:03:07.656 elementary school. There were grades one through four in one room and 00:03:07.689 --> 00:03:11.686 grades five through eight in another room. And they each had their own 00:03:11.719 --> 00:03:18.027 teacher. And that may sound like a really awkward way to do things, but my 00:03:18.060 --> 00:03:24.186 class was typically five students. And so uh the teachers, you know, class 00:03:24.219 --> 00:03:28.156 consisted of 20 students roughly. And it was interesting. They would, they 00:03:28.189 --> 00:03:31.156 would start on one side of the room and work their way through the rows 00:03:31.189 --> 00:03:35.267 and and while she was doing that, you were doing your assignments, you 00:03:35.300 --> 00:03:38.356 know. And then when she finished with that group, she just started 00:03:38.389 --> 00:03:42.767 rotating again. So it seemed, it seemed very reasonable to me. Of course I 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:46.717 didn't know anything else is an apartment in the school. And uh, my very 00:03:46.750 --> 00:03:53.156 first teacher was, was a sister to the county sheriff and her older sister 00:03:53.189 --> 00:03:56.467 was the teacher in the next room. And so they shared this apartment. Of 00:03:56.500 --> 00:03:59.916 course she handed down corporal punishment somewhat like her brother, the 00:03:59.949 --> 00:04:04.927 sheriff. But it was still a good experience even for a first grader. Now 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:09.237 the extracurricular activities, I guess if you had a school that big, you 00:04:09.270 --> 00:04:14.506 were on all the sports teams. If they had any, we didn't have teams. The 00:04:14.539 --> 00:04:19.056 only sports team we ever had is we got in trouble for doing it. Our 00:04:19.089 --> 00:04:25.837 teacher got permission to have a football game with the adjacent school in 00:04:25.870 --> 00:04:30.366 the next community. And of course we didn't have any equipment pads or 00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:34.827 anything. It was football. And so we played football with no pads, no 00:04:34.860 --> 00:04:39.467 protection. And uh, I don't remember who won the game, but we, we had a 00:04:39.500 --> 00:04:43.957 lot of fun, but it was the first and last time we ever did that because 00:04:43.990 --> 00:04:48.317 when the superintendent of schools found out, he stopped it as this is 00:04:48.350 --> 00:04:52.106 through grade school. How about high school? Where did you? I went to the 00:04:52.139 --> 00:04:58.606 big city of Shelly And we had a high school of 300 students and I had a 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:05.226 class of about slightly over 70 students and I spent four years there. I 00:05:05.259 --> 00:05:10.937 participated in athletics. I lettered four years in track and uh I took 00:05:10.970 --> 00:05:18.507 the regular required classes plus shop, I dabbled in thespians, 00:05:18.540 --> 00:05:26.540 I dabbled on the uh the book staff and I 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:32.616 also dabbled in student government, yes, yearbook staff, any jobs that you 00:05:32.649 --> 00:05:38.267 had other than at the farm, The farmers were always looking for help. And 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:44.947 many times I I would go out and uh work by the hour for farmers stacking 00:05:44.980 --> 00:05:50.606 hay or or hauling hay or or whatever they needed you for. That was, that 00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:56.147 was always fun. But uh my dad kept me pretty busy on the home farm. As I 00:05:56.180 --> 00:06:01.406 got older, we had a Baylor and he said, okay, when we're done, bailing are 00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:06.517 , hey, you can go out and I said, I'll pay for all the expenses, you go 00:06:06.550 --> 00:06:09.877 bail, bail the neighbors hey, and I'll give you everything they give us. 00:06:09.910 --> 00:06:15.337 And so that was a pretty good deal. Mhm. And my father always maintained a 00:06:15.370 --> 00:06:23.370 small herd of beef cattle and he gave me a calf wants to raise and gave me 00:06:24.100 --> 00:06:29.567 all the feed and so forth. And uh when it was marketable age, we took it 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:36.536 to the livestock market and sold it and that was mine. So how about dairy 00:06:36.569 --> 00:06:43.106 cows? You have dairy cows? We had, we had enough that I never wanted to 00:06:43.139 --> 00:06:47.346 milk any more cows again in my life when I left the farm had chickens, we 00:06:47.379 --> 00:06:50.676 had chickens, pigs. 00:06:50.709 --> 00:06:56.156 You know, I was born and raised um just as we're coming out of the Great 00:06:56.189 --> 00:07:01.217 Depression and farmers had it a lot easier than some people in the cities 00:07:01.250 --> 00:07:09.250 because we grew much of our food. We always had a large garden and you 00:07:09.430 --> 00:07:15.306 didn't have to use those ration tokens for during the war for butter. And 00:07:15.339 --> 00:07:18.346 yes, we did. Yeah, farmers were required to do that. There were a little 00:07:18.379 --> 00:07:23.317 more liberal on on rubber tires for the equipment, but you know, your car 00:07:23.350 --> 00:07:27.707 still had to get in line with everyone else 00:07:27.740 --> 00:07:31.067 gasoline. They were a little more liberal because you needed that for the 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:37.236 equipment. Um farmers were given some exemptions during that period. So 00:07:37.269 --> 00:07:43.277 any recollection about the depression and the war years, you know, as I've 00:07:43.310 --> 00:07:48.637 looked back on that several times, I remember that that was happening, It 00:07:48.670 --> 00:07:52.017 was discussed by the adults every time a group of adults would get 00:07:52.050 --> 00:07:57.986 together in the presence of Children. But I don't, you know, it didn't 00:07:58.019 --> 00:08:04.786 seem to affect us too much. We did have a, a a group of uh japanese 00:08:04.819 --> 00:08:10.056 american citizens who got sent to a camp that raised a lot of fewer in our 00:08:10.089 --> 00:08:18.089 community and and they did send in a bunch of uh prisoners from Germany, 00:08:19.139 --> 00:08:24.986 the german soldiers to work in the fields during that time. And those are 00:08:25.019 --> 00:08:30.187 those are some of the most prevalent feelings and remembrances I had uh 00:08:30.220 --> 00:08:36.006 during that time in high school, did you develop certain interests in 00:08:36.039 --> 00:08:41.437 things like art or music? I really like mechanical drawing. I really liked 00:08:41.470 --> 00:08:45.266 football. I was a pretty good student. I had been a pretty good student 00:08:45.299 --> 00:08:51.057 all my life, but I finished number two in my class And my best friend was 00:08:51.090 --> 00:08:56.797 # one. Were you on the football team? You said track you were on? I was on 00:08:56.830 --> 00:09:02.136 the football team. I was a quarterback my senior year that affected me for 00:09:02.169 --> 00:09:09.246 the next year. My right arm was damaged uh on one of the numerous tackles 00:09:09.279 --> 00:09:15.187 that occurred and on at least one of them a chip fracture happened in my 00:09:15.220 --> 00:09:21.337 wrist and the local doctor was was not highly trained, he was a general 00:09:21.370 --> 00:09:29.370 practitioner, he diagnosed it as a sprain and he cast it up and uh 00:09:30.539 --> 00:09:34.626 I actually didn't even cast it, he just put a splint on it and I used to 00:09:34.659 --> 00:09:41.657 tape it very tight during the games and just learn to live with the pain. 00:09:41.690 --> 00:09:46.827 But when football season was over, I I did go to a specialist and he 00:09:46.860 --> 00:09:52.496 looked at it and x rayed it. So you got problems son. He said you've got a 00:09:52.529 --> 00:09:59.756 bone that's half decade and he said you got two choices, you can you can 00:09:59.789 --> 00:10:04.486 wear a cast for a year and or we can put a take it out and put a stainless 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:10.116 steel bone in its place. What do you guess I wanted to do? 00:10:10.149 --> 00:10:13.077 I wanted to go with a quick fix the stainless steel bone. I mean it 00:10:13.110 --> 00:10:18.246 sounded high tech to me but my parents didn't want to do that. So I wore a 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:23.967 cast for a year and it it healed it up. Although when when I got that cast 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:29.687 off I couldn't move my wrist, only just a very small amount. And it took 00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:34.246 me years to get the movement back into my wrist. Now as I get older, I can 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:38.537 feel some of that coming back on me and it's probably got arthritis in it. 00:10:38.570 --> 00:10:45.707 But we'll see what happens in the future. 00:10:45.740 --> 00:10:50.746 Alright, So here you are, graduating from high school. And what happens? 00:10:50.779 --> 00:10:55.736 Well, I had a girlfriend at the time and so I went to as close as I could 00:10:55.769 --> 00:11:01.346 to home to college. It was called Rick's colleagues then it's called BYU 00:11:01.379 --> 00:11:07.116 Idaho. Now after I finished that, I stopped earn some money to go to 00:11:07.149 --> 00:11:13.266 school in the fall. And I worked at a mine that's not the normal kind of a 00:11:13.299 --> 00:11:19.467 mind. Probably one of the few people that grew up on a farm that ended up 00:11:19.500 --> 00:11:24.707 in a mine, but we used to mind palmer stone. I told you we had volcanic 00:11:24.740 --> 00:11:30.026 soil on the west side of the Snake River. There's a large volcano flow. An 00:11:30.059 --> 00:11:36.957 Ancient one. when that was active, there was a lake in their uh filled the 00:11:36.990 --> 00:11:42.136 whole valley and the ashes from the volcanic action blew across to the 00:11:42.169 --> 00:11:46.567 other side of the lake on the east side of the valley and deposited in the 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:51.187 mountains. Then I packed my bags and moved to Utah and went to school at 00:11:51.220 --> 00:11:55.976 the University of Utah believe it or not, maybe you can't believe it 00:11:56.009 --> 00:11:59.937 because you're an architect. I wanted to be an architect. I spent a year 00:11:59.970 --> 00:12:05.287 in architecture. I found out I had no talent for architecture. Uh, so the 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:09.846 process drummed me out as they try to do in your first year. But I, I 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:13.587 still liked a lot of things associated with that. So I went into 00:12:13.620 --> 00:12:17.307 mechanical engineering and that's what I got my degree and it was 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:21.837 mechanical engineering. And while I was in school I had the opportunity to 00:12:21.870 --> 00:12:27.356 work for due to different consulting engineering firms. And I learned to 00:12:27.389 --> 00:12:32.496 become somewhat proficient at the time in designing mechanical systems, 00:12:32.529 --> 00:12:40.529 plumbing systems so forth for buildings. University of Utah is in what? 00:12:41.340 --> 00:12:47.756 So now you're in the big city going to school and I got married while I 00:12:47.789 --> 00:12:52.707 was a student. 00:12:52.740 --> 00:13:00.047 So when I graduated from the University of Utah, I was not focused on any 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:05.047 more education at the time, but I had a family to take care of. So my 00:13:05.080 --> 00:13:11.856 first job out of college was uh, at a nuclear reactor, I had some diverse 00:13:11.889 --> 00:13:19.587 experience. This was back in Idaho atomic nuclear test site in Arco. And I 00:13:19.620 --> 00:13:23.996 was third engineer on a reactor that really didn't need three engineers. 00:13:24.029 --> 00:13:28.496 They had nothing for me to do unfortunately for me and for them I only 00:13:28.529 --> 00:13:34.457 lasted three months before it drove me crazy. I mean, there was an hour's 00:13:34.490 --> 00:13:40.047 bus ride out to the site was an hour's bus ride back from the site. But 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:44.386 the eight hour layover on the job was more than I could take. I went back 00:13:44.419 --> 00:13:50.396 to the big city of Salt Lake and went back into consulting. I spent five 00:13:50.429 --> 00:13:54.746 years in Salt Lake City as a consulting engineer. We designed heating, 00:13:54.779 --> 00:13:59.886 ventilating air conditioning systems for all kinds of buildings, not many 00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:06.707 residential, but they were mostly commercial retail, ah 00:14:06.740 --> 00:14:14.047 colleges schools of all kinds and we would design heating plants, central 00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:19.077 cooling plants. And by the time five years was up, I had a fairly decent 00:14:19.110 --> 00:14:23.246 reputation as a consulting engineer and I thought that was gonna be my 00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:29.807 life's work. But it wasn't, 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:34.947 I was, I was working there and I had done two major projects at Utah State 00:14:34.980 --> 00:14:39.917 University and they both worked. I mean that's always a good sign when an 00:14:39.950 --> 00:14:43.236 engineer, the stuff you design works and they were very happy with the 00:14:43.269 --> 00:14:49.407 systems. And so they called me one day and said 00:14:49.440 --> 00:14:53.467 come up and talk to us, we're looking for a new facilities person. The old 00:14:53.500 --> 00:14:57.157 , the old guy here has been here forever and he's gonna, he's thinking of 00:14:57.190 --> 00:15:02.226 retiring and we need some new blood and we need somebody who's a good 00:15:02.259 --> 00:15:08.376 engineer and I wasn't interested at the time and I turned them down, he 00:15:08.409 --> 00:15:12.146 gave me a month and they called me back and said well wouldn't you just 00:15:12.179 --> 00:15:18.657 please come up and talk to us. And so I took a day, one Saturday I went up 00:15:18.690 --> 00:15:24.596 and talked to them and lo and behold it sounded better than I anticipated 00:15:24.629 --> 00:15:31.386 it would be. So I determined to take that job with with two criterias in 00:15:31.419 --> 00:15:36.146 mind. One is I would keep it for five years and I would do everything I 00:15:36.179 --> 00:15:41.096 could to make that operation a good quality operation. But the end of five 00:15:41.129 --> 00:15:44.907 years I wanted to quit and go back into consulting. 00:15:44.940 --> 00:15:48.986 And so that was the thought I had when I went into it when I got there I 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:53.996 found that I really liked the university atmosphere. I was doing something 00:15:54.029 --> 00:15:58.856 different every day. Unlike uh some other kind of things where you spend a 00:15:58.889 --> 00:16:03.886 lot of time doing the same thing. And so that was interesting to me. Uh it 00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:10.687 was a, it was a vibrant area that uh I, you know, I had seen the other 00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:14.187 side of it as a student. You know, it was all drudgery because I was 00:16:14.220 --> 00:16:19.217 studying and taking classes. But you know from the other aspect you work 00:16:19.250 --> 00:16:23.236 with professional people, you work in a professional environment and it it 00:16:23.269 --> 00:16:29.207 really is a nice place to work stayed 20 years describe a little bit about 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:33.006 the organization, 00:16:33.039 --> 00:16:41.039 how many people he had the campus? Mhm. Uh the campus was about 12,000 00:16:41.090 --> 00:16:46.327 students at the time. And it over the over that period of time, it it grew 00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:52.907 modestly. I think the 14 or 15,000 during the time I was there we doubled 00:16:52.940 --> 00:17:00.940 uh the academic space uh because they were growing, wow, 00:17:01.159 --> 00:17:05.607 I think there were about 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:10.496 14 buildings, a major buildings built during the time I was there 00:17:10.529 --> 00:17:15.736 including a new football stadium and a new basketball arena. 20 years is a 00:17:15.769 --> 00:17:21.336 long time to to fight the same battles over and over. And so by the time 00:17:21.369 --> 00:17:26.147 20 years came out I was thinking you know, maybe I ought to do something 00:17:26.180 --> 00:17:30.907 else and I was thinking of consulting but I was also thinking of other 00:17:30.940 --> 00:17:36.766 things. I had made a commitment mainly to myself that because that's where 00:17:36.799 --> 00:17:40.187 all of our Children were raised, that's where they considered home. And I 00:17:40.220 --> 00:17:44.187 didn't want to uproot them until at least the youngest was out of high 00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:52.006 school. And that was about the time 20 years arrived 00:17:52.039 --> 00:17:56.246 when the headhunter came calling from A S. U. He said we're we're gonna 00:17:56.279 --> 00:18:00.207 have an opening here at a S. U. Or I think they already had an opening. 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:05.677 And he said we'd like to consider you for the top facilities person in 00:18:05.710 --> 00:18:10.667 colleges and universities, the facility people have a good grapevine. And 00:18:10.700 --> 00:18:15.847 I've heard some things about Arizona State University that lead me to 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:22.157 think, I don't think I wanna worked there under the current organization 00:18:22.190 --> 00:18:28.756 that they have For who would be supervising me, this is 1987 00:18:28.789 --> 00:18:36.789 87. And uh so he said okay uh when I turned him down, he said it didn't 00:18:37.220 --> 00:18:40.667 give me any occasion I'd ever hear from him again. And he went back. But 00:18:40.700 --> 00:18:45.647 about a month later he he called again and said tell you what what if they 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:51.256 had decided to change the organization that got rid of all of the things 00:18:51.289 --> 00:18:56.447 that you, I figured were negative. Alright, so I would probably come look 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:04.306 at the job then. And so I did, I have a scheduled appointment with me. 00:19:04.339 --> 00:19:08.457 Dave Brixton who still at the university was there and he was competing 00:19:08.490 --> 00:19:15.006 for the job as well as scott cole who was at the university for a time, 00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:22.627 I wasn't prepared for the for the rigorous uh interview interview process. 00:19:22.660 --> 00:19:25.877 I've never seen anything like that. I had interviewed for jobs. People 00:19:25.910 --> 00:19:29.576 are not very many, but I'd interviewed for jobs and you talk to somebody 00:19:29.609 --> 00:19:33.266 and they they ask you a few questions and then they either hire you, they 00:19:33.299 --> 00:19:38.536 don't hire you, but what happened here is you end up in a room and there's 00:19:38.569 --> 00:19:42.526 six or eight people sitting across the table from you and they have these 00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:48.617 sheets of questions and they go through in turn and ask you one of those 00:19:48.650 --> 00:19:55.117 questions and then you try to sound like you're intelligent uh in in that 00:19:55.150 --> 00:19:58.937 process. And then that wasn't the end of it. Once once they got done 00:19:58.970 --> 00:20:03.246 interviewing well then I was taken all over the campus and I talked to 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:08.056 vice presidents. I talked to Deans, I talked to the director of housing, I 00:20:08.089 --> 00:20:11.597 talked to the director of student affairs and and all of these kind of 00:20:11.630 --> 00:20:16.806 people who facilities would inter relate with. And and I was I was talked 00:20:16.839 --> 00:20:20.586 out at the end of the day. It was a that was a pretty grueling process. So 00:20:20.619 --> 00:20:24.417 who are some of the people that you interacted with on that first 00:20:24.450 --> 00:20:31.756 interview at A. S. U. Well I didn't know any of them but after the fact I 00:20:31.789 --> 00:20:38.117 found out you were one of them weren't you? Um My Dean may have been I 00:20:38.150 --> 00:20:43.107 don't think I was in that position then. No it might have been jim wrap. 00:20:43.140 --> 00:20:48.496 Maybe it was jim. There was somebody from architecture. Um I remember 00:20:48.529 --> 00:20:54.786 jerry Snyder was there. I remember the Chief of Police was there and I 00:20:54.819 --> 00:21:00.796 don't recall his name. He's been long gone. Uh Janice Burton who was the 00:21:00.829 --> 00:21:06.657 man I would answer to was there anyway I figured you know I was I was 00:21:06.690 --> 00:21:10.736 young enough I had a lot of confidence in my abilities and I figured well 00:21:10.769 --> 00:21:15.357 I can, I can figure it out and deal with it. I went back home and thought 00:21:15.390 --> 00:21:22.556 about it and uh the next thing I know is I get a call from genesis and and 00:21:22.589 --> 00:21:27.127 he asked me something that really boggled my mind. He said, I want to come 00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:32.746 to campus and interview your people and see what they think of you. And I 00:21:32.779 --> 00:21:37.107 said, genesis, you can't do that. Nobody here knows that I'm I'm even 00:21:37.140 --> 00:21:41.407 looking at a job and he said, well, you know, we're not gonna hire you 00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:46.407 until we, we come and see what kind of a job you're doing. So I talked to 00:21:46.440 --> 00:21:49.907 him about, you know, some possibilities what he might do. And and he said 00:21:49.940 --> 00:21:54.447 , okay, I'll try to do that. But he, he actually came to the campus, uh 00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:59.786 set up a whole series of interviews just like I had gone through uh had a 00:21:59.819 --> 00:22:04.157 tour of the campus and I only saw him for one of one of the group 00:22:04.190 --> 00:22:10.556 interviews I was in. And somehow he, he must have done a pretty decent job 00:22:10.589 --> 00:22:15.357 of of faking it because I didn't have the next day, one person come and 00:22:15.390 --> 00:22:19.066 ask me what in the world was going on. He was just on a fact finding 00:22:19.099 --> 00:22:24.006 mission for you and your name wasn't involved. 00:22:24.039 --> 00:22:28.437 Anyway, that was, that was an experience that I thought was pretty unique. 00:22:28.470 --> 00:22:32.627 I've never heard that happen before. But he must have liked what he saw 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:37.657 because then he went home and pretty soon he sent me a letter offering me 00:22:37.690 --> 00:22:43.476 a job. So you must have had some happy people that worked for you back in 00:22:43.509 --> 00:22:48.506 Salt Lake there. That was in Logan where the university was. Yeah. Yeah. 00:22:48.539 --> 00:22:56.256 The University of Utah in Salt Lake Utah State is in Logan Utah yes, I was 00:22:56.289 --> 00:23:02.407 actually president of the Chamber of Commerce in the city at that time and 00:23:02.440 --> 00:23:07.546 I had to, I had to make some trips back after I got to Arizona to finish 00:23:07.579 --> 00:23:12.637 out my year as president. So we've become pretty well ingrained into the 00:23:12.670 --> 00:23:19.887 community after 20 years. I think the people that that knew me appreciated 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:25.816 me and what was your family size at this point? We had six Children and I 00:23:25.849 --> 00:23:30.226 like to tell people because it was the number which I was raised, they 00:23:30.259 --> 00:23:38.259 were all boys except five. So I had five daughters and one son. Okay. 00:23:39.140 --> 00:23:42.806 How'd the job work out? 00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:49.717 Well, uh, the warning that, that those people talk to me about uh, during 00:23:49.750 --> 00:23:52.506 the interview, 00:23:52.539 --> 00:23:56.726 we're pretty obvious once I got to the organization, 00:23:56.759 --> 00:24:02.867 there was low morale. There was a lot of discord in the organization. 00:24:02.900 --> 00:24:10.677 They had no confidence in the leadership of the department and they were 00:24:10.710 --> 00:24:16.316 starting to unionize. I mean that's as bad as it gets and not only that, 00:24:16.349 --> 00:24:19.496 but the university wasn't very happy with us either because we weren't 00:24:19.529 --> 00:24:25.486 doing the kind of job we all have been doing. So uh, I was committed to 00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:31.016 make it work. And so what I did is I I started to meet with all the the 00:24:31.049 --> 00:24:37.336 units in in the operation and I had devised in the meantime a five year 00:24:37.369 --> 00:24:43.556 plan that if we if we do these kinds of things and I had a series of goals 00:24:43.589 --> 00:24:47.877 set up, I told them if we do these sort of things in five years, we'll 00:24:47.910 --> 00:24:53.207 have one of the premium facilities management organizations in the country 00:24:53.240 --> 00:25:00.236 and that that sort of feel caught fire with with the people and and they 00:25:00.269 --> 00:25:04.597 got behind me. Uh The other thing I had to do was have a whole series of 00:25:04.630 --> 00:25:10.597 meetings with everybody at the university that uh that we did work for the 00:25:10.630 --> 00:25:17.556 provost, the Dean's, the vice presidents and and areas that we did a lot 00:25:17.589 --> 00:25:23.687 of work with like housing and athletics and commit to them. That this is 00:25:23.720 --> 00:25:27.046 my plan that we're working on, give us a little bit of a break and we'll 00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:32.006 soon be there. How about just describing some of the units in your 00:25:32.039 --> 00:25:37.766 organization that you were managing. It was, it was, it was a pretty 00:25:37.799 --> 00:25:42.266 diverse group, probably more diverse than any other unit within the 00:25:42.299 --> 00:25:47.397 university. I had all of the, well we had our administrative people, we 00:25:47.430 --> 00:25:52.556 had a budget officer. We had a a human resource officer and and we had our 00:25:52.589 --> 00:26:00.066 own computer uh specialists. But we also had all of the trades, plumbing, 00:26:00.099 --> 00:26:04.796 air conditioning, electrical, all of those shops that were part of that 00:26:04.829 --> 00:26:10.857 operation. We had the central plant uh There was the motor pool in the 00:26:10.890 --> 00:26:15.407 garage, There was custodial grounds. 00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:22.306 I fear I'm forgetting someone. But but it was About 600 people. All right 00:26:22.339 --> 00:26:28.467 to to do all of that maintenance for for the institution. It was always a 00:26:28.500 --> 00:26:32.766 pretty good sized operation. It was, it was about three times larger than 00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:39.207 the one I had left it Utah State. So it was a pretty big ship to turn 00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:43.457 pretty unruly ship. Well, we were starting to make some real progress that 00:26:43.490 --> 00:26:50.937 first year I think I felt. And then lo and behold Vic's Afra threw a curve 00:26:50.970 --> 00:26:57.347 at me. He called me over one day and he said genesis is going to take a 00:26:57.380 --> 00:27:02.957 sabbatical. I want him to go out and learn more about properties and 00:27:02.990 --> 00:27:08.457 property acquisition and he's gonna be gone a year. I'm looking for 00:27:08.490 --> 00:27:13.486 someone to replace him over here for a year. So, you know. Well, I'm the 00:27:13.519 --> 00:27:18.457 new kid on the block. Why me now, what were his responsibilities? He 00:27:18.490 --> 00:27:23.407 supervised facilities management, planning, construction and purchasing. 00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:27.786 So planning and construction was not under you at that time. Not at that 00:27:27.819 --> 00:27:32.167 time, it was later but not then. And who who had that operation at that 00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:37.486 time planning, construction, It was under Henry moore karate, long story 00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:43.826 short uh I went over there for a year and sat in genesis office fought 00:27:43.859 --> 00:27:47.707 genesis battles and 00:27:47.740 --> 00:27:51.967 the day to day supervision over facilities management kind of suffered 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:56.207 because I had lots of other obligations, 00:27:56.240 --> 00:28:01.707 not the least of which we're negotiating with srp for some new contracts. 00:28:01.740 --> 00:28:06.576 And so things sort of slipped during that year on my five year plan when 00:28:06.609 --> 00:28:13.967 I got back, we had a little rebuilding to do and they got behind us again 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:18.516 and we started moving. And I felt that by the time we finished five years 00:28:18.549 --> 00:28:25.836 , we had pretty well done a lot of things that had uh had placed us where 00:28:25.869 --> 00:28:30.506 I wanted to be at that point in time, morale was up. They no longer wanted 00:28:30.539 --> 00:28:37.996 to unionize. People were speaking to me. Uh I wish they weren't before. Uh 00:28:38.029 --> 00:28:45.107 And and and there was, there was just a lot of good feeling in the 00:28:45.140 --> 00:28:51.256 organization. In fact, a little later on, a fellow came from Denmark, not 00:28:51.289 --> 00:28:55.836 Denmark, from the Netherlands, who wanted to do a sabbatical at our place 00:28:55.869 --> 00:29:01.467 because he thought we were doing a good job. And after he had been with us 00:29:01.500 --> 00:29:08.347 for he for about two weeks, he came to me and said, ah, I can't get over 00:29:08.380 --> 00:29:12.236 your people. And I said, what do you mean? I can't get over my people. He 00:29:12.269 --> 00:29:17.336 says they're happy now, who's sure they're happy. He says, my people 00:29:17.369 --> 00:29:23.917 aren't happy. And I said, well, you gotta work on that anyway. He said 00:29:23.950 --> 00:29:27.967 that isn't the europe way, you know, employees never even if they're happy 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.786 , they don't pretend to be happy. So that was the thing that amazed him 00:29:32.819 --> 00:29:36.447 most about the organization. People were happy. Well that's the thing 00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:41.306 about that kind of business is you only hear from people if they're 00:29:41.339 --> 00:29:46.486 unhappy. Uh usually usually within the organization and outside the 00:29:46.519 --> 00:29:52.177 organization. Uh we had a lot of customers as you might. Well, no, I mean 00:29:52.210 --> 00:29:58.647 students were our customers. They didn't always feel a need to come talk 00:29:58.680 --> 00:30:04.006 to us, but the faculty weren't the easiest people in the world, please, 00:30:04.039 --> 00:30:08.226 neither were the dean's or the vice presidents or the provost. But we did 00:30:08.259 --> 00:30:13.836 our best. Ah how about talking about some of yours star performers, you 00:30:13.869 --> 00:30:18.107 had some notable people working in your organization. 00:30:18.140 --> 00:30:25.937 I did Dave Dave Webb was over the grounds at the time and uh he was, he 00:30:25.970 --> 00:30:30.687 was a mover and a shaker and when I got to the campus, that was one thing 00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:36.066 we could be proud of. The campus looked great and it was mainly because of 00:30:36.099 --> 00:30:41.006 the attitude of the people at the top and he had a lot of good ideas. He 00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:46.117 was a very creative person and and in fact it hadn't been very long after 00:30:46.150 --> 00:30:52.046 I got to the institution that the associated students passed a resolution 00:30:52.079 --> 00:30:59.657 giving appreciation to the facilities organization for the outstanding 00:30:59.690 --> 00:31:04.677 care that they gave the grounds in support of providing a good atmosphere 00:31:04.710 --> 00:31:09.536 for the students to be educated in as the campus progressed, it was 00:31:09.569 --> 00:31:14.357 obvious that the campus was growing and it was squeezing our grounds 00:31:14.390 --> 00:31:18.867 tighter and tighter all the time. And and we had never operated under any 00:31:18.900 --> 00:31:26.900 sort of a a plan, you know of what we wanted to do and in talking with 00:31:27.259 --> 00:31:33.296 Dave Webb he felt that if we could get designated as an arboretum it would 00:31:33.329 --> 00:31:38.316 provide some some guidelines for us. It would provide some rules that that 00:31:38.349 --> 00:31:42.476 may prevent some bad things from happening. It would provide some 00:31:42.509 --> 00:31:50.397 opportunities for funding as well as for exposure. And so uh I petitioned 00:31:50.430 --> 00:31:55.336 the president was last week or at the time about the possibility of 00:31:55.369 --> 00:32:00.917 creating an arboretum and he liked the idea and so he just waved his wand 00:32:00.950 --> 00:32:06.437 and said we were in arboretum and we started from there and it's opened a 00:32:06.470 --> 00:32:11.387 lot of good things for us. Okay. You mentioned victor's afra that you 00:32:11.420 --> 00:32:18.937 worked for him for a year. Any stories about the victors? Afra era, well 00:32:18.970 --> 00:32:24.256 anybody that knows victor knows that, you know victor background was in 00:32:24.289 --> 00:32:31.506 the office of budgets and whatever management back in Washington D. C. And 00:32:31.539 --> 00:32:36.347 he brought a lot of bureaucracy with him when he came to a issue and and 00:32:36.380 --> 00:32:41.556 he uh he had the reputation of being a micro manager among the people that 00:32:41.589 --> 00:32:46.137 worked under him. Uh He would he would have you do issue papers on 00:32:46.170 --> 00:32:50.667 everything that you wanted to do. You got to the point where you wondered 00:32:50.700 --> 00:32:54.917 if you should take an issue to him to resolve because it just meant a lot 00:32:54.950 --> 00:32:59.607 of work for it. You had to do an issue paper but you know in working with 00:32:59.640 --> 00:33:04.607 him over that year um I come to understand him better, I didn't 00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:09.377 necessarily agree with him on everything he did but I think I think with 00:33:09.410 --> 00:33:15.377 some of the discipline he showed me uh he made me probably a better 00:33:15.410 --> 00:33:20.266 manager and leader than I was before and so you know I have to give him 00:33:20.299 --> 00:33:26.407 some credit if I had any success. Is why perhaps he helped along the way 00:33:26.440 --> 00:33:31.796 your facilities where you operated from was over there at Mcallister and 00:33:31.829 --> 00:33:37.387 uh university and tell us a little bit about that operation. Seems like it 00:33:37.420 --> 00:33:42.627 was getting squeezed down as you grow. Well It was only about 10 years old 00:33:42.660 --> 00:33:48.347 when I arrived there and it had been designed specifically for the 00:33:48.380 --> 00:33:54.746 facilities group But a lot of growth that occurred over those 10 years all 00:33:54.779 --> 00:33:59.576 the shops were situated so that they were butting one another and they all 00:33:59.609 --> 00:34:05.137 had a DACA comin doc and a place where they could load up and unload 00:34:05.170 --> 00:34:10.157 things and it was it was probably one of the at the time it was built it 00:34:10.190 --> 00:34:15.197 was probably one of the best facilities operations in the whole country 00:34:15.230 --> 00:34:20.376 but we have got to the point where we were busting at the seams and we had 00:34:20.409 --> 00:34:28.409 to start moving uh units here hither and yon to to make ends meet and so 00:34:29.039 --> 00:34:33.947 we, we created some, some spaces here and they're built some metal 00:34:33.980 --> 00:34:40.447 buildings, uh renovated some uh quonset huts that happened to be on the 00:34:40.480 --> 00:34:48.146 property and, and, and we're just getting by. When I left, we were still 00:34:48.179 --> 00:34:55.706 searching for space. So the USB came after you, wow, 00:34:55.739 --> 00:35:00.137 that's one of my accomplishments. I feel getting that new space even 00:35:00.170 --> 00:35:04.126 though I had nothing to do with putting facilities there. Yeah, for years 00:35:04.159 --> 00:35:09.697 that pen more old pen, more building that was there had come up for sale 00:35:09.730 --> 00:35:15.697 and I would go to the university administration, my boss, you know, we're 00:35:15.730 --> 00:35:19.086 gonna need this someday. You ought to buy that. No, we don't have the 00:35:19.119 --> 00:35:25.006 money now, we don't have a need for it. And finally after half a dozen of 00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:28.907 those kinds of things happened, it came up at a price that it was hard to 00:35:28.940 --> 00:35:34.986 turn down. I think it was a bankruptcy sale and uh they decided to pick it 00:35:35.019 --> 00:35:40.956 up. Well, it's a good thing because the the nice offices that I was 00:35:40.989 --> 00:35:46.566 talking to you about are now converted to academic and research facilities. 00:35:46.599 --> 00:35:54.557 The facilities and and human resources and and the controllers group had 00:35:54.590 --> 00:36:01.896 moved, moved there that gave them a good adjacent to the campus site that 00:36:01.929 --> 00:36:06.787 I would have not been available. Uh, probably about the time they made 00:36:06.820 --> 00:36:10.697 that move. If they hadn't have acquired that property, wasn't it Laddie 00:36:10.730 --> 00:36:16.387 core who said we're not going to go beyond the perimeter of this present 00:36:16.420 --> 00:36:20.936 site. We're not going to buy any more land. He was kind of limiting the 00:36:20.969 --> 00:36:27.427 main, main campus I think at one point. Well that was a, that was a 00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:33.206 situation that that came and went over the years. Um, that limiting the 00:36:33.239 --> 00:36:37.227 growth of the campus and limiting the number of students. But when push 00:36:37.260 --> 00:36:43.387 comes to shove, they always let more students come. So I think eventually 00:36:43.420 --> 00:36:47.666 the handwriting was on the wall. We can't, we can't stay within those 00:36:47.699 --> 00:36:53.296 confines and, and, and make it work. Were you a member of any professional 00:36:53.329 --> 00:36:58.077 organizations along the way that helped you guided you with your 00:36:58.110 --> 00:37:01.896 management of facilities? 00:37:01.929 --> 00:37:09.356 Yes, I've always been a member of an organization that was formerly called 00:37:09.389 --> 00:37:15.236 Apa, the Association of Physical Plant administrators. They've now 00:37:15.269 --> 00:37:22.097 expanded that name and upgraded it to be more current with today's names, 00:37:22.130 --> 00:37:27.517 but that's an international association that I was president of at one 00:37:27.550 --> 00:37:35.166 time Back in the 80s and we also had a regional association. There, there 00:37:35.199 --> 00:37:40.727 are many regions of that organization that operate on more local scale and 00:37:40.760 --> 00:37:45.186 I was a member of the Rocky Mountain Association, which I was president of 00:37:45.219 --> 00:37:50.537 that at one time to outline a few of the what you might consider major 00:37:50.570 --> 00:37:58.570 accomplishments that happened during your era. 00:37:58.929 --> 00:38:02.686 Well, I thought that was an accomplishment to get the kudo from the 00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:07.057 students. Uh, you know, that was, that was one that, uh, that was totally 00:38:07.090 --> 00:38:12.537 unexpected, but it was, it was really a wonderful thing to have happened. 00:38:12.570 --> 00:38:17.186 But in addition to that, there were, there were many, many other things 00:38:17.219 --> 00:38:21.577 that I felt we were able to accomplish over the, over the years, the 00:38:21.610 --> 00:38:26.287 organization that I had sort of evolved to the point where people were 00:38:26.320 --> 00:38:30.736 willing to do things for the betterment of the entire organization. They 00:38:30.769 --> 00:38:36.546 weren't just myopically looking, you know, how it affects them. And so we 00:38:36.579 --> 00:38:40.367 used to get a lot of really good suggestions that came from our people and 00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:47.537 I solicited those and many of those we implemented and uh, and they worked. 00:38:47.570 --> 00:38:51.727 But one of the, one of the things that was obvious to me when I first 00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:57.956 went to the organization was that key control was non existent. I looked 00:38:57.989 --> 00:39:01.506 at a report that there was thousands of keys that have been issued to 00:39:01.539 --> 00:39:05.287 individuals that nobody knew where they were. The individual that 00:39:05.320 --> 00:39:09.717 supposedly had them said I gave those to somebody else. And there was no 00:39:09.750 --> 00:39:14.517 good way of controlling at, Well, I was concerned enough about the safety 00:39:14.550 --> 00:39:19.467 on campus. I made it or I generated a report for the administration and 00:39:19.500 --> 00:39:23.907 sent it to them and of course that caused a concern there. And so laddie 00:39:23.940 --> 00:39:30.086 core promptly appointed me chair of a key policy committee, campus-wide 00:39:30.119 --> 00:39:35.236 group over over a period of a couple of years, we were able to kind of 00:39:35.269 --> 00:39:40.407 pull that all together and I think now the university is operating under a 00:39:40.440 --> 00:39:45.347 pretty good system. That another thing that uh that happened is we didn't 00:39:45.380 --> 00:39:49.307 have a very good preventive maintenance program. It was kind of, you know 00:39:49.340 --> 00:39:53.256 , if we have time, why we'll go do some preventive maintenance here or 00:39:53.289 --> 00:39:57.236 there and that's not any good because you know, it's a proven fact that if 00:39:57.269 --> 00:39:59.867 you don't maintain your equipment, it's not gonna last as long as it's 00:39:59.900 --> 00:40:05.017 going to break down more and it's not going to be as efficient. And so we 00:40:05.050 --> 00:40:10.097 we developed a, what I thought was a good preventive maintenance program. 00:40:10.130 --> 00:40:15.456 And I was really proud of the roofing program because they just didn't 00:40:15.489 --> 00:40:19.097 have a program of preventive maintenance and roofing, you know, in Arizona 00:40:19.130 --> 00:40:26.037 it doesn't rain, but when it does it pours. So I had, I had implemented a 00:40:26.070 --> 00:40:31.217 program at Utah State where you use a non detect non destructive ble a 00:40:31.250 --> 00:40:36.727 moisture detector that you you grid your roofs and you go through that 00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:41.066 grid and it'll tell you where you've got moisture and how much moisture 00:40:41.099 --> 00:40:45.876 and so instead of tearing off a whole roof and fixing it. Yeah, you fix 00:40:45.909 --> 00:40:50.347 the parts that where the water's been causing problems. One of the other 00:40:50.380 --> 00:40:54.097 problems I found was in the shops, they were all maintaining their own 00:40:54.130 --> 00:40:58.896 inventory of materials and products 00:40:58.929 --> 00:41:03.077 and I didn't think that was a very good idea who it was too many things 00:41:03.110 --> 00:41:07.986 could walk away without people knowing it. And it just wasn't very secure. 00:41:08.019 --> 00:41:14.276 So I created a central maintenance stores and there wasn't a real popular 00:41:14.309 --> 00:41:18.427 thing to do among the foreman at the time. But I think they understood 00:41:18.460 --> 00:41:22.387 that uh, you know, times are changing and they had to get with, do what 00:41:22.420 --> 00:41:26.467 the big boys were doing because at that particular time we were, we were 00:41:26.500 --> 00:41:30.316 the big boys when they needed it, why they had to go to the central stores 00:41:30.349 --> 00:41:35.066 and check it out so that we had a record of who got the materials, how 00:41:35.099 --> 00:41:40.287 much they got. Uh, and where it went. One of the things that I thought was 00:41:40.320 --> 00:41:44.486 was pretty neat is uh, as you drive down the highways, you see adopt a 00:41:44.519 --> 00:41:49.206 highway signs all over and I got the idea that I think we ought to adopt 00:41:49.239 --> 00:41:54.026 that on campus and have adopt the mall program. So I got with Dave Webb 00:41:54.059 --> 00:42:00.037 and of course he, he ate it up. He wanted to do it and we did that and it 00:42:00.070 --> 00:42:03.577 was very successful. I don't know if it's still going, but you know the 00:42:03.610 --> 00:42:07.247 fraternities and the sororities all had to give service hours and they 00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:11.146 just loved that program because it gave them a a way to contribute back 00:42:11.179 --> 00:42:15.677 and help the campus. And so it was, that was, that was a good thing to do. 00:42:15.710 --> 00:42:21.577 The other thing, we was a broad based group that talked about the issues 00:42:21.610 --> 00:42:26.157 of cleanliness on campus and mainly they centered around at least 00:42:26.190 --> 00:42:31.006 initially how to control litter better, both on the grounds and in the 00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:37.137 buildings. And uh, and with that broad based support and they had a 00:42:37.170 --> 00:42:41.997 promotional campaign that tried to get people sensitive to that that made 00:42:42.030 --> 00:42:47.146 a difference as you contributed labor to a program called christmas in 00:42:47.179 --> 00:42:51.727 april an off campus program. And I was on the board at one time and after 00:42:51.760 --> 00:42:56.956 I come off the board, I went to genesis and said, you know, we, we don't 00:42:56.989 --> 00:43:01.517 need them. We're, we're our own moving force. We ought to create our own 00:43:01.550 --> 00:43:06.907 program. And so we did, We created the program a issue cares. And I think 00:43:06.940 --> 00:43:11.977 that's still going today. There's a program that we initiated sometime in 00:43:12.010 --> 00:43:18.347 the mid 90s. We were, we were good at responding to work orders on things 00:43:18.380 --> 00:43:21.427 that needed to be done. We weren't very good at going out and finding 00:43:21.460 --> 00:43:27.097 things that needed to be done. So I created a, an inspection team to go 00:43:27.130 --> 00:43:32.747 out and and identify those problems before you or somebody else had tell 00:43:32.780 --> 00:43:36.586 us they needed to be done. Then we also created and we took those from the 00:43:36.619 --> 00:43:43.327 , from the trades people and we also created some handyman that could go 00:43:43.360 --> 00:43:47.436 out and circulate through the buildings and if they saw something needs to 00:43:47.469 --> 00:43:50.427 be done, they just fixed it right there. They had little carts they took 00:43:50.460 --> 00:43:54.717 with them. And uh if it was something that couldn't be done then they 00:43:54.750 --> 00:44:00.427 wrote a work order for the shops to fix it. And I think that turned, you 00:44:00.460 --> 00:44:03.077 know, a lot of efficiencies. 00:44:03.110 --> 00:44:08.597 That was good. The building text I guess they known then and they were 00:44:08.630 --> 00:44:13.086 very good part of the organization and there's building text, different 00:44:13.119 --> 00:44:17.506 parts of the campus. And I remember at christmas time they set up a little 00:44:17.539 --> 00:44:22.756 coral group and they'd come over and sing christmas, carols to us in our 00:44:22.789 --> 00:44:29.956 big atrium there, that was nice. So they were, they were known for that 00:44:29.989 --> 00:44:35.017 but I especially appreciated it when you would come around either annually 00:44:35.050 --> 00:44:37.247 or semiannually, 00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:43.856 you made it a point with the Dean and we would get our list of things we 00:44:43.889 --> 00:44:49.887 wanted to tell you about before you got there. So I think from your 00:44:49.920 --> 00:44:56.727 standpoint it worked very well because you either I'd with the people who 00:44:56.760 --> 00:45:02.267 we're complainers, but once you came around and usually a few of those 00:45:02.300 --> 00:45:07.936 things we gave you on their list got done right away. So no, no secret 00:45:07.969 --> 00:45:14.456 when I and I went, I went around to all the vice presidents, all the deans 00:45:14.489 --> 00:45:20.106 and all of the heads of departments that we, we interacted with a lot. I 00:45:20.139 --> 00:45:27.177 also went to the provost and uh some of the some of those people were were 00:45:27.210 --> 00:45:34.146 not very happy with us. But over time uh that changed. I had one dean. Now 00:45:34.179 --> 00:45:39.517 she will remain unnamed. Uh that looked me in the eye one day when I come 00:45:39.550 --> 00:45:44.577 to visit after about a year and she said how come you keep coming back? He 00:45:44.610 --> 00:45:50.117 says I just keep abusing you. And I said well I'm gonna come to you quit. 00:45:50.150 --> 00:45:55.217 And she did. I had, I had told my staff that I said I'm going to I'm 00:45:55.250 --> 00:46:00.537 going to gather some some things as I go about meeting with these people 00:46:00.570 --> 00:46:04.876 and I'm going to pick at least two that I think are very important and I 00:46:04.909 --> 00:46:09.447 want them fixed Within 24 hours 00:46:09.480 --> 00:46:14.477 and most of the time they did that. And that made a difference that made 00:46:14.510 --> 00:46:19.407 believers out of people. And you know, what really happened is after after 00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:25.097 a while people like john Mayer who used to have a really good list. I mean 00:46:25.130 --> 00:46:31.347 it was, it was type, you know, usually on one page, sometimes more he 00:46:31.380 --> 00:46:35.097 would just come and chat. They just come and chat. Things were going that 00:46:35.130 --> 00:46:40.566 well. And I appreciate that. I mean that was worth all the effort val how 00:46:40.599 --> 00:46:45.197 about some of the financial issues that you might have had during this 00:46:45.230 --> 00:46:49.936 period that you were at a. S. U. How the the funding would come in from 00:46:49.969 --> 00:46:56.046 the legislature or how it would be distributed for your organization 00:46:56.079 --> 00:47:00.586 cutbacks or you had to lay off people, we had a large organization. So we 00:47:00.619 --> 00:47:07.396 had a lot of money that went into salaries. We we we were responsible for 00:47:07.429 --> 00:47:12.447 all the utilities and we were responsible for all of the the operational 00:47:12.480 --> 00:47:18.956 and maintenance costs of the buildings. And so that's a that's a big 00:47:18.989 --> 00:47:23.677 number. And it was always such a big number that it was always tempting to 00:47:23.710 --> 00:47:28.867 say they won't miss a few million here or there. And uh and that's what 00:47:28.900 --> 00:47:36.900 tended to happen Once in the mid 90s. Our budget was cut by 20%. Now 00:47:37.300 --> 00:47:42.526 that's a big number that generated a lot of money, but that didn't come at 00:47:42.559 --> 00:47:48.456 no cost. Uh we had to we had to cut back some service in some areas. Uh, I 00:47:48.489 --> 00:47:56.489 ended up having to even with retirements and and not filling some jobs. I 00:47:57.510 --> 00:48:03.296 had About 33 employees. I had to sit across the table from and and tell 00:48:03.329 --> 00:48:11.329 them they were fired and that's tough, mm hmm. And uh, you know, uh a 00:48:12.539 --> 00:48:17.347 little bit of belt tightening, you know, is usually good. But Early in the 00:48:17.380 --> 00:48:21.396 90s we went through some belt tightening in the middle of the 90s, who 00:48:21.429 --> 00:48:24.887 went through some belt tightening and then towards the end of the 90s, we 00:48:24.920 --> 00:48:29.197 went through some more belt tightening and it gets to the point where you 00:48:29.230 --> 00:48:34.887 can you can hardly do the job that really needs to be done. But, but 00:48:34.920 --> 00:48:38.756 somehow with the cooperation of the university and the cooperation of our 00:48:38.789 --> 00:48:44.106 employees, we were able to make adjustments here and there and do some 00:48:44.139 --> 00:48:48.546 things to gain some efficiencies that, you know, I don't know if they 00:48:48.579 --> 00:48:55.276 would have come about without the belt tightening issues, but I thought, I 00:48:55.309 --> 00:49:00.876 thought our belt tightening was a little uh severe, but I don't think in 00:49:00.909 --> 00:49:05.256 all respects it was bad. Who would you say? Maybe you did mention victor's 00:49:05.289 --> 00:49:12.037 Afra had the greatest impact on you say that service here? Well, I used to 00:49:12.070 --> 00:49:17.296 interact regularly with everyone from the president on down to him and the 00:49:17.329 --> 00:49:23.517 provost, the vice president's, the dean's, a lot of the faculty and, and 00:49:23.550 --> 00:49:29.807 all of them had had an impact on me. Uh, they knew my name. That was one 00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:34.276 of the good things about my meetings. They knew who I was. You know, I 00:49:34.309 --> 00:49:38.977 wasn't just a voice on the other end of the telephone and if they would 00:49:39.010 --> 00:49:43.367 see me on campus, they would wave and say hi. You know, that that means a 00:49:43.400 --> 00:49:51.026 lot to, I didn't have that same uh, sort of feeling at Utah State even 00:49:51.059 --> 00:49:55.677 though it's a smaller school, the faculty here were more accepting and 00:49:55.710 --> 00:50:02.097 more open of what we did and tried to do than they were there. And so I 00:50:02.130 --> 00:50:07.847 always appreciated that fact here. And so I think all of those people were 00:50:07.880 --> 00:50:12.697 uh, you know, had a big impact on me and the people that I work closely 00:50:12.730 --> 00:50:18.767 with within my organization, Dave and Polly and Dave bricks and Polly 00:50:18.800 --> 00:50:23.137 Penney and some of those kinds of individuals, uh, they were more than 00:50:23.170 --> 00:50:27.296 just employees. They were, they were friends. And even though we didn't do 00:50:27.329 --> 00:50:32.697 a lot together socially, we sort of treated one another as friends rather 00:50:32.730 --> 00:50:38.117 than boss and employee. And, and I tried to develop that relationship as 00:50:38.150 --> 00:50:43.557 far down into the organization as I could. And I wanted people to feel 00:50:43.590 --> 00:50:48.336 comfortable to come to my office and talk to me and many people did, many 00:50:48.369 --> 00:50:52.816 people have had a concern or problem would would just come and lay it out. 00:50:52.849 --> 00:50:59.637 Ted Carey was was in that list. Had a, had a lot of really great uh 00:50:59.670 --> 00:51:04.177 foreman, I guess you learned also at your organization, the national 00:51:04.210 --> 00:51:09.606 organization that you'd meet at have annual meetings. Uh, were there other 00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:15.276 universities that kind of were a role model and the way they operated, one 00:51:15.309 --> 00:51:19.247 of the nice things about belonging to that association is they were always 00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:26.256 willing to share. And many of our meetings, we would go to those people 00:51:26.289 --> 00:51:31.336 who felt they were on the cutting edge of doing something would share that 00:51:31.369 --> 00:51:36.597 uh, in a formal presentation. And so a lot of the lot of the good ideas 00:51:36.630 --> 00:51:43.356 that I got, I got from them and uh, they picked up good ideas from us. Uh 00:51:43.389 --> 00:51:48.677 I used to write a newsletter article for the International Association and 00:51:48.710 --> 00:51:54.347 it was mainly on I believe firmly in. And so I would write a little essay 00:51:54.380 --> 00:52:02.380 each each month we had the the the magazine go out and they ended up after 00:52:02.570 --> 00:52:06.947 a few years wanting to take an accumulation of those essays and put them 00:52:06.980 --> 00:52:11.017 into a book. And so they did that and they published a book called 00:52:11.050 --> 00:52:15.986 Communication Is the key out of those essays that's still on sale today. 00:52:16.019 --> 00:52:20.796 It's not a big seller, not a best seller, that's for sure. But it's still 00:52:20.829 --> 00:52:26.356 out there. You did mention that planning and construction was separate 00:52:26.389 --> 00:52:32.037 when you got here and then it came under your supervision. What were some 00:52:32.070 --> 00:52:37.066 of the big projects that happened during year period here? They were just 00:52:37.099 --> 00:52:44.727 finishing up some things. Or in the middle of the underground library, the 00:52:44.760 --> 00:52:50.327 expansion of the music building and the fine arts center. When I first 00:52:50.360 --> 00:52:54.606 came we we were pulling all of those together. They were just in the in 00:52:54.639 --> 00:53:02.639 the midst of construction, we built the computer building we built, we 00:53:02.980 --> 00:53:07.157 built the student recreation center. We built the law library, built the 00:53:07.190 --> 00:53:11.617 Goldwater building. We built the cancer research center. So a lot of those 00:53:11.650 --> 00:53:16.407 major buildings all happened. It was about, I think 10 of those major 00:53:16.440 --> 00:53:21.017 buildings and that came along during that period of time. Well there's 00:53:21.050 --> 00:53:28.416 some good accomplishments there, val 00:53:28.449 --> 00:53:32.477 the other accomplishments that I might ask you to tell about, tell us 00:53:32.510 --> 00:53:37.657 about. Are these five girls and one boy, I think it is that you have in 00:53:37.690 --> 00:53:43.267 your family, What happened to them? I know the one son I've heard stories 00:53:43.300 --> 00:53:49.097 about, but we're proud of our Children. Um, I think, I think one of the 00:53:49.130 --> 00:53:53.126 things we were concerned about having both my wife and I have been raised 00:53:53.159 --> 00:53:59.296 on farms that our kids would become adults and know how to work. We 00:53:59.329 --> 00:54:05.967 worried about that. And so we, we made sure that in addition to the chores 00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:11.236 they did around the house, that, that somehow they found employment 00:54:11.269 --> 00:54:15.896 somewhere within the community or whether that was at Mcdonald's or or 00:54:15.929 --> 00:54:21.977 taking newspapers around on a route or, or whatever it was. We, we sort of 00:54:22.010 --> 00:54:26.287 pushed them a little bit for to have those kind of opportunities. And in 00:54:26.320 --> 00:54:31.197 our, in our opinion, they've all turned out to be very successful. I've, 00:54:31.230 --> 00:54:36.787 I've got a daughter that my oldest daughter lives in Eugene Oregon and she 00:54:36.820 --> 00:54:42.327 has two boys and her husband works at the University of Oregon there in 00:54:42.360 --> 00:54:50.360 Eugene and she's, she's very accomplished uh, as a calligrapher. And as in 00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:55.907 her own right, a computer programmer, even though she's not had formal 00:54:55.940 --> 00:55:02.467 training in that she's also accomplished in theater, but her husband is in 00:55:02.500 --> 00:55:08.767 set design. Our second daughter lives in Hawaii, her husband took a job 00:55:08.800 --> 00:55:13.066 over there temporarily. And she's one of those kind of kids that she was 00:55:13.099 --> 00:55:17.097 growing up. You didn't tell her, you you can't do that because she would 00:55:17.130 --> 00:55:21.307 prove you wrong. If you, if you told her that you can't do that sort of 00:55:21.340 --> 00:55:27.506 thing, she would make it happen. There isn't anything she can't do. She's 00:55:27.539 --> 00:55:33.557 she's got a little son that came along later in life. She had a hard time 00:55:33.590 --> 00:55:39.847 having Children. But she's, she's very accomplished in in many areas. The 00:55:39.880 --> 00:55:45.927 third daughter was, I went to school as a computer programmer and She has 00:55:45.960 --> 00:55:52.436 two Children and she unfortunately had 00:55:52.469 --> 00:55:58.236 under diagnosed Lyme disease and went for years until it finally wiped out 00:55:58.269 --> 00:56:04.566 her immune system. And so she's had a a life filled with pain and not a 00:56:04.599 --> 00:56:08.836 lot of ability to to respond like she wanted to because she's a very 00:56:08.869 --> 00:56:13.166 talented person. But when she's feeling good, nobody is better on the 00:56:13.199 --> 00:56:17.157 computer than her and she does Photoshop things that I certainly wish I 00:56:17.190 --> 00:56:23.827 could do. Our fourth daughter lives in Riverton Utah and she works with a 00:56:23.860 --> 00:56:29.666 doctor and they've they've had more of a struggle in life than than some. 00:56:29.699 --> 00:56:33.717 But her husband was out of work for a couple of years when this economy 00:56:33.750 --> 00:56:39.117 turned down. In fact Our first grandchild was a girl in the next 11 have 00:56:39.150 --> 00:56:45.597 been boys. Our son, he's in the Air Force, he's a helicopter pilot. And uh 00:56:45.630 --> 00:56:51.597 he's uh he's more like his mother than me because he, he's a friend to 00:56:51.630 --> 00:56:58.256 everybody. He's he's a wonderful son and he's done a good job in his in 00:56:58.289 --> 00:57:03.557 his Air Force career. And our youngest daughter, the one that went to 00:57:03.590 --> 00:57:09.717 Dublin with us, she worries about us all the time and she's she's got a 00:57:09.750 --> 00:57:16.287 she's got a great job, she lives in colorado and wait a minute now she's 00:57:16.320 --> 00:57:23.186 in Dublin. I thought she was we took a trip. Uh No we had to visit the 00:57:23.219 --> 00:57:29.606 Guinness factory because she she is the comptroller at a at a small 00:57:29.639 --> 00:57:37.639 brewery in Fort Collins. And uh she she's worked her way up to that in in 00:57:37.820 --> 00:57:43.767 a very short time and that is the that is the premier place to work in 00:57:43.800 --> 00:57:46.956 Fort Collins. They treat their people and pay their people better than 00:57:46.989 --> 00:57:52.427 anyone else. And she's doing pretty well because the other last year she 00:57:52.460 --> 00:57:58.867 wanted a Prius and there she had a Honda crv that I'm driving now drove it 00:57:58.900 --> 00:58:05.617 here today That had 25,000 miles on it and she said hey I'm gonna give you 00:58:05.650 --> 00:58:09.767 my car so I can justify getting this new Prius. So she just had to come 00:58:09.800 --> 00:58:14.896 pick up the car that's the kind of kid she is so yeah they're all 00:58:14.929 --> 00:58:19.686 wonderful. 00:58:19.719 --> 00:58:24.486 Okay now what have you done since you've retired 00:58:24.519 --> 00:58:30.486 since you stepped down from a s you rather uh we're active in our church 00:58:30.519 --> 00:58:36.986 and we we do a lot of volunteer work with that. My wife and I volunteer 00:58:37.019 --> 00:58:45.019 On on two shifts on Friday and Saturday night at the Mesa temple and 00:58:47.619 --> 00:58:55.186 it gives us the opportunity to give back. Um In addition to that 00:58:55.219 --> 00:59:03.219 I've been active in the retirees association here today issue and done 00:59:04.019 --> 00:59:11.646 did my stint as president and few committee chairs and enjoy getting back 00:59:11.679 --> 00:59:16.477 and associating with the people that I knew how I was on the campus and 00:59:16.510 --> 00:59:21.626 then more so that I've been able to make new friends that I didn't know 00:59:21.659 --> 00:59:27.296 before. That seems to keep us busy. My wife and I wonder why we're so busy 00:59:27.329 --> 00:59:33.086 but we have an active life. We we go to the gym and work out regularly and 00:59:33.119 --> 00:59:37.126 try to stay healthy and we'll be around I guess as long as the Good Lord 00:59:37.159 --> 00:59:41.816 will let us stay then you've got that camera that takes up sometime I 00:59:41.849 --> 00:59:46.436 guess. Well yeah we we've got kids spread all over. We've got six Children 00:59:46.469 --> 00:59:53.617 in six different states. And so uh we we plant a lot of trips around going 00:59:53.650 --> 01:00:00.166 to visit them. And uh in between times why we find other places we haven't 01:00:00.199 --> 01:00:07.776 been to go visit. I love to take photos. I would I would say that okay 01:00:07.809 --> 01:00:15.809 working at at a S. U. While it was it was at times very intimidating and 01:00:17.539 --> 01:00:22.916 at times very stressful. It gave me three incidents with my heart and a 01:00:22.949 --> 01:00:25.477 triple bypass. 01:00:25.510 --> 01:00:31.986 But uh I think I think it was it was worth it all. You know it probably 01:00:32.019 --> 01:00:36.577 would have happened no matter where I was. But 01:00:36.610 --> 01:00:41.217 I'm just glad over over the period of my life that I've been able to work 01:00:41.250 --> 01:00:47.697 it at places where I have had a chance to contribute to two institutions 01:00:47.730 --> 01:00:54.037 that have made a difference in the lives of the young people. I'm a strong 01:00:54.070 --> 01:00:59.427 believer in education and we've encouraged our Children to be educated. 01:00:59.460 --> 01:01:04.456 And my parents, even though we grew up on the farm, they always encouraged 01:01:04.489 --> 01:01:08.606 us to receive an education. So it's always been a strong part of of our 01:01:08.639 --> 01:01:14.876 life. I was the first grandchild and my whole entire family to ever 01:01:14.909 --> 01:01:22.026 graduate from college. And so I I'm just grateful for the opportunities 01:01:22.059 --> 01:01:28.247 I've had. Things seem to have come my way that that I didn't plan. Uh But 01:01:28.280 --> 01:01:33.416 I'm happy the way they turned out. And uh I'm just glad that I could make 01:01:33.449 --> 01:01:39.657 a contribution to to two great universities because they have they have 01:01:39.690 --> 01:01:44.557 been good to me. I certainly want to thank you for your service to A S. U 01:01:44.590 --> 01:01:49.486 . I can attest to the fact that you made a issue a lot better during your 01:01:49.519 --> 01:01:53.079 time here. I appreciatethat