This is a remembrance of my first boss in the real world. He left a lasting impression of a commitment to excellence and an unwavering respect of engineering. I have not been in contact for many years, but think of him often. He died in September of 2024. I've altered some names out of respect.
In the spring of 1988, I walked into the office of D_&D_ in Marion for my initial interview. I was escorted to the office of
Bobby L_ and recall vividly sitting across from him in the front office.
After a little friendly conversation, Bobby picked up the phone and called Joe
to come up and tour me through the office. Bobby hung up the receiver and
looked over at me, smiled and said, “Joe’s a little high strung like most
structural engineers I’ve met.”
I few seconds later Joe’s head popped through the door to my
left. His hand shot out and we headed back to the structural corner of the
office.
It’s important to note that, despite my Virginia Tech
degree, I was woefully unaware of what a structural engineer actually did. I didn’t know how to work the copier – let
alone competently work on projects. At that time, there were several guys in
the department. Iraj, David (P_),
David (A_), and John. I remember Joe pulling out a 4 inch thick binder of
hand calculations on the Mining Building at Southwest Virginia Community
College and plopping it on the top of a bookcase. I was dumbfounded and I think
he could tell. I remember him laughing at my shocked look.
Sometime during the visit, Joe got a call and I started
chatting with David P_. He gave me some of the best advice I ever received
and have shared countless times. He told me ‘The answers are usually pretty
easy – the hard part is asking the right question.’ I often wondered if he got
that from Joe. I wouldn’t be surprised. It is succinct, true, and paradigm
shifting.
A couple weeks later I was the new guy in the group. My
initial desk was a six-foot table with a dilapidated chair (I mean ridiculously
dilapidated), in the hallway. Joe had me use my school calculator for six
months before trusting me with a programmable HP calculator (which is still
here at my desk as I write this). I learned the super-power of listening to Joe
with one ear, and to a contractor on the other end of the phone with the other
ear. I swear that they could talk concurrently, and my brain figured out some
way to piece them together.
There are far too many stories to recount. Some jarring and
gut-wrenching. Some were hilarious – Joe
had an authentic laugh, always earned. Some were insightful and caused us all
to recalibrate how we did business. And others were heartbreaking. They didn’t
seem so at the time, but these hard-won lessons and experiences were chipping
off the rough edges and exercising muscles I didn’t know I had. I cherish them
all.
A few months later, while working on a long-forgotten
project, Joe asked me about some particular subject. Maybe it was whether
something had been checked – or what a contractor planned to do. I told him
what I thought was the right answer. Well, I happened to be over at another engineer’s
desk later that morning and he informed me that, the answer I had provided to
Joe was not correct…. I remember
dropping my head, knowing that two things were going to happen. First, that I had to tell Joe. I had to suck
it up, turn around and fess up. And the second was that I was sure he would
take my head off.
But that didn’t happen. When I told him about my error, he
kind of smiled – or nodded and said ‘OK’, and that was it. He wanted me to be straight up and he wanted
me to be honest. He wanted me to do the right thing. Since then, I’ve had to make many dreaded
phone calls or difficult conversations. But I learned from Joe that it usually
isn’t as bad as you think – and it has to be done.
More than once, when I was stumped or uncertain how to
proceed, Joe would sketch out the bones of an elegant solution. He had an
innate ability to see the best way to resolve a problem. For anyone who says
that engineering isn’t an art, I would suggest that they had never seen Joe at
work. I say ‘bones’ of a solution, because he seemed to always leave something
for me to fill in. To learn from. He didn’t just do it for me. He showed me the
way. He forced me to be better.
Joe wasn’t always the kindest boss in the popular sense. But
he was loyal and honest. Those are, in truth, foundational to kindness. He
wanted what was best for me, even when I didn’t know what that was. His kindness to me was profound.
When Craig broke the news to me last week, I was stunned and
heartbroken. I didn’t think of Joe every day, or every week, that is true. But
he comes to mind so very often when I am working. The foundational mindset and
approach to what I do were laid by Joe in those months and years.
I want to pursue excellence for a lot of reasons; it’s
expected as part of being an ethical engineer whose work protects lives, to
represent our company well, to provide for my family. But there is a part – and
there will always be a part – that does it because Joe B_ expected that
it would be done that way. For a backward, and insecure young engineer, meeting
his standard and approval was all that mattered. He’s still over my shoulder
asking those questions. And that’s the important part.
With great sympathy and profound gratitude,
Allan
