My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Franzino, was an alumnus of Bucknell University, a small private university in the heart of Pennsylvania. He forever sang its praises. Consequently, I seriously considered attending Bucknell for my engineering education. After long deliberations and the counsel of my uncle Albert, I chose Bucknell over the other schools that accepted me.
I knew no one at Bucknell and soon realized that most of my schoolmates had graduated from prestigious prep schools. This fact intimidated me. That created problems in my mind when I took exams, leading to grades that were below my expectations and didn’t reflect my true ability. I mention these facts because they influenced my choice of employment out of the opportunities I had my senior year.
I received numerous job offers from companies searching for mechanical engineers. Because my grades were simply average, I doubted the quality of my education. Hence it became attractive to me when Foster Wheeler Corporation offered me employment that started with a nine month training program. This was attractive because it gave me the opportunity to get my “feet wet” before there were great expectations for my performance.
Since Foster Wheeler was located in New Jersey, I could live at home and pay back my parents for their investment in my education. I chose to accept the offer of employment in the training program from Foster Wheeler.
I reported to work at the sprawling headquarters in Livingston New Jersey the third week of June 1965. My first week on the job consisted of an orientation of the company structure and the various departments and their functions. On Friday that week, along with three other trainees I was led to the Service Department manager’s office. Seated around a large conference table, each of us wondered what was coming next. Without hesitation the manager said that we were all needed in the field immediately. He looked at Lenny and me, handed each of us a large envelop and said, “You two are going to Pasadena, California and you are flying out Sunday.”
At first this was quite exciting as I had always dreamed of visiting California. Then I realized that I would have to leave my new Pontiac Bonneville convertible in New Jersey!
On Sunday morning July 4, 1965, my parents drove me to Newark airport. I met Lenny there and after our goodbyes we boarded the plane to Los Angeles. During the flight, Lenny and I got to know each other, swapping stories from our recent college days.
We arrived in Los Angeles some four hours later. We exited the plane and headed down a ramp to get our luggage. Walking down the ramp, I was suddenly shocked to see a man who was the spitting image of my father, but a bit older. It was my Uncle Walter with my cousin Fred standing next to him. Unknown to me, my dad had called his brother and told him of my assignment in Pasadena.
Uncle Walter Musterer
Cousin Fred Musterer
Uncle Walter invited Lenny and me to spend that day and the Monday holiday with the family. They helped us with our luggage and took us to our hotel before heading to their home. There we celebrated a mini family reunion with food and drink. I also met the rest of the family. It was a great start to a new adventure.
Tuesday morning Lenny and I left our hotel and walked four blocks south on Arroyo Seco Boulevard to the Pasadena Municipal Power Plant. The plant was at the north end of the Pasadena freeway. Foster Wheeler had built the steam generator and cooling towers for the new gas fired power generation plant on the site.
Pasadena Municipal Power Plant Boiler
We found the Foster Wheeler field office trailer and met Arno, the senior service engineer managing the project. Arno welcomed us and introduced Hank, another service engineer prior to taking us on a tour of the plant. He introduced us to the power plant technicians and engineers. We were assigned hard hats and were given an in-depth safety briefing. Arno and Hank then showed us the physical plant so we knew where all the Foster Wheeler equipment was located.
The Pasadena Field Office
We returned to the trailer office and received a real shock. Arno told us that we were going to be in Pasadena for at least six months. We expected to be there for just a few weeks. This new situation meant we needed to rent an apartment and get transportation. We left work that day a little early so we could begin our search for living quarters and transportation. Lenny and I pooled our expense money, bought a used 1943 Buick and rented an apartment catering to singles located just behind the plant in South Pasadena. It was a short one block walk to work each morning.
Our 1943 Buick in front of our Apartment
My first challenge on the job for me was to overcome my fear of heights. There were no stairs on this boiler structure to get from one floor to the next. The only way around was via a man lift. Man lifts are simply a vertical conveyor belt running from the ground floor to the top floor through small platforms on each level. The belt had a succession of hand grips and small boxes about four feet apart. When you needed to go up, you stood on the platform and watched the continuously moving belt for the hand grip to arrive at your level. When the hand grip came up you grabbed it and stepped onto the box that followed about four feet below the grip. When you reached your destination level you just reverse the procedure to exit.
I mastered the man lift after a few practice runs and then the real work began. Arno assigned Lenny and me some small work assignments with both he and Hank until he felt comfortable giving us assignments alone. We did numerous tasks related to the boiler performance. We took readings of temperatures, pressures and vibrations, then writing reports to be sent to the home office in New Jersey. The specific issue that required precise data was a problematic vibration that had developed in the boiler.
Arno and Hank were excellent teachers, giving us detailed instructions but challenging us as well. Every day was filled with activity and the time seemed to fly by at very rapid pace.
One project required installation of temperature measuring grids and their associated cabling, vibration measurements and inspections of the internals of the boiler. We installed the necessary equipment and began the testing. At the conclusion of the testing and vibration measurements documented I was tasked with writing the report to the home office.
Engineers at the home office used that data to design a baffle for the internal rear pass of the boiler. The baffle consisted of a series of steel plates that were one foot, a quarter inch thick and various lengths. The solution for alleviating the vibration was for these plates to be inserted between the rows of tubes of the back pass thereby dividing the gas flow through the pass into two parallel paths. This would cause the revised gas flow to counter the vibrations that we had measured.
After a week or so, drawings of the plates that comprised the baffle arrived at the office. Arno assigned me the task of installing them in the boiler. I had three days to make the preparations prior to the plates arriving from our manufacturing plant in New Jersey.
The first thing I did was review the drawings. I surveyed the interior of the boiler to identify the exact location for the baffle. The challenge was the precise maneuvering necessary to get the longest plates into position. The welding of the tabs to hold the baffle pieces in place was a rather simple task.
As I considered the main challenge it occurred to me that if I could make a replica of the largest plate I could use it to test maneuvering schemes inside the boiler. I could master the exact movements before the actual plates arrived on site.
The power plant had an incinerator on site. One day during my planning I walked to the incinerator and noticed a long piece of heavy stiff cardboard lying off to the side. It was the perfect size I needed to replicate the largest baffle plate. I took it back to the trailer and marked the largest baffle plate dimensions onto the cardboard. Due to its thickness, cutting it to size required some tools. I requisitioned a power saw from the plant and proceeded to cut my replica plate to size.
The next day the boiler was taken off line and shut down in preparation for the baffle installation. Once cooled, I took the cardboard replica into the boiler and maneuvered it dozens of ways before I finally got it into its proper place. Once the longest plate was inside and in position, the installation of the other shorter plates was quite a simple matter.
Using my experience with the replica, I created a detailed work plan. I determined the most effective sequence of assembly and planned to mark each plate accordingly. I developed the manpower requirements and hours to produce a realistic budget. After adding a liberal contingency I presented my plan and budget to Arno.
Unknown to me, Arno added more contingency to the budget prior to forwarding it to his boss at the home office.
A week later the plates arrived. I inspected them against the drawings and verified that they were acceptable for installation and consistent with my plan. I assembled a crew of laborers and began the installation. The preliminary planning resulted in an early completion of the installation. It came in well under my original budget prior to the addition of my contingency. The bottom line as seen by the home office was even more impressive due to Arno’s added contingency.
Arno took no credit for my performance and gave me all the benefit of the performance. Without me knowing, the report of my performance reached the senior vice president causing him to take an interest in me. From that day on he watched my every move.
Arno and I took another set of vibration measurements following the startup of the boiler. The results revealed the successful solution to the vibration issue with the design and installation of the baffle. Shortly thereafter, I was sent to work briefly at another plant just north of Las Vegas. There I was involved with more testing of the existing boiler, this one a coal fired system. After a month I returned to Pasadena where I worked for another month before returning to the home office.
Turning Point
This was the first test of my engineering education in my professional career. That it was such a success encouraged me to forge ahead and take on increasingly challenging projects. The experience confirmed for me that my decision to accept employment with Foster Wheeler was the right course for me.
As with all of my turning points, I gave credit to God for His guidance in the decisions I made in my life that led up to this major turning point.
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