It was the summer of 96. Since I was little I had been in excavating construction working for my Step Dad, that was all about to change! First came the knock down drag out fight with the old man, next came the job searching. My real dad ran a self storage facility out of Miramar, he told me about a guy he knows in construction named Duane, who owned some sort of concrete construction business, and that I needed to talk to him. I drove out to Poway to talk to Duane, but ended up talking with the manager there. It was American Standard Concrete Pumping. After the whole, "this job sucks and its not for everyone" speech I was offered to work for free for a week. If I still liked it, and they liked me then he would hire me full time. Young and dumb, "Sounds Good To Me!"

For the next week I ran along with a couple of the old timers on big booms. Then came Monday Morning! There I was in the yard early, waiting for my Mentor when here came the manager looking very eager or upset, I couldn’t tell. "Go see dispatch, your running a pump today"! And then he was gone just like that. So I visited dispatch, got my orders and headed out to fire up the old Schwing truck mounted line pump I was so eager to try my hand at operating! 125' of 4" hose on the truck and I’m gone! Headed for Chula Vista WWTP, Oh Yeah!

Somewhere around San Diego I noticed smoke coming from the rear end, then, BOOM! There she went! I proceeded to sit on the shoulder of I-5 for about an hour before our well acclaimed mechanic showed up in a 32m Schwing. Round two, off to Chulajauna I go with my newly acquired BOOM Pump. Aside from remote chord problems, a little chunky prime out and one really pissed off hose guy, the rest of the day went rather well!

Welcome To Concrete Pumping, I LOVE IT!!!