Along about August of 1991 I received a phone call from Craig Barrett, owner of Vermont Rebuild in Springfield. I had known Craig for some years, although not too well. He would come into the lobby at J&L to get information on some J&L machinery he was rebuilding. At the time, his business was located across from where the fire station is now, in one of those buildings, and J&L was still open. When he called me, he had bought a building on the end of Pearl Street, and the business was growing. He offered me a job in engineering, and after an interview, and some negotiations, I accepted.

Over the two years I worked in Lebanon, I had felt somewhat detached from happenings in Springfield; plus, the commute was wearing on me. Quite often I would be asked to work Saturday mornings, and driving back and forth from Lebanon for a five hour stint was a drag. Plus the aforementioned lack of walking space. All in all, it was time for me to come back to town. As it turned out, I would work the remainder of my career at Vermont Rebuild.

Vermont Rebuild had many former J&L people employed, so I felt right at home. My first job was as a project engineer on a J&L E2 grinder. The mechanic on the job was a former J&L guy, Harold Maxwell. He was originally from Arkansas, so he was known by the nickname “Reb”. Although I seldom heard anyone call him that to his face. A former military boy, his shirt nametag was labeled “Maxwell”. It took me a while to understand that he called most of his friends by their last names, me included. I had spent time in the grinder engineering department at J&L, so I was familiar with the machine he was working on. Vermont Rebuild did not build new machinery, they filled a necessary void by rebuilding and retrofitting older machinery. In the past, rebuilding of machinery was discouraged by the big shops….it was easier (and more profitable) to sell new equipment. Rebuilding a machine does require a different approach; the older machines are usually poorly maintained, worn out, and dirty. Cleaning out all the old oils and crud is not a pleasant thing to do, and the results have to be placed in steel drums and labeled “Hazardous Waste”. Then the company has to pay someone to truck them away.

The basic structure of Vermont Rebuild was somewhat loose: 1) President and CEO; 2) Sales and Quoting; 3) Electrical and mechanical engineering; 4) Office staff; 5) Electrical and mechanical assembly (with a foreman). There was no supervision in engineering, we just worked informally as a team. There was no Purchasing department when I joined, although one was added later. We usually had a short meeting every morning with the CEO, where we discussed the current projects, and their status. The secretary jotted down notes and typed up a summery sheet. Every few days we would reconvene and repeat. Any project that may have problems would be discussed in detail, with only the affected personnel and the CEO attending.