When work was slow in engineering, as I mentioned in the previous essay, I would be given some “time off”. The state of Vermont had a rule relating to “furloughed” personnel, as they called us. If your employer planned to call you back, you didn’t have to seek an alternative job. I would say that this rule applied to virtually all of us who got “furloughed”. The unemployment check was pretty much automatic (after a one week delay). But of course the dollar amount was not nearly the same. Some of our workers were young folks with families, so they were forced to seek employment elsewhere if the furlough lasted more than a few weeks. As a result, we did lose some good people over the years because they couldn’t “weather the storm”.

One of the most rewarding parts of being a Project Engineer at Vermont Rebuild (at least in my early years), was the fact that we were involved in all aspects of our assigned project. One of my favorite parts was travelling to the various small machine shops in the area to do the “meet and greet” with these folks. We had to see just what their capabilities were, so that we could decide what jobs we could send to them. A machine rebuild / retrofit might include several dozen new parts that needed to be made; and of course on a rebuild, there will probably be some existing parts that will be reused or reworked. These reused parts may need to be repaired; quite often round parts or shafting will have worn areas that will need to be built up with chrome and reground. We had the capability in-house to do most of these items, and usually the plating would be done in-town, at Springfield Electroplate. Our shop machining capabilities were quite limited, so we “farmed out” most of our work. Besides a couple of OD grinders, we had a Bridgeport milling machine, a band saw, and a large way grinder. And if you remember the story about the cobblers kids who had no shoes, it kind of applied to us, too. These machines (especially the way grinder), needed a skilled operator who knew the machine intimately, to get good results. You kind of had to know where to place the part on the table, and hold your head just so while traversing the wheel. Then maybe you would be OK (but only maybe……….).

All of our sheet metal work was done outside. There were several shops around that could provide what we needed, and we would decide who  got the work based on 1) price, and 2) delivery. Our “go to” sheet metal shop was usually JSP Fabrications in Charlestown, but we also used Meadowbrook (also in Charlestown). In my early days, we sometimes used a company in Tilton, New Hampshire, for sheet metal items. The owner was Stan Hodgeman, a former J&L man who worked in the “Tin Shop”, as we called sheet metal at J&L. He had a rocky relationship with our owner, and finally refused to do work for us. This was not an uncommon problem.