Vermont Rebuild had a 401(k) plan; the company contributed an amount equal to 3% of our pay every week. We could put in 2% more, and the company would match it. So most of us were investing 7%. It wasn’t a bad plan at all, and you could pick and choose among several investment options. The only problem was, you couldn’t change these options very easily ( I think there was a three month wait period). We even had a profit sharing program that I remember receiving a few checks from.

Our health insurance was usually Blue Cross / Blue Shield, with the premium cost split, the company paying 50%, the employee paying 50%. Dental insurance was available for an additional cost. These plans would usually change every year, due to premium cost increases. Sometimes the insurance carrier would change; I remember Aetna was our insurer for a while. Craig would shop around every year to get the best plan for the least cost. Sometimes our deductible would go up so that the premiums could stay low. We had a small, older workforce, and some of us had serious health issues; this in itself meant higher premiums.

One of the nice features we had at Vermont Rebuild was a weekly newssheet that was handed out with our paychecks. This single sheet could have some news about work in progress, pending sales, or perhaps a story on one of the employees. Sometimes, someone would insert a fun item, maybe even a mix-and-match game people could get involved in. This sheet was eventually discontinued, as workloads increased and time was used for other more productive things. But I really missed it; I think it kind of brought us closer together.

Early in my career at Vermont Rebuild, we became involved with a company called U.S. Repeating Arms (better known as Winchester). They had a plant in New Haven, Connecticut, and they had several machines that needed to be rebuilt and upgraded. Two of these were “cold formers” that they used to forge their gun barrels. One of these machines was originally built by Cincinnatti, the other was a Fellows product built here in Springfield. It was very interesting how these two companies design philosophy differed. The Cincinnatti unit was a single spindle machine with a 200 ton forging capacity. The Fellows machine was a twin spindle with a total capacity of 500 tons. I was assigned to be the project engineer on the Fellows machine.

One of the good things about the Fellows machine was the fact that Winchester had purchased all the engineering data from Fellows years before, so we had all the microfilm drawings to work with. The bad news was that Fellows only made seven or eight of these machines, and every one was different. We had quite a job reviewing the machine as it was being disassembled, and identifying which drawings were pertinent.

 

At the time of my hire, Craig had several local businessmen as investors in the company. We never knew just who they were, just rumors. It seemed to be some sort of a big secret, just as the meetings that Craig had occasionally with them. But one of the investors was also a monthly visitor to our company. I am referring to Cecil Henn, a former Bryant manager, who would regularly visit to see how things were going and advise Craig on various items. He lived in Indiana, and drove to Vermont. Cecil was quite good at sitting down with us engineers and discussing his ideas on company structure. He was really the one who took the time to lay out a sort of company policy concerning the annual merit reviews and salary increases. Even then, we never really had anything written down as to job descriptions and salary ranges, like the big shops had. But at least we got to discuss our concerns, and Cecil gave each of us individual annual goals to work toward. These would be reviewed every year, and the reasons for success (or failure) would be discussed in detail.

The pay structure at Vermont Rebuild was almost impossible to nail down; each one of us would negotiate our salary at the time of hire. There was no hard and fast rule as to just what any position paid. That being said, nobody really knew (except the payroll person) just what anyone made. We were kept in the dark to prevent any possible friction between us. The floor personnel were paid hourly; office and management staff were on salary. There were no time clocks to punch, everyone was on the “Honor System”. We all made out weekly timesheets which our pay would be based on.

When I joined in 1991, the comment was made that my salary was based on a “40 hour week”. But a lot of this was never in writing. Later in my career, that comment changed to a “45 hour week”. Easy to do, if nothing is written down. There was talk about having an employee handbook written up, but I don’t remember ever seeing one.

If the mechanics on the floor were paid hourly, with time-and-a-half over 40 hours, the rest of us ended up with a salary based on 45 hours, and being paid straight time after that. So in effect, we had to “donate” 5 hours to the company before getting reimbursed. So if we worked, say, 50 hours, we were basically earning half pay for the last 10 hours. It was even more lopsided when it came to travel; the hourly people were paid for their travel time, salaried people were not. We were a non-union shop.

On the plus side, salaried folks had sick time and personal days paid. But, again, there was no written rule as to just how much sick or personal time each of us had; it was at management discretion. But I don’t remember anyone having a problem with this.

As with most of the shops in town, we got paid on Thursdays. It was an easy walk for me over to the bank in the plaza. If you had an account at the Maple Valley Credit Union, you could have some, or all of your pay sent there automatically.