My Brief Engineering Career and I create a holiday.

As written earlier, my bachelor’s degree was not in education. Desperate to graduate I changed majors to Agriculture Engineering-Mechanization. Unfortunately the university would not actually develop an engineering program for another 40 years.

I had previously worked at Ralston Purina Corporation in the summers doing physical labor in the warehouse. While working there during the 3^rd shift, I was able to go to graduate school during the day, and obtained my Master’s Degree in Elementary Science Education. My teaching certificate course requirements were met, but I still had credit on the GI Bill, so I took a few courses in education administration.

With a strong science and mathematics background, I was considered an engineering candidate due to a severe shortage of engineers. I obtained a summer job in the engineering department of Ralston Purina Corporation. This was, in no small part, due to my brother’s employment there as the Plant Controller and head of accounting.

Burned out of education with all of the conflicts over contract negotiations, I considered working at RPC full time. The Engineering Dept. Manager was also considering me, and the summer job was basically a try-out. By mid-June, I had decided I would quit teaching and he agreed to put me on full time. I had business cards that said “Rick Laleman Staff Engineer”

My first project was to be “a piece of cake”, according to my boss. The project was completely designed, bid, construction contracts signed, and all permits had been obtained. According to my boss, all I had to do was watch out that the contractors didn’t “screw us”. (That’s an engineering term).

The project was a grease trap, basically a large underground concrete holding tank located along the plant sewer line. It was to hold the sewer water to allow the grease to float off before the discharge entered the city sewer main. We needed it because we had continuously sent animal fat (which is used to coat dry pet food) down the line and had plugged up the city sewer system many times. This was our last chance to avoid building our own sewage treatment plant.

As this project was proceeding, I was given several others requested by the production managers. All of my work involved environmental projects that were to improve the air quality at the plant. In total I had about $250,000 in five (5) projects to complete by the end of the fiscal year. All of these had to be done from scratch.

The date beginning construction on my “piece of cake” project was to become famous at the RPC plant. My first day of construction started with an attempt by the other engineers to rattle me. They started asking me all kinds of questions. They knew I was nervous and took advantage of that to kid me. 

The one question I couldn’t answer was about the underground utilities, specifically the electric power line.  The manager of the engineering department asked me if the power line had been located, and I didn’t know. I immediately went to the construction foreman and asked. He had not had the line located. The foreman’s rationale was he could see where the line entered the building and it was a straight line from there back to the electric substation on the edge of the parking lot. The dig area was nowhere near the line of sight from substation to building. I told him he could not dig until the power company located the power line. He was not happy, but he stopped the excavator from digging.

About two hours later, the power company arrived and their employee spray painted the path of the underground power line on the parking lot. The line marked on the parking lot was not near the area to be dug. I told the foreman he could proceed. It was approaching noon, and we were behind schedule.

I returned to the office and did more paperwork. I was the only one in engineering. About 15 minutes later, the lights went out in the office. Figuring this was a prank from the other engineers, I sat at my desk and waited for them to emerge laughing.

After about 5 minutes, I realized I could hear people in accounting talking about their typewriters not working. I grabbed my hardhat and walked out. All of the lights in the office were out. I quickly ran out toward the construction site.

Sitting on the parking lot was the excavator with a huge electric cable stuck in the bucket. The operator was sitting inside eating a sandwich. To my left, hundreds of plant employees were coming out of the dark building entrance looking around.

My boss quickly arrived and asked what happened. I explained about the power line locator. He told me to get a camera and get on the roof to photograph where the power line had been marked.

The result of that day was as follows: 400 RPC employees were sent home because of no power. The surge into the sub station due to lost load on the broken 13,500 volt line had knocked out the substation. The loss of the  substation had knocked out the power on the south end of Clinton as well the power to two neighboring communities. Fortunately the excavator operator was not harmed in any way.

The power company employee who had “located” the power line, had found an abandoned underground line. He stopped looking when he found it. The main power line was right in the path of my “piece of cake” project.

The locator employee was given the task of repairing the broken line. Because it contained many smaller strands, he had to carefully spice each one, while sitting in the hot sun. He also happened to be a basketball referee who had given Gerry technical fouls for criticizing his poor refereeing. I thought there was some justice.

We then had to meet with the power company and the construction company to decide how to complete the project and route the power line, and who would pay for it. Eventually the power company agreed to pay for a section of pipe that pieced the top of the grease trap and contained the repaired power line.

I finished my other projects in the course of the next year. I was the only engineer who actually completed everything he started. However, the work was not satisfying to me. I missed kids. I decided to return to graduate school to complete my coursework to be a principal. By the following August I was back in the classroom.

The day of the power outage was marked on the calendar by the engineering department. It was henceforth to be named a “Laleday” (Lol a day) in honor of the unexpected holiday everyone was given. I was given a cake when I left RPC with the image of an excavator and the words “Thanks for the Laleday”