1945-1949 | Worked with my father in his carpentry business as a helper and truck driver. At age 15, with the help of my father, I designed and built what is believed to be the first rotary lawnmower. This consisted of a borrowed bond bread tray, wheels from a little red wagon, electric motor, and push handle from a reel mower. It also included, after studying several choices of blades ranging from a common large circular blade to multiple deletion of teeth, a simple flat blade with two cutting edges. |
1949-1953 | Worked for Uncle Butler Built Pavements specializing in asphalt paving. Rose from laborer to superintendent where duties included maintenance, purchasing, and hiring of personnel. |
1953-1955 | During Korean Conflict, I served in the 10th Mountain Division as an instructor based in Miabushi, Japan. My last year was dedicated to building and designing a five-mile road in the Japanese Alps. My duties also included training Japanese and American personnel in road construction, operating heavy equipment, and the use of explosives. I was honorably discharged in 1955. |
1955-1974 | Returned to Butler Built Pavements as general manager. My duties included designing and fabricating specialty equipment for the industry. The first piece of specialty equipment we tested was a series of snow plowing implements, which included the "Snow Pusher" which has become the standard in the industry for removing snow in parking lots today. I also worked with engineers from Blaw Knox, an asphalt paver manufacturer. I was always disappointed with the mat that the existing pavers produced. By introducing a vibratory package to the screed, we accomplished a denser mat and more consistent texture to that mat. Today, every paver manufactured has a vibratory screed as standard equipment.
During this period from 1949 to 1971, I was involved in street rods and drag racing vehicles. My first rod was a 1932 Ford coupe powered by a heavily modified Ford Flathead, followed by a series of coups, roadsters, and dragsters. All were Oldsmobile-powered and many were New England champions. Because of my long association with Oldsmobile power plants, my partner Bob Andresen and I were chosen to campaign the first factory-backed Oldsmobile vehicle for drag racing. This was in 1965 out of Brainbeau Olds in Braintree, Massachusetts.
Our goal was to change the old man image and attract the younger buyer. This car was the newly introduced Old's 442 muscle car, which was not doing well in sales. Within two years we had single-handedly dethroned the most popular muscle car of the day, the Pontiac G.T.O., while setting elapsed times and speed records, along with many class and elimator wins. We were crowned N.H.R.A. National Champions in 1966, and one of the first professional touring teams of New England.
In 1968, Dick Smothers, of the Smothers Brothers variety show, partnered with Oldsmobile to establish his own race team. Bob Andresen and I were the northeast representatives. We ran out of Berejik Old's in Needham, Massachusetts. Also, on board were our sponsors Hurst, Schiefer, Valvaline, Lakewood, Excell, and M&H Tires. We set 10 national records during this period.
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1971 | The oil embargo forced all manufactures to emphasize fuel economy and factory support ended. |
1973 | I left Butler Built Pavements and established Woodland Construction, specializing in tennis courts. |
1975 | I got caught up with the popular push for recycling and incorporated the Bituminous Asphalt Recycling Company out of West Bridgewater, Massachusetts. My choice was full-depth asphalt reclamation with my race partner Bob Andresen. We designed and fabricated the first self-propelled traveling hammermill road recycler. We developed a close relationship with Chief Engineer Wayne Beach of the Kennametal Tool Company that resulted in the introduction of the first successful full-depth reclamation unit with a carbide-tooled mandrel that could live in the tough New England roadway materials. |
1981 | Bituminous Asphalt Recycling Company performed one of the first federally funded pilot programs for cold in-place recycling in Marlboro, Connecticut for the Connecticut D.O.T. |
1983 | Bituminous Recycling Company produced a true "one pass" full-depth reclamation machine with carbide-tooled mandrel and on-board impact crusher. We followed this effort with a second similar machine and two years later a belt-loading fine grader with laser controls. This unit was capable of excavating 1,200 cubic yards per hour at 18-inch depth and tolerances of one-quarter inch to finished grades. |
1984 | We were experimenting excessive wear to the edge and corner of our loader buckets while excavating excess reclaimed material from the roadways. This material was extremely abrasive. By incorporating a tooth into the edge corner bit, we dramatically reduced this problem. All loader bucket manufacturers offer this improvement today. |
1985 | My brother Richard came on board and added a portable crushing operation. This enabled crushing and processing asphalt and building rubble into high-quality material out of unsightly and often environmentally unfriendly solid waste. Our choice of crushers was the impact design with the ability to more quickly reduce the material. This is a similar concept to our earlier hammer mill recycler
This process had been plagued with a high wear factor to the crusher's blow bars. Richard worked with the manufacturers and was instrumental in introducing new metallurgy to these bars that reduced the wear twofold. We also provided site contractors with a tool to process on-site the necessary crushed aggregate for construction needs while dramatically lowering the overall cost of that project. All site contactors today must use this concept to be competitive in reducing the cost and environmental concerns of most site projects. |
1986 | Becoming increasingly frustrated with the high cost of establishing grades to our grade stakes on our job sites, Richard and I investigated a European patterned grade rod with built-in adjustable numbered sliding numbered tape. This, in conjunction with our laser receiver, eliminated the second person on our engineering division. It also verified any benchmarks that we encountered as we engineered these projects. This rod is now a standard tool on most engineered projects today. |
1990 | A Cold Planning Division was added that milled many of our Massachusetts roads and helped establishing this milled material as a recyclable product. Today, we use up to 25 percent of this in our hot asphalt mix by Massachusetts Highway projects. |
1993 | The Massachusetts Highway Specification's Committee chose me to represent the full-depth reclamation industry in developing State specifications for this process. This became effective in 1994. |
1996 | We formed The Pothole Medic, a subsidiary of Woodland Construction. I set out to investigate alternative methods of pothole patching. I have been frustrated by the poor results and unsafe and high liability of a person or persons attempting re-pairs of these deteriorations. With six months of painstaking investigation, I was pleased with a process of velocity feed patching system by The Wildcat Manufacturing of South Dakota. After contributing several suggestions, the Wildcat Manufacturing incorporated these into my purchase. After, six years of intense research and development, The Pothole Medic has tweaked this technique into what we believe to be the best pavement patcher and preventative maintenance tool available today. Our latest development is a mixing chamber that enhances atomization of the emulsion (glue) and coats the aggregate completely, enabling us to patch at lower temperatures and higher wind velocity. This unit is patent-pending. |
1997 | The Southern New England Timing Association awarded Bob Andresen and I the Pioneering Award for drag racing. |
2003 | Recently, we demonstrated the technique to the Massachusetts Highway Department on a variety of conditions, including secondary and major roadways. All the Massachusetts Highway attendees were impressed with the results and were monitoring this process for a period before entertaining a sizable contract with The Pothole Medic. MHD is also considering the sale or lease of these machines from The Pothole Medic to Massachusetts Highway with a contract to supply the aggregate, emulsion and training and maintenance.
Bob Andresen and I were inducted into the Ty-Rods New England drag racing Hall of Fame.
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2004 | Bob Andresen and I were inducted into the New England Hot Rod Council's Drag Racing Hall of Fame. |
2005 | The most prominent development occurred in 2005. It was my development of the first, specifically formulated, emulsion for our process and it resolved the short shelf life of the emulsions that I had been using. |
