Throughout the two years that the Mountainview power project was suspended, Bechtel made sure it would be able to restart work at a moment’s notice. Site Superintendent Orville Cutright and Site Manager Rick Mays met periodically with union officials for the trades and kept them apprised of the project’s status. Once plans were set for the restart, they came out early to begin scouting for workers.
“We hand-picked the general foremen by interviewing them,” Cutright says. “Then, working with them and the unions’ business managers, we hired a group of craftspeople who are smart, well- educated, and very good at what they do.”
Mays calls them “hands down, the best I’ve ever worked with anywhere in the world.” And he adds, “We had guys who were offered other long-term jobs holding off because they wanted to work for Bechtel.”
That loyalty was stoked by Bechtel’s safety program. “They know Bechtel has a real commitment to safety, and we require them to buy into our safety practices in using personal protective equipment and following safety rules,” Mays says. “We also begin every shift with a five-minute stretch and a five-minute catch-up of what’s going on all over the site—answering questions and addressing safety issues.”
