“Everybody on a construction site has a purpose—including the guy that cleans the outhouses. Thank him once in a while.”
I used to write sports stories for my high school newspaper, the Panther Prowls. My brother Bill was the business manager for the paper, and even then I was working for him, selling ads. I was better at writing than I was at sales, so I thought I’d become a sports writer.
After graduation I went to EWU. Got a room that was supposed to be a quiet floor in the dorm, but a bunch of hooligans—like me—spent more time having fun than going to class. That’s when I lost interest in sports writing. I just kind of burned out. So then it was like, what do I do now?
Honestly, I wasn’t sure. After working for Bouten off and on over the years, I knew I wanted to create my own path. I just thought, Man, there’s got to be a better way to make a living than construction. Even Jack Smiley, he said to me one time when I was still in high school and I was working for him in the summer, he says, “Are you sure you want to do this, kid?” And I said, “Well…no.”
We all grew up hearing stories about the old Bouten guys; how hard they worked and what they sacrificed for this company. Men like Bill Perry, a World War II veteran who fought in the Pacific. Smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes and just screamed and yelled at us all the time. He didn’t care that my last name was Bouten. In fact, he was my godfather, and I was scared to death of him. But somehow the idea of a career in construction started growing on me, and when I decided to join the Carpenters Union, my dad said to me, “Find someone you can emulate; someone you respect. Watch what they do and see how they treat people.” Rod Hepper, a Bouten superintendent for years, was that guy for me.
So I started at Bouten as a carpenter in 1985. Moved to San Diego to get some experience on my own, came back, and quit my job for two years to go to school for a civil engineering technology degree. See, I knew the surveyor at Bouten. He was pretty old and close to retiring. I’d done that work back in California, and I wanted to do it for Bouten. It was a lot of math, though, so I had to go to night school for a couple years before that to brush up on my algebra and calculus and everything. I had to succeed, too: My wife was working as a teacher and we had a young son. There was no way I was screwing this up. Twenty-five people started the class; after two years of material testing and estimating and all that stuff, twelve of us made it to the end. And for the next twenty-three years, that was my main job at Bouten: surveying and building layout.
I also helped as an assistant superintendent. I ran some jobs, but I couldn’t handle it—because I’d worry about it 24/7. I just…I couldn’t let it go. There were times I’d be running the trades all day and surveying till dark. Every single night. I was tired all the time and wasn’t much good to my wife or my kids. That’s when I realized I’m better in a supporting role. That was my wheelhouse.
Looking back, I guess I succeeded after all. I never became a sports writer—but I achieved what I set out to do: ensure that my dad, my brother, and my coworkers would want me to work beside them; for me to be a part of their team. And really, that’s what I’m proudest of.
