Special visitor at work yesterday

[wh500special 2,118]

We had a special visitor at work yesterday.

Normally I have a pretty boring job. I’m an engineer at a small defense contractor in St. Louis and we primarily make protective gear needed in case of a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. Tents, poly liners, air filters, etc. Pedestrian stuff J

We have our fair share of customers come through who have an interest in our business and products, but defense sales on our scale aren’t really subject to much high profile shopping. Once in a while we’ll see a general or senior bureaucrat, but not normally anyone high profile.

Monday afternoon we received a call asking if a Thursday visit by a notable person might be OK. So the Secret Service and other representatives came out and gave the place a once over for security risks and visual appeal.

Tuesday they told us “OK, we’re comingâ€. Which put the wheels into motion to clean up the place and reorganize things as requested.

The visitor? Governor Mitt Romney who is hoping to become the next President of the United States. Plus about 500 guests from the community, local, and national media.

Regardless of political feelings, it’s pretty neat and quite an honor to have such a guest. We hosted President Clinton back in 1998 as well, and VP Fritz Mondale back in '84 as well, so we're equal-opportunity. When guys like these call, you say "yes".

He showed up yesterday and talked for about 15 minutes after being introduced by my boss. He hit his usual talking points and the crowd gathered was very receptive, as you’d expect. We had a couple of Ron Paul protesters outside and one gentleman wore a bright orange Obama tee shirt, but everything went extremely well and I think we made a nice impression for our neighbors and media.

Due to being evicted from our building most of the day by the secret service, I accomplished zip yesterday. Looks like a weekend at work for me. Thanks Mitt.

I have no intention for anything here to become political. This was simply something that happened at work. Please keep in mind others when posting replies. Please refrain from posting things that are suggestive of who your preference may be as the winner of the election or how the country’s headed, etc. It’s not every day that a national campaign decides to dropin to your place of business and it was a lot of fun to see how things are run. I thought some of you might enjoy this.

A few pictures from yesterday:

Setting the stage: Old Glory and the Missouri flag. They hung his banner from my gantry hoist. Look really close and you might notice my John Deere engines in the background behind the two secret service people and my pultrusion machine

Some of St. Louis County's finest preparing to greet the hordes.

A few of the news trucks and media members' cars lined up outside our loading docks:

Early line-up to get in (the guy with his back to the camera is yours truely)

My boss:

Gov. Romney:

Somebody parked in my spot!:

Heading west on Route 66:

Get more done, have more fun;

Steve

[CasualObserver 3,407]

Fascinating Steve, thanks for sharing! Personally I think you're right, a notable guest is just that. A notable guest. Doesn't matter what affiliation. Now.... get to work you slacker! ;)

[AMC RULES 37,102]

Duty, Honor, Country Steve.

[nylyon-(Admin) 7,156]

Very cool, it's nice when something exciting happens.

Note: This thread is about a special event, not a political view. Political posts will be removed.

[Sparky-(Admin) 21,073]

Very cool story Steve and quite probably a once in a lifetime chance for most folks. I work for a defence contractor as well but haven't met anyone "notable".

Thanks for sharing.

Mike.........

[stevasaurus 22,527]

Very cool Steve, with the build up you did, I was guessing it to be the Pres. Did you get to shake his hand?? :)

[squonk 40,727]

I wonder if he's ever heard of the Horses? My wife met the Clintons when they came to Waterloo. They lined up everybody and the "SS" checked everyone out. They looked into my wife's purse and saw something shiny. He reached in and yanked it out. It was my wife's glasses. He threw them across the yard. My wife wasn't happy. When the President greeted her she told him what happened. Old Willie asked her to point out the SS guy. He called him over, dressed him down and made him apologize. :thumbs:

[dclarke 4,030]

Nice story Steve, Thanks for sharing it with us.

[HorseFixer 2,012]

Glad it went well Steve. :thumbs:

[Shuboxlover 475]

Definitely once in a lifetime!!!!!!

Thanks for posting!!

[wh500special 2,118]

Thanks guys.

It was a lot of fun, but it was also pretty disruptive to the projects I have going. We basically lost all of Wednesday and Thursday to the event, which is a huge problem for me since I have my AF customers coming Tuesday for a design and prototype review. And recovering on Friday took a little while as well. Thankfully, our shop foreman is the hardest working man I've ever met and he picked up a lot of the slack.

I didn't get to meet him since I'm not a very big wheel at this cracker factory. He really wasn't here all that long since he apparently had a fundraiser in the morning before he came then another in the evening as well. The schedules these politcal guys keep are very grueling and they always have to be in their best mood and looking sharp. I'm not sure how any of them pull it off, but I guess their ambitions keep them going. And I have to admit that Romney looks even more put-together in person than he does on TV.

Watching the advance team of riggers set everything up was a real lesson in project management. Other than the truck driver, I'd guess the crew's oldest member was about 30 years old. There were probably 12 guys constantly buzzing around setting up stages, media tables, banners, etc. I know they go thru this a couple of times per week, but it's pretty clear they plan things out and follow their plan since there seems to be no idle time.

The biggest challenge I think they ran into was our relative lack of 120V power in this building. We're blessed with copious 480V three phase, but have to make 120 when we need it. Our EE ended up hooking them up to two hefty transformers to make the power they needed, which was quite a bit due to all of the lights and media equipment. When I left the shop at 6:30 the night before the event the crews were trying to work thru some electrical noise issues that probably were coming from those transformers. I guess they got them resolved since everything seemed to work out.

The teardown went very quickly. All of the items they brought with them either convert into some kind of cart or get folded up into big mobile trunks. They used our forklifts to make things go faster, but obviously they're equipped to do everything they need to do with no auxillary equipment at all. They even swept up all the trash that was left! I'd guess this is the same type of thing all travelling road shows deal with, but I was impressed since I know what a hassle it is to take my wares on the road to customers or to exhibitions. Hopefully I learned something.

The sercret service guys seemed like a great bunch of people. But they are all business! They swept our entire building looking for whatever it is that they look for. And they brought in dogs to further intimidate and sniff around. I'm a bit of a dog nut, so I got to pet and play with "Officer Krok", a 5 year old German Shepherd, for a while. My dog was none too happy when I got home.

Back to normal now.

Steve

[Wheel Horse Kid 105]

That is very cool that you got to see him! Bet you did not expect that when you woke up that morning!

[bowtieguy 334]

Some guys will do about anything to get a day off from work....but did ya have to go that far Steve?

Hope the SS guys got some "reasonable rates" in the river city!!!!

PS...thanks for the pics and glad to see him "heading WEST"....I'll keep my eyes open!

[squonk 40,727]

I think instead of going through all that prep they should just stop by unannounced. Odds are it would be safe because no one would know who, when and where.

[AMC RULES 37,102]

I think instead of going through all that prep they should just stop by unannounced.

WOW! Could you imagine the chaos that would cause?

Looks like a circus when you know he's coming.