ONE PERSON HAS THEIR EYES AND EARS TUNED IN TO EVERYTHING ON THIS CONSTRUCTION SITE.

In the past couple of months, the VPR staff has been staying up-to-date on all things construction from the perspective of working inside the building. For this post, we’re going to consider the construction from a different perspective.

Pete Nelson lives in Brookfield, VT and works for Neagley & Chase as the Project Superintendent on our construction project. 

At the onset of the interview, we noted that the process felt weird for both of us. He had never been interviewed that he knew of, and I’d never interviewed anybody that I could recall. This wasn’t business-as-usual for either of us, but we had fun with it. ~ Heather D.

On Pete’s job.

Pete has been in construction since 1978, starting out as a residential carpenter. He loves what he does, in particular he likes the variety of tasks and jobs, and he really isn't interested in doing anything else.

“I really enjoy doing what I’m doing right here. I couldn’t work in an office to begin with. I need to be outdoors and do hands-on work. In an office I would drive people crazy, I would be stir crazy, I would be claustrophobic. I could probably do a day’s work in the office work and then I’d have to be outdoors.”

The difference between Pete’s role and a foreman is that he oversees all aspects of the job, not just a certain crew, like electricians or drywall workers. So, he oversees all the subcontractors, all the materials coming in and out of the site, all of the men that are working at any given point, and (most importantly) the schedule.

“So, that’s difficult but it’s doable. Occasionally it’s nice to just go pound nails and not think about so many things, but I like the complexity. There’s a lot of satisfaction seeing it through to the end and seeing what the architect and designer had in mind once you put it all together.”

Gas masks found during VPR excavation

On surprises, finding things, and the VPR project.

Pete is pretty sure that the most unique thing that he’s unearthed was right here at VPR. (More on that in a moment.) There was, however, a memorable job site discovery in Montpelier once:

“We were excavating to take out a tank when we came across some old bricks and arrow heads. We had to shut the job down for three days. That’s a major catastrophe when you have a schedule and every day counts. That was a big deal to me!”

What’s better than arrowheads? Gas masks! Several were unearthed in early excavations at VPR, and we're speculating that the gas masks were used for testing or training by soldiers at the Fort, possibly as early as World War I. 

“I think those gas masks were pretty unique! It makes you wonder who wore them.” 

(Side note: Our own Alex Keefe thought the gas masks were “creepy” so we might consider that if we plan to display them anywhere in the new building.)

Pete says he isn’t often surprised at how projects turn out, but there are things that are different on each project. A favorite building that he has worked on is the King Arthur Flour building, and he hopes VPR will turn out just as nicely. But, Pete says, the VPR building is unique, and he has the added challenge of overseeing construction on two sides of an existing building.

“There’s nothing traditional about it. There’s a lot more detail in this building, it’s not just routine. It’s more complicated because it’s almost two sites in one. One side of the building is going on at the same time as the other side. There is a lot of walking around the site!” 

He’s particularly looking forward to seeing how the interior comes together because we will be using some finishes that he hasn’t worked with before. In fact, he seemed pretty excited about some steel panels that will be used.

On the sounds Pete listens for.

Pete understood that, as an organization that is focused on sounds, we were interested in what he listens for during his days. He said he uses his ears quite a bit. There wasn’t anything in particular he noted that was a pleasant sound, but he had a decent list of things that would set off his internal alarms.

“Noise is obviously something we deal with all the time. There's all kinds of racket going on all the time. Anything out of the ordinary raises a red flag. A tree falling wouldn’t be typical. Something cracking and falling, something crunching, these sounds wouldn’t be something you’d typically hear. A machine backing into another machine  -- those would all be a red flag!”

We joked a tiny bit about the sound of a vehicle getting stuck in a pile of pea stones, and the sound of the stones flying out from under the car as the wheels start spinning. (For those of you who missed it, that happened here last week.) That probably raised a red flag for someone other than Pete, but thankfully it didn’t rise to the level of a “crunch” sound.

Finally, I asked what Pete listens to on VPR (of course). “Well you won’t believe it but I listen to the classical music. When I just want to zone out and listen to nothing else, I will turn on classical on my way home.” I definitely do believe it. The calming sounds of VPR Classical are the perfect antidote to a day full of construction noise!