In today’s business climate you can almost expect to switch jobs several times during your career.  This phenomenon seems especially prevalent in construction and manufacturing companies.  During my career, I have been fortunate enough to “switch” jobs without switching companies.  I began working for Historical Arts & Casting at the “ripe” old age of 15.  There were 13 employees at the time and it was a great family atmosphere.  I was as excited as any 15 year old would be to have full-time summer employment.  To be entirely honest, I needed a job to pay for all the expenses that a 15 year old may have like saving for a car and car insurance.  My job consisted mostly of sweeping the shop, helping package product and running the “dumb” end of a tape measure.

Liberty Island Furniture

Eventually, my big break came when we got an order to build the aluminum exterior furniture for the Statue of Liberty.  That’s when ornamental metalworking became interesting.  I learned some welding, grinding and basic pre-finishing skills.  I could patch and smooth with the best of them.  I was even entrusted to find a level and flat spot on the floor, where I marked off a two foot by two foot square and proceeded to grind off the bottoms of the table and chair legs to make them sit level.  I think the order was for around 100 chairs, 20 benches and 20 tables.  There were roughly 560 to be ground but it was like a mountain of legs.  I quickly learned that three legs are easy to level but the fourth one is the trick.  I finished up the pile just as I felt like I had gotten really good at it and then the summer was over.

It has been amazing to watch as Historical Arts has grown from 13 employees to over 50 and has successfully completed several multi-million dollars projects.  Over the years I have had the opportunity to be everything from a delivery driver and forklift operator to the Director of Tradeshow marketing and the Financial Controller.  Nowadays, I spend my time looking at lots of numbers and statistics and making them balance.  One statistic that really stands out to me is that our current employees have an average tenure of 10.88 years.  Great metalwork takes time and talent to learn and master.  As a whole we have over 500 years of combined metalworking experience.  That is simply amazing to me.  We have completed numerous projects in New York City and invariably when I fly there I see the Statue of Liberty and remember being a part of building something that has, and will stand the test of time.