Dad's Jobs

My work experience began early. I started by selling newspapers, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner, on the streets of Fairbanks, Alaska, when I was 8-9 years old. I would sell 50 papers a night at 10 cents each. Of that, I got to keep 5 cents plus tips. It was not unusual for me to have $70-$80 in the bank at any one time.

My next job experience was helping my Mom when I was in the 7th grade to keep the Brockbank Junior High in Magna, Utah, clean and paper free. It was a job held in my Dad's name while he was actually a PhD student at the U of U. But, Mom and I did the work. It was my particular job to empty all the wastebaskets throughout the school and to then help Mom by moving chairs in the classrooms while she swept. That was a lot of work. In the summer, though, I got to ride the sit-down lawn mower and mow the front lawn. That was fun!

In High School, my first job was stripping asbestos insulation off of pipes in the Mullan High school shop, and then painting the pipes with aluminum paint. Obviously, we didn't know then what a risk it was to breathe asbestos. That was just a short summer job. Then, I worked as a grocery delivery boy for the Economy Grocery in Mullan, Idaho. During school, I worked Tuesday nights and Saturdays, and in the summer I worked five days a week. It was a great job and I formed some life-long friends while there. Art Rizzonelli was my boss, and he was like a second father to me. I love that crew. I corresponded with Avriel Henickman every Christmas after we left Mullan in 1958 until she died last year. I miss her.

After we moved to Springville, my first job was delivering Fuller Brush products for the guy who was the salesman. That was a rotten job. He was a less than honest guy to work for, and it became my job to deliver the products and collect the money. Of course, the people he sold to were usually in the very low economic brackets, and those people often had second thoughts about what they had ordered, and I would make a trip to their home for nothing. That job was short-lived.

For a very brief and unproductive time, I sold gas water heaters for my bishop in Springville. Never sold a one.

For two summers I worked highway construction for the Sumsion Construction Co. The first summer I was a flag man and a slope raker (that was a really bummer job). The second summer I drove a dump truck and managed to wreck one of the trucks with a big bucket loader in the back, just barely avoiding going over a cliff in central Utah. That happened on the only Sunday that we had agreed to work, and I realized that it was a double mistake.

My next adventure in employment was working as a stock boy and a bagger at Carson's Market, a grocery store that was on the NW corner of 9th east and 9th north in Provo. Something else is in there now. Lee Carson was a miserable man to work for, and I felt he treated most of us very shabbily. I didn't mind leaving there, at all.

I then went to work for the Utah State Hospital. This was after my mission. I worked as a Psychiatric aide, administering medications, both orally and by injection, and generally "baby sitting" the patients. It was a very instructive period of my life. One of my co-workers on ward 5 was Gerald Lund (The Work and the Glory). We knew him as Jerry. He and his wife, Lynn, and Norman Loback and his wife (Norm was from the 10th ward in Springville), and my wife and I went a couple of group dates. Jerry, Norm and I all worked on Ward 5, which was the maximum security ward of the hospital. After a couple of years on the wards, I became the security guard, and drove around the grounds in a white panel truck. Our truck was tied in with the city police, and we were known as "Car 70". There must be a TV series in there somewhere.

After graduating from BYU, I became a Management Intern with the Naval Air Systems Command in Washington, D.C. Our offices were located in the Main Navy building just north of the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Those office buildings were torn down a long time ago, during the Lyndon Johnson administration, and the Viet Nam War Memorial wall is in that spot, now. It was there with the Navy that I began my career in Contract Administration.

Three years later, goaded mostly by the struggles we had in getting to Utah for Uncle Robbie's funeral, I looked for and found a job closer to "home". It was as a contract administrator for Dalmo Victor Co. in Belmont, CA. I worked there for four years, then moved just down the street a ways and worked for Litton Electron Tube Co. I was there for three years.

Then, we moved to West Jordan and I went to work for Montek. I was there for five years.

We then, in Jan. 1981, moved to Colorado Springs where I got a job with Ford Aerospace Corporation. The highlight of this time was that we were allowed to lease any Ford/Lincoln/Mercury vehicle of our choice and the least included insurance for our teenage drivers. What a boon! Ford sold their aerospace business to a company called Loral in 1990. Lease cars were gone, but so were several of our teen drivers (Lori, Kristi, Jeny, Amy, David, and Mindy). Loral merged with Lockheed Martin in 1996, and there I remained until I retired in January of 2005.

Lots of jobs. Lots of moving. Lots of neat and some not-so-neat people in all of those experiences. Obviously, any of the above paragraphs could be expanded into pages and pages.

God has been very good to us. Our needs have been more than met. We have struggled through some difficult financial times, but have come out the other end successfully, and I attribute that entirely to a loving Father in Heaven. Looking back, the blessings that we received are far easier to see than when they were happening.

Grandpa/Dad Lauritzen