Employees
Leroy Bean
Easterday Construction lost another long time employee last week. Leroy Bean worked for Easterday Construction Company for over 43 years, His funeral was last Friday and not only featured an ECC hat hanging by the casket, but his time with Easterdays was mentioned throughout the ceremony.
Leroy’s family has had an outsized connection to Easterday Construction with not only Leroy’s long legacy, but both of his grandsons, at least four of his nephews and one great nephew working for us at one time or another. Nephew Bob continues with us and has been here with a tenure rivaling Leroy’s. He also has a similar career path, moving from truck driver and laborer, to skilled trades to job superintendent today. Listening to the impact Easterday Construction had on Leroy and his immediate family was humbling. ECC has always been a family business and that extends to employees and their families as well.
Leroy had an outside impact on ECC and the Culver Community. Active in several local organizations while working for ECC, he continued that through his retirement. (See the adjacent obituary.) It’s obvious that not only will he be missed by his family, but also by the ECC family and the Culver community too.
We used to do a newsletter called the Easterday Parade. in volume 1, No. 6, October 1990, there was an employee profile on Leroy. Here’s the text of that profile:
Leroy William Bean has been an employee of Easterday Construction Company since 10/01/62. Nearly 20 years ago, Leroy was hired by Russell L. Easterday as a truck drive, to work and make deliveries out of the shop. He held this position working under Cubby Bair for approximately 3 years, until the office began receiving too many complaints about Leroy from the job sites. Apparently, Leroy was such a hard worker, that the superintendents wanted to keep him on site.
Leroy went from truck driver to laborer to labor foreman under Denny LaRue to Job Superintendent. The first major project placed under his control was the Saemann Building downtown in Warsaw. This was the renovation of an old building under the Historic Preservation laws in 1982 and 1984.
While on the jobs, Leroy was shortened to Roy, which is how many of us still know him. Avon Murray, an electrician that worked for ECC in the past, did this bit of editing for him. Apparently, Avon thought Leroy was too long to remember.
Leroy was born in the Chicago area on May 7th, 1941 and grew up around Culver. Margaret, Leroy’s wife was from Winamac. They were married on July 22nd, 1961. They have lived in their current residence, in the town of Culver, for the past 22 years. They have spent loads of time and energy remodeling and recently won a civic award from the Culver beautification committee. This effort is still continuing, with Leroy spending much of this summer remodeling their kitchen with new cabinets made by “Uncle Bud” Cripe.
Leroy and Margaret have two daughters, Kim and Cheryl, both in their late twenties. They have three grandchildren, Kim’s 8-year-old son, Roy Lee, Cheryl’s 6-year-old son, Mogan and 4-year-old daughter, Amy.
We’re all about Safety at ECC this Month
We received our ABC STEP Silver Safety certificate from Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) this week. Last week we had two employees complete their OSHA 10 Hour safety training as well as their Red Cross First Aid Training. Hopefully one of them will be around when I stress out and have a heart attack here! Ha!
We do our best to be responsible and safe at Easterday Construction Co., Inc. We distribute weekly tool box talk safety meetings and share safety training lunches with information provided by our insurance provider, Gibson Insurance. Last month we had some questions about safety on a job site and they provided a review of our procedures. They congratulated us on the safety measures we had in place and said we were doing everything right. Kudos to the field crew for meeting and exceeding standards!
Veterans Day – Fill in the Blanks
All of us at Easterday Construction Co., Inc. want to remember our veterans, past and present, on this Veterans Day.
Easterday Construction has a long history, dating back to the 1920’s. Melba Easterday told stories of working at the Kingsbury Ordinance Plant with company founder, Russell Easterday, while her husband, Edward Easterday, was fighting in World War II. Easterday Construction benefited from many skills that employees brought back from their service.
We are doing some purging here and as usual, are amazed at the number of people that worked for Easterday Construction throughout the years, many of which were veterans. While we have many of their names, we don’t have records of who also served our country. Here’s a short list of past employees that served. We’re confident that this list is inadequate by several score at a minimum! If you know more and can fill in the blanks for us or add any details, they’ll be added here:
- Everett Easterday
- Edward (Red) Easterday
- Jack Easterday
- Dennis (Denny) Larue
- Gene Thomas
- David (Dave) Osborn
- Vern Rohrer
- James (Jim) Yagelski
- Robert (Bob) Berger
- Robert (Larry) Berger
- Kenneth (Kenny) Stiles
- William (Willie) Pearson
- …
Thank you for your service!
Construction Career Month in Indiana
Governor Holcomb has declared October “Construction Career Month“. It’s great to see this recognized, but we at Easterday Construction Co., Inc. (ECC) promote this year in and year out.
Over the years, we have sent dozens of employees to various forms of construction training in order to advance their careers. This has varied from National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accredited Apprenticeship Training through Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) to leadership seminars to task certifications, such as welding to various safety training events. We believe strongly in helping our employees advance their careers.
Over the years, we have also participated in Culver Community Middle School Career Days. It has been interesting having the opportunity to spark interest in the construction trades, dispelling myths and touting benefits. One of my favorite things, that seemed to garner interest, was to point out that with a successful career in construction, you can drive through your community and see the results of your efforts in the building projects with which you’ve been involved. In my case, there are four generations of Easterday Construction projects in Culver and the surrounding communities.
One class was particularly memorable as it had a student that was a daughter of one our our superintendents. Not only did she listen raptly, I heard that she repeated my presentation at home. It was obvious she was proud of the work her father performed. While these kids are too young to be concerned with the financial side of obtaining a higher education, they were generally surprised to hear that construction offered a career path with similar outcomes to many college degrees. Hopefully, sometime in the future, this will make them think hard about taking on college debt. Maybe they’ll come to see me to talk about the advantages of construction apprenticeship… where ECC picks up the cost of their education.
Marty Easterday’s Passing
Another memorable employee and family member passed this past week. Martin “Marty” Easterday was part of the third generation at Easterday Construction Co., Inc. He was the son of Edward Lee Easterday (affectionally known as “Red”) and grandson of our Founder, Russell L. Easterday. He was the last employee with the Easterday name to work here.
I literally have know Marty all my life. He grew up next door to me and was my “baby-sitter” at times. I idolized him and his brothers Tom & Jim as the older kids that always had some cool project going on and they let me watch the successes, failures and often, havoc!
Marty worked at Easterday Construction Co., Inc. in the seventies and eighties (1965-1985) as a plumber and HVAC tech. During one of my summers off during college, I worked as his assistant. He would often regale me with his college exploits including the parties he went to and the girls and the girls and the girls. He assured me I was doing college wrong and not having nearly enough fun there! Ha! Marty always had the gift of gab and was a natural storyteller… So much so, it was often difficult to tell how much, if any, of the story was fact or fiction. He truly was someone who had a zest for life. He will be missed!
