(Blogger’s note: You can read Part 1 of this story here.)

In December, 1969, I was asked to visit General Aluminum, a foundry Con Met had recently purchased in Spokane, Washington. I was asked to assess the possibility of increasing productivity in that facility. Since I had never heard of Spokane, I had to look at a map to see where it was before I hopped on a plane to go there.

Apparently, my report back to my boss in Portland was positive and to my surprise I was asked to transfer to Spokane and begin the process. Since my son Kris was born on January 5, 1970, I asked to delay the move and didn’t go until March of that year. When my transfer was announced, my assistant, Warren Zumwalt, asked if he could also transfer to Spokane and it was agreed to. All the worldly goods for both families were loaded into the same moving van and we were on our way.

Once again, at General Aluminum, I was given pretty much free reign to make facility and equipment changes if I could show how the investments would pay for themselves in three years or less. Improvements for employee safety were always approved. 

The following were some of the projects I completed while there:

1.  Designed and installed a below-floor sand recovery and return system that eliminated almost all time required each day to keep the floor clean.
2.   Designed the installation on a high-volume automatic molding machine and a modular raised refractory pouring floor.
3.   Improved in-process and finished casting storage.
4.   Set up a dimensional inspection room.
5.   Installed and trained the operator for a Jerral Ashe spectrograph used to maintain the proper contents for the types of aluminum alloys specified for the finished products.
6.  Improved the maintenance department’s tool and parts inventory.
7.   Helped the maintenance supervisor set up a formal preventative maintenance program.
8.   Had new high-intensity lights installed over all the production areas and had all the interior walls painted with a light color to help with interior visibility.
9.   Had the fork-truck fleet converted to electric from propane-powered to improve the interior atmosphere.
10. Designed the installation for a pair of new British Molding Machines.
11. Designed and installed a new isolated foundation for a vibrating casting shake-out machine. This eliminated vibrations transferring to the rest of the building floor. 

Along the way there were many more changes, but those were the major ones.  By 1977 my work was about done in this facility and I was once again getting bored. 

About this time I noticed there was some construction activity going on in the steel foundry across the railroad tracks in back of Con Met (the name had been changed from General Aluminum sometime between 1970 and 1977). Since curiosity usually got the best of me, I started walking across the tracks and into the steel foundry back door every couple of days to see what was going on.

That was the beginning of my next career adventure.

Read Part 4 of this story here.

Ken Kaiyala
4-9-2023