April 2024
Discover the man behind the hard hat as Brock Grunt delves into his past, present, and humorous mishaps in this memorable Q&A session.
Q: What was your first job?
A: Aside from a failed attempt at being a Christmas tree merchant in 6th grade by digging up ill-fated fir trees in the nearby hills and trying to sell them at the entrance of our local market, my first regular job in 7th and 8th grade was a paper route. Hard to believe, but at one time, the majority of news came through daily newspapers. Most households received a daily newspaper, and in order to keep the breaking news most current, these papers were not delivered by mail, but instead by an army of kids like me who walked or biked a given delivery route in the morning or afternoon. My neighborhood was too hilly to do it all on a bike, and my route was too long to do it all on foot, so I did both. Every day after school, I picked up a big stack of unfolded newspapers from a given drop point. I then folded each one and bound it with a rubber band so they could be thrown to porches beyond unfriendly dogs or whatever. Hauling them on the route was done with a front and back shoulder bag that always started out too heavy for this skinny 13-year-old, particularly on a bike. Besides dogs, hills, and rainy weather, the most intimidating part of this job was that you had to collect monthly payments from subscribers in person (i.e., knock on doors). Not all subscribers were friendly, nor did they all pay their bills. Collection time was always dreaded. I suppose child labor laws and the evolution of alternative means to spread the news killed the need for paperboys and girls, but I’ll say some really good life lessons were learned delivering the newspaper that I wish my kids could have experienced.
Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in construction?
A: Hunger and a need for shelter. Ok, that’s only partially true. I grew up surrounded by construction. My dad was an architect, and I was always fascinated by his projects and others he exposed me to. Starting at a very young age, I was always building something. I just loved materials and wanted to understand the way they worked and what you could make with them. Through grade school and high school, I grew up in places that actually needed lots of both maintenance and new construction, so there was plenty of opportunity to chase my desire to build. So, although I actually graduated as an Economics major from Cal, I worked summer jobs for McGuire and Hester for the food and shelter reasons. I found I was able to chase my passion for building and be outdoors, both a win. I went to work for M&H not long after graduation and haven’t looked back since.
Q: What’s the most memorable project you have worked on at McGuire and Hester, and why?
A: This is a super tough question because there are dozens and dozens of great and memorable projects for me. They each have a special meaning for me, either in their challenge, what they provided the end users, their timing in my life, where they were located, or their significance to the company. I will say that there is a 30” diameter, 80’ tall redwood tree in my backyard that started as a 12” high sapling dug up on a project we had in the Santa Cruz hills in 1994 that will always remind me of that job. But beyond that, the list is long, and I couldn’t choose the most memorable, but I would be willing to buy the beer for anyone willing to listen to me tell endless job-related stories.
Q: What’s the funniest or most unexpected thing that’s happened on a construction site during your tenure?
A: The unexpected happened at the very beginning of my career when a large shackle and cable fell from a crane well above where I was standing and hit dead center in the top of my hardhat. This was back in the day when hard hats were still a casual wear item, so I was lucky to have mine on at the time. It made me a believer as I’m pretty sure I’m only alive today due to that hardhat. But that’s not a funny story.
So for funny, I’ll go with a job we had in Lathrop building a concrete bridge structure for Union Pacific Railroad in the early 1990s. This required a large temporary bypass pipeline (maybe 48” diameter by 200’ long) that ran mostly full to route the canal water around our work zone. The canal was full of fish (catfish, carp, whatever), and after a number of weeks, the crew and I decided we should try to catch some. Being the geniuses we were, we decided that we would make a big net by stitching burlap sacks together with tie wire, with which it would be a no-brainer to hold across the downstream end of the bypass pipe to catch the fish. As it turned out, the fish were much smarter than us and would just turn around and not come out of the pipe. So we decided that they just needed herding by means of volunteers swimming down the bypass pipe to try and scare them into the net (no confined space or drowning concerns here, right?). Needless to say, by sunset we had caught nothing aside from one very small fish, but in spite, what we really caught was a lasting memory of a hilarious and unsuccessful attempt to outsmart some fish. We went home fishless but even stronger as a crew that day.
Also in the humorous category is a project that I was on with Mike Haley long ago in Pleasant Hill. Mike called me on the radio (before cell phones) and said he needed to trim an oak tree to dig the waterline trench we were working on. In this case, the tree was a Heritage oak, which is a tree specifically identified by the local authorities as being native and having historical significance. In other words, don’t mess with it. I suppose neither Mike nor I was thinking about much more than moving the project forward, and when I drove the job at the end of the day to see that things were in order, I saw the trim job on the tree looked more like someone had run a large mower up one side completely removing all the branches on the side adjacent to our trench. Where was Robert King when we needed him? I panicked, called Mike, and said, “cut that tree all the way down first thing in the morning before anyone notices,” which he did. I think all was calm for about a month, leaving me with a false sense that we had dodged a bullet before I was interrogated by the project owner and had to confess to the crime. The local ordinance had a very elaborate penalty for such a crime, that aside from a fine, included the replanting of a certain number of very specific native oak trees in areas they specified. I very begrudgingly began trying to find these special oaks, which as it turns out, are not typically carried by a nursery. We were not a landscape company then, so this task took quite a lot of phone calls, with each rejection increasing my level of frustration. At the last place I called, a woman answered the phone and once I told her what I was looking for and did a lot of complaining in my explanation for why I needed these stupid trees, she let me know that she was the head of the Heritage Oak Organization in the area and she was the one who had reported the missing tree. She rightfully read me the riot act, but then very graciously found us the trees. The moral of the story is leave the trees alone.
Fun fact: Brock can now be seen planting trees in the community.
Q: If you could give one piece of advice to someone just starting their career in construction, what would it be?
A: The same advice I would give someone chasing any career, don’t just do it for the money. A career in construction pays great, but you will never realize that if you are primarily doing it for the money. With that mindset, there will never be enough, and you will likely never be happy. Do it for the love of what we build, what we offer our communities, and because you enjoy the people you work with. Otherwise, find something else.
Q: What’s your favorite way to unwind and have fun outside of work?
With four kids, the oldest being 29 and the last two now freshmen in college, I will say the primary thing I have done outside of work is follow my kids various paths and making every effort to support them along the way. This has included uncounted hours watching all of them play sports over the last 25 years as well as all the other events that raising kids brings into your life. But when time allows, I love to fill my time being in or on the water with whatever vessel I can find. Hiking is another great escape for me, as is woodworking and photography. When the day comes for my retirement, I’ve got ideas to keep me real busy.
Here’s a picture of me and my twin boys on a hike. Hiking is definitely one of my favorite ways to get outside and away from it all and it doesn’t take much planning. We are so lucky to live in a part of the world where you can go in just about any direction and find a beautiful place to hike.