Life's easy after 50 years at EC Co. in Portland

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Feb 15, 2008 by Libby Tucker

EC Company had a hard time deciding how to reward Johnny Swensson for his 50 years of work at the company. His coworkers wanted to buy him more than the standard gold watch.

But they knew a lavish vacation wouldn't work - Swensson would never actually take it. So they settled on something more fitting: a brand-new, limited-edition Ford F-150 pickup truck.

Then on the 50th anniversary of Swensson's first day at EC Company -- January 18, 1958 - EC president George Adams handed him the keys in front of a roomful of family and friends.

"I just lost it," Swensson, the company's facility resources manager, recalled."I buy all the trucks (for the company) from Landmark Ford," he said. "I walked in there one day way before Christmas and sitting on the showroom floor was that truck and I says, 'I've got to figure out a way to buy this truck.' ... They hid it from me for a month."

Though he's worked for EC Company nearly his entire life, Swensson's job now is a far cry from his start in the company's motor shop. From his second-floor office at the company's Northwest Portland headquarters, Swensson can push a button to start the truck's engine before piling into the cab with coworkers for lunch at Tubby's Deli down the road.

DJC: How did you come to work for EC Company?

Johnny Swensson: I had a job working for another electrical company that remodeled motors down here on St. Helens Road And they kind of went out of business. So my cousin worked up here and told me on a Friday they might have an opening and Monday morning I showed up. The guy asked me if I was going to come to work here and I said, "Yes." And that was it. I was 20 years old.

DJC: How did you choose electrical contracting as your career?

Swensson: My dad was in the business of selling electric motors to saw mills when I was in school. So in the summer time I'd go down and work at his little place off of Northwest 21st and Nicolai that he sold motors from. I was helping some guy clean the used motors up after school and watched him take them apart. So I kind of got interested in that.DJC: How's your role different now from when you started?Swensson: We don't even do motors anymore. I worked in the motor shop for about a week and then I went over to the construction company one day to help deliver material because the guy was sick and out for a couple days so I started to learn material. I've been in construction ever since.

I drove the truck for about 11 years. I picked up and delivered materials and tools. I actually went by supply houses and ordered stuff. Then the guy who was running that got very sick and passed away and I knew all that stuff down there so they put me in charge of all the warehouses and vehicles, we only had six at the time. (The company has 340 now.) I did that until about six years ago and they brought me upstairs here and told me to take care of the insurance and overlook the tool department and sit back and relax.

DJC: How's the industry changed since you've been here?

Swensson: NECA-IBEW (Local 48) started apprenticeship training, and since then it's really taken off. It's one of the greatest things for these young kids to get into that apprenticeship because they learn faster.

I know the fellow who actually started that. His name was Dan Faddis and his son actually works for us now. He started that after finishing a job he was working for us on the Olympic pipeline where all the fuel comes down from Anacortes. We actually did the pumping station down here on St. Helens Road that pumps the fuel into those tank farms and his dad was running those jobs and I was delivering stuff to him.

DJC: What are some of the biggest projects you've worked on?

Swensson: We've done a lot of work in the aluminum plants. We built the big aluminum plant in Goldendale, Wash. from the ground up and I delivered stuff to that in the '60s or early '70s. We've worked at Reynolds and Alcoa aluminum plants. We worked at The Dalles, it used to be called Harvey Aluminum and then Columbia Aluminum before it shut down.

To get onto some of these projects and get to see it right from scratch, like that (Goldendale) plant. When I went up there, there was a building 3,000 feet long, it was like a big airplane hangar. And they were putting in this huge aluminum bus bar, which is used to melt the aluminum. There were sections 6 inches thick by 20 feet long, solid aluminum. They were 2 feet high and they'd mount them up on the wall. And we'd cut them and hire welders to weld them together into one solid piece, 3,000 feet long.

DJC: How has EC Company's neighborhood in Northwest Portland changed?

Swensson: There was streetcar tracks down the middle of Thurman Street here, I watched them take them up. There was a little shoe shop on the corner of 22nd where Conway has their big building here. There was a warehouse behind us where they sold little toys. I watched them tear that all down and dig big holes and build the freeway behind us. I watched them put the Fremont Bridge up.DJC: One of the big issues now in the electrical industry is metals theft, how has the industry changed as a result of that?