Sundt is pleased to welcome construction industry veteran Ken McKenzie to our team as our new Director of Craft Talent Development. In his 41-year career in industrial construction, Ken progressed from a laborer (during high school) to a construction manager, and spent the past several years helping develop and lead apprenticeship and management training programs for another major industrial contractor. We recently asked Ken a few questions to get to know him better.
What drew you to Sundt?
The opportunity to apply my experience with a company that has an aggressive growth plan, a culture that believes in its people, and that is employee-owned.
What are your job responsibilities in your new position?
To enhance and grow Sundt’s craft development processes and programs.
What projects are you currently working on?
For Fiscal Year 2014, I’m focused on craft apprenticeship enrollment and execution, and the development of a more defined career path for craft and frontline supervisors.
What might you be doing if you weren’t in your present field?
Sitting on a beach in the Caribbean, sipping “umbrella” drinks and listening to Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville,” with no bait on my fishing line.
What’s the most interesting book you have read recently?
“The Mask of Command” by John Keegan.
Most unusual project you were ever assigned to?
I spent two years working at an experimental mine that developed a modified in-situ retort process for extracting oil from shale. Essentially, it was blasting shale oil rock, a half-mile underground, into rubble less than three inches in diameter to form a column 100 feet square by 400 feet tall, encased in rock. The blast was a one-shot event. We then installed injectors at the top of the column and pumped a combination of natural gas, diesel and oxygen through 20 feet of rock and lit it on fire. It would burn the shale from the top down and basically heat and gravity would chase the oil out the bottom.
Where would you most like to travel?
Through the Caribbean on a 60-foot sailboat.
How do you like to spend your free time?
Touring the Western U.S. with my wife on my Harley Davidson Road Glide.
Best advice you ever received?
“If you are going through hell, keep going”…Winston Churchill