OCTOBER SPOTLIGHT
John Thorne

John is a sheet metal foreman and has been with JR Merit for six years. He works primarily on projects in food and beverage processing manufacturing facilities and has also supported several hydropower projects. John fabricates everything from staircases to handrails to equipment supports to chutes and participates across the lifecycle of development, from client engagement to materials orders to installations.

John got into the construction industry not long after high school. “My buddy was a manager at a company that manufactured steel drums. Their production crews were part of Local 16, the sheet metal union. I moved up quickly at the company and the union reps recommended I get into the building trades. I was young, I hemmed and hawed at the time, but by the second or third time they mentioned it, I asked who I should talk to.

“I worked for one sheet metal fabricator and installer for about 24 years, then another company where I was working on a cancer research high-rise building for OHSU, and then at Intel. And then I got a call from JR Merit asking if I’d like to come work for them. And now it’s been six years!”

John said he’s known many of the folks at JR Merit for many years, and he loves the diversity of work he gets to be part of here. “I get so bored doing the same thing. It’s hard to have a job where you stand in front of a machine all day. I like to do different things. I’ve been on so many jobs that are so different at JR Merit. The hydro projects are pretty fun. The dams are so big and so old, it makes work interesting to find ways to overcome those challenges.

“There’s a ton of problem solving and creativity in this work. Some jobs you look at it and say, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this.’ I approach it one step at a time, thinking that if I figure out the first step, that will help me figure out the next. Stuff will almost build itself if you can figure out certain parts of it.”

With more than 30 years of experience in the industry, John has seen his fair share of change. “More emphasis on safety in the industry has changed things, especially around the confined spaces that we deal with in a lot of our work environments. But a lot of our work itself hasn’t changed. I still go to work and build stuff.”

John has been doing more mentorship in the past few years as well. “I worked with the apprentices at my last company, and here at JR Merit, too. They can be really nervous when they’re green, because they don’t know anything yet. The one thing I’ve always told them is there’s some key things that always apply no matter what materials you’re working with—the measuring, the cutting, the assembly. As long as you take it one step at a time, you can build anything—it just might be different materials.”

John wants to continue doing good work and helping support projects over the next several years, and retirement is in sight for him. Outside of work, John enjoys bicycling as well as fishing for steelhead and salmon. He always wants to do more traveling. “I’ve been to Honduras, Costa Rica, Hawaii, and Alaska a couple of times. I want to get a house in Costa Rica. I’ve been there a couple times in the last few years, and I love it. It’s warm, tropical, beautiful, and the people are cool.”