Blake Wood is one of our Birmingham Service Technicians here at Marathon Electrical Contractors and has been here since 2011. He is in the process of completing his first “dirt to finished product” job at Atlas Tube in Birmingham, Alabama. Atlas Tube manufactures a range of steel hollow structural sections (HSS), tubing and piling products, and has been around since 1984.
Atlas Tube called on Marathon several years ago to start this project of expanding their Birmingham location. Some of Marathon’s Service Technicians went to Peoria, Illinois to dismantle a machine that would eventually be moved to Birmingham in a building made specifically for it.
Once the machine arrived in Birmingham, Andrew Teeter and Kyle McCormick on Marathon’s Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) team went to work. Marathon’s VDC team built a 3D model based on the contract documents and the National Electrical Code. The VDC team was also able to coordinate conduit raceways below the slab where Atlas Tube’s new machine would sit by using a TopCon GPS system that allowed for an accurate location for all conduit stub ups. Once all drawings were completed, the VDC team coordinated the electrical installation with our Service Department.
Our Service Department is made up of Service Technicians (Service Techs) and Apprentices. A Marathon Electrical Contractors’ Service Tech supervises and is the main electrician at a service job site. Wood along with other service techs have worked hard to get to where they are today. I spent some time with Wood to get to know him a little better and to see what steps he took to get to where he is today. He told me that he attended the electrical program at Construction Education Foundation of Alabama (CEFA) that Marathon gave access to and used what he learned in the electrical field.
Some advice that Wood gives to young and eager electrical apprentices is to pay attention during the schooling and really apply yourself in the field. Apprenticeship school is great and it teaches you the book side of things. However, if you can only tell me how to do something, but do not know how to physically do the task at hand, then you are only book smart and only using half of your potential. That is why he stresses paying attention in the field and in apprenticeship class.
I then asked him about his thoughts on the job they were doing at Atlas Tube. He stated that it was a nice change of pace going from service work to a construction job, and he enjoyed it even though it was stressful at times. He stated the teamwork and determination from the group of guys that he worked with was what made him proud to be employed with Marathon. “Marathon always takes care of their employees and has the resources to get the job done.”
