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Spring 2006 Volume 11, Issue 1Totten Times is a quarterly publication of Totten Tubes Inc. |
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After 37 years of distinguished service, warehouse superintendent Ed Culp turned in his micrometer on Feb 15th. A luncheon was held in his honor in Bay 4 attracting close to 60 employees, friends, and family. Ed leaves a shop legacy that will be hard to match. During his tenure, the shop moved close to 700,000 tons of tubing and pipe. Other notable trivia numbers would include productivity. In 1968 each man in the shop would pull, cut, and ship about 124 lbs of material an hour. Currently that rate is running at about 262 per hour: a 210% increase! Ed rose from the warehouseman ranks to become the superintendent in 1977 when the shop was as much as 6 months behind in production cutting for one account. After months and months of pulling double shifts, Ed finally got things moving in the right direction. Now the shop’s on time delivery rate is way over 80% and on Monday of the week he retired, hit 96%! Ed’s two most notable qualities had to be his long fuse in handling stressful situations and his shyness. He would never get flustered when a late delivery prompted an angry response from a customer. His cool demeanor kept Totten’s clients happy and content even if the truck was late. He was also very private in his social life and would duck out of most company functions. There were even a few bets made on whether he’d show up for his own retirement party. Besides earthquakes, floods, and labor strikes, Ed has just about seen everything at Totten: even a deranged elderly woman who flashed him in East L.A. She had been released from a mental institution and was strutting her stuff down Los Palos Street. His crowning achievement was moving all the inventory from Los Angeles to Azusa in December of 1997. Dave Totten estimated it to be about 250 loads in 9 days! Dave, Jeff, and Tracy spoke at the event which culminated in the presentation of an engraved clock as well as an all expense paid trip to the Indianapolis 500. Racing has been in Ed’s blood for most of his life and he will spend memorial day weekend where the sport was born: a fitting end to one wild ride with Totten! |
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“Vertikals” - A Big Hit at Totten Christmas Bash! It had been years since everyone was dancing at a Totten Christmas party but a duo from Orange County known as the “Vertikals” got everyone one off their seats and onto the floor December 10th. The gathering welcomed the return of Jim Murdock who is still recovering from a leg injury suffered in Bay 1 in 2004. Jim, still confined to a wheel chair, was one of the few who didn’t “groove” to the music but enjoyed the night along with the rest. Notable guests included Brandi Morick (Laura’s daughter) as well as Linda and William Furse. Linda is a CPA and assists the company close its books each month while her husband works as a chemist. You might ask ‘how does a couple who work with spread sheets and test tubes dance the night away’? Well, very well thank you! Linda and William showed that numbers and formulas go quite well together as they gave the Totten employees a dance clinic. If “Dancing with the Stars” ever runs a sequel and renames it “Dancing with Accountants & Chemists”, Linda and William would win hands down!! |
John Sibley at Totten’s Turkey Fry |
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Dave Stubbs Named Representative of the Year Dave Stubbs, Totten’s outside sales representative in Southern California, walked off with the Salesman of the Year Honors announced at the company’s annual kick off sales event in January. Dave had distinguished himself by developing numerous new manufacturing accounts in Orange County thus insulating his territory to the peaks and valleys of construction. As expected, all of Totten’s territories dropped in revenue from 2004 but Stubbs steady effort gave his sales area the resilience it needed to put him at the top. The companies top producer in Sales and Profit was Doug Johnson but Stubbs got the nod for his strong manufacturing ties. The guest speakers were Jim Zimmerman and Stuart Butler of Atlas Tube who gave the company a forecast of North America’s supply and demand for tubing. With the acquisition of Copperweld and Maverick, Atlas controls over 50% of the tubing market and was the logical choice to bring a national perspective. They will be closing a number of plants in the next few years thus reducing the capacity of tubing in North America. This should keep the price of the product at current levels. The meeting welcomed new comers John Sibley and Gustavo Chavez. John brings 27 years of steel experience with him to the company and will be working as an inside sales person in Azusa. John has already made an immediate impact and promises to make a huge contribution to Totten’s bottom line. Gus is covering Northwest Mexico as an agent and lives in Tijuana with his wife and children. He has already tripled the companies productivity in that area since he started in October. A 10 year plan was unveiled that featured new branches in Northern California, the Pacific Northwest, Las Vegas, and even some limited manufacturing in Mexico if the market warrants such a move. |
New Additions to Keep Company StrongDebbie Mitchell, inside sales/ clerical, in Azusa, is planning on transferring to the company's Santee branch when Sue Neilsen retires this Spring. Sue will be greatly missed as she and Hardy have worked extremely well together for years. Sue Neilsen is retiring from the Santee branch later on this Spring. She will be missed as she has been an amazing asset to Hardy and Fletcher. Sue has been with Totten for 5-1/2 years doing order entry, billing, and everything else required to keep the branch running like a top! Although the logo and traditions remain the same, Totten’s crews are beginning to look a little different. Miguel Corona, Daniel de la Torre, and Edwardo Nuno have joined the company as drivers. Matt Knudsen, Rueben Montoya, and Austin Morick have joined Oscar Chavez Sr. on swing and Jose Garbahol has become his career on the graveyard shift. Thomas Phaykaisorn (pronounced Pike-a-sorn) has taken over the order entry duties in Azusa while Steven Elmore has shown great promise as a warehouseman in Phoenix and will join the company full time soon.
Ed at Totten's 1st Annual Picnic 10/1973 |
Union & Company Finally Reach Accord The ILWU and the Company officially signed a new 5 year labor agreement on Feb 21st after many months of collective bargaining. John Day and Guy Okamoto joined union rep A.J. Wright who finalized the deal. Company representatives Dave, Tracy, and Mike Totten were assisted by Steve Gigliotti as Counsel in negotiating with the union. The contract ratified on October 3, 2005. 
Dave Howell with Ed’s Micrometer |
Totten’s new Marvel 2125A-PC60 
New Saw to Debut at Westech Totten’s new Marvel 2125A-PC60 is actually making a stop at the Westech show at the Los Angeles Convention Center before it finds it’s way to Azusa. The saw which can automatically feed and cut 60 degree miters will be displayed at the show to demonstrate its capabilities in early March. Totten purchased its first PC-60 in 2005 to improve its production cutting business. Driver has Close Call in Huntington Park Edwardo Nuno had the scare of a life time in January when his rig was rear ended by a motorist outside of Advance Pipe Bending in Huntington Park. The accident made the local and national news that evening due to the extreme appearance of the wreck. The motorist’s car was totaled as a 48 foot length pierced through the driver’s windshield and through the cabin. Miraculously, the driver walked away with only a scratch. |
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“Life On The Docks”
With all the imported steel arriving at the Port of Los Angeles, there have been numerous delays due to vessel congestion, mismarked material, and other complications. One of Totten’s orders had been stranded on the docks for many weeks so Totten Times Editor Tracy Totten, traveled to the Port to learn more about the amazing logistics of moving cargo out of the busiest port in the nation. Yes, about 40% of all the products coming into the United States travel through the Port of Los Angeles! I met with Carl Cotton, the Terminal Manager at Pasha Stevedoring and Terminals LLP and learned some remarkable things about cargo, culture, and congestion or as we call it “life on the docks”. The Port works 24/7 and unloads everything from Cruise Ships (the QE2 just left) to Container Vessels. This particular dock specializes in steel and works with Keep on Trucking to unload the ships, sort the material on the docks and then load K.O.T. when they will call. The steel cargo ships used to average between 5-7 thousand tons just 10 years ago. Now the ships carry 35 thousand tons of tubing, pipe, beam, plate, rebar and everything else that rusts. |
A ship will have about 8 cargo holds or hatches and the steel in each hold will be lifted up & out onto the dock directly in line with its spot on the ship. So after a ship is unloaded it will have 8 separate piles to sort! The material in one ship can be imported by numerous trading companies for a variety of customers so the piles can be quite interesting. The sheer size and volume of the dock work is almost beyond anyone’s imagination. From 3am to 6am of the morning of my visit 20 loads left for Fontana with beam and another 60 loads left for points beyond with coil. Thats 80 loads of steel shipping out in 3 hours or one load every 3 minutes! Mr. Cotton said they have one rebar client that imports 5,000 tons every month not to mention what the Port does for California Steel Industries. CSI (formerly Fontana Steel) imports slabs from all over the world (Brazil, Mexico, Asia, Europe, etc) and rerolls the product into coil which is made into tubing. The Port receives one ship each week for CSI and loads out 73 rail cars each day that make their way from the docks to Fontana. The cars are specially designed to carry 120 tons so that means that every day CSI receives 8,760 tons of slab from the Port of Los Angeles. It takes Cotton’s crew about 6 hours to load an entire train which means they are extremely quick on their feet. The only cargo that exceeds this frantic pace are the cars that come off the ships for Nissan, Honda, Toyota, etc. When the ships were really backed up 18 months ago, the Japanese diverted a ship to Ensenada which has a nice new streamlined port. |
The only problem was after all the cars cleared customs into the United States, the ship was about 273 cars short! When asked about where the cars might be, Carl remarked “they’re probably taxis in TJ”. After that fiasco, the automotive ships returned to the Port of Los Angeles. Shipping from Asia is extremely competitive so they put as much steel in a boat as possible and run with the currents through the Gulf of Alaska and down the West Coast. These voyages can be tricky with plenty of rough seas which can cause the vessels to run “adrift”. That term means they pitched quite a bit and veered off course for awhile. The result can be catastrophic as the steel in the holds begins to move breaking the bands and scattering the tubing, pipe, beams, etc all over the place. It is a surveyor’s nightmare when the vessel arrives and the cargo is inspected for a claim. The dock that I saw contained about 50 tons of pipe that resmembled spaghetti. It even has a light brown hue to it to go with the twists and turns. After surveyed for damage, the steel is then scrapped. The whole process from unloaded to dispatching trucks is an amazing spectacle. A 35 thousand ton steel vessel takes about 16 hours to unload! When the Stevedores aren’t working at this break neck pace, they are taking a break at “Wilmington Beach” which is a few picnic tables, BBQ’s, and thatched grass cabana’s next to an empty shipping container (for a wind break). They enjoy some fresh fish and a view of the cruise ships coming into Port. Yes, “life on the docks” combines the serenity of a fish fry with an adrenaline rush of sending out about 10,000 tons of steel each day! |
