June 2021 Vol. 76 No. 6
Editor's Log
Editor's Log: Smiles of a Normal World
By Robert Carpenter, Editor-in-Chief
As the infamous COVID-19 pandemic pain, anxiety and outright fear steadily fade away, it’s actually beginning to feel like summer – a normal summer. Most facets of underground construction and rehabilitation are ramping up to full speed, many at warp speed. Congress is back to arguing incessantly about how to spend our tax dollars (or perhaps overspend and raise taxes is more accurate). People are actually planning vacations.
Most of all, what I like best about this remarkable new time is watching masks peel away and seeing smiles again. I fully understood and supported the need for masks during the height of the pandemic. I also fully supported and received my vaccinations as soon it was my turn. (Thank goodness I did. Since my inoculations kicked into full effectiveness, I’ve been exposed, up close and personal, twice to COVID with the result being nary a sniffle – vaccines work!)
I don’t mind working remotely (I kind of like it, actually) and I can see the effectiveness of the virtual protocol. But there remains a need for in-person meetings, collaboration and cooperation. Being able to greet people with a warm smile and a firm handshake, all the while watching facial expressions to fully understand both verbal and visual communication queues, is essential to our lives.
I believe that’s why I’m looking forward so enthusiastically to UCT this summer in Nashville (July 13–15). It will be an opportunity to emerge from our homes and sheltered business lives knowing that it’s now safe to have face-to-face meetings. It’s a chance to engage, learn and share with peers from around the industry, something we’ve sorely missed since early 2020.
And for many in the business of underground infrastructure, it will be the first, true opportunity to embrace a normal world.
60 Years of Fast-Track HDD Advances
As we completed work on our exclusive 23rd Annual Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) Survey (see page 27), a major area of concern expressed by respondents highlighted what has, unfortunately, been a recurring theme for all of the underground infrastructure in recent years: workforce shortages. Thanks to telecom and increased attention to the electric grid, small-to-medium HDD work is booming. COVID barely caused a blip on the radar, as these hot markets continue to provide major project opportunities. But a significant inhibitor to growth remains a lack of skilled or trainable labor.
As I reviewed the data and many contractor comments, it became apparent just how far and how fast HDD has come from its infancy in the early 1960s. Back then, Dick Melsheimer of Melfred Borzall was putting in steel distribution lines for natural gas utilities in the Los Angeles area using one of the company’s first, crude directional boring machines. However, when polyethene pipe was introduced in the mid-1960s, that lighter material set the stage for his next big advancement in HDD.
Dick and his brother, Ted, developed hydraulic-powered drill rigs and patented a self-propelled boring machine known as the Dynamole, which could bore and pull in more than 2,000 feet of polyethylene pipe per day. It marked a significant step forward in HDD development.
“When polyethylene came out, we came up with the idea of putting the swivel behind the reamer and pulling the pipe back at the same time,” Melsheimer recalled.
Also, in the ‘60s, Martin Cherrington was busily developing concepts – and eventually amassed 27 patents – related to big rig horizontal directional drilling. His efforts drew widespread recognition and helped gain acceptance of HDD with his first river crossing: a 500-foot bore, under the Pajaro River, of a 4-inch gas line for Pacific Gas & Electric in 1971.
Despite the success of these famed HDD pioneers, it still took another decade before many became ready to make the leap to HDD. But once the technology took hold in the 1980s, it forever changed the way contractors, owners and engineers approach new installation of underground pipe and conduit. Today, HDD is the preferred method of installing new pipe or conduit when conditions are appropriate.
In January 2020 at UCT, Dick Melsheimer and Martin Cherrington were the first inductees into the HDD Hall of Fame. At UCT 2021 in Nashville, two other developers, trendsetters and innovators of HDD will be inducted.
In the span of two months in 2020, the HDD industry lost two of its most-respected members in Ron Halderman of Mears and Robert Westphal of Michels. These two highly regarded industry leaders will be posthumously inducted into the HDD Hall of Fame at a special UCT reception on Wednesday, July 14.
The HDD Hall of Fame Reception, organized by industry personnel, will allow all members of the HDD community to converse with their peers as they honor this year’s inductees. No matter what size rig you own or operate, UCT and the Hall of Fame reception promise to be a great time of fellowship, and celebration of the many industry contributions of Westphal and Halderman. We hope to see you there.
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