Miracles Truly Do Occur

Up prior to dawn, it was our usual race to grab hard hats, security vests, and for our whole family members to jump into the company. All of us slumped into our seats, barely awake, whilst my husband punched the accelerator, merging into the busy pre-dawn line of construction vehicles headed toward a brand new day in dusty Bakersfield, California.

Turning west off Rosedale Highway, we veered off the main road and stopped prior to a padlocked gate. While dialing the lock numbers we rapidly scanned the petroleum fields to get a special breed of foxes, a nearby endangered species that inhabited the few acres of abandoned dirt hills. If we saw one of those animals we had been obliged to cease operating, contact the local biologist, and supposedly halt all operations until the security of the animals was assured.( Graphitized Petroleum Coke)

No visible foxes were in sight, so we left the gate wide open for dozens of dump trucks to enter behind us and drove into a restricted hazardous waste materials cleanup site.

Our boss had challenged us, "Can you load out 30,000 tons within the next three weeks?" Randy, my newlywed husband of 4-months, replied, "Not an issue." You see, "No" and "Impossible" had been two words that just did not exist in his vocabulary! Extremely rapidly the job turned into 15-hour days of adrenaline-charged activities as we pulled with each other as a family to as soon as again complete an 'impossible' job assignment.

Two of our sons, Larry and Jeff, had been soon joined by their step-brother, Robbie, and together with our 3 sons we loaded the very first 30,000 yards of inky black Petroleum Coke. Petroleum coke is usually the consistency of sand or ash... but we were to quickly uncover what none from the scientists and engineers could have predicted... that below the soft layer of coke was a almost petrified strata of extremely heavy, strong pet-coke. Using the correct machinery we could have drilled and broken up that immovable strata, but all we had were loaders. This should have been a red flag for what was about to happen.

Randy was an professional operator of heavy machinery, however the rest of us were so green we required to be taught every thing from lubrication to developing ramps. I was a middle-aged mother who had previously spent more than a dozen years house schooling children and volunteering at church.( Petroleum Coke Supplier, Foundry Coke Suppliers)