Mike Reynolds: The student becomes the teacher and raises the standards for excellence among metal building assemblers

by Marcy Marro | 1 June 2021 12:00 am

When Mike Reynolds first became involved with the Metal Building Contractors & Erectors Association[1] (MBCEA), he was mentored by some legends in the industry. Among them were Earl Raymond[2], Bob Ketenbrink[3], Mary Farrar[4] and T.K. Frahm[5], who are all members of the Metal Construction Hall of Fame. He absorbed their knowledge and used that to help change the industry, just as they had.

“Mike is a friend and mentor to many,” says Art Hance, president of Hance Construction[6], Washington, N.J., and current president of MBCEA. “He was a past MBCEA president and a strong business leader of Systems Contractors[7]. But that only scratches the surface of what Mike has done for our industry. He was instrumental in the development of our Quality and Craftsmanship series of training videos, which have trained thousands of our workers; he was a leader in the development and early adopter of AC478 accreditation; and he’s been instrumental on the insulated metal panel video as well as the temporary bracing guide.”

The Craftsmanship Series

That industry involvement began with his participation in the training videos that were put together by the Metal Buildings Institute[8] (MBI), an off-shoot of the MBCEA. At the time, he was a foreman for Systems Contractors Inc., Thornton, Colo., of which he is now president. He became the face of the worker, traveling to production shoots and demonstrating proper techniques. For that, he was awarded “Volunteer of the Year” in 2004.

“I sat in on the round tables with Mary Farrar, Tom Frahm, Bob Ketenbrink—all the main names,” says Reynolds. “They were all running businesses while I was just a general foreman. When the first video started and we were doing a shoot in Alabama on how to unload trucks, I flew down there. Then I became the loudmouth. There were safety violations—people not wearing the right gear and not using the right things.”

As sometimes happens when people are vocal and raise issues, Reynolds became more and more the face of the series, traveling to different locations to shoot videos. He was adamant that the series be developed in a way to elevate the trade, make it more professional and show the industry the value its erectors and assemblers brought to the job site.

His involvement didn’t stop with filming. During the editing process, the people involved recognized the script wasn’t good enough. He spent four days a month for several months in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, working on the voice-over script right. “They were having a hard time taking what we put into video,” Reynolds says. “We didn’t do a great job with the script and with all the slang words that we use down to girts and purlins and things like that, it was hard to turn this into something that made sense.”

Reynolds learned lessons from that volunteer experience, and probably chief among them was the value of being involved. “I was probably the youngest person involved in this,” he says. “At that time, I learned everybody’s tricks. I learned every expert move, whatever trick they used from how to pre-drill sheets to how they rig stuff to how they unload stuff. The way that I was taught wasn’t always right. I learned three different ways of unloading by three different guys that have been doing it for 30 years. Then we would pick the best one. I really got more out of the DVDs then I probably actually put in.”

I was always a younger person in the group. I always had a good time talking with the mentors and learning. But a few years ago, I looked around the room and I realized I was the old guy. I went from the guy learning to the guy teaching and that was kind of a neat deal.

Getting Started

Reynolds grew up in Colorado, an outdoor kid who liked to race motorcycles with his friends and spend time in the mountains. When he was 17, he went to Texas to spend time working with his father’s construction company, but it didn’t work out, so he moved back to Colorado. He tried again when he was 19, then decided to join the Navy. He went through boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Base in northern Illinois. During his service, he served as an aviation fire control technician (AQ) stationed in Millington, Tenn.

After discharge, he tried again to work with his dad in Texas, but again it wasn’t a good fit, and he returned to Colorado in 1993. “I was looking for a job,” he says. “I knew a little bit about metal building. A buddy of mine was a crane operator for Systems [Contractors]. He said, ‘Hey, they’re looking for guys and you can run a rig a little bit. You work hard. Why don’t you try this out?’ And that’s how I got into metal buildings.”

At Systems Contractors, he ran into Earl Raymond, who was one of the owners and became one of Reynolds’s mentors. “When I came on,” Reynolds says, “we started working together. He gave me a lot of opportunities and showed me the ropes.”

By the early 2000s, Reynolds had moved up to foreman then general foreman, and he had an opportunity to buy into the company. “I had my college money from the military and I had saved some money,” he says. “I was thinking I better get out of this because it’s time to go to school. That’s when they offered to buy me in. So, instead of paying for college, I bought my education this way.”

AC478 Accreditation

Throughout Reynold’s time in the industry, he always enjoyed being at the table with people from whom he could learn. Then, he used that knowledge to help those around him. His foundational philosophy is best summed up by Jim Allen, who worked with him on a recent project and quickly learned the value Reynolds brought to the job site. “Mike is so good at looking for potential problems,” says Allen, senior superintendent in the Colorado office of Adolfson and Peterson, Minneapolis. “He has so much knowledge. He’s a straight shooter and will tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. He is always looking to help save money and thinking of ways to improve the project and make it safer.”

The same is true of his time volunteering for MBCEA. He served as president and during his term, they got the AC478 Accreditation for metal building assemblers established and rolled it out to the members. Reynolds had been part of the process from the beginning and was a leading voice in making sure the accreditation could work for all companies, not just the big firms. Today, the program is the highest quality standard for metal builders and is being accepted more and more by the industry as a requirement.

Those two accomplishments—the Craftsmanship Series and the AC478 Accreditation—stand alone as significant contributions to the industry, but Reynold has also contributed through is work on the MBCEA Temporary Bracing Manual and by sitting on the board of directors for the Steel Erectors Safety Association of CO (SESAC). Recently, he was elected president of the Ketenbrink Education Foundation. In these roles, he will ensure the training and commitment to safety of young ironworkers/assemblers will be central to focus of the industry for the foreseeable future.

Source URL: https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/metal-construction-hall-of-fame/mike-reynolds/

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