Storm Coming

Tuesday night a storm blew through, with over 50-65 mph winds. Meteorologists are calling it a derecho, our fourth in less than two years. There's not any real damage here, but Governor Reynolds has issued a disaster declaration for Emmet, Hancock, O’Brien, and Winnebago counties.

That’s nothing compared to the political and social storm coming, but more about that later in another post.

Renewable Energy and Manufacturing Jobs

Speaking of storms, on July 19, 2018, an EF3 tornado struck Vermeer Corporation in Pella, causing millions of dollars in damage. Buildings were destroyed, and cars and trucks were tossed around like toys at a daycare center without sufficient adult supervision. Fortunately, no one was killed. I followed the tornado into town from Monroe, where I had seen dark gray clouds churning like a turbulent river heading east down Highway 163.

I followed a Marion County Deputy I knew, his lights flashing, down to the plant. Here are some photos I took when I arrived.

Out of the ruins, Plant 7 rose. Vermeer produces a variety of products, including the familiar round baler. It also builds pile drivers, skid loaders, horizontal directional drills, trenchers, plows, and much, much more.

A couple of weeks ago I went on a tour of the plant. Vermeer and longtime partner SOLV Energy held a forum to discuss the current state of the solar industry.

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks was among those in attendance, as was Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham. SOLV Energy CEO George Hershman told me SOLV and Vermeer have a longtime partnership as they manage the largest solar profile in the United States. 

I learned that Vermeer builds the piledrivers that drive the posts into the ground that support the solar panels. Vermeer also builds the directional drills and trenchers that are used to lay the infrastructure that gets the power to homes. If the solar industry does well, so does Vermeer, and the local economy. Rock on.

I’ve been on many manufacturing plant floors, and this one is remarkable. It’s roomy and clean. It’s also air conditioned, which, believe it or not, doesn't seem to be the norm in the industry. Robots move some things along, integrated perfectly with passersby. The workers were friendly as we toured, occasionally nodding at us, but most people were focused on the task in front of them. I don’t know what the pay scale is, but I hear workers on many factory floors here start at $25 to $30 an hour because there is lots of competition. Workers tell me the toughest job at Vermeer is in the paint room, as you are essentially working in a hazmat suit all day spraying paint. Ugh. That’s where the highest turnover is. Welders and machinists come and go because they tend to follow the money from plant to plant, to whoever is offering the best wage. I’m sure there is more to it than that, but that’s what I hear. Good for them. My impression is that workers in the corporate office stay a long time. 

One thing I noticed during the tour was the number of women working at plant seven. Most seemed to be in their 20’s and 30’s. One was clearly in her sixties, and she moved with speed, grace, and agility; her thin arms taut like cables as she moved parts around. Some of the women looked like fitness instructors. I’ve always seen women on factory floors, but I asked one of the tour leaders if I was imagining that there was more than usual here. He beamed when I asked him about it, and said something like, “yes, it’s about 30-40% women on the floor. He added, “I’ve never seen anything like it--since the pandemic--our workers are coming from backgrounds we have never seen before--school teachers, day care workers, restaurant managers and staff.”

I’ll let you process that.

Miller-Meeks was the best prepared I have ever seen her. Informed. Passionate. She spoke as eloquently and about renewable energy as Al Gore does. Senators Grassley, Ernst and Governor Reynolds often do so as well. In these kinds of meetings, they all sound like Democrats, even talking about carbon sequestration, without saying why we need it, and without discussing the role humans play in global warming, or addressing the fact that the their party—the GOP— has been the major roadblock in dealing with the crisis. 

There were about 60 people in the room, and as she was speaking, I was wondering how many people in the room knew that she voted against President Biden’s infrastructure bills that would have brought more jobs and hiked Vermeer’s profits even more. I suspect most of them

Wordsmithing: Lilies and Alliteration

One of the best two paragraphs I’ve ever written were published in the New York Times on July 26, 2018. The title of the piece was Trump Has No Idea What His Tariffs Have Unleashed for Farmers. 

Here they are:

“The most poignant evidence of the depopulation of rural Iowa over the last three-quarters of a century is the lily. Drive any highway or rock road in the state about this time of year and you will see that about every half-mile, the ditches are full of beautiful orange lilies.

Behind the lilies are hundred-acre fields of corn or beans, and if you park your car and wander the field behind the lilies, you will invariably find nails, broken crockery and remnants of life where a farmhouse once stood. The lilies are all that’s left of the dreams of the optimistic family that planted the lilies and made a farm and a life on the land generations ago, only to see it lost.”

I love seeing the lilies as I drive the backroads, and they are in full bloom right now. Lilies close their blossoms overnight, and they open up mid-day. There will be a second bloom in August. I received so many emails, phone calls, and even old fashioned letters about the lilies I mentioned in the stories. One artist from Colorado called, and told me he was going to do a museum or gallery exhibit based on my description. He went out looking for lilies after I returned his email. I’m not sure if the exhibit ever happened. Anyway, get out of the house, and drive some of these rock roads. Innumerable species of other flowers are also in bloom.

Coincidentally, that piece also had an edit that I wished the Times could have cut me some slack on and kept in. Alliteration is so, so, fine.

In draft I wrote, “Some of the farmers I speak with are unwavering in support of the president; they’d vote Republican even if Mr. Trump personally slapped the piss out of the preacher at the church potluck.”

My editor, who is wonderful, couldn’t get “piss” past the other editors, so he changed it to “heck,” which doesn’t really pack the power, if you know what I mean. Alliteration is so powerful. Maybe perfect here. President. Personally. Piss. Preacher. Potluck. I know I smiled as I wrote it.

Odds and Ends

At the coffee shop the other day, a fundamentalist kid, a nice young man of maybe 20, was talking with a preacher. I tried not to listen, but I caught this snippet of conversation. The kid said, “So, when God created us, he had to know that in the future we would have an industrialized society, and so he would never let us be the cause of global warming, right?” The preacher nodded, and the young man smiled.

Also at the coffee shop, I ran into an old friend who I hadn’t seen since the beginning of Covid. She was a retired hairdresser, and I asked her how she was enjoying retirement. The best part of it, she said, was helping her elderly parents. “When I first asked dad if he wanted me to go with him to visit the doctor, he wouldn’t have it. Then sometimes I had to go because he’s hard of hearing, so I’ve been a few times now. The other day, I asked him if he wanted me to go with him, he said, ‘Sure! You know more about me than I do…’”

About 2:30 a.m. over the 4th of July Holiday, I was listening to the scanner. A deputy pulled over a vehicle and ran the plates. The plates came back to friends, a couple who are farmers. No way, I thought, they aren’t out this late partying. Then I realized their son was back in Iowa, on leave from the Army. Oh no, I thought. An OWI could seriously hurt his career. Sure enough, when the deputy ran the license, it was their son. I spent several sad minutes thinking of the consequences, for this family, if he had been drinking and driving. Finally, the verdict came as the deputy called dispatch--”Warning. Headlight.” What a relief.

Filmmakers call it the golden hour. I’ve learned over the years that there is about a 10 minute window when you can get the most beautiful photos of sunrise and sunset. Sometimes, when you are a minute two early, you can take another shot and get a great one. However, if you are even a second or two late, you have blown it. I think I took this shot at the perfect time.