John (JD) Dewitt, contract Conveyor Engineer working for Planet Corp.,
discusses his career and his experiences at the Fisher Body plant in Lansing, MI


Cheryl McQuaid:	This is Cheryl McQuaid. It is November 2, 2005. I am with the Lansing Fisher Body Historical Team.  We are in the Labor Relations Conference Room preparing to interview JD Dewitt.  First we are going to go around and announce everybody that is present in the room.

Michael Fleming:	Mike Fleming.

Marilyn Coulter:	Marilyn Coulter.

Jerri Smith:	Jerri Smith.

Doreen Howard:	Doreen Howard.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[00:25] JD, would you state your name, spell your last name, and state your address for the record?

JD Dewitt:	My real name is John D. Dewitt. I go by JD. I live at 16765 Austin Way in East Lansing, Michigan.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[00:43] JD, are you married?

JD Dewitt:	Yes, I am.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[00:45] Do you have children?

JD Dewitt:	I have two sons.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[00:49] Did you ever serve in the military?

JD Dewitt:	Yes, I did. United States Navy.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[00:56] And what, um, when did your first come into this plant? What year?

JD Dewitt:	I came in here in 1990 around 1990 in May.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[01:06] May of ’90?

JD Dewitt:	May of ’90.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[01:07] Was it, what was the name of this building at that time, was it Fisher Body BOC?

JD Dewitt:	It was BOC. It had just, uh, turned into BOC. It went from Fisher Body I think to Buick Olds Cadillac Group.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[01:24] And what, why did you come into this plant?

JD Dewitt:	Well, I was, uh, asked to come to, uh, help facilitate installation of new equipment at model change and, uh, the request to come here was by a close friend, Jim Zubkus, who was previously our plant manager here.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[01:50] And what kind of reception to you meet when you came in here?  Did the people on the floor or, um, skilled trades or, I mean were they kind to you or …

JD Dewitt:	Uh, everybody in the UAW has been great here.  Uh, as in all your work and your career you run across a few people that, uh, don’t get along with you, but, uh, 99% of all of the people have been great and, uh, I’ve tried to work with them also.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Excellent.  [02:31] So what can you tell us about this plant? Some of the changes that you’ve seen in this plant.

JD Dewitt:	When I came here the plant was being readied for, uh, a new model change. That was the, uh, Pontiac Buick, uh, Oldsmobile car, the end car I guess and, uh, we were making changes to body, paint, trim, and, um, primarily the work that I was involved in is the conveyor rearrangements. The plant used to have a number of long conveyors and we broke those up into, uh, numerous different conveyors to facilitate, uh, uh, the build schedule and, uh, quality.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[03:25] How much conveyor is in this plant?  I’ve heard that it is miles.

JD Dewitt:	It’s approximately 28 miles in the, in this building and Plant 1.

Cheryl McQuaid:	28 miles.

JD Dewitt:	Yeah and there’s various types of conveyor from chain on edge to overhead power and free to electrified monorail.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Michael Fleming.

Michael Fleming:	Hi JD, um, I see you were a, uh, a Navy Aviation electrician.  [4:00] While you were in the Navy can you talk about when you were in the Navy and any, anyone you might have went into the Navy with that you work with now? Any acquaintances that you came in from the Navy with?

JD Dewitt:	Not really because I went into the Navy from Akron, Ohio, and then I went to, uh, Norman, Oklahoma, where I went through recruit training and then, uh, I went on to Aviation Electrician School. From there I was transferred to the Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Georgia, and I became one of the crew members in the Lighter than Air, uh, squadron there. Lighter than Air stands as most people know it’s blimps and I spent my whole tour of duty flying in airships, uh, from Brunswick I went from there to, uh, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and then, uh, I finished up at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Michael Fleming:	[04:58] So if I understand you, you are a blimp aviator?

JD Dewitt:	Right.

Michael Fleming:	I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to meet one of you all.  [05:11] Could you talk to me just a little bit about, uh, blimps and how that works?

JD Dewitt:	Blimps at the time I went in had, uh, some primary functions where LRAN, Long Rang Air Navigation equipment and then also in the later years when I went to, uh, Lakehurst, New Jersey, it was for Airborne Early Warning. We used to take these airships up and go out and patrol the New York Air Defense sector and you monitor planes, uh, through those areas and if they don’t have a flight pattern filed for travel through there then we used to call up the Air Force base there and they would scramble the jets out to investigate or make an interception or whatever might be the case.

Michael Fleming:	Well, I’ll be damn.

JD Dewitt:	I don’t know if that tells you a little bit about…

Michael Fleming:	Well, what it tells me is that it – you’re a very unusual individual. You run across aviators, but not very many that, uh, that go that fly blimps.

JD Dewitt:	Well, blimps, you know, are helium and as they burn off fuel they become lighter and lighter so you have a winch on there, a hydraulic winch, that you go out over the ocean you drop it down and you picked pick water and pump it into these tanks to create ballast to maintain your level of flight.

Michael Fleming:	Wow.

Doreen Howard:	Doreen Howard. [06:46] Um, how did you get to Lansing, Michigan? From all of your travels you were in quite a few different states.

JD Dewit:	I, yes, I, I, uh, um, after I came out of the Navy I went to work for, uh, Pittsburgh Glass Company in Barberton, Ohio, and from there I went to work for Goodyear and I went to their engineering school of engineering training and then I got transferred to Motor Wheel Corporation and when into the foundry there, that’s the old centrifuge foundry, first as a maintenance foreman and then as a superintendent of maintenance and when I left there, uh, to go into, uh, this line of work I was the plant engineer.  It was the last job at Motor Wheel.  Of course, Motor Wheel is no longer in business, um, but, uh, it was great organization.

Doreen Howard:	[07:50] And is that when you hired into General Motors when they…

JD Dewitt:	No, no. I went into this conveyor work, started working for various conveyor companies and then I used to be Vice President and General Manager of Warwick Conveyor, which is a division of Hall Industries. There I went to Bristol Steel, kind of freelanced with a number of companies; Jarvis B. Webb, the ACO, Conveyormatic. Most conveyor people are somewhat transient because they move around the country with these various jobs.

Michael Fleming:	Mike Fleming. JD, you mentioned that your good friend Jim Zubkus. [08:42] Would you like to talk about that relationship in, uh, the Fisher Body time that you had here?

JD Dewitt:	Well, we, uh, became friends, uh, through being members at Walnut Hills Country Club playing golf together and, um, was he was playing golf with a guy one time and he told him that I had a lot of experience in conveyors and he approached me and wanted me to come to work here and, um, I said, “Well, I’ve got a job right now.” I was out in Provo, Utah, putting in a steel mill conveyor and he asked me if I could help on the weekends, so I started here working like Saturday and Sunday and, and when I finished that job, uh, I came here as a promise that I would stay 3 months and now I’ve been here 16 years.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[Chuckle]

Michael Fleming:	That story sounds so much as some of the individuals that come in to work. They, they usually come in to work at our facility for, you know, a year or 2 and they end up staying 30.  [09:58] Um, is there anything about the culture at Fisher Body that you noticed that might be a little different than some of the cultures that you worked in?

JD Dewitt:	Not, not really.  Uh, of course when you work in a labor plant the labor people stay together and I think that’s the way it should be, but, uh, I, I felt that the Lansing organization, uh, with all due respect to other companies that I worked for, have I was I always felt that Lansing was very labor-management oriented. They seemed to participate together and try to solve problems jointly and so that was a that’s my thoughts on them.

Michael Fleming:	Sure.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[10:44] Did you ever meet anybody in the plant that just kind of stuck out and you just became great friends and do you have any friendships in this plant?

JD Dewitt:	Oh many, um, probably one of the friends that I am very close with is Jerry Morse. I knew Jerry from before. Asa Bigelow used to work for me when I had an electrical contracting firm, he used to be my field superintendent, and, uh, those are two that stand out to me. Jerry is a very close friend. I became great friends with Bill Nemanis and, uh, Chad Hunn and probably because they were assigned to work with me and learn about conveyors and it’s great to see they’ve moved on to the Lansing Delta plant and they’re both going to be involved in conveyors there, but, uh, there was a lot of, a lot of skilled tradespeople in here that, uh, I just too many to name one or two, but, uh, most of them that I got regular dialogue with was involved in what was called our conveyor task force and if you want me to elaborate on that I can.

Cheryl McQuaid:	I didn’t know there was a conveyor task force. Please.

JD Dewitt:	When, uh, shortly after I came here and we got the plant up and running from the model changeover, there were many problems with regard to conveyors, you know, couldn’t get funding, couldn’t get the maintenance work done, couldn’t get it scheduled and we organized a conveyor task force that involved, uh, quality people. It involved, uh, millwrights, electricians, pipefitters, the safety people, [Benny Wright 12:52] was involved in that for a long time, uh. Dale Kramer, um, the predictive people, um, so we would meet every Wednesday and, um, I remember our some of our early meetings we started in, uh, and people came and then it kind of dwindled a little bit in attendance and I talked to Jim Zubkus about this and he showed up one morning with his coat and tie on and said, uh, told everybody how important and this is a must meeting and it was, it was very helpful to have him come and tell the people how important it was to, uh, come to these meetings and we started creating a matrix of work and, um, then we would prioritize it and, and from there we would, uh, solve these problems and as they were solved they would come off of the list and new ones would go on and the problems were varied and many from safety, uh, issues, um, breakdowns, uh, root causes of why it broke down, um, couldn’t get funding and, uh, the management here was always supportive of me. 

It seemed like I was always the one to go up front and ask for money but I was not very bashful because if, if we build a good case they, they always got us the money and I think that’s why, uh, we were successful in the amount of cars we built here in Lansing because we got money to repair things, to schedule, and that, uh, to my knowledge, uh, right now the Delta Township has already started a conveyor task force. I went to Lordstown last week and had the opportunity to tell them the benefits of this and they’re in the process of creating a conveyor task force group.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Excellent.

Doreen Howard:	Doreen Howard. You talked about going to other facilities and discussing this task force.  [15:21] Is our plant the first plant that had this type of a group?

JD Dewitt:	I think, I think Lansing was the first one to really ever official call it a conveyor task force and involve that many people. Uh, my experience is one of the things you have to do is you have to let the UAW be involved. I mean I went last week and told how important it is to interview people, you can have a labor guy and a management guy, I don’t care if it’s your shop committee man or whoever. Pick some people to be on it. You have to involve the UAW. You cannot do it with just engineers. The work has to – you have to get the involvement of the UAW or it will not succeed. 

Doreen Howard:	[16:16] Since you have been to other facilities, how does our facility compare to other ones that you have been in as far as the amount of conveyors that they have and the types of systems that they have?

JD Dewitt:	Well, I would say, uh, we probably have more conveyor than almost any plant. Buick City had a lot, I worked over there, but because of the two-plant system here, you know, Body and then trucking the bodies over the Chassis, uh, we probably had as many conveyors as any plant that I’ve worked in. Lordstown has a lot of them, but there’s a lot more employees there. I don’t even think Lordstown has as many conveyors as Lansing cars anyway.

Michael Fleming:	Mike Fleming. JD, you mentioned the fact that you were always the one to go up front and confront the management concerning, uh, the money issues that you had. [17:21] Was it as easy in other plants to go and have, ask for funds and procure funds as it appeared to be when you went here to get things done? Was it different?

JD Dewitt:	Well, I really, uh, never worked in other plants the way that I – Lansing was the first plant that I worked in where I was really their person under that and orchestrating, uh, getting this work done so I can’t tell you. Uh, all my other experiences were as a contractor, you know, and the paperwork processed internally by some GM person.

Michael Fleming:	Okay. So that might be one of the reasons why you stayed here as long as you did. You kind of enjoyed the fact that you were getting something accomplished.

JD Dewitt:	Oh definitely. It was, the work has always been challenging and any time that you work with conveyors it’s challenging, but if you think about it the conveyors are the lifeblood of a plant. When the conveyor stops, there’s a lot of people that are idle.  It involves productivity, quality, and the longer you can keep those conveyors operating and avoid breakdowns and stoppages the more profitable you should be and the more quality you should have.

Michael Fleming:	JD, talk about some of the holidays that you spent here and what you all did as a group on the holidays around Fisher Body.

JD Dewitt:	It’s an amazing thing. I think up until the last few years the only days, holidays that I ever had off were Christmas and maybe New Year’s and because you have that time between Christmas and New Year’s you could always bank on you’re going to be working either doing maintenance work or rearranging the line or equipment to, uh, facilidate, facilitate, uh, the requirements of either Body, Paint, or Trim with regard to conveyor path changes or new equipment or maintenance work, but you could always figure on working during the holidays.

Michael Fleming:	[19:59] Did you all have any, um, like celebrations inside the plant? Dinners or whatever, you know, around the holidays?

JD Dewitt:	Well, I think everybody that worked at Fisher Body never went hungry at Thanksgiving or Christmas. They were always, uh, as far as I don’t think there was any official company-sponsored. Numerous times at the end of projects, uh, one person that came to mind was Leonard Borman. He would always have a some kind of a luncheon brought in for people and to show appreciation for getting all of this work done during the down time, but, uh, it as far as an officially sponsored dinner I don’t, I don’t ever recall that other than people brought something in.

Michael Fleming:	That’s more of what we’re speaking of. [20:59] Did you have potlucks and…

JD Dewitt:	Oh yeah. Everybody brought in a dish and my dish was always Cowboy Beans.

Michael Fleming:	Cowboy Beans. [21:08] What was that like?

JD Dewitt:	That, that’s a story. I’m a Western fan and, you know, I’ve got a home out in Arizona and, uh, I would bring those in and you could almost bet every time that somebody half a dozen people want that recipe.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[21:29] What are they?

JD Dewitt:	[21:30] Hmm?

Cheryl McQuaid:	[21:31] What, what is Cowboy Beans?

JD Dewitt:	Cowboy Beans are, uh, red beans cooked in bacon and onions and a few other specialties that I throw in there, green peppers and they’re cooked in with, you know, tomato paste and I think you’ve had them.

Doreen Howard:	Yes, I’ve had them. They were very good.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Hmm. Sounds good.

Doreen Howard:	[21:56] JD, are there any other fun stories that you’d like to share with us?

JD Dewitt:	Well I’m sure that there’s a lot of them. I can’t think of any one in particular that is…you can probably think of some…[laughter]

Doreen Howard:	[Laughter]

JD Dewitt:	[22:17] Can you?

Doreen Howard:	You’ve been all over the plant. I…

JD Dewitt:	I wouldn’t say there’s any one thing that was…I’ve always tried to do a lot of laughing. It makes the day go by and, uh, since the plant’s gone down I’ve probably laughed more every day with Jerry Morse and these guys because we take time to laugh and, um, it’s there’s not a laughter, a lot of laughter when plant, when this plant was operating and you come in at 4:30 in the morning and you’ve gotta push buttons and expect 28 miles of conveyor to start up, especially when it’s below zero and your paint shop conveyors are full of paint and they don’t want to start. I’ll mention one other person that I thought was, um, and I should mention him because he was a great guy. It was Dale Faulkner in Paint.  He, uh, was a great guy and a hard worker and, uh, probably like me a little bit short fused, but …

Cheryl McQuaid:	[Laughter]

Michael Fleming:	[Laughter]

JD Dewitt:	… he always wanted to do the right thing.

Cheryl McQuaid:	He was a good guy.

Marilyn Coulter:	Marilyn Coulter. [23:33] Um, are there any, um, major successes that you were really proud of while you were here, your time being here, or something that you were really [inaudible 23:45]

JD Dewitt:	I, I give all my credit to the workers who did the work. Yep, I’d give all the credit to them. Sure, I may have a lot of ideas and things, but it takes people to do it. I give all the credit to them.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	Well JD, I really appreciate this opportunity to interview you. Um, I appreciate it. Thank you.

JD Dewitt:	It was great.

Doreen Howard:	I had one extra question. You said you started work at 4:30 in the morning.

Michael Fleming:	That was Doreen Howard.

Doreen Howard:	Um, thank you. [24:21] What time did you leave here on a normal day? How many hours would you work in a normal day?

JD Dewitt:	Well, normally I would be coming in at 4:30, uh, Monday through Friday and, uh, of course if you start that early you should finish early, but, uh, back in those days it was common to work 10 or 11 hours a day and I think for the first 7 years that I was here I mean it was rou, routine was 7 days a week.

Doreen Howard:	That’s a lot of hours. Alright.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Thank you.

JD Dewitt:	Okay.

Michael Fleming:	We thank you sir.

JD Dewitt:	Yeah. Thank you.

Michael Fleming:	[25:03] Uh, JD, how was the, uh, your, in your view what was the safety like in, in the plant?

JD Dewitt:	Uh, I’d like to comment about the overall safety here at the Lansing Car Assembly. I think it’s, uh, probably as good as any, uh, safety, uh, policy between the UAW and management is just incredible. They, they, they’ve really worked and, uh, should take great pride in, uh, what they’ve accomplished here with regard to safety, um, it’s been, uh, a pleasure to work in a plant where you people think about safety and I’m hopeful that they will continue these practices on into their new plants that they’re building because it has been a lot of benefit to the people and to, uh, the employees and contractors, uh, for working safely.

Michael Fleming:	You know, and I have to concur with you, uh, our safety record is second to none, [26:13] although as a conveyor person I’m sure you’ve heard of the incident that we had in the plant due to conveyors?

JD Dewitt:	Yes, I, I was working that day and, uh, an individual went up into 3X in the Trip Shop in the Trim Shop area up there in 3X by the door line and then, uh, went up on a lift and went up in between the trusses and the… after break the conveyors start automatically and, uh, he was out of position and ended up, uh, pushing him and his lift into a truss and it turned into a fatality.

Michael Fleming:	[26:52] Uh, JD, that individual was, was he a outside vendor? Was he an inside employee? Do you have [inaudible 26:59]

JD Dewitt:	No, he was…this was during these model new model new start-up time from changeover to a new model and he was an outside contractor with pipefitter. So, it’s an unfortunate thing I know. One of the dark days for me when you have a fatality.

Michael Fleming:	Certainly, certainly and we realize that, uh, we, we would never want that to happen, but again I think, um, when we look at our overall record, [27:32] what would you have to say about that?

JD Dewitt:	Well, I, I think if you look at Lansing Car Assembly and the organization here with what UAW and management have done and the millions and millions of hours that are worked and, uh, very few lost time accidents and its, uh, it’s taken a lot of work and it will continue to, uh, need, uh, attention as they move forward into a new plant and they should, uh, just keep doing what they’ve been doing.

Michael Fleming:	Well JD, I thank you for your comments because we really work hard at safety at LCA.

JD Dewitt:	Thank you.


/cv