1955 - Nesbitt Contracting Celebrates 60 Years - 2015
Tom Nesbitt with his
Cessna, early 70s.
Crushing operation in Precott Valley, 1967.
naval commission. Three days later, he was
working for the City of Mesa doing
engineering design.
“I had it thrown at me pretty fast,”
Tom said of his on-the-job training. “There
was no engineering department and Mesa
had started on a program of streets and
water. We were growing pretty fast in
those days. I got a lot of experience
because I had to do everything: survey,
draw the plans, make the specs, bid the
job, inspect the job, and make the
assessments.”
Tom tried to do things by the book,
only to discover it didn’t work on Mesa’s
flat land. “We had to run grades unheard
of in textbooks,” he said.
He married Ruth Fitch, also a native of
Mesa, in 1950. Two years later, he became
City Engineer for the City of Mesa, in
charge of the sewer, water, street,
building, planning, and engineering
departments in 1952. “Being as
independent as I was, I felt the Mesa job
was the best job in the state for me. I had
to make decisions, and I wasn’t afraid to
make them because of my education and
experience.”
Nesbitt employees share a
laugh, early 1990s.
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