Steel Construction Vol 40 No 3 - Mining, Industrial, Import/ Export | Page 14

SAISC FEATURE
we would have been paid by the arbitrator,
leaving us always short of cash in the
business.

was responsible for all technical issues. The
nature of their projects was much larger,
heavier and with it new challenges.

In 1989 my brother who had since joined
us decided to emigrate to the USA, Bert was
now 75 and wanted out, I realised that I no
longer desired to run the business with only
“2 family eyes” and decided to sell out.

In January 1990 Louis Breckenridge took me
to Israel and we came back with an order
for a 14 storey building, the first of many
building orders. I can safely say that Girder
Naco was responsible for changing many
parts of the Tel Aviv skyline.

Girder Naco bought a substantial part of the
business and I went with.
12 years at Girder Naco
At Girder Naco I ran the construction
division, the estimating department and

12 Steel Construction Vol. 40 No. 3 2016

We had a 9 year run where in some years
we exported 6 000 tons of steel to Israel.
But it had to happen sooner or later, local
steelwork fabricators realised that to beat
us at our game they needed to invest in

NC controlled fabricating equipment, 3D
detailing packages and deal with those
3 very important erection issues, verticality,
more verticality and more verticality. We
finished our last Israeli project in 1999.
I became responsible for most of that export
work. Amazingly all but one of our 29 export
projects during my time were profitable.
My nearly 12 years at Girder Naco was a new
lease on life for me, the challenges associated
with contractual issues and the technology
of detailing, fabricating, welding, quality
control, shipping and erection of those heavy
components set me up to deal with my
position at the SAISC.