Guy Walston has worked for Foss Maritime for 27 (and a half) years, and – with a quick laugh – can recall seemingly every minute since his hiring:
“I was working in the tire business at the time, and one of the inside machinists said, ‘Hey, we need more people. Here’s a number; call them. That was 1987,” he explained. “I started in the outside machine shop at the bottom of the list as a helper. Worked my way up to journeyman, to lead man, to assistant foreman, to foreman, back to assistance foreman, then back to journeyman – then to the Tool Room.”
The native of Sumner, who currently resides in Eatonville, drives “an hour and 10 minutes” every morning to cross the wide counter into his second home, a modular room reminiscent of a police evidence locker, stocked to the brim with carefully categorized, grease-smudged heavy machinery. Walston knows where things are: when they left, who their with, when they’ll be back. A Navy veteran, the business of machinery has always come naturally.
“I was a steel worker in the Navy. I cross-grafted. I was an electrician. I was a pipe-fitter, a plumber, a mechanic – and a cook,” he laughed. “I still whip things up all the time.”
Most days include a visit from his stepson, Ken Purteman, assistant foreman in the Outside Machine Shop, who graduated from Sumner High School 19 years after Walston.
“After school, somebody – that somebody being my father – said, ‘You need to quit sitting on the couch and get a job,” Purteman explained. “And they needed help at the time. I didn’t intend on working here this long, but mechanical work is just natural for me too.”
Purteman has been on the job for some 15 years, and recently returned from a months-long trip to a job-site in Virginia. Walston, who at 56 is starting to think about retirement, has spent the better part of 25 years traveling for Foss. And that – they are quick to joke – is where the similarities between the two end.
“It’s hell,” said a stone-faced Purteman of working with his dad, breaking into a smile at the last minute. The two don’t eat lunch together. They “used to” carpool.
“We’re both stubborn,” said Walston. “We’re so much alike, we clash.”
But the work, they agreed, is it’s own reward.
“You have your moments,” he concluded. “When we worked side-by-side, we had our moments. But you gotta work together to get the job done. And you use your skill and ability and combine them together to get the job even farther along.”
