Greetings

"A Pompeii site reveals the recipe for Roman concrete. It contradicts a famous architect's writing." I found this recent CNN Science article intriguing and was amazed that a 2,000 year-old concrete mix is being studied for its possible use today. What really drew my attention were the quoted comments of John Senseney, an associate professor of ancient history at the University of Arizona in Tucson:

“Discoveries like this throw light on the incredible contributions of common workers and even enslaved persons in ancient history, which is very difficult to appreciate directly in the written works of elite authors.”

Senseney pointed to ancient buildings such as the Pantheon and Colosseum in Rome that reflect the “expertise and innovation” of these everyday people who were masters at their craft. Their skilled work and innovative practices deserve to be part of the written record.

In this issue of the Iron & Steel Preservation Chronicle you will be introduced to Jeff Haynes, a skilled craftsman who is a master of his craft in the fabrication and preservation of the automobile. You will also meet John Fritz, an important innovator from the 19^th century who introduced the three-high rail mill.

Vern Mesler

January, 2026

At one time if you lived in Lansing, Michigan, there was an overwhelming automotive manufacturing presence that could be felt, heard, and seen daily. Within the greater Lansing area, spread across vast acres, a network of automotive plants thrived producing automobiles on miles of assembly lines: REO Motors (R E Olds), Oldsmobile, Fisher Body, GM Craft Center (known at one time as the Jet Plant). Supplying these factories were drop forges that had a signature sound that could be heard across the city. Hammers, muffled by distance, one and then another, and another. The sound of the heavy drop forge hammers that compress and shape hot and cold metal parts for the large automotive factories. Surrounding these industrial sites were the businesses and schools essential to sustain life in the many communities made possible by the automobile. Many of these were the Mom & Pop taverns and restaurants that served the hungry and thirsty plant workers. 

Within these plants were the men and women who arrived day or night from the city and from rural bedroom communities to work in the plants of Lansing’s industrial partners. To build a product with 30,000 parts and to be profitable required skilled men and women who worked within managerial rules, a union contract, and the unwritten rules of shop behavior.

Some of these automotive industrial plants have been torn down, leaving acres of empty fields, but there is still a significant automotive presence in the Lansing area, highly robotic, within windowless metal walls. Gone are the sounds of the drop-forge hammers, but the stories of the automotive workers remain.

Jeffery Haynes was hired into the Oldsmobile plant in 1978 with about two hundred people. His father, a supervisor, got him in. “I’ll never forget this -- there was so many of us, plant protection marshaled us off. As we were walking in, there was a shift change -- hundreds of people coming out the door. I’ll never forget this guy, he was all hunched over and he was like ‘go back, go back, your mama never told you about this place.’ I can just see this guy’s face, probably long dead. I was wondering what I got myself into.”

While Haynes may have wondered what he got himself into on that first day, he already had a history with the automobile, the machine that is made up of metal parts, gears, grease, oil, and moving components. He was there to learn how the machine was built and he wanted to be one of the builders.

“I walked through all the machinery, super loud, dirty, nasty, but I was fascinated with it. Machines. I worked in the engine parts first my first two years.”

Haynes followed his father and grandfather on the shop floor where an inherent passion for the automobile, the machine, may have begun and led to the purchase of a 1955 Chevrolet.

“My 55 Chevy was the first car I ever bought, bought it when I was 15, that's the blue one. It has gone through many transitions. When I went through auto shop in high school, that's the car I was working on. The main reason why I went into the auto shop was to be able to work on that car because, you know, I like cars, I want to learn about them.”

Photo: Loren Bucklin, 1977

Haynes as a teenager with his first GM car, a 55 Chevy.

Photo: Jeff Haynes, 2018

Haynes’s well-maintained 55 Chevy, modified over the years.

Mr. Edward Nystrom was Haynes’s Auto Mechanics instructor at Everett High School in the Lansing School District. Nystrom attended Milwaukee School of Engineering and earned his master’s degree from Michigan State University. 

Photo: Jeff Haynes, 1978

Mr. Edward Nystrom, Everett High School

Mr. Edward Nystrom working with Auto Mechanics students at Everett High School

At one time Everett High School had an automotive program, as was common in high schools where an industrial shop program taught a generation of young adults hands-on industrial skills essential in maintaining an educated industrial community. Haynes would attend Nystrom’s shop class for three hours in the morning, and in the afternoon he attended classes that would enhance his skills developed in the automotive program. Haynes benefited from this vocational instructor, remembering him clearly many decades later. Unfortunately, as these experienced instructors retired, high school auto shop classes were often eliminated, denying future students an opportunity to develop hands-on industrial skills.

Building the automobile, the machine, requires multiple shop trades, and Haynes would work at many of them to find one with security and a decent job. “Dad, I just got a call from the apprentice program. They want to take me on as a welder.” His father advised him, “Take the apprenticeship, you got four years they can’t lay you off.” Haynes accepted the apprenticeship, taking on a demanding program of classroom study and hands-on practical experience, leading to his status as Journeyman Welder – Maintenance and Construction. Becoming a journeyman at General Motors is a prized position for an industrial craftsman.

“This is the way you have to learn, kid.” Tony Fedawa was Haynes’s Journeyman trainer on his first welding job outside the shop floor, a large eighteen inch steam line pipe high on the roof of a plant where the local traffic was clearly seen below. “I remember it was a nice sunny morning. We were out there and the pipe is all frosty and I’m trying to cut, all nervous. They said just relax we’ll be alright, you screw it up you got to weld.” Haynes made the cut, the pipe didn’t leak, and there in that cold morning alone with the tools of his trade, he applied those skills he learned from experienced craftsmen, continuing a tradition that helps maintain the knowledge base of industry into the future. 

I Love My Job

This maintenance and construction position was a great fit for Haynes. “I loved my job.” He and his industrial co-workers performed jobs in all the plant departments and focused on construction. There was a steady flow of work in construction and plenty of overtime pay. “I liked big projects.” And in the course of his work throughout the plant, Haynes saw the entire assembly process that turns individual parts into a finished automobile. “You could literally walk from one end of the plant to see raw castings and down at the other end see cars coming off the line, which is fascinating to me. You know, it’s just unbelievable.”

You often read about the dreaded assembly line, the slacker, but what is not often told is the rich history of those automotive tradesmen and women who found a place where they thrived and developed as skilled craftsmen and women and, in retirement, continued to contribute to their community.

Over its history, General Motors has had cycles of ramping up the number of in-house positions in the skilled trades and later phasing them out. When GM eliminated several of the skilled trades at its Lansing plants, Haynes retired from GM in 2008 and focused on his own work in auto restoration and fabrication.

Today, Haynes is employed at Lansing Community College as a welding instructor and brings to the classroom a rich history of craftsmanship and a strong work ethic. Be on time, respect senior craftsmen, respect the tools of your trade, and learn how and when to use these tools properly. As young men and women begin their work in the industrial trades, mistakes will happen: errors in the interpretation of fabrication prints, the mishandling of industrial tools, etc. Haynes sees this as an opportunity for his students: “I firmly believe that you learn more from your mistakes than when everything goes wonderful.”  In one of Haynes’s advanced fabrication classes, he stresses the importance of layout accuracy, and if an error is made by a student, his most common comment is "how are you going to fix this?"

This layout accuracy can be seen in Haynes’s chassis fabrication in his own shop, where precision and welding skills in automotive restoration are clearly visible.

Photo: Vern Mesler, 2011

Haynes in his shop.

Photo: Jeff Haynes, 2018

Haynes’s 55 Chevy, still a handsome machine.

Haynes is proud of his skills as a craftsman, and if you visit his shop you will discover a fine collection of industrial tools in an exceptionally well-organized space. And his collection of automobiles, nine at last count.

Among his cars is a 2011 Chevrolet Impala for everyday use, a heavy duty 2007 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, and a top-of-the-line Cadillac. This is not Haynes boasting about his acquisitions, it is an expression of his identity with the machine, a connection with his family heritage and his career in the auto industry with General Motors. “You always started off with Chevrolets, and then you worked your way up to, you know, the Oldsmobiles and Buicks.  Cadillac was always the top of the line.” For Haynes, it’s about the machine: “the Cadillac, it’s a performance car. I mean it’s getting close to 700 horsepower, it’s fast and it’s just, you know, they’re just neat cars.”

Visit Jeff at his shop, he’ll pull up a chair for you, rolling it along his heated concrete floor, and, comfortably seated, surrounded by industrial tools and his machines, you will hear the voice of a craftsman.

Haynes, along with other Lansing Community College craftsmen, conduct field rivet demonstrations at Lansing Community College’s West Campus in Lansing, Michigan. Haynes became an expert at heating rivets as a member of the LCC demonstration crew, using tongs custom made by a colleague and fellow craftsman. Students are given the rare opportunity to witness an important industrial process and to handle a historic industrial tool used in the erection of this country’s famous riveted bridges and buildings.

A rivet training fixture fabricated by Jeff Haynes and Ken Barlage was designed to be re-used after each row of rivets was driven, eliminating the need to build a new assembly for each demonstration. An additional benefit: when the rivets are removed from the fixture, trainees can inspect a fully formed rivet and make any correction on another run of driven rivets.

Photo: Nan Jackson, 2024

Haynes heating rivets with custom made rivet tongs.

Photo: Nan Jackson, 2024

LCC demonstration crew with rivet training fixture.

John Fritz, known for his innovations in the design of heavy rolling mills, valued “the real mechanic who possessed ‘finger wisdom’ and brought to work each morning a salutary conscience and willingness to innovate” (Thomas J. Misa, “A Nation of Steel, The Making of Modern America, 1865-1925”).

These values were shaped by John Fritz’s experience at Cambria Iron in 1857 managing a crew and dealing with overseers who may not have had hands-on knowledge of shop machinery and shop culture. With Fritz’s all-round practical experience as a craftsman in this industrial environment, he recognized the efficiency of a three-high rail mill over a two-high mill and was determined to depart from the old mill practice and install a revolutionary new process, even as his willingness to innovate was met with opposition.

“...the greater the difficulty the more determined I was to fight it out, as I could see in my bed at night, when I should have been asleep, visions of a three-high rail mill, but in the distance. Yet I had faith that it would come, and I was certain in my own mind that it would be a great success” (Autobiography of John Fritz, 1911).

Is there a value for today’s craftsmen and women to have the opportunity to witness historic industrial processes in operation and to read about a 19th century craftsman’s experience on a shop floor? I believe there is. Artificial intelligence and robotic technology may overwhelm an individual person’s vision of what they can contribute, but historical events can be a source for inspiration. “I was certain in my own mind that it would be a great success.”

An excerpt from John Fritz’s autobiography is reproduced here as a PDF for viewing: Chapter XIV (Cambria) and Chapter XV (Cambria – The Three High Rail Mill). I am interested in how ISP Chronicle readers view these traits today in their own industrial and engineering communities. I invite you to share your perspective.

Thanks, Vern Mesler

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Alameda Island’s Park Street Bridge - Historic Bridge Restoration

Field Riveting Demonstration Lansing Community College

The Real Mechanic - Historic

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Tons of Molten Iron - Historic Bridge Restoration

Rivers of Steel Field Rivet Training - Historic Bridge Restoration

Click on the image to view a video about the Calhoun County Historic Bridge Park, produced by Central Michigan University for Destination Michigan, a program aired through PBS.

August 2025, ISP Chronicle

April 2025, ISP Chronicle

November 2024, ISP Chronicle

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