DCA History: The 90s – The Making of Modern Times

If the 70s ended in a malaise of misery and Muzak, the 80s went out in a blaze of neon glory.  While Communist governments were crumbling all across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union seemed weaker every day, the United States had one of the most experienced presidents in its history, George H. W. Bush, with his hand on the tiller to guide everyone through the minefield.  The Cold War was ending without a shot, and America was triumphant on the world stage.  The music was glam, the hair was big, and the styles were bright and sharp.  The DCA had sailed its way out of the doldrums that had hit the industry hard during the middle of the decade and was looking forward to prosperous times again.

The economy would stumble again before it could soar, but the cultural optimism of the 80s was riding on a one-way ticket to burnout.  Exit Karate Kid’s “You’re the best!” and enter Beck’s “I’m a loser, baby.”  Grunge was just emerging on the rainy scene in Seattle as the Digital Age began in earnest, confidence in leadership eroded, and “Whatever!” became the new “Radical!”  The Boomers might carry DCA to new heights if Gen X could just stop rolling their eyes…

Changing of the Guard
As the DCA convened in Hawaii for the first time in January 1990, the San Francisco 49ers were trouncing the Denver Broncos to win their fourth Super Bowl title.  Trials were still ongoing for the Iran-Contra affair, the Exxon Valdez, and Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, while McDonalds opened its first restaurant in Moscow, and South Africa prepared to release Nelson Mandela from prison.  The Berlin Wall had fallen just three months earlier.

Back in Maui, the convention featured a tennis tournament and “Beach Olympics” along with lots of Hawaiian local flavor, while equipment innovation sessions were introduced during the business portion.  400 delegates set a new DCA attendance record in time to see Jim Upton retire as Executive Director, a position he had held since 1962, and pass the torch to Dennis Kennedy.  Upton was immediately promoted to Honorary Member and J.R. “Scotty” McGlothin, of Distribution Pipeline Maintenance, Inc., was elected president to kick off the new decade.  

Although the industry itself was doing well in 1990, the DCA found its membership shrinking as contractors merged or were acquired by larger entities, and the organization’s finances were struggling as a result.  Two joint labor management trusts were established that year with the UA and LIUNA, with both contributing funds to DCA to support the association’s mission and operations. In the meantime, longtime members Butch Graham and Bob Lyons were hatching a new plan to raise revenue outside of dues which would change the DCA’s fortunes forever at the next convention.

The Gulf War with Iraq was just two days old when the DCA celebrated its 30th anniversary in Tucson, Arizona in 1991.  Attendance was down to 250, but  Graham brought his own version of “shock and awe” by spearheading the first ever DCA Annual Auction and raising $33,000.  Founding members Emerson Clark and Armon Bost became honorary members and Jack Gabrielse of InterCon Construction, Inc. took over as president.  Mike Plank of Speed Shore spoke about OSHA regulations and the need for a “competent person” on the jobsite, and president and CEO of MichCon and MCN Corporation Stephen Ewing saw a bright future for natural gas in the Clean Air Act and the Energy Security Act.  Previous president Scotty McGlothin expressed concern about the effects of federal overreach from the EPA, DER, and OSHA in creating excessive and unnecessary costs for contractors.

Attendance jumped by 20 percent for the 1992 convention at the PGA National Resort and Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.  While members were having fun on the links, a 16-year-old Tiger Woods had just joined the PGA.  The Soviet Union was officially dead, war began in Bosnia, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “I’m Too Sexy” boomed from portable CD players, and in Los Angeles a jury sat to decide the fate of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King.  The convention topics du jour covered industry regulations, safety, and substance abuse, with featured speakers representing the Motor Carriers in the Federal Highway Administration and the Office of Pipeline Safety.  Robert L. Meschi of The Hallen Construction Company was elected president. 

By the time the 1993 convention rolled around, broken promises (“Read my lips…”) and a flagging economy (and Ross Perot) had come back to bite George Bush in the election, leaving Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.  Track suits and hi-top fades dueled with plaid shirts and Doc Martens for fashion supremacy.  “Groundhog Day” and “Army of Darkness” gave members something to watch in theaters while stormy weather pounded Carlsbad, California, but the rain did little to dampen the success of the meeting.  DCA recognized that trenchless construction and rehabilitation were becoming widely accepted methods across the industry.  Robert Nyman of Brooklyn Union Gas spoke about the potential impact of natural gas vehicles, and AGA president Michael Baly III discussed NTSB’s concern over the safety of customer-owned lines and its push to make utilities responsible for them.  Royce R. Heebner of Henkels & McCoy, Inc. took over as DCA President.  Members also initiated a project to develop a computer-aided new employee safety orientation program which would be released in 1994.  Shortly after the convention, a bomb went off in the parking garage of the World Trade Center as new enemies filled the void left by the Soviets.

Going Digital
The DCA returned to Hawaii in 1994, this time at the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort with 320 attendees.  Tonya Harding, Lorena Bobbitt, and the Menendez brothers dominated the gossip rags while Los Angeles cleaned up after the Northridge earthquake.  Tom Allen of Tom Allen Construction, Co. assumed the DCA presidency, and speakers included NFL referee William Abberger and AGA chairman Robert Ridgley, who emphasized shared concerns with the DCA over drug testing and One-Call system participation from utilities.  The rest of the year saw low interest rates lead to housing growth across the country, and the increasing popularity of the new-fangled World Wide Web led to new work for distribution contractors laying fiber optic cable.  The previous fall had seen the debut of Mosaic, the first browser to make it easy for the average person to jump on the “Information Superhighway.”  Executive Vice President Dennis Kennedy predicted at the time that DCA “would never need a website.” 

Meanwhile, deregulation was allowing more competitors into the distribution arena even as excessive environmental regulations made it harder to operate.

All eyes were on the O.J. Simpson trial in January 1995 as DCA convened at the scenic El Conquistador Resort in Las Croabas, Puerto Rico.  Speakers from the Gas Research Institute, the AGA, and the Laborers’ International Union graced the stage while new president Dennis Klumb of Arby Construction, Inc. leaned into strategies for thriving under increased competition.  The organization held high hopes of working with the new Republican majority in Congress to ease the regulatory burdens members struggled with.  1995 also saw the debut of the first DCA Safety Congress and awards recognizing Safety Director of the Year.

Reneging on its vow of just two years earlier, in 1996, DCA officially joined the Digital Age with its first website, dca-online.org. The group returned to Disney World in Orlando for its March convention, attracting  a decade-high 475 attendees.  Speaker Roger Cooper, group vice president of government relations and policy analysis for AGA, observed that the natural gas industry had grown 30 percent over the previous eight years while employing 15 percent fewer people.  Frank Hanley, general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers, proposed a joint training venture with DCA as a “wise investment for the future.”  The DCA Employee Safety Orientation program was  available on CD-ROM, and the 6th Annual Auction raised $109,000 – its highest total yet.  Joseph Purpura of Midwestern Contractors became president while Dale Michels, Dale Miller, and Bob Lyons joined the ranks of honorary members.  In the halls, members weighed Bob Dole’s chances of beating Clinton in the fall, fretted over big swings in the stock market, and philosophized over Dr. Jack Kevorkian while Alanis Morissette, Hootie and the Blowfish, and Tupac Shakur ruled the radio.

A Big Milestone
The Renaissance Esmeralda Resort in Indian Wells, California, played host to the 1997 DCA convention.  The “Rendezvous at the Oasis” attracted 375 attendees along with Martin Maddaloni, general president of the United Association, and astronaut Col. Terence Hendricks as speakers and “Marilyn Monroe” as master of ceremonies.  Hendricks’ colleagues at NASA had completed a tune-up on the Hubble Space Telescope just the day before.  T.D. Williamson won a “90 Seconds in the Spotlight” award with their video on butt fusion, and the auction rose to new heights with $125,000 raised.  Meanwhile, re-elected President Clinton was creating new trouble for himself with Monica Lewinsky even while the Whitewater investigation was still underway.  On the closing day of the convention, Scottish researchers announced the cloning of Dolly the sheep, fire broke out on the Mir Space Station, and NBC aired “Schindler’s List” uncensored to more than 65 million viewers.

Perhaps the most important development of the late 90s was the observation by newly-elected DCA president David “Dan” Watters of Miller Pipeline Corp. that utilities’ relationship with contractors was beginning to change.  “Historically, utilities have utilized contractors as a peak-shaving supplement to their own workforces, with the service somewhat limited to digging ditches and installing pipes,” he wrote in the 1997 DCA newsletter.  Now, however, “Utilities are placing a strong emphasis on cost control, customer service, consolidating or reducing workforces, and outsourcing tasks that customarily have been done in-house.”  DCA had been explicitly pursuing such business conditions since it was founded  in 1961, so for the DCA president to state it so matter-of-factly was a spectacularly understated validation of three-and-a-half decades of hard work.  Watters urged members to put themselves in position to take advantage of these new opportunities by demonstrating dependable, quality, cost-effective service – such gains could be lost if contractors didn’t hold up their end of the bargain, he said.

In 1998, the DCA was back at the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort in Hawaii again.  By then the Lewinsky story was following Clinton everywhere, even as he tried to address trouble brewing in the Persian Gulf, the Winter Olympics were starting in Nagano, Japan, and heavy rains lashed California while snow killed nine in Kentucky.  Renny Norman of the Gas Research Institute gave the keynote speech at the convention, the auction grew yet again, raking in $164,700, and Snelson Companies won an unprecedented fifth straight Arthur T. Everham Safety Award.  James R. Bender of Mueller Pipeliners, Inc./MRM, was elected president, but in an unusual turn of events he resigned due to a change in membership status, and the board appointed Dan Watters to serve a second term as president.  The DCA also spent much of the year planning how to address the Department of Transportation’s upcoming Operator Qualification (OQ) rule, which would be the most sweeping pipeline industry regulation since the 1970s.  Merger and acquisition activity was heavy on the business front, and worrying data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed marked declines in the number of people choosing construction as an occupation.

One year later, everyone was staring at their computers and wondering if the Y2K bug would really make it all blow up.  That February, Prince was already raking in the royalties off of that song, President Clinton was threatening military action against the Serbs in Kosovo, and “Office Space” debuted in theaters to the dull thud of a TPS report being stapled in an empty room.  Nearly 400 attendees were ready to party like it’s… well, you know… at the Loew’s Coronado Resort near San Diego.  The first Dale R. Michels Scholarships were awarded to three students at the 38th annual convention as new president and proud son Pat Michels looked on, kicking off a great new tradition.  At the auction, Bob Lyons entered DCA legend forever when he offered up his plaid sport coat to push the auction over its fundraising goal for the year, surpassing $190,000 with the new addition of the silent auction.  A hole-in-one by Don Owings at the golf tournament and a costume party to wrap up the show helped cement one of the most memorable conventions on record.  The year also saw the OQ rule go into effect, amping up DCA’s efforts to improve safety training, underground utility mapping and location, and hazard reduction even further.

On the eve of the big triple-zero, the 80s prediction of a big decade for DCA had come to pass.  The modern organization as we know it today had begun to take shape with new traditions like the auction, scholarships, and Safety Congress, membership was on the rise again, and new sources of funding promised better member services in years ahead.  The ditch diggers joined the digital tribe despite initial hesitation, and the founders’ visions were at last coming to fruition.  It hadn’t all been smooth sailing, of course, but – whatever!  Spoil the DCA’s party?  As if; duh!