As he recently explained to Les, Bob has been active of late regarding CH2M HILL Alumni history, especially in Corvallis. Eva Bushnell is the facility manager of our Jacobs office there, and she has been extremely helpful. Recently, she surprised us with the news that 58 boxes and the infamous Pakistani rug are being shipped to her from Denver.
Les teased us with some factoids about Holly Cornell, a grain distribution facility in Pakistan, Gus Pantazi, the client only being able to pay us in local currency, but the government not allowing the currency out of the country, Les buying the rug, a Syrian rug merchant, etc., as all being part of the story. Well, we all want to hear “the rest of the story”. Here’s Les’s inside story about how it all started:
In the mid-1960s, CH2M had four regional offices – Corvallis, Boise, Seattle, and Portland – with regional and discipline responsibilities. Off-shore developments were underway in Trinidad and Argentina. At that time if you found a client willing to pay, with board approval, you could accept work assignments overseas. Holly Cornell, manager of the Seattle office, had a Pakistani trainee engineer who helped obtain a contract to do a national grain distribution plan.
CH2M successfully completed the assignment, and we were paid in local currency. We then found that we could not take the local fee out of the country. The local money remained in Pakistan for several years until the Board created CH2M HILL International in 1974. The new division inherited the accounts payable legacy. Gus Pantazi, our international financial manager, arranged for the Atiyeh Bros. Rug Company in Portland, who had an agent in Pakistan, to purchase over 30 rugs and other saleable items to be shipped to their Portland office and sold by them for CH2M’s benefit.
We kept one of the rugs for the international operations manager’s office (first Les Wierson and then Otto Vydra) as a reminder of how a fee is paid and converted to US dollars. It worked well and was a guiding principle to the early CH2M international office.
Now for the Paul Harvey’s “Rest of the Story” by Gordon:
As many readers may have heard, Jacobs is consolidating their office spaces in all their locations. CHAA received notice of several locations (Corvallis, Denver, Portland) that had many CH2M artifacts that we wanted to recover.
The Denver staff had the rug Les mentioned, which had been framed, under a plexiglass cover and had been displayed on the wall of the inside courtyard of the main building. CHAA committed to pay for a local rug appraisal before deciding to ship to Corvallis for locating at the Benton County Historical Society Museum or OSU CH2M HILL Alumni Center. Unfortunately, neither location panned out, so Plan B involved checking with the local appraiser to see if they were interested with purchasing the rug…they responded, “sorry not interested”.
Now reality had set in for us. Many of us hadn’t seen the rug displayed in Denver (local staff mentioned it was beautiful), nor know the rug’s size or value. Visions of its use in the boardroom or worth $10,000+ quickly disappeared. Only after the appraisal came in did we find out it was 4 feet by 6 feet, with a value of $1,100. Mark Alpert was our main representative at the office when the appraiser came and when all the artifacts were assembled for viewing. Photos were taken for sharing with the artifact team members, so decisions could be made.
So, now we know the “Rest of the Story” and history of the rug, how our CH2M International Development started. The good news is that an alumni member recently made a generous offer to purchase the rug and donate to the CHAA, which was accepted.