239 Trouble-shooting was nearly impossible since they didn’t have the propertestequipment. The customer couldn’t afford to pay us to fly down on site; however, we did it anyway, knowing it would take a while and that it was at our (WSMC’s) expense. Upon arrival, it was a completely different world — definitely very poor. With the roads in bad shape and usually washed out, the daily trip from our guest house to the factory was an adventure. Once at the factory, we discovered they had absolutely nothing for tools. So by the time we left, we had given them most of our tools, supplies, flashlights and stuff. They needed it more than we did. For us, it was easy. We would just buy more supplies when we got back home. It was a struggle to do a test trial on a new piece of equipment and gather data. We’d never get more than an hour of run time becausesomething else in the factory would break and everything had to be shut down. We’d wait three or four hours, the problem elsewhere would get fixed and everything was up and running again. We’d just start to gather data and something else would break in another location of the factory. It was a non-stop, vicious cycle. The entire factory was in disrepair. However, through all the chaos, it was the most rewarding experience. Our customer actually wrote a letter to say thank you. It was so nice. You knew that you had helped them and they were appreciative. It wasn’t about money. It was about service and getting them up and running again. — Chris Stover MR. POLAROID I started at Western States in 1969 for $2.10 per hour. I retired at the end of 2013 with 45 years. I started in inventory control, working for a good man, Sam True. I liked my job in parts. It was very challenging. Every day was different—I always learned something new. Part of my job included taking Polaroid pictures of the parts. Sam said, “You’re pretty good at it, just do it.” I took it upon myself to continue taking photos. At that time, I thought, “Well, if we do this, why don’t we start accumulating other pictures? I'm going to take a picture of something.” That’s when I started taking photos of the anniversary awards program. After that, I started taking pictures at all the Company-sponsored events, saving newspaper clippings, birthday announcements and special accomplishments. As a result, I started putting everything in photo albums. — Carl Bell P.S. Thank you Carl for volunteering many years ago to be our Historian. Without the work you put forth over the years, this book would be incomplete.Weappreciateyouforyourdedication inside and outside of the Company. — Your Friends at Western States SLEEP AT YOUR OWN RISK Since sugar was grown in poorer areas of the world, people would take the crates from our centrifugals shipped into the facility and use the wood to build houses, shacks or whatever because the wood was a valuable resource for them. Due to stringent exporting requirements, we’ve always packed our machines using really good wood. Factory employees would fight over the wood that