Masonry Magazine December 2008 Page. 42
MY MASONRY LIFE STORY
By Peter Hildebrandt
GENE SWAFFORD: The Take and Give of the Trade
"Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction," says American politician John C. Crosby. But a mason who mentors will want to bring tools along.
ENE SWAFFORD has owned GSM Masonry for nine years. Mentoring was a big part of his beginning and is still part of his current trade.
Swafford got into masonry after high school, having worked a few months for Daniel Construction Co., a local firm constructing the nearby Michelin plant, which ended with the completion of the factory. When Swafford later returned to a job at a South Carolina cotton mill, a friend mentioned he did outside work for bricklayers, and they needed another laborer.
Swafford always liked working outdoors, so he left the inside work at the mill to begin a career in masonry. "At that time, the wages were 53 or 54 an hour - probably 40 cents more than I was making inside the textile mill," says Swafford. "After trying it, I've been doing masonry ever since. My first experiences in this area were with Triangle Construction, where I learned all the laboring skills I could need."
Swafford worked with Triangle for nearly four years, taking advantage of a local housing boom. Triangle builds a lot of commercial buildings, shopping centers and schools, so he worked on eight-story Greenville Memorial Hospital, where he had his first experience with swinging scaffolds.
Swafford learned much of what he knows and does through on-the-job training. Though he'd been placed in masonry classes at the local vocational school in high school, at that time he wanted to work on cars. Over the years, Swafford has tried to learn from his coworkers. "I took [my coworkers'] best qualities and incorporated them into what I was doing," he says.
While working for Triangle Construction, Swafford had his own mentor in Jerry Alterman, superintendent of the company's masonry division. "Jerry was