Episode 647: Patrick McCarty - FIRST ONSITE: Director of Client Solutions - Interesting and Unusual Restoration Projects

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CliffZ
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Re: Episode 647: Patrick McCarty - FIRST ONSITE: Director of Client Solutions - Interesting and Unusual Restoration Proj

Post by CliffZ »

In today's interview, I opine that Patrick McCarty, FirstOnsite's Director of Client Services came across as confident, competent, and empathetic. I suppose that the confidence and competence were gained on the job and that his empathy was inherited.

While he discussed a wide variety of projects, the one which sticks in my mind and his was Enterprise High School in Alabama. As RadioJoe and I often do, Patrick and I had a preshow discussion in which we discuss draft questions and possible discussion points. We discussed our shared eagerness for new challenges, shared some out of the box solutions, chuckled about some of the funny things we've seen happen; and when we discussed the Enterprise High School project I could tell that the project had a profound impact on him.

In the late 1980s, my company did a restoration project for a couple whose son was one of the earliest casualties of the Vietnam war. Among the items destroyed by the structure fire were: the American flag given to the families of fallen servicemen, his medals and a condolence letter written to the parents by President John Kennedy.

When I saw a framed photograph of their son in uniform, and as a Vietnam era vet who was blessed not to have been in combat, I wanted to do something and decided to try and have all of the destroyed items replaced. By contacting the various agencies and authorities including Veterans Administration, the Pentagon and the White House I was able to obtain replacements. The White House provided a black and white photocopy of the original letter along with a personal letter to the family from Ronald Reagan.

The family was shed grateful tears when I presented them with the replacement items.

This is a restoration job, I'll always remember.

Z-Man signing off
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