50 Years

Back in 1962, my grandparents held a family meeting to discuss the start of a construction company, what would become Pinkard Construction. 50 years later, the business is now owned by my mom, her brother and a few others who bought out my grandpa in the 1980s. It is where I have worked since moving back to CO in 2004.

So in honor of 50 years (which in the construction business is no mean feat), a celebration was in order. Mom and I selected a committee, some newer employees, some more long-term employees and two besides my mom who are 2nd generation at our company (how cool is that??) and we started planning. We hired caterers and a tent rental and then we got down to the more fun business of decorations. Some of it was typical – a nice slideshow of our history, for example, but some of it was a bit more … unique.

Back when the company first got started, there wasn’t money for a fleet of matching trucks, so my grandpa bought whatever he could, on the cheap. When he asked my grandma how to paint them to match them all together, she suggested Pinkard Pink … and so that was how our first fleet of trucks was pink! In honor of this, we got the idea to have small models of 50s era Ford pickups (remember these were USED trucks!) and paint them pink. One of our committee members bought a model and took it home and painted it the requisite color – no mean feat as he had to tape off tiny mirrors and headlights and windshields. He did such a good job, we asked for 10 more as table decorations and he did it! Then we made teeny replications of our first logo on sticky-back paper and cut them out and put them on the doors. They made a huge statement and were one of this big hits of the party – everyone wanted one!

My other favorite part of the decor we did I was much more involved in. Working with another committee member, we compiled over 1000 digital images. Some we had to scan from paper or negative – my darling hubby made me a light box just for this purpose – and the process took us weeks! Once we had the images compiled, I worked to make 9 2’x2′ mosaics that would come together in a tryptic (3 2’x6′ banners with 3 images squished together in each) to make our logo. Working with images that large was a huge challenge – saving is a 5 minute process when you’re working on that scale – and when we sent them off to the printers, I cannot tell you how nervous I was! I spent all weekend (while we were camping in RMNP) thinking about it off and on. I was so relived to see that the finished product measured up to my expectations. The effect is STUNNING (step back a foot or two from your monitor to get the best impression of our logo) and then you step up close and there’s faces and jobsites from 50 years.

All our hard work paid off and we had a couple of really nice parties and some amazing memories. Here’s to 50 more years.

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