A towering feat caps his careerFebruary 12, 2003
Cement: After completing a once-in-a-lifetime project, the $270 million expansion of the Lehigh plant in Union Bridge, manager Dave Roush, a 38-year company employee, retires.
By Childs Walker, Sun Staff, February 20, 2003
Through the 12-hour work days, the tedious permit hearings and the nights spent hearing people tell him he was blocking out the stars, Dave Roush never lost his enthusiasm for the tower.
His thick hands would always come to life when he talked of it, the steel structure rising as high as 20 stacked farmhouses above the crop fields of western Carroll County.
And when it was done, Roush knew he had succeeded in the greatest endeavor of his life. So he quit.
At 60, Roush could have spent a few more years as manager of Lehigh Portland Cement Co.'s Union Bridge plant. But how many chances would he have to bring North America's most productive cement kiln to a rural town of about 1,000? After seven years of all-consuming work, it seemed an impressive way to go out.
[…]
Cement has been at the heart of Roush's working life, but his formal relationship with the substance ended last month, when he retired after 38 years with Lehigh, a Pennsylvania company now owned by German conglomerate Heidelberger Zement AG. Heidelberger has not appointed his replacement.
A respected but usually soft-spoken member of Carroll County's business community, Roush oversaw the $270 million expansion that gave out-of-the way Union Bridge a monument to modern ingenuity.
"He's one of the highest-quality individuals I've known in my life," said Paul Denton, president of Maryland Midland Railway, which has done business with Lehigh for 17 years. "He's just all integrity from top to bottom. He knows all aspects of the business, and he is very thorough."
[…]
… It was good training for Union Bridge, where he moved in 1977.
Happy to be back in Maryland, Roush was assistant manager for seven years, then took over the plant just as a new quarry was about to open outside nearby New Windsor. The prospect of a giant rock-blasting operation next door did not please residents of that quiet town, so Roush had to learn public relations on the fly. He began attending community and government meetings and, for the first time, offered regular plant tours.
People had long regarded Lehigh, which has operated in Union Bridge since 1909, as the big, bad company on the hill. So Roush set to convincing people that the plant was staffed by 200 trustworthy friends and neighbors. The medicine he delivered was sometimes bitter, but he developed a reputation as a reasonable man, even among critics of the company.
"I would not have wanted his job," said county Commissioner Perry L. Jones Jr., who was mayor of Union Bridge from 1990 until last year. "People would always be on his back about the dust or the trucks or the noise, but he just sat there and rolled with the criticism, never raised his voice. He handled the job as well as any public relations guy Lehigh could ever hire."
Roush had a gift for talking about cement, an ability to make people understand what he and his co-workers were doing at the plant.
Jones said Roush earned more respect for Lehigh by commissioning charitable contributions to the town, county and country.
Lehigh began to sponsor a town picnic, set up a scholarship at nearby Francis Scott Key High School and frequently donated $20,000 or $30,000 to help the town with a construction project. After the big snowstorm of 1996, Roush sent company machines to clear back roads around the county. In 2001, Lehigh sent one of the huge cranes used for the expansion to New York City to help pull apart World Trade Center rubble.
[…]
Read Mr. Walker’s entire article here: http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/carroll/bal-ca.cement20feb20,0,3423020.story?coll=bal%2Dlocal%2Dcarroll
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