I moved out of Prescott and Arizona for that matter (married) so now I guess you can call me Ben In San Diego or as my email says beninsand@yahoo.com. I am a retired man that has worked in various forms as a manager, supervisor and owner...retail, wholesale, staffing, construction and...more. I grew up in Arizona and was always intrigued by Flagstaff and the Santa Fe, the White Mountains and specifically McNary with Southwest Forest industries and Snowflake with the big paper mill. The Apache RR was the RW that serviced that area for the lumber mill and papermill. I guess I am lucky because one wood mill in the US is called Bennett Lumber ( my name,) and I am using that name throughout my layout.

I went to school in Scottsdale and I went to Arizona State University on an Architecture scholarship. But I ended up with a BS in Management instead. I worked for 14 years with Skaggs Drugs (Sav-on, Osco) the went into the wholesale business. Then I worked for an industrial constructor, EBASCO, building power plants. I was project Office Manager on all the sites I was assigned to.

I have finally gotten my settlement from my past employer regarding a bad back and shoulder that were injured when I lifted a box of magazines too high. OUCH! But when SSA got done with looking at the paperwork they doubled my award! That left me with $6000 worth of orders from MR, Kalmbach and Micro-Mark.

My mom and dad passed away in 2015 which was a big blow to me. They were both in their 90's but still very unexpected. So what did I do to get my mind off of bad things? I worked on my MR stuff. I think at one time I had 22 buildings to put together! I am still not working so I am down to 3 more building to put together before I finalize roads, track work and DCC.

One other thing. I am 63 now and I started MR'ing as a boy of 8 y/o. I had been moving so much it was hard to put up a layout that was going to stay. So my last apartment had an extra room and I brought in a ping-pong table that  folds up. Worked perfectly for the layout...until I had to move to San Diego. It would not fit upstairs in the spare room! I spent 1/2 hour taking the table apart and 3 hours getting it upstairs and put back together. Pros: Nice 5 x 9 layout size for HO. Cons: It is low, too low to the ground...33 inches. I would have liked to have been in the mid 40s. Hence my way in goes across a door. Thanks to the author and editors for putting in last month's MR a story about a horizontal bridge that goes up out of the way that I can stand under (5'5".) But alas it wasn't without it's problems. If you are doing a layout at the same height as the author's you will be fine. BUT at 33" above ground it would not go up as high as I needed. I had to add some more brackets