On Thursday three members of the Apparatus Committee (Assistant Chief Johns, Tower Captain Sutton and Engine Captain Hasselberger) departed for Appleton, Wisconsin to visit the Pierce plant and perform a mid-build inspection on the new pumper.  Upon arrival they were met by Randy Schwartz of Singer Associates (who they were informed had a rough night of partying with another group) and proceeded to get checked into thier hotel before going to the plant.

Once at the plant, the members skipped the normal niceties of a plant tour and went straight to work looking over the rig.  The pumper is nearing its completion in the main assembly plant and at the beginning of the day was basically a cab and body with nothing but a few lights mounted.  This gave the guys a chance to inspect the paint, structure and interior of the cab without having anything in the way.  A few discrepancies from the bid spec were noted and relayed to Randy for passing on to Pierce.

Once they were satisfied with their preliminary inspection, they then went on a tour of the main assembly line from start (frame rails getting mated with a powertrain) to the "Blue Floor" where customer do their final inspections.  It is a very impressive operation and the folks at Pierce were exteremly polite.  In fact they didn't want to get in our way, when it was actually the opposite.

From there it was back to the hotel for a quick clean-up before heading out to dinner at George's (fried pickles, cheese curds, and STEAKS).  After a pleasing meal, the guys went out for some Wisonsin nightlife.

The following morning it was back to the Pierce plant.  The pumper moved three stations since our first visit the day before.  All the chrome, brackets, deluge gun, etc. were mounted and they were finishing up on the fornt suction piping so they could mount the bumper.  The next stages should be finishing out the interior (seats were still out at embroidery) and beginning to "decorate" the exterior with scotchlight.  From there it will go to testing and certification of the pump and other various compoments.

After another thorough front to back, bottom to top examination, we were satisfied in what we saw (with a few execeptions that were noted) and went to Pierce's Rescue plant for a short tour.  This is actually where the cab and body are constructed before being shipped to the main assembly line.  Another very impressive operation.  After that is was lunch and back to the airport to head home.  OR SO WE THOUGHT!!!  Seems that one of us lost his cell phone somehwere along the way.  So it was back to the main plant for a quick search and recovery operation.  The phone was found safe and sound and we THEN headed to lunch and the airport.