Weldon Birch:  

Well, fellow classmates, it is a long and boring story!! As a Hayward High Class of 61 Graduate, I only attended Hayward for the last semester of my freshman year then through my junior & senior year. I lived in Alameda then San Leandro, then Hayward, then Texas, back to Hayward. then back to Texas & finally in Hayward through my Jr. High and High school days! Prior to that, Texas, San Pablo, Sparks Nevada, So. Lake Tahoe, Alameda, Tokyo, Japan and back to Alameda, all before I entered Jr. High School! All in all, 13 schools in 12 years. After graduation and turning down an appointment to West Point, I worked in Hayward at Treasure Island Food Products off Sutro St, right next to Grand Lanes bowling alley. After about a year I took a job at Don's Chevron Service just north of the high school on Foothill Blvd. Directly across from IHOP on the corner of Rex Rd. I worked there until 1966 full time and then went into construction, doing concrete cutting and demolition work as an interim job while preparing for a job in law enforcement.. I was a part time Alameda Co. Sheriff's Dept. Game Warden for almost 5 years. I was hoping to make a career out of the game warden profession but after being passed up for full time for a son of a county commissioner, I decided to go into the State Fish & Game program. Not having the college requirements and then finding out that part time work for the County didn't count towards the 2 year law enforcement requirement. I elected to join the Calif. CHP to gain that experience. Having passed all of the tests and being accepted to the CHP Academy was a good thing but then got hurt pretty bad on a job in Feb. 1968, just two weeks before I was scheduled to attend the CHP academy in Sacramento. The injury took that option away at the time but also afforded me the opportunity to get deeper involved in the Concrete Cutting business! Once I saw the business from both sides I decided that it was my career opportunity in the making. I worked until 1975 for American Concrete Sawing in Hayward then broke off and started my own company with some other guys in 1975. It grew from just the 4 of us to now employing 65 full time people and doing well over $12 million a year in gross business with 3 branch operations in No. California. I married my high school girl friend, Barbara Grieve, in 1963. We had two sons, Michael in 1966 and Sean in 1969. Both of them now work in the business and will eventually take it over completely. Mike runs the operation out of Yuba City and Sean runs the main operation in Union City. We also have a 3rd branch in Manteca. Our family was an outdoor family, much like I was as a kid. We enjoyed water skiing for years up at Lake Berryessa where both boys grew up swimming, skiing, kicking back and having fun with their buddies. Both are happily married and Mike & Tracee have two kids, Corey and Amber and 2 grand-kids with a 3rd on the way. All of them live up in Yuba City or Sacramento area. Sean has a wonderf...Expand for more