Arizona Contractor & Community Fall 2015 V4 I3 | Page 90

Wyatt Roer shoveling asphalt, for a new
parking lot, 1970s.

President of Construction for LGE
Corporation wrote. “Sharp Creek’s quality
and desire to do a good job is something
they strive for all the time.”
Another
insight
into
RoBil
Construction’s work environment comes
from Ace Asphalt foreman and coworker,
Wyatt Roer. Roer was grooming horses at
the Keystone Racetrack in Philadelphia
when his uncle, Bill Sudbrack, offered him
a labor position at RoBil in 1976. For the
next 15 years, Roer learned all aspects of
grading and paving at RoBil, but his forte
was engineering and setting grade
layouts.
Packing his lunch for the first day at
RoBil, the only item Roer could locate was
an uncooked potato. At lunchtime, the
entire crew stopped at a fast food joint.
Coworker Gary Head asked Roer if he was
coming along to eat. Roer stated he was
fine with his packed lunch, but Head
peeked into the paper sack. “What’s with
the raw potato?” Head inquired. Roer
responded that he was broke. “Lunch is on
me for the first week,” laughed Head, as
he chucked the spud into a nearby field.

Bill Sudbrack and Steve Johnson,
120G blade, 1980s.

Roer’s first assignment with RoBil was
spreading chip and oil at a drive-in theater
in Apache Junction. Another interesting
project was grading and paving steep
driveways on Camelback Mountain. One
driveway, with a giant rustic barn door
imported from Italy as a front entry, was
owned by newspaper columnist Erma

Bombeck. His favorite RoBil memories,
however, are the projects that were close
to an apartment complex. During lunch in
hot weather, Roer would sometimes
wander over to the complex’s swimming
pool and dive in—a practice that
undoubtedly displeased apartment
managers.
Richard Candelaria and Wyatt Roer, 2015.

Allis-Chalmers blade.

Ninety

fall 2015