Two major forces have buffeted and redirected the unique career path of Ronald Eddy: his own intense interest in learning for learning’s sake, and the need to cope with the last four decades’ major economic collapses.
The 1970s energy crisis drove him out of general construction. The end of the Vietnam War helped push him out of aircraft research. And although he rose quickly in the banking field, the early 1990s recession again forced him again to restart a new career. But Eddy’s found himself a new path every time.
Looking back, Eddy — director of property management for Griffin Land in Bloomfield and president of the Greater Hartford Building Owners and Managers Association — said he credits his ability to remake his career to the lessons learned during his teenaged job at a local hardware store.
That Shelton hardware store introduced him to the basics of building, and eventually helped him land a carpentry apprenticeship. But for a shy teenager, the job changed how he related to new people.
“I was always a little introverted, but the nature of the job was that you had to work with customers,” he said. “It taught me a lot about striking up conversations, listening to people.”
His first jobs had already instilled a good work ethic. He’d worked the kitchen in a Derby Kentucky Fried Chicken. Before that, at age 13, he bailed hay and mucked barns at a Huntington dairy farm. Although fun, the work was exhausting. “You went home and you slept — you were tired,” he said. “It made you appreciate the value of a real job.”
The hardware store job led to work with a general contractor. He fixed screens and storm doors.
In college, he studied civil engineering and accounting, and then earned a master’s degree in banking. But Eddy had no specific career in mind — he just wanted to learn, he said. “I’ve always had a hunger for education, knowledge, what else is out there,” Eddy said.
That desire served him well.
By the time he’d worked his way up to become a sub-contractor, the 1970s energy crisis slowed construction projects. So Eddy applied at Sikorsky Aircraft, landing a job doing structural analysis of aircraft components.
But when defense spending dried up in the year after the Vietnam War, Eddy switched careers again, landing a job building Christmas displays for a Bridgeport retail store.
Although intended as short-term work, Eddy ended up building displays for seven years, working as an operations manager.
Eventually, he switched careers again, this time bringing his construction and banking background to State National Bank. He worked as director of facilities and helped plan new branches — until the bank collapsed in early 1990s.
Eddy has since worked on construction maintenance and project management for other companies until he ended up at Griffin Land. Now he has no plans to strike out again anytime soon.
Although budgets change and details differ, Eddy said the key element of all of his many jobs he first learned at the hardware store: take a person’s requests and build something around a certain timetable, budget and specifications.
“Any customer in the door, I was expected to have an answer for them,” he said. “It might seem like my jobs have been very diverse, but really they’ve been the same kind of job, just a different environment.”
