William J. Condon

May 18, 1928 – September 14, 2014

William J. “Bill” Condon died on Sunday, September 14, 2014 at the age of 86 years. He passed peacefully in his sleep.

He was born in Lawrenceville, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to his parents, George and Catherine (nee Murphy) Condon. His parents had emigrated from County Cork, Ireland in the early 1920s and married in Washington, PA. Bill was the second of six children. The family moved several times around the steel-making areas of Pittsburgh during the Depression.

As a boy, he attended Catholic School. He didn’t like it, and convinced his Mother to let him switch to public school for Junior High. He graduated 8th grade from Mt. Oliver Junior High, from Brentwood High School in 1946 and joined the Navy. He always laughed when sharing, “I missed the one day we had rowboat practice.” He left the Navy with an Honorable Discharge in April, 1948.

He entered the University of Pittsburgh under the GI bill, graduating in May, 1951 (in three years) with a BS Degree in Mining Engineering.

His first position after graduation was with Goodman Manufacturing of Chicago, Illinois, as a Sales Engineer. He sold equipment used in coal mines. He loved telling the stories of interacting with the coal miners and learning to ride the coal conveyors in and out of the mines. He almost lost his life in a mine, one time, when his headlamp went out. He saved another man’s life, who had panicked while they were riding a coal conveyor.

He worked for a short time with the Atkomatic Valve Company, redesigning their specification sheet for their valves.

In 1952, he married his first wife, Marie. They eloped. Their first child, William James Condon, Jr., was born in April, 1953.

Bill took a position in the Industrial Engineering Department of US Steel, American Bridge Division. He had been promoted to Supervisor of the department when he left in 1958 and moved his family to California.

Bill and Marie first lived in Downey, then moved to Cucamonga, where their daughter, Caryn, was born.

Bill took a position with Kaiser Steel in Fontana, CA and received several promotions with a variety of growing responsibilities, prior to his retirement from Kaiser in 1980. He started as Senior Industrial Engineer and subsequently was promoted to Supervisor of Industrial Engineering, Division Engineer, then held various management positions from General Foreman to Superintendent.

Bill and Marie divorced in the early 1960s. Bill took parental custody of Caryn and took on raising his young daughter on his own.

In 1965, Bill was offered a position with Hamersley Iron, an affiliate of Kaiser Steel in Western Australia, to help turn around a mining project that was running over budget. He and Caryn were based in Perth, Western Australia, where Caryn lived with friends, Patricia and Rob Martinez. Bill flew back and forth to the mine, a thousand miles north, in King Bay.

In the early 1950’s, iron ore was discovered in huge quantities in Western Australia. Kaiser Steel entered into a joint venture with ConZinc Rio Tinto to form Hamersley Iron. Hamersley was specifically created to sell iron ore to Japan.

Huge amounts of money were invested to get the project up and running quickly, to allow Hamersley to keep its contractual agreements with the Japanese. Time was of the essence. The company was running hell-bent for leather, throwing millions of dollars at the project. The commitment was to do whatever it took to get the mine up and running on time.

As reported in a publication called Mining Engineering 1967 Vol. XIX, in a chapter entitled May 1967 – Aussie Iron Ore Bounds Ahead – Hamersley on Stream, the $400-million dollar project (1966 dollars!) entailed:

Creating a large open-pit iron ore mine. (This piece of the project alone represented $100 million investment.)

An ore crushing plant

Storage and load-out facilities for sized ore

A supporting township at Mt Tom Price

A 182-mile standard-gauge railway

Build a port and loading facilities for a nominal loading capacity of 6000 tons per hour

Build a port town, on King Bay, with all the amenities needed to support the project and the human beings BUILDING the project.

…all of the above virtually from scratch, in the middle of nowhere. The site is located about 1000 miles north of Perth, the nearest big city.

“On August 22, 1966, just 20 months after writing sales agreements with Japanese steel mills, Hamersley Iron Pty Ltd made its first contractual shipment of 52,000 tons, to Yawata Iron and Steel Co Ltd.”

As world news, the event was not spectacular. But to mining men it represented an astonishing achievement.” Source: OneMine.org Mining Engineering 1967 Vol. XIX Chapter: May 1967 – Aussie Iron Ore Bounds Ahead – Hamersley On Stream

Bill’s expertise facilitated the workability of several facets of the project that had been causing delays and enormous amounts of money being spent—beyond the intended budgets. As a brilliant and innovative industrial engineer, Bill could see things that others overlooked. He brought practicality and streamlining to all he did.

While in Australia, Bill met and fell in love with his second wife, Eleanor (Ellen.) When Bill and Caryn returned to the US in summer of 1966, Ellen followed, and the couple married later that year. Their daughter, Samantha, was born in August, 1967. They divorced in the early 1990s.

Upon Bill’s retirement from Kaiser Steel in 1980, he started a business, Los Angeles Hose & Fittings. He grew the business from nothing to being a respected and well-known company serving the Southern California area. He gave many people the opportunity to grow and learn while working in his company. He was an unreasonable man, who demanded a lot of his team. Everyone who worked for him grew, as people and as business professionals. He sold his company and retired in 2005.

In late 2010, Bill fell and broke a vertebra in his neck. It was feared at that time that he would die, or perhaps be forever paralyzed. Over the next many months, he did what it took to regain some of his mobility and dexterity. It was a hard road for him, but as always, he approached things with little drama and lots of pragmatism. For a while, he regained his ability to walk with a walker, even. He never lost his sense of humor.

On September 14, 2014 his body gave up.

Bill is survived by his daughter, Caryn Condon, of Portland, Oregon and daughter, Samantha (Condon) Davis, her husband, Larry, grandchildren, Arden and Sean, of all West Covina, California, and his former wife, Ellen Condon, of Alta Loma, CA. His son, William Jr., died in 2003.

He’s also survived by his siblings, sister Lorraine (Al) Lunz, sister, Ellen Maureen Sheasley, and brother, Edward (Peggy) Condon, each of the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania. His sister Catherine (Wilbur Brickner) and brother George (Martha) Condon preceded him in death. He has numerous nieces and nephews and extended family. A Celebration of Life gathering is yet to be scheduled.

One time, during the hardest part of his recovery after his injury, Bill woke from a bad dream. He was worried that someone was “after him.”

He asked members of his Care Staff if any men had come into the building, looking for him. They said “No.”

Bill instructed the staff that if some men DID come looking for him, the Staff was to…“Tell the men that I left yesterday, in a white Cadillac,…….but that you didn’t get the plates.”

Have a safe drive, Dad. Happy Travels. We loved you very much.

The Pebble Speaks

Who are these men who walk on by?

I know who I am!

I'm just a pebble in the sand.

I never move unless pushed or shoved.

It happens now and then.

Pounding surf and heavy rains have moved me near and far.

Why even once, eons ago, I sat upon a star.

Who are these men who rush on by

Then die?

It brings a question with a cry.

They join us pebbles and the sand:

I wonder why? I wonder why?

--Bill Condon

on Orcas Island, Puget Sound, Washington State

with Friends

Late February 1986