We hope you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. Your replies to the ‘game-changing gifts’ conversation on the CSI Community Page continues to provide poignant memories about just how the perfect present can not only make you smile, it might even inspire a career.
Here, 2018 Class of Fellows honoree Jack Morgan talks about the gifts that had the biggest impact on him choosing to work in the construction industry.
I remember three building sets that got my creative juices flowing:
1). American Plastic Bricks: The red, white plastic bricks were truly a predecessor to LEGOs. Along with the white casement windows and green roofing panels, I enjoyed many hours of creative pleasure and wondered what I could create if I only had more bricks.
2). Kenner's Girder and Panel Building set: On a green board that you started at the bottom, you erected red plastic columns and beams (called girders) and created the frame of a skyscraper. Plastic ‘Curtain Wall’ panels snapped onto the exterior of the skyscraper frame. The building was completed with gray plastic panels to create a roof. Some roofs had translucent round skylights.
A later addition was the addition of a motor system tied to a string that allowed you to create a drawbridge. Straight and curved road panels allowed you to create a realistic bridge with the same columns and beams from the skyscraper system.
3. Monogram's "The Invisible V8": Although not a building, the kit allowed you to put together the components of a V8 internal combustion engine, which could be hooked up to a battery operated motor to allow all the pistons, valves, and other parts show how the engine would operate.
Add several car models of various scales and building a garage model out of balsa wood for a high school drafting class; prepared me for college and beyond. I knew I wanted to be an architect before I started to look at various architectural schools.
Read about more game-changing gifts right here.