Not everyone gets a call from the local fire department, but when Bill Flader of Flader Plumbing and Heating in Vernon Hills heard his son’s
childhood friend on the line, he was quick to respond. Dave Senescu, a firefighter who had grown up with Tom Flader, needed help.
His best friend, Jim Rusch, had died suddenly at age 45, leaving a wife and two young children. One of his friend’s last
wishes had been to install a second bathroom in their modest home.
Flader, a union plumbing contractor who serves on the Joint Apprenticeship Training Program, knew that plumbing apprentices
have an impressive training center, but as a plumber of 40 years, he also knew there’s no substitute for real life
experience.“It’s not like going into a house and digging down and, ‘Oh, we’ve hit clay,’ or compact
gravel that can undermine the foundation if you keep digging,” Flader said. “You can go to all the classrooms and
read all the textbooks in the world, but there’s nothing like having hands-on experience.”
Meanwhile, Becky Rusch needed all the help she could get. In July 2006, her husband died suddenly. Two months later, her
elderly mother died, and this May, her father passed away. During that time, she left one job and lost the other while caring for
her two young children.
For a year now, Rusch held her family together but she hasn’t done it alone. Neighbors take out her garbage without a
word. A landscaping company removes snow and cuts her lawn for free. Teachers supervise the kids during gatherings at the house.
Local companies donate fixtures and cabinets to home improvement projects. Different crews of volunteers finished remodeling
Rusch’s kitchen, a project the Rusches had pecked away at for years. They cleared out years of clutter to make a fresh
start for her children and even pitched in with childcare and homework.
Then one night, as Rusch juggled finances, the children and grief, something snapped. Her 10-year-old, Jake desperately
needed to use the one bathroom in the house, but Marissa was taking a bath. Jake refused to enter while his little sister was
bathing. As the children became frantic, Rusch raced in and scooped her daughter out of the tub to make way for her son.
“We need another bathroom!” she said to herself.
Firefighter Senescu contacted the Plumbers Union Local 93 and they recommended Bill Flader. It was like a reunion.
Senescu had grown up with the Fladers’ children and had served on the fire department with Tom Flader. Bill Flader had the
right network to tap into. In addition to the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee, he is a board member of PAMCANI
(Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Authority of Northern Illinois, the trade association comprised of union contractors
covering DuPage, Kane, Kendall, DeKalb, Lake and McHenry Counties), and past president of Plumbing Heating Cooling
Contractors Association of Illinois (IA PHCC). He knew apprentices would jump at the chance.
“I called Tom Jennrich at Local 93 and said, ‘Would you be interested in helping somebody out?’ and he
said, ‘Absolutely!’” Flader said. Before long, Becky Rusch had plumbing apprentices drawing up plans for her
bathroom and laundry room. By June, Flader’s son Doug and various union apprentices were spending Saturdays breaking up the
floor in her basement, laying sanitary pipe, venting and roughing in pipe and running drain and vent lines for a bathroom and
laundry room.
“This makes me really feel good that we’re doing this for her,” he said when he heard of the additional
traumas the family had suffered after Rusch’s husband died. “What a loss for her! She needs some uplifting in her
life.” Flader said the work is worth thousands in labor, donated by the union and his journeyman son who is overseeing the
apprentices, but the Rusch family will rest well knowing a union plumber did the work. Flader was president of PHCC when a
coalition of groups successfully pushed through more stringent plumbing licensing laws; high quality must be the driving force.
For the Rusch home, Flader also approached a local manufacturing representative, Jack Block from One Source, who donated
a toilet, shower valve and lav faucets from Gerber.
Doug, a fourth generation union plumber, said his great-grandfather founded the business with union plumbers and it has
proven the wise course over the years. “Every guy has the same training,” he said of the apprentices who come from
Local 93. “You’re getting someone who knows the basics and you go from there.”
Flader said nonunion plumbers give the trade a bad reputation. “The nonunion guys cause people to think, ‘All
plumbers are bad,’” he said. “They hear $88 per hour and they love it, but we have to go back and fix it! Where
’s the savings in that?” “This is so appropriate that this is a union thing,” said Rusch as she listened
to Flader. “Jim was so pro-union, so pro-American.”
Through all the loss, Rusch has managed to stay steady and strong, even optimistic. She has applied for a teacher’s aid
job with the local elementary school and continues to get her house in order, both literally and emotionally. What does all
the donated expertise and materials do for Becky Rusch and her family? It lets her stay in the only home she and her husband
have ever owned. And it gives her time with her children, time she never had before.
“I want our home to be a peaceful place for us to be,” she said, smiling while she holds back the tears. “I
want our home to be a haven for us.” As the cartoons played low in the living room and Marissa fretted over whether Coalie
the cat had escaped out the front door, Rusch took a deep breath and looked out across her small back yard. “I want to give
my children a stress-free, happy summer. Just let them be kids.”
Becky Rusch with Doug Flader and Apprentice Helpers
Notes: For more information, or to learn how you can help,
contact PAMCANI Executive Director S.J. Peters. Our best wishes to Becky Rusch and her family; our thanks to Suzan Erem
for researching and writing the article and Hal Bergen for his PR expertise; and we salute Flader Plumbing & Heating;
UA Local 93; and the Vernon Hills Fire Dept. (Countryside Fire Protection District) for the tremendous show of generosity,
concern and community spirit. |
