Source: Gene Collman who was the production manager of Ericson.
Actually, Gene Kohlman was the president. His brother Don was doing
production. Don later moved over to Pacific Seacraft when they
acquired Ericson, and later became president of that company.
Anyway, I had always heard it referred to as mish-mash in house. Never heard it called webestos before.
I was once contacted by a law firm
looking for mesothelioma cases related to Ericson employees. I was a vendor for
Ericson, never an employee but I guess they were looking under every
rock. I'm still wondering how they found me.
Speaking of fiberglass, this reminded me of something I read recently in Professional Boatbuilder magazine. There was an article published
about Joe Artese, a designer who used to work with my father. Prior to that, he was working at Islander Yachts in the late 60's and described
what it was like: "There was fiberglass chop all over the place," Artese recalls. "The guard dogs would dump wherever, and in the morning the
guys wouldn't pick it up; they'd just shoot glass over it. Every two or three months someone would come in with a skip loader and haul it all out."
Costa Mesa was the epicenter for glass boat factories back then-and it was a free for all compared to now. OSHA and the AQMD had yet to
catch up with this industry. I still have this vivid recollection of touring the factory around 1970, and watching the workers in the mold shop
washing their hands in a bucket of acetone, and nobody was wearing tyvek suits, gloves, and respirators either.
Martin