There are scads of construction crews on campus: hundreds of orange plastic hats and fluorescent lime shirts move through campus and seem to have remarkably little interaction with the Cornell community. Tools like the 90 lbs. jackhammers that were used for part of the Mann Library renovation put something of a damper on conversation around construction sites. But, away from the noise, I was able to interview Mike Hugg (last name spelled H-U-G-G, no I, no E, no S) to find out the secrets of construction work. I met Hugg through my job at Mann where Pike Construction, the company for which Hugg works, operates. He has kept me entertained for many a morning and happily agreed to tell me a little more about his life.

Hugg grew up and currently resides in Leland, which is just past Horseheads on Rte. 17. Hugg drives for over an hour each morning to get to work at the Mann Library construction project at 5 a.m.; he has been working on the Mann library project since it began four years ago. As the general contractor for Pike, his role is to coordinate the carpentry and structural work that his company does with the other construction crews at Mann.

He said that the construction going on at Mann Library took longer than expected because it was a challenge to keep the building shell standing while they gutted and redid the inside. In fact, Hugg and the construction crew spent the majority of the last four years knocking out the library’s nine floors and using shoring to support the roof while they put in a new foundation and innards.

Before working in construction, Hugg ran his own trucking business and took part in all the aspects of trucking from maintenance and repairs to the actual driving. When he needed a change of scene, Hugg moved on to construction and has stayed in that industry for about the last ten years. In addition to the Mann Library project, Hugg also renovated the Corning Museum of Glass, gutting and rebuilding its studio. I asked whether or not he had gotten a chance to do any glassmaking himself, and he responded that yes, “Someone roped [him] into making an orange and blue ornament.” Hugg said that during his three and a half year stint at Corning Glass he got to know everyone working there so he received an assortment of glass objects as a present, among them a “real beautiful set of glass beer steins.”

Hugg has an empty nest now but still keeps in close contact with his three grown children. His son, the youngest, is a carpenter and lives in central New York. He worked with Hugg at the Mann renovation project for three years. Hugg also has two daughters. His younger daughter is an elementary school teacher who lives in the Binghamton area. Hugg enthusiastically told me about her four-year-old daughter, his only grandchild. He said that despite being four, she already knows how to read, and she says that her favorite publication to read is National Geographic because of all the animals. Hugg recounted how she reads sections aloud to him whenever he goes to visit her. Hugg’s oldest daughter lives in North Carolina and works as a party planner for John Edwards.

Hugg was looking forward to this past week as he had a break from Mann and headed south to visit his oldest daughter. While in North Carolina, he planned to see the NASCAR pick-up truck races and go to a renaissance festival. Hugg said he does not have a favorite NASCAR driver, although he did say there is the same kind of enthusiasm for drivers in truck racing as there is in regular NASCAR. He did say Todd “Onionhead” Bodine’s driving skills weren’t too bad. Hugg said Onionhead got his nickname from the fact that his head truly resembles an onion and proudly publicizes his trademark by wearing shirts and hats that say “The Onion.”

When Hugg returns from North Carolina, it will be just about time for him to leave Mann Library and move on to a new project. The project is finally coming to a close, and in the next couple of weeks the construction crews will be moving their offices out of Mann’s basement, putting the finishing touches on the building and then heading off.

To leave you with one last glimpse at the inside of construction work, a word about those ubiquitous hard hats: safe as they may be, “they make your head sweat terrible,” said Hugg. Fortunately, he solves the problem with his trademark bandana.