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By Richard Bermack
Contributing Writer and Photographer
Sprinkler fitters install systems that protect lives and property by putting out fires, activating alarms, and notifying the fire department. The systems they install must work in a variety of environments and circumstances. The systems not only have to protect finished buildings, but they have to protect the buildings during construction, when they are most vulnerable to fire.
 Sprinkler fitters install both wet and dry systems. Some use water, some gas, and some work in freezing conditions. Protecting computer systems, where water can do as much damage as fire, requires a very measured and controlled response. At the other extreme, fire in an aircraft hanger requires immediately flooding to prevent jet fuel from exploding. Sprinkler systems must not only withstand earthquakes, but must function during them. Meeting these challenges requires a multitude of different types of control systems, valves, and especially sprinkler heads.
“Our responsibility starts underground at the curb and extends all the way to the last sprinkler at the last point in the building and everything in between. We cover every square foot of the building,” Sprinkler Fitters Local 483 Apprenticeship Committee Training Director Jim Bollier explains. “There’s a lot more to it than attaching a sprinkler head to the ceiling. We install hardware and interface with the electricians who do the electrical connections.” The wiring can involve anything from smoke detectors to fire pumps requiring a 600 amp service. And once installed, the systems require periodic inspections and maintenance, including replacing sprinkler heads after a fire.
 With all that to do, sprinkler fitters are known for keeping up a fast pace, according to Bollier. “It’s difficult initially, but then they get the principles of how the different types of systems work and a sense of the work ethic.” Part of the necessity for the fast pace is the need to get the sprinkler pipe installed on the ceiling before the duct work gets in. Otherwise the sprinkler fitters have to work around the duct and other objects. New materials have made the job easier but have also increased the demand for more output.
The sprinkler fitters apprenticeship program, an extension of the College of San Mateo, is a 10-semester, 5-year program. Apprentices work 40 hours a week during the day and then attend four hours of classes at night. The training center also offers continuing education classes to journeymen. With the frequent changes in the trade, journeymen usually attend at least one class a year to keep current. The center also offers OSHA 30 certification classes.
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 Wayne Vinther
Instructor
When I first started I had long hair and all the old fitters would take one look at me and say, “My God, this new generation is really going to hell.” Now I get these guys coming in here with the baggy pants down to here, and all I can think of is, “My God, the trade is really going to hell.” But as long as these guys show up on time, ready to learn everything they can, and work as hard as they can, then everything turns out all right. So the one thing that’s true is everything has changed and everything is the same.
The hardest thing about teaching these guys is staying ahead of them. They are always asking questions, and you have to really do your homework to know the answers. When I started there were only a handful of sprinkler heads, and they were either uprights or pendants. Now we have hundreds of different types and all the other parts of the system are changing as well. It’s a lot more technical, and a lot more to learn.
When I first started, the apprenticeship program was a mail order correspondence course from Penn State. You really didn’t learn much. You’d fill out a lesson and send it in and wait for the results. You’d hope the next lesson would explain what you needed to know on the job. My father was a shop foreman at a sprinkler fitter company and my older brother was a designer and my other brother was a sprinkler fitter. I graduated from high school on Friday and went to work in a shop on Saturday.
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 Jim Bollier
Training Director
I can remember the first time I got a call to come out and replace the sprinkler heads because of a fire. When I got there they were still evacuating people from the building. An old woman was all bandaged up. She was blind, living in an old folks home. A fire started in her kitchen from plastic bags she had collected getting too close to her toaster and catching on fire. She tried to put them out, and then she caught on fire, and then the cabinets caught fire, and then the sprinklers went off and put everything out. All these old people were coming out of the building. A lot of them were barely ambulatory. Without the sprinkler system it would’ve been a disaster.
Another time someone broke a glass window in the showroom lobby of a cabinet shop, poured gasoline on the carpet, and lit it on fire. The fire never got out of the lobby. I could still smell the gasoline when I got there to replace the sprinkler heads. Arson is a bigger problem than people realize. Some people do the craziest things.
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 Keith Jones
Instructor
There’s always something new to learn. You can’t get complacent in this trade. There’s always innovations, new codes for seismic bracing, new products to make things easier to install and less expensive and sometimes the innovations are improvements and sometimes not.
I like to see the guys learn. At first they have that look of a deer caught in the headlights, but after you explain it to them a few times, you can see the light come on in their brain. They’ve got it. We get guys from different backgrounds. Some guys come from really hard times. We’ve had guys fresh out of rehab or even right out of jail. I can remember a few years later one of those same guys pulled up next to me on the street driving a company truck. Now he’s a foreman running work, completely turned his life around . It’s a great feeling knowing we’re giving guys a second chance, and they are making it.
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 Anthony Porciuncula
Apprentice
I was looking for a career and my fiancé’s father said it was a good career to get into. I was working for NUMMI as a temp. I took some tests at Laney College and ended up getting in.
The hardest part is getting up and going to class after you’ve worked a long, hard day. You get up at four in the morning, start work at six, work for eight hours, and then have to sit through class for six hours. But this is where we learn, aside from being in the field.
I do all the grunt work as an apprentice, laying everything out for all the journeyman. The best part is when I get to put the pipe up in the air and install it. I’m trying to learn as much as I can. The company I work for has a lot of really smart fitters and I want to be like them.
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 Haila Gebrezgi
Apprentice
I was working warehouse and not a lot was going on, so I needed to get my career going, and a good friend of mine told me about sprinkler fitting. So I looked it up online, signed up, and took the test. I was number 36 and they only took 35. But Linda Loeffler, the woman in the front office, told me that if I was really interested to call back. So I kept on calling and calling her, and then one day she said, “I can get you in.”
I was lucky, and I just love it. I like doing hands-on work, getting dirty, and knowing that the systems we are putting in save people’s lives. The hardest part is going to class after working a double shift. But it’s worth it, because you’re learning a good thing.
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 Oscar Lara
Instructor
The hardest thing about teaching is finding the way to communicate with each person. Some like to work in the shop; others want to install things. Some like book work and some can only learn hands-on. We get 20 guys in a class and break them into crews and teach them to work as a team. I’ll tell them, “Hey guys, this is the industry for us. We’re the guys who didn’t get the opportunity to go to college, but now we get paid to learn. You won’t find a better apprenticeship program.” I’ve been doing this for 13 years and really enjoy it.
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 Stanley Sin
Apprentice
I used to be a nonunion carpenter working for my dad. But then I did a lot of research online and found this trade. I get to hang pipe, that’s the best part; the worst part is reading the blueprints. But when I get to the point I don’t understand, the journeyman will come and spend time teaching me stuff.
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 Gilbert Avila
Apprentice
I have family members that are in the trade, and they would show me how much money they made and tell me about their health and benefits. That got my blood flowing, but I wanted to continue going to college and do something important with my life. Then they told me how they were installing systems that saved peoples’ lives, millions of lives. That really got me. I realized this is important work and I really wanted to be part of the team. The thought that I could do something that would save someone’s life really inspired me.
The hardest thing for me is the attitude of the different foremen. Some are really nice guys and explain things, and sometimes you get a guy who woke up on the wrong side of the bed. But that is one thing they teach us in class: if you just keep working on, it will all fall in place as you go.
My favorite is underground work, because that’s where the system starts. So I take pride in that as well.
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 Alando Barnett
Apprentice
After college, my godfather asked me if I wanted to come and work in the trade. The company he worked for was nonunion, but then the company went union and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I must have drawn the lucky stick. I have a family of three kids, and I can support them and now I can take them places. Before it was hard. I’m making more as an apprentice learning to do things right than I was making on the job working non-union. The union has really taken care of me. I got hurt on the job; I tried helping somebody else and pulled a disk in my back. The union helped me out with therapy and took care of me until I could get back to work.
I like that the classes we take have academic credits. I can see getting my fire science degree eventually and becoming an inspector. I also think about becoming an instructor. I used to teach autistic kids.
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 Leroy Stubbles
Apprentice
I had no idea about fire sprinklers, but I responded to an ad on craigslist for a delivery driver and warehouseman. I started delivering material for sprinkler fitters and plumbers, and I thought this could be something I could get into. I got promoted to management, but decided I’d rather be doing installing than sitting at a desk all day. I like the idea of taking something a designer created on a computer and installing it. It may look good on paper, but it takes lot of problem solving to deal with all the complications and obstructions of putting it up on the ceiling at the job site. It’s satisfying to see the final product come out and know you’ll be saving lives and property.
Getting all the heavy material up to the right floor is the hardest part, but once you get it there, it really flows.
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