Take free tours of businesses in Marana

Some of those people might know the company owns the land once occupied by the "twin peaks" after which a major road in Marana is named, with only one peak still around, the other having been mined into oblivion decades ago.

Others might know the company has sponsored a Christmas party for about a decade for the low-income families of neighboring Rillito. CalPortland hosts a golf tournament to raise money so all the children receive the gifts they've put on a wish list. In addition, each family gets a turkey or ham and a gift card.

But in a Willy Wonka-esque flourish, the plant opened Friday for a tour that enabled about 15 people to find out what goes on behind the tree-lined driveway next to the interstate.

It was part of the Marana Parks and Recreation Department's "Community-Business Outreach Tours" that have been going on for more than a year, said recreation programmer Tammy Haley, who is in charge of organizing the tours.

The outings are free to the public and explore a new place each month. Past excursions have been to the Marana Heritage Farm, the Marana Stockyards and Livestock Auction, the Marana Northwest Regional Airport, the Northwest Fire District, Taylor Holstein Dairy Farm and Waste Management.

Next month, a tour is scheduled for the Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain. Then, a group is going to the Marana Police Department.

Friday wasn't the first time Parks and Recreation set up a tour of the cement company, which offers tours to groups that want to see what goes on there.

Haley said her department tries to get there once in the spring and once in the fall - when the weather is cooler for people to be walking around outside beside machinery that heats up to thousands of degrees inside and is too hot to touch even when it's cold outside.

But the spring tour had to be postponed, so this time the group went in June.

The tour began in the conference room of the plant's small administration building. Staffers showed a brief video of the plant's history, from its establishment in 1949 with one cement kiln, through the addition of three more kilns, the most recent in 1972.

Folks there still refer to the fourth kiln as "the new kiln."

When the video was made about five years ago, the economy was healthy and there were plans to build a new kiln that would render the others obsolete.

At the time, the plant had 161 employees and ran all four kilns - though the three smokestacks visible from the freeway haven't been in use since the fourth kiln was built.

Now the plant has 130 people and runs at about 50 percent capacity, said plant manager Dave Bittel, who began working there when the 1972 kiln was built.

Only that newest kiln is in use for now.

The plant has received awards for its safety record, but that didn't stop Larry Duke, kiln and materials-handling supervisor, from regaling the group with a tale of the time the elevator got stuck with too many contractors inside and had to have its door removed to let everyone out.

He mentioned this while the group was sweatily packed into said elevator, sluggishly rumbling 225 feet to the top of the kiln.

Honea Heights resident Norwood Hazard took lots of notes and pictures he said he might show to a group he belongs to. He asked several questions about plaster cement, which is not made at the Marana plant, because of the lore surrounding his home and how it was built.

Tour member Gail Cook, who has lived in her Avra Valley home since 1972, said her father worked on the air conditioning unit at the plant and her husband did contract work there.

She wanted to take the tour because, she said, the cement plant is in her roots.

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More info

For more information on upcoming Marana Parks and Recreation Community-Business Outreach Tours, call Tammy Haley at 382-1950.

Contact reporter Shelley Shelton at sshelton@azstarnet.com or 807-8464.