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Harlan W. Fair has 68 years of experience in construction and civil engineering, including construction site safety. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Dartmouth College and the Thayer School of Engineering, graduating in 1954 with an MS in Civil Engineering. Following graduation, he was commissioned in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps at Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, R.I. His first assignment was Maintenance Officer at Argentia, Newfoundland Harlan Naval Air Station where he was responsible for a Seabee Detachment and civilian work force. Following a Naval Reserve career, he retired as a captain in the Civil Engineer Corps. In 1957 he joined Turner Construction Company as a field engineer. In 1964 he was Project Engineer for Thompson Starrett Construction Company on the New York State Exhibit at the New York World's Fair. After assignments as Facility Director at Cornell Medical and New York Hospital, Director of Project Management for the New York Health and Hospital Corp and Project Manager on a consumables project in Oklahoma City for Xerox, he started his own construction and construction management business in the Metropolitan New York area.
For the last 30 years he has managed his own construction firm, H. Fair Associates, Inc. which was a contractor, construction manager, and construction consultant. He bid and was awarded several projects at West Point, N.Y. including additions to the Fire House, Eisenhower Hall, and Shea Track Stadium. He developed condominiums in Chappaqua and Pelham, N.Y. along with construction of single-family residences and commercial buildings in Westchester County NY and Fairfield County CT. As a Forensic Engineer, he was an expert witness in cases involving construction accidents, construction performance, and safety issues. He has served both on arbitration panels and as a single arbitrator under the auspice of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and was a member of the AAA National Dispute Resolution Committee. He retains his membership in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), National Academy of Forensic Engineers (NAFE), and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
He is a professional engineer licensed in New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont, a Fellow in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and a past chairman of the Crane Safety Committee. In 1998 the Committee published through the ASCE, "Crane Safety on Construction Sites." He continues to represent the ASCE to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A10 Committee which establishes consensus safety standards by representative organizations from the construction industry. He was formerly an alternate to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) B30 Committee which establishes safety standards for cableways, cranes, derricks, hoists, hooks, jacks, and slings.
From closing the sale to setting off on your own, from managing in the trenches to asking for a raise, the business philosophy that's worked for millions can work for you, too.
The crucial question is this: Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 best-selling Liar's Poker. Who got it right? he asks. Who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become, and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception? And what qualities of character made those few persist when their peers and colleagues dismissed them as Chicken Littles? Out of this handful of unlikely--really unlikely--heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our times.
Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.
Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.