b'After two weeks on the job, a business agent by the name of Ed Cervo from Local 237 approached me and asked meif I wanted to join a union. I immediately said yes. Im happy I made that decision because it was a great plus in my life.I had to take an open competitive exam to become civil service and remain in that title as supervising housinggroundsman. At that time, there were no opportunities to advance to this title of supervising housing groundsman untilLocal 237 made it happen. That would be about 1973 or 74.Working with Mr. Nicoletta was a good experience. He supervised a good operation in maintaining the housing project. He inspired me to go on and take the assistant superintendent examination. I took the assistant superintendentexam, which I passed, and I was assigned to Van Dyke Houses. I supervised the janitorial and grounds staff.After a few years of working as assistant, a chief superintendent working in Central Office by the name of EdwardDonovan approached me. He wanted to know if I would be interested in joining with him and a group working under Mr. Reilly, the assistant director of Technical Services. One of our goals was to start a supervisory housing groundsmantraining class at Smith Houses.With the help of Rocco Micari, Arnold Rosenfeld, and Tom De Mastri, we put a program together to teach technicalgrounds knowledge, to help provisional and other members to get a better understanding of the positionnot only as aworking groundsman but also supervisory skills.The training consisted of classes and fieldwork to give knowledge of plants and diseases and how to deal with them.We also took them on two occasions to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, where they could view over 500 acres ofbeautiful plants, waterfalls, and greenhouses. We also visited many projects throughout the five boroughs to give advicefor any problems a groundsman encountered at their project. Our ultimate goal was to prepare them for the exam theyhad to take for the position.The classes were held at Smith Houses and the Union office on 14th Street. Most of the classes were given by myselfand Thomas De Mastri at the Union. De Mastri was a supervising housing groundsmen, but he ended up working withStaff Development under Rocco Micari.Further on, we used Staff Development for other tests. For instance, the assistant superintendents were going to fileapplications for the superintendent civil service exam. We gave a grounds class so they would have the knowledge foranything that came up in that exam pertaining to grounds. We had two different schools going on, by the way. Mr. Reilly had one school and Mr. Ofeesi had another school. We taught at both schools.Arnie Rosenfeld and I wrote the test. Whoever passed became a civil service employee.It was the Union that pushed this through. A lot of these fellas, remember, down at that level, didnt have the opportunity of coming out of the janitorial position and going into foreman of caretakers or supervising groundsmen.It was a good feeling to be able to help other people along. Thats the way the Housing Authority worked. We allhelped one another. I received help from Nicoletta, who helped me go to assistant superintendent, and Donovan, whotook me into Central Office. So, I thought I could help some other people. I was always a believer in promoting fromwithin. And thats what the union made happen. It made a lot of peoples career grow. They have to be really thankful toLocal 237.After I became a superintendent I was assigned to Ingersoll Houses in Brooklyn in 1980. I ended up atSheepshead/Nostrand, where I stayed until I retired in 1986. It was a huge project. There were probably twenty-five hundred families at Sheepshead-Nostrand.65 '