Noel and his brother Olin are farmers in Ohio just north of Dayton. They are also Hudson men. I was a stranger the first time I called Noel (right side) ten years ago. Still he climbed off the roof of his barn while fixing its weather vane to take my call. He did so because his wife told shouted up to him that a ‘”club member” was in need.
The night I called Noel from Barkerville, PA, I was in a similar jam that I had been in ten years ago. Mrs. Martin was running rough and Per and I were seeking the counsel of a another Hudson sage. Noel, besides being a farmer had run a transmission shop back in the day. He was in the midst of harvesting his soy bean crop. Still he made time to talk engines.
My phone battery was dying and its charger was 100 miles behind us at the Carnegie House room we checked out of back in State College, PA. So Per and I spoke quickly while relaying critical information to Noel ahead in Ohio about a fierce rattle the engine made between the highest point on I-80 East of the Mississippi River and the end of the Chesapeake Watershed. After a frank discussion of our concern over engine noise, Per and he worked together as I relayed information Noel was giving and the vital signs Per was reading. Per pulled the No. 4 piston’s spark plug and felt compression. Regardless of why, this was badly needed good news. Once again Noel was there for a fellow “Hudsonite” in a dire straight.
Dan McNichol is a number-one bestselling author and an award-winning journalist. His published books, articles, thought-leadership papers and speaking events focus on mega construction projects in the United States and The Peoples Republic of China.
McNichol recently contributed to a front page story in The New York Times titled, “Trump-Sized Idea for a New President: Build Stuff”. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) / Boston Chapter named McNichol as one of nation’s outstanding journalists in 2014 and again in 2003. McNichol contributes to worldwide media outlets including: The New York Times, Engineering News Record (ENR), ABC World News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) network, China Central Television (CCTV), TV Tokyo, MSNBC and PBS’s The NewsHour, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, History Channel. McNichol is a frequent voice on National Public Radio (NPR).
ENR Magazine recently tapped McNichol as the magazine’s national correspondent for a cross country tour. McNichol and Aileen Cho, ENR’s senior transportation editor, drove in a 1949 Hudson Commodore with the tagline, “America’s infrastructure is as old, rusty and energy defunct as our original Detroit lead-sled.” The journalists wrote ENR print and online cover stories about the nation’s ailing infrastructure.
A former White House appointee, McNichol served the President on US policy issues surrounding transportation and infrastructure between 1991-1993. McNichol has worked in official capacities on the nation’s largest infrastructure projects: California High Speed Rail (2017), San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Replacement (2013) and The Big Dig, a.k.a. The Central Artery / Third Harbor Tunnel Project (2000).
