Jason Rubin still vividly recalls the experience he had as a third-year apprentice climbing out the windows of the then-Home Savings clock tower to change the light bulbs high atop Downtown Youngstown.
His signature can still be found on the wall inside the tight space up there right next to his journeyman mentor that day, Bill Booth. It’s become somewhat of a pride-in-workmanship gesture to sign the wall inside the clock tower among tradespeople who have since done the same task.
Some 30 years later, Rubin owns the electrical contracting firm, CR Electric, tasked with converting the old metal halite fixtures to LED, both inside and outside the tower.
CR Electric’s Ken Shaffer had the delicate, if not thrilling, task of sitting high atop downtown Youngstown outside the Premier Bank clock tower changing light fixtures.
Going forward, Premier Bank will leverage its high-visibility clock tower to light up Youngstown in new and exciting ways, even leveraging community events and causes like YSU football games and Breast Cancer Awareness to custom-color the tower.
When it first went live in November the clock tower turned red, white and blue for Veterans Day. This month it’s displaying red and green for Christmas.
This month the Premier Bank clock tower shines red and green for Christmas. It’s now fully customizable to show any colors depending on the holiday or community event going on at the time.
“We are looking forward to creating a new tradition of changing the color of the lights on our tower to recognize important occasions, holidays and organizations in our Youngstown community throughout the year,” said Premier Bank President Gary Small. “We’ve had many requests to support our local organizations in this way and we’re happy to add this as another way we show our support for causes important to our neighbors throughout the Valley.”
Rubin said it was a huge community pride thing to be the contractor on this job.
“We’ve been working with Home Savings, now Premier, for many years and we approached them with this idea and spec’d out the system that would enable them to do what they wanted it to do,” Rubin said.
Ken Shaffer (left) and Eric Klingensmith had the best view in Youngstown for the several weeks they were on the job converting the Premier Bank clock tower to LED lights.
CR Electric’s Ken Shaffer and fourth-year apprentice Eric Klingensmith spent many weeks on the jobsite removing the old wiring and fixtures and installing the new equipment. Not a bad view or place to call work for someone just entering the profession, huh?
CR Electric’s high-profile work on the tower will long stand as a project Rubin and his crew will certainly remember being part of.
It’s become a tradition for tradespeople who work on the tower to sign their names on the wall.