Faces & Names: DNT’s Heckman a ‘Real Man of Maintenance’

Paul Heckman only wanted the cool T-shirt.

The maintenance manager at the News Tribune says he joined a contest for the chance to nab the shirt stating, “If it ain’t broke. You’re welcome.”

He got the shirt and whole lot more as he was named one of three “Real Men of Maintenance” this month by the industrial lubricant and paint companies Sprayon and Krylon.

There is a trophy in the mail along with a $2,500 gift certificate to Bass Pro Shops. And talk about job security, the News Tribune will receive a year’s worth of Sprayon and Krylon products to boot.

The contest required an essay and then votes from friends, family and co-workers. Because Heckman is an online gamer with more than 3,000 Facebook friends, he easily gathered the most votes in the contest.

Heckman’s essay was about solving a conveyor line problem five years ago. Newspapers were getting torn as they came off the press and into the mailroom. The fix was set to cost the company up to $35,000 but Heckman used his own ingenuity and just $1,100 to fix the problem.

Heckman’s wife, Shirley, wrote about her hardworking and creative husband at the end of the essay. She asked readers to forgive Paul’s misspellings since he had sent the essay in quickly, before she could proofread it.

“He wanted to make sure his entry was early enough to get the great T-shirt,” she wrote.

“It was really all about the T-shirt,” he said Friday.

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