Mar. 3—Roy McCrary started his run in the family electrical business back in 1960 or ’61, when he was 11 or 12.

“They put me on a truck just so they would know where I was,” he said. “They had me digging ditches and roughing in Mock Homes at Alameda and Rio Grande. They were turning out those houses all summer. I was working with an older electrician, who was like a second father to me. When you are a kid and you’re working with an adult, it’s kind of a kick.”

McCrary, 74, is the owner/operator of McCrary Electric Co., 8409 Fourth NW in Los Ranchos. He is also likely the last in the line of McCrary electrical contractors who have been in business in Albuquerque for 100 years. Roy’s grandfather, William R. McCrary, started Union Electric Co. at 6204 North Second in 1924.

An item in the Aug. 3, 1940, Albuquerque Journal credited Union Electric with handling the complicated wiring in a major, new supermarket on West Central.

“In addition to the wiring for three big Kelvinator refrigerating units, there is the wiring that controls the air conditioning units and the new Fluorescent lighting system, as well as the wiring for the big neon sign in front,” the Journal reported. “It fell to the lot of W.R. McCrary of the Union Electric Co. to do this job.”

The Journal went on to note that Union Electric “employs three to four expert electricians and has an annual payroll of $10,000.”

William R. retired from Union Electric in 1971, and Roy’s father, Richard, ran the business until 1977 or 1978. Roy started McCrary Electric in 1977.

“It was just me and a truck the first year,” Roy said of McCrary Electric. “The second year I had a helper. The third year I had two helpers. It was a slow start.”

A Valley High graduate and a Navy veteran, Roy said his future was never in doubt.

“I never thought of being anything else than an electrician,” he said. “It runs on both sides of my family.”

The McCrarys were bean farmers in the Estancia Valley, but moved to Albuquerque when Roy’s grandfather was still a boy because bean farming was not working out so well.

As a kid, Grandfather McCrary worked at a livery stable near what is now First and Central, and when he was older got a job as a fireman for the railroad.

“He’d be shoveling coal from Belen to the Continental Divide,” Roy said. William McCrary started Union Electric after his railroad years ran their course.

McCrary’s maternal grandfather, Cecil Scott, homesteaded at Quemado, graded roads and then became a top foreman with the Public Service Company of New Mexico.

Roy said he has never regretted following his family into the electrical business.

“I’ve always enjoyed my work,” he said during a recent interview in his office at McCrary Electric. “It’s always new. I might be up in the mountains one week and down in the valley the next. It’s the camaraderie with the people you work with. I would still rather put my tools on than sit behind this desk.”

Getting ‘bit’

Roy said the job that stands out in his mind above the many he has worked over the years was the mammoth task of doing the electrical work at a uranium mine at San Mateo, just outside of Grants. He was still in his 20s at the time and working for his father, Richard. The work lasted for several years in the ’70s.

“We did the wiring for the office buildings and hoist houses,” he said. “We were doing 13,000-volt work. I was the go-between for my dad and his partner.”

Intense work in a remote location for years is a good-enough reason for a project to stick in your mind. But in Roy’s case, there’s more to it. He tangled with a 13,500-volt charge.

“It threw me about four or five feet and rolled me in a ball,” he said. “All your muscles contract. You feel it in all your joints and can taste the fillings in your teeth. Fortunately, it didn’t grab hold of me. It just pitched me. If you work with (electricity) long enough, you’re going to get bit.”

In his own business, Roy has gone from that one truck at the startup to four or five. He has three trucks and 10 employees now but remembers when he had a crew of 30 or more.

“That was back in 2000 to 2010 when we had all the McDonald’s and were working in the big shopping centers,” he said. “I had the Super Walmarts in Bernalillo and Edgewood.”

Now his crews work Walmart and Smith’s Food remodels. It’s night work, starting about 9 p.m. and continuing until morning.

“I can’t take on more work without more help,” he said. “And I can’t get help. Young people aren’t getting into the trades anymore. No one wants to do physical labor.”

He said kids today seem to talk a lot about retiring young.

“I always knew I was going to work all my life. Work is not just a few-years thing.”

End of a line

There’s a 1980 Dodge truck with just 28,000 miles on it in the yard behind McCrary Electric. It’s rigged out as an electrician’s vehicle.

“My dad outfitted that truck for me in case I went broke,” Roy said. “If that happened, he thought I could start over with it. He just did it as a backup plan. I park it at jobs and use it as a trailer.”

Roy will be 75 in July. That’s somewhat more than a lifetime in work terms.

He is thinking of getting out of the business this year. His sons chose not to follow the family trade, so the McCrary line of electricians in Albuquerque will conclude at the century mark.

Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s time to go fishing.

“I will get everything cleaned up and have a party,” he said. “That’s the plan.”