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Diane Gerrish didn't mind winging her way through the wild blue yonder with her husband, Russ, at the controls of the helicopter.
She didn't even mind, when his usual photographer was unavailable, taking pictures of the award-winning gravel pit below.
But when Russ announced it was necessary to remove the passenger door of the helicopter to take unobstructed pictures ... well, that gave her pause for thought.
She got the job done. After all, you come to expect the unexpected when you're married to a man who was the first amateur in Canada to build his own helicopter.
As for Russ Gerrish, he didn't need a missing helicopter door to feel a thrill about the new Spy Hill facility opened by Inland Aggregates Ltd. in northwest Calgary. The project gave him the rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor planning.
"This was certainly fun. I've gotten involved in a lot of pits halfway through. You always inherit things that don't fit," says Gerrish, who has been in gravel since the mid-1970s.
"But it's something else to design a project from zero, from bare nothing to what will be many years down the road. It's really rewarding to see the initial plan appear exactly as designed."
Russ Gerrish Consulting was one part of the extensive team that worked for years to put together a project applauded by both the industry and the community, in a city where new gravel pits have set off pitched battles between the industry and placard carrying, lawsuit-threatening neighbors.
Inland took the time and went to the trouble and expense that it did because it is mining the last area in the city where there is a sizable, accessible, high quality reserve.
"The elephant...