Every vessel at Manson is unique, and many of them are named after important people from throughout the company’s history. In celebration of Women in Construction (WIC) Week, we are shining the spotlight on two Manson tugboats, the GLADYS M and the LISA M, and the women who they are named after, Gladys Angelica Christine Manson Haug Artnzen and Lisa Francine Haug.
GLADYS
The tugboat GLADYS M was built in Manson’s Seattle yard in 1981 and took eight months to complete. The GLADYS M is a pushing tug equipped with 1,500 horsepower twin 3508 Cat engines and measures at 72 ft. by 27 ft. with a steel hull. The tug was named after Gladys Manson Haug Artnzen, the daughter of Peter Manson, founder of Manson Construction Co.
Gladys is grandmother and great-grandmother to several Manson employees. Born in 1895, Gladys lived to be 105-years-old and was known to be a lifelong learner—which complimented her school teaching career. She graduated from the University of Washington where she received a degree in Education. Gladys began her teaching career in a two-room schoolhouse in Aberdeen, Washington. She ended her teaching career as a Superintendent of Music for the Kent School District.
We sat down with some of Gladys’ family members, Manson Executive Vice President and grandson Fred Paup, Manson Project Manager and great-grandson Drew Paup, and retired Manson newsletter editor and granddaughter Lisa Haug to ask them to share some memories of Gladys.
According to her grandchildren, Gladys had a profound love for her family and her Scandinavian and Nordic heritage. “She was the matriarch of the family and was at the heart of it all,” Fred says. All three of her grandchildren remember the wonderful parties that Gladys would host and how the smell of Scandinavian delicacies such as lutefisk and krumkake would fill the air.
Gladys was a founding member of Grace Lutheran church in Bellevue, Washington, and the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle. She was known to drive about town in her Blue Ford Falcon. Lisa shared that Gladys was multi-lingual speaking Swedish, Norwegian and Danish languages and was very generous—she ensured all three of her granddaughters had opportunities by sending them all to college.
At 4-ft. 5-in. tall, she was remembered as a stoic, sophisticated, sharp-dressed lady who loved her family and was affectionately referred to her as “Beste,” short for bestemor, meaning grandmother in Norwegian.
LISA
The LISA M is a pushing tug that was originally built in 1944 and was later upgraded by Manson in 1993. The tug has a total of 500 horsepower (two engines at 250 HP each), a steel hull, a 450 gallon fuel capacity, and is 50 feet in length. We caught up with her namesake, Lisa Haug, to learn a little more about the woman behind the name.
Lisa Francine Haug, born October 21, 1957, is a Seattle native with a deep history with Manson. Her father, Pete Haug was Manson’s fourth president. She worked on and off for 35 years at Manson, and had a big role in the creation of Bridging the Generations, a non-fiction book about Manson’s history. Lisa was the editor of the Manson Mouthpiece, the title of Manson’s original newsletter and predecessor to what is now the Manson Navigator.
After the passing of her beloved brother Jeffrey Haug (who was also a Manson employee) in 1978, Lisa left school to travel. And travel she did – extensively. Among the many places Lisa traveled, her most memorable trips included her grandmother Gladys as they visited places like Hawaii, Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Asia.
Following in the footsteps of Gladys as the family matriarch, Lisa keeps the family together and connected. One of the ways she does this is by sending out 500 Christmas cards every year! Lisa embodies the sophistication and independence of her grandmother Gladys. She has held fast to the values that both her parents and grandparents taught her, “Don’t look down on others, you are no better and no worse than anyone, always be true to your word and put family first.”
One of the things Lisa remembers fondly about life at Manson are the events that the company would host to promote a sense of connectivity and comradery with one another and their families. Manson is also where she met her husband, Amado Shuck, Manson Crane Operations Trainer who works out of the Seattle office.
Gladys and Lisa clearly have a deep history with Manson, carrying the legacy of both the family and the company with them. Beyond the lessons they learned about life along the way, the losses they both endured, they both understood that their history is profoundly rooted in the family that built the company that we all call home today.
