There’s much, much more to know about Jorge Rancano than his talent for keeping our old, Rube Goldberg-ish plant humming. His name, for one thing. He is happy to go by the Spanish pronunciation (phonetically, “Hor-Hey”) or the English, George. Oddly enough, as a kid growing up in Mexico, everyone called him George. Then there’s his insistence that he came to us with a 5-year guarantee—a pledge of loyalty and quality performance he made to his boss, Joel Rohlik, when hired six years ago. Still under warranty, Jorge shared these thoughts recently with STARDOM:
- Where did you grow up? What brought you to Tucson?
I was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. I met my now-ex-wife when I was working in Nogales. I spoke a lot less English then than I do now, and she spoke very little Spanish, so we communicated by using a dictionary. She encouraged me to leave the job I had in Nogales and make a career in the United States. We moved to Sierra Vista and then, in 2000, to Tucson. I learned so much from her. Even though we eventually divorced after 12 years, I will always be grateful to her for that.
- Tell me a little about your family.
In our household there is my partner and me and her two daughters, Melanie and Melissa. Living with a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old is…interesting. That’s all I will say!
- When did you start work here? Where did you work prior to the Daily Star?
I started at the Star in 2014. I was a maintenance technician at another Tucson company before that.
- You seem to be able to fix just about anything—have you always had that talent or is it knowledge you’ve picked up over time?
I’ve always liked to fix and build things. When I was a kid I would take apart things like my mother’s blender and put it back together…or mostly together! When I was 13 I got a construction job helping make footings for houses. There was a lot digging in caliche hard as a rock in that job!
- What is a typical week at work for you now, when everyone else is working from home?
There really is no typical week. There is some routine maintenance—some of it every month, some of it every two or three weeks—but because of the age of the building and all the different systems in it, there’s a lot of fixing, too. This building runs on three systems, electrical, mechanical and pneumatic, and maintaining all of them means no week is ever the same.
- What is it about your job that keeps you motivated week-in, week-out—especially with almost no one in the building to talk to most of the time?
It’s the challenge of the job. Never knowing what’s going to happen. One day the chiller must be fixed. Another day it might be a water leak. This morning it’s the tree limb in the parking lot that broke in the storm last night.
- What are your interests outside the job?
I am a gardener. Gardening keeps me grounded. You can lose your balance in life if you are not grounded. Right now, I’m growing flowers, tomatoes and sweet peppers, plus pomegranate, grapefruit, tangelo, mango, orange, lemon, almond and plum trees. I also grow rosemary, lemon balm, ginger and a Mexican fan palm.
- Is there any little-known thing about you that would surprise your co-workers?
I was a bouncer in a Nogales, Sonora, bar before I came to Tucson. My wife convinced me that there was no future in that job.
- What did you want to be when you were a kid or a teenager?
When I was young, I wanted to be a policeman. Then I got a position in the Nogales Police Department. It changed my mind. It was called “support,” but it was like being a bouncer in a different way. I didn’t stay long, and after a while I never thought about that again.
- If you could give the leaders of this company one piece of advice, what would it be?
Make sure you enjoy life. Everything is temporary, so enjoy what you have and what you do right now.
STARDOM 