Building The W est Is His Business An Unusual Appraisal o f the Chairman o f BIOLA’S Board o f Directors
By John Riden
Myers thanks the Lord time and again for delivering him from the life he once led. “ I would be a bum on Skid Row today if God hadn’t taken over,” he remarked. When Myers was coming up in the construction business in the '20s, he had two habits that were dragging him down fast: drinking and gambling.
the city of Glendale ripped up the street in front of his lot, making moving an impossibility. The streets remained torn up for three months; and Myers’ house remained on stilts. Finally, in despera tion, he bought a lot in another Los An geles suburb, Eagle Rock, and hauled his house there. He would live there a few weeks, fix it up, and sell it, then move on to Glendale. But once again, it happened: with his house up for sale, along came a road crew and tore up the street, ruining his sale possibilities! So, the Myerses stuck it out at Eagle Rock. And they’re plenty happy. In Glendale, with a bootlegger-friend next door, Ray Myers shudders to think what might have become of him, drinker and gambler that he was. But here in Eagle Rock Mrs. Myers began attending a Baptist church. Finally, one night Pas tor F. L. Brooks dropped in to talk to Ray and Mrs. Myers about their spiri tual needs. He told Ray pointedly that Christ could and wanted to take over his life and release him from the desire to drink and gamble, and completely transform him. Along about midnight, both Ray Myers and his wife knelt and turned from their sins to Christ. And immediately he lost his old desires! Within 30 days after that, son Reese, now a partner in the construction busi ness, received Christ as personal Saviour, and the three of them were baptized the same evening in the little Baptist church. Since then, the other son, Hugh, and two daughters, Nancy and Frances, have been saved. No holier-than-thou type of fellow, Myers, like any Christian, has his faults. He has been known, for instance, to get irked and tactlessly invite a salesman to blow his cigarette smoke outside in the California sunshine in stead of in his face. Myers lost the desire for tobacco when he was saved. Occasionally he seems a bit “ bossy”—at least his own children tell him that; one in-law good-naturedly refers to him now and then as “ Hitler” because of this trait. However, some men are born to run things, and Ray Myers is one of them: besides being manager and senior part ner of Myers Bros., he also heads a dozen subsidiary organizations in the construction field, has served in official capacities with the Los Angeles Fire Commission, Chamber of Commerce, the Trojaneers and Trojan Club of the Uni versity of Southern California (despite the fact he never went further than the
We are indebted to the Scripture Press of Chicago for kind permission to re print this article. I would also like to add a personal word of tribute to Mr. Ray Myers with whom I have not only been so happily associated for so many years in the Bible Institute and the Church of the Open Door but with whom I have enjoyed priceless friendship and fellowship. Much credit is due him and the other Board members for putting into effect the plans which, under God, cleared our two institutions of their great burden of debt some time ago. Mr. Riden is to be commended for his fine article. — Louis T. Talbot R AY MYERS and I were in the midst of a conversation in his office on San Fernando Road in Los Angeles when the telephone rang. I sat back and waited as Myers, a thickset balding man, grabbed the phone. As he talked, I glanced about his office, modernly furnished and finished in a light pastel green. On the wall was a neat plaque, “ As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” As I waited, I got snatches of the conversation. A man in Tacoma, Wash ington, wanted him to make a trip to New York . . . Would he make it by Friday? (Already it was Tuesday) . . . Yes, he’d fly the southern route and be there early Friday morning. When Myers hung up, he explained that Myers Bros., a general building contracting firm of which he is senior partner and manager, had a big deal on the fire. They were bidding on a gov ernment job that would run between 90- and 100 million dollars. Whether Ray Myers landed the lucra tive government contract wouldn’t prove or disprove anything, but the incident did give me an idea of the size of Ray Myers and his west-coast construction firm. Glancing over a Myers Bros, ad vertising folder, I got further proof: he has done millions of dollars of construc tion work for such name organizations as Standard Oil, Shell Oil, Sears Roe buck, Goodyear, U. S. Rubber, and B. F. Goodrich, as well as for Uncle Sam’s Army and Navy and a slew of other outfits of note. So it didn’t take long to figure out why Ray Myers, a fellow who rolls his sleeves and wears shell-rimmed glasses at his desk, is known as one of the West’s most prominent contractors. How did he get there? Myers himself says that all the credit goes to the Lord.
Mr. Ray Myers Despite protests from his wife, Sherry, he drank heavily and would gamble at every opportunity. Once in a gambling hall he ran up a bill of $10,000, and suddenly realized he would have to mortgage his $13,000 home to pay off. A trusting soul, and used to signing various papers Ray would bring home, Sherry Myers signed a five-year mort gage and not until two years later did she realize it. That was how terrific a hold gambling had on Ray Myers! How he was unshackled is an unfor gettable story of God’s grace and mys terious working. The young contractor, married 12 years at the time, made plans to move his house, lock, stock and barrel, to nearby Glendale from Los Angeles. He had recently built a home there for a bootlegger-friend, and wanted to move his own house to a lot next door. But then strange things be gan to occur: With his house jacked up on stilts,
JULY, 1952
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