Hanging Around Best Part of Steeplejack’s Airy Jog

Ronnie Pierson is happiest dangling by a few strands of nylon rope 90 feet above the ground.

With paint brush and bucket in hand, Pierson estimates that he has climbed to the top of about 4,000 flag poles and sign posts during the last decade, laying a fresh coat or two of weather-resistant paint as he spirals downward.

“I’ve been into climbing for so many years that anything related to it is attractive,” said Pierson, a former paratrooper and firefighter who makes his home in the hamlet of Idylwild in the San Jacinto Mountains just south of Palm Springs.

“Once you get to hanging on a rope, it gets pretty exciting and you want more,” he said.

A Different Kind of Job

In 1977, Pierson dug out a faded newspaper clipping he had squirreled away about another steeplejack and decided he “could really get behind something like that.”

Numerous offers to volunteer with existing companies, most of which are family run, to learn the trade were rebuffed, so he decided to forge ahead on his own.

“At the time we lived across the street from a grade school,” he said. “I would develop all the things I could foresee needing during the day in my garage. At night we’d go over and I’d climb the pole and try them to see if they worked.”

It’s that combination of engineering and the thrill of dangling from far above a civic center or shopping mall that makes the job interesting for Pierson, 40.

“I think the rigging parts of it is what I enjoy most,” he said. “The knowledge it took concerning ropes. . . . The problem is getting up to the top of them. Coming down is easy.”

He scoffs at the notion that his job might be more dangerous than others.

“I’m so safety conscious, I’ve never come close to a problem,” he said.

“But I’m very afraid of heights. You get used to the exposure, but you never get used to the thought of hitting the ground from a height.”

The muscular, 6-foot-3, 175-pound Pierson can scale and lay a coat of primer on a 155-foot steel flag pole, like the one at the Town and Country Plaza in Orange--the tallest in Orange and Los Angeles counties--in 2 1/2 hours.

Time Out to Chat

Sometimes it takes longer if, as frequently happens, he stops to chat with curious passers-by.

“I really enjoy watching people watch me. It’s kind of like they do this double-take. They look at the pole or they look at my van with the doors wide open and then they look up.”

The most frequent comment from sidewalk jokers: “Hey, you missed a spot!”

The official contract steeplejack for Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties and a regular for about 30 major school districts throughout California and Nevada, Pierson averages between 300 and 500 jobs a year. His fee ranges from $300 to $500 to paint and re-outfit a 100-foot pole.

Dressed in hiking boots and shorts and sporting a healthy tan, on the job he resembles nothing less than a misplaced mountain climber--a sport he has enjoyed since the age of 12.

Only one of a handful of steeplejacks in the state, Pierson said his services are constantly in demand and he frequently works seven days a week during peak summer months.

His most enjoyable challenge was a 105-foot double-poled Chevron sign in Whittier four years ago.

“That was just like painting two houses,” he said. “I used a bow and arrow to hit a 6-inch slot between sign and pole.”

Tied to the end of the arrow was fishing line to which was attached a light cotton line, which in turn was used to haul up his nylon, mountaineering lifeline. The whole process, including laying the paint, took only about 9 1/2 hours.