There's fast bricklaying and then there's the championship level: 13 bricks a minute, one every four seconds.

That's the rate at which Minneapolis bricklayer Patrick Baxter worked in Las Vegas Jan. 18. He has $5,000 and a new Ford F-150 XLT Supercab pickup truck to show for it.

Baxter, 26, is this year's winner of the SPEC MIX Bricklayer 500, a title that sponsor SPEC MIX, Inc., of Mendota Heights, shortens to simply "the world's best bricklayer." The competition is an annual highlight of the World of Concrete convention, attended this year by some 80,000 people.

To win the title, Baxter laid 780 bricks in 58 minutes, using the last two minutes of the allotted hour to double-check his work. He considered it a middling performance. Not long ago, in a practice session, he laid 924 bricks in an hour. And last year, in the same competition, he laid 840. He would have won then, he said, except that another bricklayer backed into one of his corners and knocked it askew.

"He got disqualified and so did I," Baxter said.

Jack Gray, owner of Summit Concrete & Masonry and Baxter's employer, estimated that the average bricklayer's rate is about 800 a day.

Baxter was helped by laborer Bill Larsen. The two have worked together for six years, he said, and both work for Summit Concrete & Masonry, Forest Lake.

"Bill keeps the mud consistency the way I like it," Baxter said. "He sets the brick up for me. He's the best man for the job."

Baxter also had the assistance of a coach, bricklayer Dennis Nohava, another Summit employee. "He gets me moving. If I slow down a little, he tells me to pick it up. He sits there and times everything, keeps an eye on the other guys."

Nohava also had coached him through six practice sessions to get ready for the meet, Baxter said.

Sometimes his lower back and elbow bother him when he's working at that rate, Baxter said, but not this time. "I guess the practice must have paid off."

Baxter's prize-winning wall measured 26 feet long with double-width brick. He started at 19 inches off the ground on a previously-laid foundation of two courses of block and one of brick. To that, he added 12 course leads, ending up with a wall 4-1/2 feet high.

"It's not just a matter of slamming in as many bricks as you can," Gray said. "The leads have to be within 1/4 inch of plumb and the wall within 1/4 inch of height, and you have to have no more than twenty 1/4-inch voids or you're disqualified. It's quality as well as quantity."

What turns a bricklayer into a really fast bricklayer? "Discipline and determination, I guess," Baxter said. Plus, he said, he had a tough teacher ? bricklayer Kevin Bernhagen, who then worked for Summit. "He stayed on me a lot. I just wanted to whup him on the wall, and one day I did, and I never looked back."

Baxter, Nohava and Bernhagen all are members of Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers Local 1 of Minnesota and North Dakota.

Gray said he has taken a Summit team to World of Concrete for the last three years and will return next year for Baxter to defend his title.

In the aftermath of his big win, Baxter has become a bit of a media star. He was featured on CBS Sunday Morning Jan. 22 and has been featured in Twin Cities newspapers and radio.

Baxter's story was featured in the Star Tribune Feb. 6. The story failed to note, however, that Baxter is a union member. A six-year member of Bricklayers Local 1, Baxter is a journeyman bricklayer.

This story originally appeared in the March 2006 issue of Quarterly Update, the newsletter of Bricklayers Local 1. Reprinted by permission.