COUPLE TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993                   TAG: 9301260188
SECTION: ECONOMY                    PAGE: EC-22   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
COUPLE TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS
Sharon Benson and her husband, John, are working on their dream, building their own home, a 2,000-square-foot log cabin in Craig County.
They own the 8.5-acre site and have poured the foundation for the house and begun work on the house while they live nearby with Sharon Benson's grandmother.
The Bensons have good jobs - she's electronics production supervisor for Cybermotion Inc., a small Roanoke manufacturer of industrial robots. He's an assembler at ITT Corp.'s night-vision goggles plant in Roanoke County, a factory bolstered late last year by winning a long-term Army contract. Even with the contract, ITT is still wary that its production and work force could be cut sharply if it doesn't find civilian uses and buyers for its defense products.
The Bensons are saving all the pay they can because they're concerned about the "shaky economy," Sharon Benson said.
Sharon Benson, next to oldest of 10 children, has seen four of her brothers and sisters laid off. A younger brother is looking for a job after completing his enlistment in the Marines.
"They're fed up," she said. "There's nothing out there to be had. All of the good companies have left town. It's not like it used to be. You would get a job at a good manufacturing company and you'd think it would be there until you retired."
One brother lost insurance when he lost a job at ITT. He found work as a glass installer "but it's a real cut for him."
The Bensons, who have two young sons, struggled when John was sick for three months in 1991. But things have looked up since then.
Focusing on their dream house, they didn't charge any of their Christmas expenses. "We don't want interest and we don't want debt," she said. "What we've got, we spend on the place," Benson said.
"With the new year, you never know . . . I worry about the deficit. I don't know what [President Clinton] will do to small business. Will he make us do things we can't afford?"
Benson "loves" her job at Cybermotion. She helps assemble and install the electronic parts of robots used by clients for security in their offices and factories. A robot is shipped every two weeks from the small plant at the foot of Windy Gap Mountain in southeast Roanoke County.
A veteran of 10 years in electronics, she took courses at a Florida community college and worked there until she returned to her family here. She worked as a baker at the Homeplace restaurant until she found an electronics job.
She helped lay the foundation and "skinned" logs of their bark for their Craig County home. Assisted by her carpenter brother, she and her husband want to finish the construction in two or three years.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB