Ernest Graves
A:
He didn't lose his temper. He got mad--and you could tell when he was mad--but he
never said anything. I sometimes do lose my temper. But I learned from him how to
handle it.
One thing he did which I try to do, but after I had been working for him a while, I knew
what it meant. If he was going to criticize you or correct you for anything, he always
started out by complimenting you. When I would go in to see him, and he would start
telling me what a good job I had been doing, I knew he had something that was
bothering him, and he was going to go into it.
Q:
You were in for it.
A:
He was going to tell me. He was always very polite when he was correcting me. But
I got to see the warning sign there.
I tried to use that approach as I went on and had more senior jobs. I perhaps don't do
it as much as I should, but particularly when I was in troop units, I learned to do that.
You get a lot more from people if they feel that their work is appreciated. You don't
get the maximum effort from people simply by telling them what they are doing wrong.
Q:
When I went back to the office yesterday, I had a chance to do a little research on the
nuclear power program, so I could be a little bit more knowledgeable about what I was
asking you. And I noticed that Lieutenant Colonel [William C.] Bill Gribble was there.
A:
Right. Bill was Lampert's deputy.
Q:
When you arrived.
A:
When I joined the program in the summer of 1955.
Q:
Was that the first time your paths crossed, yours and his?
A:
That's right. I had not known Bill before. He had graduated from West Point in 1941
and, of course, was gone before I reached there. The other thing--he had been in Los
Alamos, but our paths had not crossed at that time.
Q:
Yes. He had been there.
A:
I first met him when he was working for Lampert. He was a lieutenant colonel and
Lampert was a full colonel.
Q:
And later on, he was Chief when you were in civil works, is that right?
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