Franklin F. Snyder
Q ..
Did that experience at Boulder Dam have any influence on your career at all? Did
it push you in any direction at all?
A ..
No, I didn't look up the gentleman's name that hired me, but he later on was, well,
even then he was high-up in the Bureau, but I think later on he became the chief
engineer. He made me promise that I'd go back to school, and I couldn't keep my
job. I could work there in the summer, but then I had to go back to school in the
fall. But he didn't have to get me to promise that because I would have done that
anyhow.
Just as a side line, Ohio State at that time, the Civil Engineering Department, put
a pretty high value on surveying. So to graduate, you either had to work one
summer with an engineering firm or you had to go to summer camp. The way they
ran their summer camps, they actually contracted to do work. For a year or two
before I was there, they were out in Yellowstone Park surveying for the
government. But the year I went to summer camp, we were surveying, of course,
it was a contract, too, but we were surveying state lands there. But as I say, they
always thought that knowing how to survey was important to civil engineers. I don't
know whether they still feel that way, but that was probably primarily due to C.E.
Sherman, who was the chairman, the one that I worked for after I graduated.
Oh, did I mention one of the summers while I was in Toledo I had a job with an
engineering company that was surveying for an airport adjacent to Lake Erie? We
spent all of our time in water, anywhere from six inches to two feet or more deep,
doing this survey. That was kind of a wet job. That pretty well ends the summer
experience.
Q ..
A little water-logged that way.
A ..
Yes. I don't know whether they ever built the airport or not.
Q ..
I want to ask you a question about the curriculum at Ohio State. Were there any
formal courses in hydrology in the curriculum for the civil engineering?
A ..
No, no. I think as I mentioned, we did take a course in hydraulics, which was the
closest to hydrology. In fact, I don't even know whether hydrology was a term
then. As I say, the course was taught in the Mechanical Engineering Department
because they had a laboratory. We rated weirs and things like that. They had a
channel there that we could flow water through and rate different shape weirs. I
Previous Page
