Franklin F. Snyder
A ..
Up until two years ago I exchanged Christmas cards with him. Mrs. Snyder always
took care of Christmas cards and did a real good job of it. So when she was ill, we
didn't get any out in `93, and `94. When you don't do that, you stop getting replies
from other people. So I haven't heard from Bob Pafford for a year or two. He
wasn't Chief of the Engineering Division, but he was number one man in the field
of hydrology and hydraulics in the Missouri River Division. He retired and went
to work for the Bureau of Reclamation for awhile out in California. That's where
he was living the last I heard from him, but he was quite a live wire.
Q ..
Do you know what area in California he was living in?
A ..
Well, I have his address.
Q ..
Do you? Okay. Maybe I can get that from you later.
A ..
Okay. Each of the division and district offices ended up with quite satisfactory
hydrology people. It was sometime later on when Roy Beard went out to the west
coast and started working up computer programs for different hydrologic functions,
flood routing and that sort of thing.
Q ..
The Hydrological Engineering Center?
A ..
Yes. That really put the Corps' name in the public eye. I get these notices, you
know, everybody's giving seminars these days. You almost always find, in this
field, you'll find that they'll be discussing one or two of those programs worked up
by the Hydrologic Engineering Center.
Q ..
You had mentioned before the importance of Merrill Bernard to your career. What
other now essentially famous hydrologists did you work for in the early ' 4 0 s ?
A
I mentioned that an engineer from St. Louis, W. W. Horner, was one of the
consultants on that Geological Survey project. He had an engineering consulting
firm, and there was a chap in his office that wrote papers on the unit hydrograph.
I don't know that I knew him though. I mentioned before the chief engineer of the
Pennsylvania Water and Power Company, who was active in the AGU. I met him
through the AGU meetings. He was quite interested, ahead of his time for a private
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