Franklin F. Snyder
We had a draftsman, Charlie Pletcher He was a jewel. Anytime you wanted
something or you wanted something done by other parts of the office, he would
arrange it for the branch. Anytime you needed something, why Charlie could take
care of it for you. He eventually left because he got into more professional work in
one of the other branches. He's been long retired. I still correspond with him.
He's up in State College in Pennsylvania. But he was a big help to the office.
I'm trying to think of the name of the man that was the chief after Al retired. It was
Verle Farrow. He was a hunting dog fancier. He raised dogs and acted as a judge
at trial meets.
Q ..
When did Al retire, in the '60s sometime, wasn't it? Did he retire before you left
or after?
A ..
No, it was after. It must have been probably at least `70, I would think. We visited
them and still correspond with, or my wife did with his widow. She lives in
Columbia, South Carolina. They were the ones that brought the champagne back
from their trips. Colonel Lyles that I mentioned being in Paris had a consulting-
engineering business in Columbia, South Carolina, and Al went down there to work
for him.
But when Al retired, one of the men in the branch, Verle Farrow, succeeded him.
This was, of course, after I had retired. It was a number of years afterwards. I
don't know whether there was someone else in there, between him and Hagen or
not. At some point after I left there, they combined hydrology and structural
hydraulics with Douma still in charge of hydraulics and somebody in charge of both.
Q ..
I know Jake told me that he didn't want the job as far as running the hydraulics and
the hydrology branch. He just stayed with hydraulics.
A ..
Yes, I don't know how that worked out. I think maybe they had originally been
together and they separated them. That was before my time.
Q ..
They have separated them since.
A.
Again, they're separate?
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