Vernon
Actually he did not necessarily develop the basic theory behind it but did the application
of the theory to storms and floods. He developed a book on statistics for the Corps. It
turns out that it is the same technique that the interagency hydrology committee agreed to
for
use today and published it in a document called Bulletin
Analysis.
He was a real sharp guy in all areas of hydrology. Statistics was his primary field, but his
wife didn't like Washington. So, Al
didn't want to lose him from the Corps, he
wanted to do something to find a place for him so he would stay in the Corps. Roy
wanted to go back to California. So Al got together with Gomez out in Sacramento
District. He was Chief of Engineering, I think, at that time.
He said to him, "Do you have a place for him in Sacramento? Could you
a spot for
him to work out there?" So Gomez says, "Yeah, we can always use a real top notch guy
like that. We'll put him in charge of a section." He was put in charge of the water
control management section there in Sacramento. Of course, that created a little bit of
problem because he came in at a higher grade then some of the other people had out there.
They didn't reduce his grade when he transferred. That created some problems as far as
in-house concerns. And it wasn't too good from that standpoint.
After he had been there for a little while, Al came up with this idea. Why shouldn't we
have some place where all special hydrology work is done independent--not completely
independent but at least have it's own home. Roy happened to be in Washington for some
other purpose, and Al took him out to his house for about three days or a weekend to tell
him all about his ideas on what they ought to do.
As Roy says, "I listened. I didn't get a chance to say much. But when Al got all through
with his ideas they had come up with a concept for the Hydrologic Engineering Center.
It's not much different than it is today. They would use money from research to get this
thing started and just have a few people to begin with.
They talked to Gomez in the Sacramento District about taking charge of all the
administration that needed to be done for the Center. But they decided that it shouldn't
be located right within the same building as the Sacramento District because it had its
headquarters ties and headquarters would really be telling them what to do. So they didn't
want it right in the District.
They moved it out to Davis on the grounds that it was close to the university where they'd
get all this theoretical input and so forth. They moved it out there with a small staff to
start it off with, and it just gradually grew and grew from there. By doing good work they
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