Q ..
That was pretty rare, wasn't it, in your days, if you go back and think about the '40s and
the
A ..
There were no girls in an engineering course in my school. I remember when I got to
work for the Bureau of Reclamation, there was one gal who was an architect. But we
didn't have any female civil engineers in the Bureau of Reclamation. When I got into
female engineer in the H&H business. In OCE, they had never had
OCE, I hired the
one before. I don't think they have any now either. I'm pretty sure they don't. For a
while we had Nancy Lopez, who went over to the Department of Interior. She has been
over there with USGS for quite a while now.
Q ..
I met her when I first came to the Corps, and we were in some kind of program together
on something. I forget what it was. But we did meet and talk. She was very impressive.
Well, I found that some of the early gals that I ran into in engineering all seem to be out
A
to prove something. They've got to prove that they are better than the men, not just as
good as the men. But since I've been over in private practice, I see they've got a lot of
female engineers in various disciplines. There are as many or more women as there are
in men in the office, I think, and professionals, too. So I don't have that same kind of
opinion--I don't think they're nearly as concerned about having to prove that the women
can do as much as the men nowadays because it is pretty obvious that they can.
Most of them don't have that over aggressive kind of a behavior that a lot of them had.
I know the GS [U.S. Geological Survey] had some that were like that. They really had
to get in there and assert themselves all the time. Even though when they really didn't
need to, they would do it anyway.
People to Talk to in the H&H Field
Q ..
So that was more of a societal change that the Corps was undergoing while you were
there?
A
I got a list of a few people you might want to talk to--it's far from a complete list or
anything. Just the few people that stuck out in my mind that I might mention. Now we
mentioned
before from MRD who was very effective in this business.
Another one, Al Harrison from the MRD office, who was more in hydraulics and not so
much in hydrology, but he was in charge of both disciplines when he retired.
Q ..
Now they're both from MRD?
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