Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
Q ..
Oh yes.
A ..
It's pretty hard to look at some of those projects and understand how come they could
build this thing in the first place when you compare it to some of the conventional ones.
Office, Chief of Engineers
Q ..
Let's go back to when you went to OCE from the field, what were the reasons for your
leaving Garrison District or Omaha District or whatever it was?
Well, I was in Garrison District at the time. I was in the early days of my career, and I
A
was looking for opportunities for an advancement, like you're always looking for. The
reason I went to Washington, I had an offer from San Francisco District to go down there
and work. I was seriously thinking about that, but I ended up turning that one down.
When I saw this offer for Washington, I thought, I would give it a try. I sent in an
application.
Shortly after I sent my application in, I got a call from Al
and he talked to me
for quite a while about coming out there and working for him. But fortunately, I had had
some good experience. Even though I hadn't worked very long for the Corps, I'd worked
in several different areas in hydrology. I worked in Fort Peck for about a year.
I got involved in small flood control projects they were doing, like I mentioned on the Sun
River. When I went to Garrison, I got reservoir regulation water control management
experience in the hydrology section, plus some more hydrology work. Then I went to
work in the planning reports section and spent a year or so in there. Then I went to work
in the hydraulic design section where I was working on some of the hydropower work and
the hydraulic design of surge tanks and things like that. So I got quite a bit of different
experience in the area of hydrology and hydraulics in a short time. So, Al apparently
thought that that was good for him in a review status where I was going to be working on
reviewing other projects. Then I had worked for the Bureau of Reclamation, too, so I did
have pretty good background as far as working on different things. It's a whole lot
different then if you maybe had five years experience in one area. So when I went into
OCE, I had been exposed to most all the types of studies that they did in there.
The people, of course, in the Garrison District said .I was crazy to move back out east
where there are so many people. You wouldn't even have room to park your car or be
able to
a place to live. But I never regretted it. I think it was a good move. I knew
I couldn't stay in Garrison much longer anyway because it was getting to the point where
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