Jacob
Douma
You mentioned computers--how much did they enhance your ability to do these
calculations when they came into use in significant numbers in the
and
I never used a calculator because I never had to make a detailed design where I had to do
all the calculations myself. The district designers did that. When I went to the Chief's
office, I never used mechanical calculators because I wasn't doing design. I was checking
the design by slide rule. In a very short time, I could check something close enough and
decide that's all right.
The models that you made, like
came in from the districts. So they were funded
by the districts to WES, right?
Yes. District projects are authorized by the Congress and money is made available to the
Corps of Engineers for design and construction. Usually, it takes two or three years
before districts get enough money, especially if they need to do a lot of geological field
surveying, before they can complete the design sufficiently to send it to the Waterways
Experiment Station for model testing.
This was not done for all projects, was it? This was just done for certain projects that had
questionable design aspects?
Small dams are not model tested, if they don't have questionable design aspects. All large
dam projects that the Corps and the Bureau designed and built were tested with hydraulic
models.
When you were at WES, your friend Joe Tiffany was there. You've known him since
then.
Yes. He called me up last night at
[Laughter]
What was he like then, when you first met him in the
When I was at WES, he was the top engineer there. He wasn't outstanding intheoretical
hydraulics or anything else, but he had good sense and was a good executive. Everyone
respected him. Later, when I was in the Chief's office, I would go to meetings at WES
several times a year. I'd always make a point of talking to Joe for an hour or so about
things going on. Things that I had to look at and that affected the Waterways Experiment
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