Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
So you escaped those two?
A:
Yes. Another thought about my retiring from consulting service. One of the Salt River
Authority engineers called me to inform me that the Bureau of Reclamation was
establishing a board of consultants for the design of a dam in Colorado. They were
looking for a hydraulic consultant and wondered whether I would be available to serve on
the board during the design and construction stages. I said that I would like very much
to serve on a Bureau board, but the way Federal dams are designed and constructed it
would be about years before that job would be completed. I said, "You know that I am
retiring and can't serve on a board that long. I advised him to tell the Bureau that I was
not available.
There were several retired Bureau hydraulic engineers available to serve on that board.
I think the Bureau wanted someone outside of the Bureau to make it an independent board,
not one with former Bureau employees.
Yes--to give it objectivity?
A:
That's right.
National Academy of Engineering
I wanted to mention something I was very, very proud of over the years. I got elected to
the National Academy of Engineering in 1971. That's 20 years ago. There weren't very
many Corps people in the National Academy then. Hathaway never made it.
never made it. I don't know why.
I started to do my own private consulting in
and the third job I had was in Caracas,
Venezuela. That was a very interesting job. I can talk an hour about it, but I won't go
off on that tangent now.
One of the jobs I had was for BC Hydro [British Columbia] on a large dam, the largest
dam in Canada. The designers were a Canadian firm, and BC Hydro had a consulting
board. There were two Canadians on it, and three Americans. Hunter Rouse and I were
board members. He was a top professor at the University of Iowa for years. He's known
throughout the world as the father of hydro-mechanics. He developed many theories.
He's written a number of books on it, and he lectured all over the world on
mechanics. He's retired now, and living in Arizona someplace.
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