Q ..
What would you say about the experience-you used a number of junior officers, of
course, at the resident area offices. What do you think about the experience that they
gained there'? Was that a critical
for them in later assignments? Did you see
individuals who had had those positions being used later on when you were in Dallas
and OCE?
A
I think that the use of junior officers in this job served several purposes. One: for the
most part these officers were graduate engineers who had technical expertise available
on the site. They had had some experience in management and, when backed up with
qualified inspectors
Corps districts, made a good on-site supervisory organization.
Again, the combination of military and civilian employees, as has been routine
throughout the Corps, worked very well.
I would say that those individual officers got tremendous experience out of this
assignment. Many of them went on to be district engineers and to other assignments
where this early experience in the field, I'm sure, was extremely useful to them. But
initially this was probably a secondary consideration; the idea was to get qualified
people quickly, and we used both civilian and military assets to set up these offices.
Q.
You said that under these circumstances, this separate operating organization was
preferable to the standard district and division organization. In what other cases do you
think such an organization is merited? What is it about a particular program that
warrants a separate organization?
A
In the first place, I wouldn't say that this is always the right answer. I simply said that
in my opinion, this case represented a peculiar combination of the Air Force
it was already well under way in design, a very large program, and
and it justified setting up a special office to do the construction.
widely
This was done again at the time of the establishment of the antiballistic missile system,
which, though it started as a fairly broad operation, never exceeded two sites being
worked at any one time. The NASA program, which was fairly widely dispersed, was
established with a coordinating office in the chiefs office with the work accomplished
by the individual districts and divisions. The NASA program was not under the same
pressure gradient, did not use the same design for multiple locations, and was not such
that it needed to have a superimposed special organization.
I think that each case is usually
The main thing to consider is the flexibility
and the availability
Corps to operate, either through the existing organization or
by making changes as necessary in that organization, and to meet a specific requirement
and
The strength lies in the qualifications of the people who are available
regardless
the management chain through which they operate.
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