Water Resources People and Issues
pumps because of-1 don't know why, but we did enough things that were fun.
Also, of course, a lot of it is theoretical-Reynolds number and the Manning
formula and all those things that were just coming into use at the time. I think
we did learn how to do practical things like flood routing and things like that.
That served me in good stead when I started to work for the Corps and the
Bureau of Reclamation.
So anyway, I never really considered anything other than civil engineering
because I wanted to be outdoors. Remember, I had been kind of-well, almost
a cripple up until I was in the fourth grade, and so I wanted to get out, in the
outdoors and work in the outdoors. In civil engineering you worked in the
outdoors. That's the
I looked at it.
But in particular, you wanted to be a surveyor. That's kind of what interests
me, because, as you pointed out just before, here was a time during the Great
Depression when all these great projects were being built: Bonneville, Grand
Coulee, Boulder, Fort Peck, etcetera, etcetera. I
There was always a man out there with a transit, laying the thing out, and this
was the engineer. He was there with the transit, telling the contractor what to
do. Professor Comber told us we would be underpaid. He said, "If you want
to make money, you should operate a steam shovel or a bulldozer." But the
engineer tells them what to do. I was inculcated with the fact that the engineer
is the one that is going out there first and telling them what to build.
But, you know, I've interviewed, of course, a lot of engineers and, you know,
one of the things that seemed to attract so many people was the design work.
You were going to design the great dam. You were going to design the-you
know, even just a spillway or something, something that really was tangible
and was going to be put on the ground. That didn't hold, evidently, the same
attraction for you?
That was paperwork in the office, you see, and I wanted to be out in the
outdoors. Again, remember, I was only 20 years old when I graduated and I
guess I was pretty immature.
Yeah.
Previous Page
