Theodore M. Schad
Q: Now, what act was this?
A: The
Act in 1940 or 1941 authorized the in-grade raises. At that time
it was every
months.
Planning Division, Bureau of Reclamation, Pendleton, Oregon
Q: I see.
A: Anyway, so nobody was getting raises out of Mac, but the anecdote shows how
inept I was at "winning friends and influencing people."
After I had been in Denver about
months I got a call from
B.
Debler- Old Deb" they used to call him. He was head of the Planning
Division in the Bureau of Reclamation. When I went to see him he said,
Schad," he says, "you know, we wanted you to go work for us, but they
wouldn't let us hire you for field work and we did something about it. We've
gotten this restriction on your ability to do field work removed and we'd like
to have you over here in the Planning Section.
This really made me feel like I was going to have the chance to do what I really
wanted to do: field work. I enjoyed the spillway design work, but the war was
on by that time, and I felt as if I were working on projects that couldn't
possibly have anything to do with the war effort. I felt like I was spinning my
wheels, working in the office, and I wanted to get out. So, it didn't take me
long to say goodbye to Mr.
and transfer to the Planning Division.
At this time, the Bureau's work was all centralized in Denver. There were no
regional offices. I am not even sure that I knew that we had a commissioner.
To me, the chief engineer, Mr. Walter, was the head of it all, and I just didn't
realize there was a commissioner, John Page, back in Washington. I don't
finding that out until much later.
Deb gave me the choice of either going out to Oregon and working there on
projects under the tutelage of Glenn Sloan or of staying in Denver and working
with Randy Riter on hydrology. They knew I'd worked on floods and the
Bureau was authorized in 1939 to include flood control in its projects.
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