________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
colleagues, "We need to give them so much more money"--whenever they would go back to
the well for a revote, which they had to do every year. The system provided that the project
could have been killed every year if the money was not appropriated to finish it. So, it had to
meet the test, I don't know, 12 or 13 different years, to be continued, to include the very last
year. It seems kind of preposterous that when you have
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.2 billion invested in a project and
for the last 0 million Congress might scuttle their big investment to date--but that was
the legislative system.
So, I spent many hours going down there, inspecting construction and following up, in
addition to quarterly meetings with the South Atlantic Division, just making sure the project
stayed on track, then coming up to Washington and reporting the project was on track. In
fact, it stayed on track and we made our schedule.
Q:
Who was your district engineer in Nashville during this period?
A:
Colonel Lee Tucker was the first two years. Then Colonel Terry Kirkpatrick came in my last
year and was the one there at the finish.
We had some just tremendous people working there on the project. The team put together to
work the TennTom was just super. Euc Moore was the Chief of Engineering in Nashville
District, and Charlie Hooper was the Chief of Real Estate. The Chief of Construction was
Dan Hall, and Jerry Rainer, the area engineer, had three residents underneath him, such as J.
C. McDaniels, who had the divide cut. All were top drawer, salt of the earth, Corps of
Engineers kind of folks that you just felt good about. You know, I'd go into the area office
and turn everything over to them and they would brief the congressmen straight on. I mean,
you know, every day they're out there in their construction boots and hard hats, chasing the
contractor and making sure all went well. When you're sitting there with a massive project--
you have to recognize, now, the claim that MorrisonKnudsen put in on the divide cut
project was million, so it had to be a pretty big project. They didn't get that, by the way;
that was what they claimed for costs associated with unknown conditions.
We had great folks down there working on the TennTom. They were just great to be with.
From the district office--the care that the Chief of Real Estate and Construction and
Engineering and Planning put into the project--down to the area and resident engineers and
their inspectors.
Q:
What was it like taking these congressional groups on tour? Was it a fairly routine business
sort of thing? It must have been something of a strain if you had a helicopter full of critics of
the project--really put you on the front lines.
A:
Well, it was, but--I don't know. By this point in time I was used to doing it--I mean, having
testified and being used to senior Washington people by this time. You can't do much else
but deal with them directly. When you get a question, you answer it truthfully and factually,
whether it's coming from a supporter or a critic. So, when Congressman Bob Edgar would
throw tough questions out, we'd answer them straightforward. He might be throwing soft
curve balls, so we'd better be answering those straightforward too. I mean, he sounded
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