Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
So, your going to the Ohio River Division also coincided with a new administration coming
into office in January of 1981.
A:
Yes.
Q:
It seems in looking at the issues and things that would be happening over your term in the
Ohio River Division, it has very much to do with some--perhaps some continuities, but also
some rather new policies and initiatives of the Reagan administration. So, maybe one way to
look at some of the things is to approach it first as a general thing, and then I'd like to look
specifically, for example, at regulatory reform and the decline in the civil works mission, the
buildup of the defense budget.
I guess one area we could look at would have to do with the area of planning in the civil area.
This is an area for construction that budgets would be going down. In other areas, advances
would be under way--regulatory, for example.
How would you address that, in terms of impact of policies on the division and what you had
to accomplish? I know it's a rather big thing. Maybe we can get more specific.
A:
Well, it's a very good question. I guess my only problem in answering it would be trying to
pinpoint any kind of day or month anything happened in this time frame, but it happened
slowly.
I think I mentioned when I was talking about leaving the office as Deputy Director of Civil
Works that it was in the waning months of the Carter administration. Then the Reagan
transition teams were active, but we didn't have one.
So, I left USACE at a point when General Heiberg and Alex Shwaiko and others involved
were awaiting the newcomer.
Then we had a secretary named Bill Gianelli, in the MarchApril time frame. He arrived and
we got to know him as he was sorting out his role in what and how the administration wanted
to play, and the cards they wanted to play, through talks he gave to various associations who
were all very eager to have him come talk as to the future of the civil works program--what
was he planning to do--because every association wants to get the new guy up on their dais
for their meetings.
Of course, he was also dialoguing with General Heiberg, the Civil Works Director, and the
Chief of Engineers, General Bratton, and we started getting some feedback downstream.
What I'm really saying, I guess, is that there was a long period of development of what his
role was going to be. So, it was not a very abrupt apparent change that identified that this was
the new wave.
It manifested itself in questions that would come out. "Why are you doing this? Why is it
we're doing it this way?" So, we would provide answers, but we wouldn't get immediate
feedback like, "That's going to change." That caused our antenna to be sensitive to identify
the meaning of the questions and statements. It was, "Shouldn't we do it this way, my way?"
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