[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Started out with 50 and 25 went overseas.

[Assistant] And so there was a slow attrition over?

[User] Several people got offers for graduate school and decided they'd rather do that. People dropped out little by little.

[Assistant] Yeah. OK, what do you think the training adequately prepared you for what you were going to be doing?

[User] Yeah, I think it did.

[Assistant] And were there any particular Honduran host teachers with you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, I think it did.

[Assistant] And were there any particular Honduran host teachers with you?

[User] Not, not at Rockport, an Ecuadorian and some Costa Rican. And we had a couple of visitors down the road, Stevie Yorkeys was from Honduras, I forgot exactly what role he played in Rockport. She was there for the last summer.

[Assistant] All right.

[User] He later became interim director in Honduras.

[Assistant] Oh, good. Good. So your initial entry into the country, would that be going back to the trip to Santa Barbara and your impressions there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not, not at Rockport, an Ecuadorian and some Costa Rican. And we had a couple of visitors down the road, Stevie Yorkeys was from Honduras, I forgot exactly what role he played in Rockport. She was there for the last summer.

[Assistant] All right.

[User] He later became interim director in Honduras.

[Assistant] Oh, good. Good. So your initial entry into the country, would that be going back to the trip to Santa Barbara and your impressions there?

[User] You spent there. Yes.

[Assistant] So how did let's get a little bit more picturesque about like what the physical environment was like that struck you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He later became interim director in Honduras.

[Assistant] Oh, good. Good. So your initial entry into the country, would that be going back to the trip to Santa Barbara and your impressions there?

[User] You spent there. Yes.

[Assistant] So how did let's get a little bit more picturesque about like what the physical environment was like that struck you?

[User] And which was the first thing that struck me was they had only got electricity only about five hours a day, two hours right before sunrise and then three hours starting at sunset. So electricity went off like at night or 93. The place is very quiet. You know, at night, very, very little vehicle traffic.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah, yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] You spent there. Yes.

[Assistant] So how did let's get a little bit more picturesque about like what the physical environment was like that struck you?

[User] And which was the first thing that struck me was they had only got electricity only about five hours a day, two hours right before sunrise and then three hours starting at sunset. So electricity went off like at night or 93. The place is very quiet. You know, at night, very, very little vehicle traffic.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[User] Oh. Also, the fact that the water was not on all the time. So there was a large pila store water and the water did come on. Craig would fill it up and you would hope and then Daddy come on again before he had to fill it up.

[Assistant] Yes, yes, yes.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And which was the first thing that struck me was they had only got electricity only about five hours a day, two hours right before sunrise and then three hours starting at sunset. So electricity went off like at night or 93. The place is very quiet. You know, at night, very, very little vehicle traffic.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[User] Oh. Also, the fact that the water was not on all the time. So there was a large pila store water and the water did come on. Craig would fill it up and you would hope and then Daddy come on again before he had to fill it up.

[Assistant] Yes, yes, yes.

[User] The water was just too hot to be able to drink. The water was an issue. Had to boil it first. This was before bottled water.

[Assistant] Did you have those iodine, the tablets to put in?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh. Also, the fact that the water was not on all the time. So there was a large pila store water and the water did come on. Craig would fill it up and you would hope and then Daddy come on again before he had to fill it up.

[Assistant] Yes, yes, yes.

[User] The water was just too hot to be able to drink. The water was an issue. Had to boil it first. This was before bottled water.

[Assistant] Did you have those iodine, the tablets to put in?

[User] So we had iodine tablets in case we couldn't get boiled water.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And did you meet any co-workers, like Honduran teachers while you were there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The water was just too hot to be able to drink. The water was an issue. Had to boil it first. This was before bottled water.

[Assistant] Did you have those iodine, the tablets to put in?

[User] So we had iodine tablets in case we couldn't get boiled water.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And did you meet any co-workers, like Honduran teachers while you were there?

[User] Not on that visit.

[Assistant] Ok, and did so when then when you came back now as a volunteer, where were you assigned?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So we had iodine tablets in case we couldn't get boiled water.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And did you meet any co-workers, like Honduran teachers while you were there?

[User] Not on that visit.

[Assistant] Ok, and did so when then when you came back now as a volunteer, where were you assigned?

[User] I was assigned at the National Teachers cut teachers college. Yes, we will give you a preference. OK, and I got there in the middle of the semester. So the first class, I thought was a five or six week class for elementary school teachers, try to teach them some science. Meanwhile, I was told this is what you're going to teach next semester. So I had time to find the equipment I wanted to use in the teaching and I had time to develop some physics laboratories

[Assistant] And the Peace Corps help facilitate any of that for you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not on that visit.

[Assistant] Ok, and did so when then when you came back now as a volunteer, where were you assigned?

[User] I was assigned at the National Teachers cut teachers college. Yes, we will give you a preference. OK, and I got there in the middle of the semester. So the first class, I thought was a five or six week class for elementary school teachers, try to teach them some science. Meanwhile, I was told this is what you're going to teach next semester. So I had time to find the equipment I wanted to use in the teaching and I had time to develop some physics laboratories

[Assistant] And the Peace Corps help facilitate any of that for you?

[User] That was all done with the school.

[Assistant] With the school. And how did you feel about the resources that the school had?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I did. And several of those students went on to get their keys in physics.

[Assistant] Awesome. That's really impressive.

[User] Come on. Came out of at the university. And when I visited there on my Fulbright, they still had in the library the physics journals that I had gotten monthly when I was a Peace Corps volunteer, say they found them useful.

[Assistant] I bet. Yeah, that is great. And did you. Was it how did the workday work for you in the daily and where you lived and things like that?

[User] Well, I lived about. 20 or 30 minute bus ride from the from the school, so typical workday, I'd have to be out catching one of the mini busses. Seven-thirty, eight o'clock. Take the trip across town from Comayaguela to Tegucigalpa. And then the school day usually ended mid-afternoon when I had an evening class that would usually be just one day a week. So I have evening classes were mostly the primary school teachers trying to get a parking lot of. A lot of the teachers did not have teaching certificates at that time. So the whole project was to try to get every teacher into Honduras to have one Honduran teaching certificate.

[Assistant] Ok, so you did have a goal like that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Come on. Came out of at the university. And when I visited there on my Fulbright, they still had in the library the physics journals that I had gotten monthly when I was a Peace Corps volunteer, say they found them useful.

[Assistant] I bet. Yeah, that is great. And did you. Was it how did the workday work for you in the daily and where you lived and things like that?

[User] Well, I lived about. 20 or 30 minute bus ride from the from the school, so typical workday, I'd have to be out catching one of the mini busses. Seven-thirty, eight o'clock. Take the trip across town from Comayaguela to Tegucigalpa. And then the school day usually ended mid-afternoon when I had an evening class that would usually be just one day a week. So I have evening classes were mostly the primary school teachers trying to get a parking lot of. A lot of the teachers did not have teaching certificates at that time. So the whole project was to try to get every teacher into Honduras to have one Honduran teaching certificate.

[Assistant] Ok, so you did have a goal like that.

[User] Was that was the big overall?

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And were the teachers who would they selected based on merit or any particular qualifications?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I lived about. 20 or 30 minute bus ride from the from the school, so typical workday, I'd have to be out catching one of the mini busses. Seven-thirty, eight o'clock. Take the trip across town from Comayaguela to Tegucigalpa. And then the school day usually ended mid-afternoon when I had an evening class that would usually be just one day a week. So I have evening classes were mostly the primary school teachers trying to get a parking lot of. A lot of the teachers did not have teaching certificates at that time. So the whole project was to try to get every teacher into Honduras to have one Honduran teaching certificate.

[Assistant] Ok, so you did have a goal like that.

[User] Was that was the big overall?

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And were the teachers who would they selected based on merit or any particular qualifications?

[User] Not sure how they were selected. I mean, I was I was given a roster and these are teachers. This is supposed to teach them.

[Assistant] And what was your impression of them?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Was that was the big overall?

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And were the teachers who would they selected based on merit or any particular qualifications?

[User] Not sure how they were selected. I mean, I was I was given a roster and these are teachers. This is supposed to teach them.

[Assistant] And what was your impression of them?

[User] Some were very good. But all of this being used to memorizing stuff. Yeah, I went out to visit with teachers supervisor. He says today you're going to see the anatomy of a fish. I says, all right. He says, that's what this guy always teaches when I come to observe him. And the students were very good. Copying down into their put knows exactly what the teacher told them. Right. But instead of going out, getting a fish and dropping it open to see what it looked like, they would draw all these, label all these parts. And they were all saying.

[Assistant] So this is so there was no fish?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not sure how they were selected. I mean, I was I was given a roster and these are teachers. This is supposed to teach them.

[Assistant] And what was your impression of them?

[User] Some were very good. But all of this being used to memorizing stuff. Yeah, I went out to visit with teachers supervisor. He says today you're going to see the anatomy of a fish. I says, all right. He says, that's what this guy always teaches when I come to observe him. And the students were very good. Copying down into their put knows exactly what the teacher told them. Right. But instead of going out, getting a fish and dropping it open to see what it looked like, they would draw all these, label all these parts. And they were all saying.

[Assistant] So this is so there was no fish?

[User] To break the rope. Trying to get people to observe and draw conclusions.

[Assistant] So basically the scientific method?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Some were very good. But all of this being used to memorizing stuff. Yeah, I went out to visit with teachers supervisor. He says today you're going to see the anatomy of a fish. I says, all right. He says, that's what this guy always teaches when I come to observe him. And the students were very good. Copying down into their put knows exactly what the teacher told them. Right. But instead of going out, getting a fish and dropping it open to see what it looked like, they would draw all these, label all these parts. And they were all saying.

[Assistant] So this is so there was no fish?

[User] To break the rope. Trying to get people to observe and draw conclusions.

[Assistant] So basically the scientific method?

[User] Yeah. They would memorize the scientific method and not use it.

[Assistant] Hmm. And did you have any colleagues in among your your other professors or teachers that you developed a relationship with?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. They would memorize the scientific method and not use it.

[Assistant] Hmm. And did you have any colleagues in among your your other professors or teachers that you developed a relationship with?

[User] Oh, we get invited to all the parties. Arturo Suarez taught math.

[Assistant] Oh really.

[User] You know him.

[Assistant] Yeah, he was assistant director.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] You know him.

[Assistant] Yeah, he was assistant director.

[User] I know about that picture of somebody looks like. Oh, OK, Mark, maybe.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I can’t remember all the names now and then we'll spend 50 years, yeah, kind of jumbled up with the mathematics teacher and I got along real well. He was also trying to teach me about things. He had just gotten his master's in mathematics from the University of Florida. OK, so he was trying to get people to think mathematically differently. The other physics teacher and I didn't get along real well, he just kind of standoffish. I think he felt threatened, but I was replacing somebody who had been teaching physics and who was in the states to get an advanced degree. So I was put into a slot that was already there. They didn't say I was substituting.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I know about that picture of somebody looks like. Oh, OK, Mark, maybe.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I can’t remember all the names now and then we'll spend 50 years, yeah, kind of jumbled up with the mathematics teacher and I got along real well. He was also trying to teach me about things. He had just gotten his master's in mathematics from the University of Florida. OK, so he was trying to get people to think mathematically differently. The other physics teacher and I didn't get along real well, he just kind of standoffish. I think he felt threatened, but I was replacing somebody who had been teaching physics and who was in the states to get an advanced degree. So I was put into a slot that was already there. They didn't say I was substituting.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[User] But I got invited to the teachers’ parties. I played with the faculty against the students in soccer. Uh huh. I coached the basketball team. We developed a photography club and I taught how to how to develop film and how to make photos. Oh cool. The students came with initiatives on this. Ask how we how we could do this. They found out I knew something about photography and there was a dark room in the school with equipment that was not being used or anything, and it was a camera. So I lent them thirty bucks for a camera and they paid me back with money they collected by taking each other's I.D. cards. You needed pictures for all kinds of stuff in Honduras and the students found out they could do it cheaper than having it done on the street. The students were they were pretty cool, but they took a lot of initiative. But most of them were college age, a little older, some were married. And they, they got into the real support through a competitive exam and they all had scholarships. And so that was a bit of it to them. This was a high motivation to just to do well and stay there.

[Assistant] Great. Great. What about your you know, your vacation time, your work and living arrangements?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Ok, I got married about four months after I got in country with a Peace Corps volunteer in a different group, and she was in group fifteen. She was a registered nurse. And so we leave about the same time in the morning for our jobs. Sometimes we'd be on the same bus for a while and we get off about the same time. We didn't have a refrigerator for the first year, but we could get cold stuff from across the street or we watch something on the way home.

[Assistant] Uh huh. Did you have an apartment or a house?

[User] We had we have lots of. On the front of the block look like one solid wall with doors in it, and some had windows or painted different colors, there were different heights, but they're all there. There was no gaps in it. It was kind of like being in a trailer where you walk in one end and in the other end was the bathroom and the pillar and the small patio. OK, and so there is a living room, dining room, a kitchen in the bedroom. And there was a volunteer leaving the country just about the time we were setting up house. And he was a very large person and he had a very large bed. He sold it to us at a at a bargain. So we had a almost as big as the bedroom.

[Assistant] Oh, and did you guys take any trips and vacations?

[User] We went to Guatemala. We went to pick it up and we went to Panama a couple of times. A couple of Linda's friends came to visit us and we met him at the airport, got on the same plane, went to Panama, took a bus back from Panama, stopped at Puntarenas in Costa Rica. Yeah. So we got we take our vacations out of town.

[Assistant] OK, all right. And. Did your relationships with Peace Corps staff or change over time?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We went to Guatemala. We went to pick it up and we went to Panama a couple of times. A couple of Linda's friends came to visit us and we met him at the airport, got on the same plane, went to Panama, took a bus back from Panama, stopped at Puntarenas in Costa Rica. Yeah. So we got we take our vacations out of town.

[Assistant] OK, all right. And. Did your relationships with Peace Corps staff or change over time?

[User] When we got into country, the director did not approve of us getting married. Oh, but he, he was replaced within a month by another director that was hanging around. And Henry Reynolds, we wanted to talk to him. He looked at the director's guidebook.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] We should frown upon this. So he frowned and he was just good luck.

[Assistant] That's great. That is great. So did you extend for third year then? Did I hear properly that you were there for three years?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] When we got into country, the director did not approve of us getting married. Oh, but he, he was replaced within a month by another director that was hanging around. And Henry Reynolds, we wanted to talk to him. He looked at the director's guidebook.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] We should frown upon this. So he frowned and he was just good luck.

[Assistant] That's great. That is great. So did you extend for third year then? Did I hear properly that you were there for three years?

[User] Yeah. OK, what happened was I figured that I was just getting to learn things well. Mm hmm. And meanwhile, they were sending in a new physics teacher. And so I stayed around with him for a while.

[Assistant] So you had a team teaching?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We should frown upon this. So he frowned and he was just good luck.

[Assistant] That's great. That is great. So did you extend for third year then? Did I hear properly that you were there for three years?

[User] Yeah. OK, what happened was I figured that I was just getting to learn things well. Mm hmm. And meanwhile, they were sending in a new physics teacher. And so I stayed around with him for a while.

[Assistant] So you had a team teaching?

[User] Well, we, we. He taught different classes, but I was able to tell him where everything was and how to do certain things.

[Assistant] Oh, good. Was that the fellow that had gone away to study?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. OK, what happened was I figured that I was just getting to learn things well. Mm hmm. And meanwhile, they were sending in a new physics teacher. And so I stayed around with him for a while.

[Assistant] So you had a team teaching?

[User] Well, we, we. He taught different classes, but I was able to tell him where everything was and how to do certain things.

[Assistant] Oh, good. Was that the fellow that had gone away to study?

[User] He was still studying.

[Assistant] Ok, so if you look back on your tour of service, who knew there'd be someone mowing the lawn today? What do you think were your main accomplishments?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He was still studying.

[Assistant] Ok, so if you look back on your tour of service, who knew there'd be someone mowing the lawn today? What do you think were your main accomplishments?

[User] Well. I think I did help great reporting, at least in physics, and we threw a science fair one year. Mm hmm. I. There weren't any prizes, but I gave the students an assignment to do a project and then and then to discuss or at least do an exposition of what they learned. Mm hmm. And there were some very good ones. One person I gave a brochure of, this is. What caught yours look like a failure, this nutrient in that nutrient, and she went out and found corners and looked just like the pictures.

[Assistant] Oh, cool.

[User] And so this is what that was. That's that kind of thing was very useful. Well, the students thought this is such a good idea. They organized the science fair for Tegucigalpa. And so they went out and got prizes for this for the best presentations, did all the judges. Awesome. And then schools outside Tegucigalpa said, wait a minute, why don't we have this for us, too? So for a few years there, they had regional science fairs. And this is something I started with this we support. And then these being all teachers, they went out and did their way.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And do you have any regrets or feelings of things you didn't accomplish?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well. I think I did help great reporting, at least in physics, and we threw a science fair one year. Mm hmm. I. There weren't any prizes, but I gave the students an assignment to do a project and then and then to discuss or at least do an exposition of what they learned. Mm hmm. And there were some very good ones. One person I gave a brochure of, this is. What caught yours look like a failure, this nutrient in that nutrient, and she went out and found corners and looked just like the pictures.

[Assistant] Oh, cool.

[User] And so this is what that was. That's that kind of thing was very useful. Well, the students thought this is such a good idea. They organized the science fair for Tegucigalpa. And so they went out and got prizes for this for the best presentations, did all the judges. Awesome. And then schools outside Tegucigalpa said, wait a minute, why don't we have this for us, too? So for a few years there, they had regional science fairs. And this is something I started with this we support. And then these being all teachers, they went out and did their way.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And do you have any regrets or feelings of things you didn't accomplish?

[User] I do I usually don't set a lot of goals. I mean, I try to do the best I can. If I had it back when I ran track, then I would try to break a certain time. But when you're trying to teach. How do you I mean, it's hard to we didn't have any test. Students took, you know, as I did. I don't think I had any real regrets of things I didn't accomplish. I didn't have any unreasonable expectations.

[Assistant] And so how did your Peace Corps experience influence the future?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We're required in an academic setting. It is to teach the class well or you don't. And so I think I did well in that, especially since when I go back for later visits, I am warmly greeted by my former students.

[Assistant] Isn't that great? And to provide better understanding of Americans?

[User] I know we did have a lot of discussions on cultural differences that time, there was there was protests against the Vietnam War and the students would take me to the protest, but we'd stand in the back room because they said if they see a green go up in front, somebody come up and hit you. And then all.

[Assistant] Because you were a gringo?

[User] Yeah, yeah. And I'm a six foot two, so I stood up above everybody else. We also played a group of Americans played in the National Basketball League in Honduras. And I was one of the better Spanish speakers. So I got elected to be the representatives and went to all the meetings of the league teams. And that that's where I learned a lot of the cultural differences, for example, that in Tegucigalpa there were groups of called Arabased and they were mostly Palestinians. There were also a group of Jews. And they had businesses that competed. And one of the teams was mostly Autobus and the other one was mostly the Jews. And I hadn't realized that until I went to those meetings that there were those kinds of social or cultural differences. Yeah. Later I learned a lot more about the Lebanese and Palestinian influence. And in Honduras, I went to a geographers meeting about 20 years later and someone was discussing how the culture of the Palestinians was to help other people out. If you're successful, you give loans. So I hadn't realized that that's the way it was working there.

[Assistant] In the north, in the north coast. They called the Lebanese and Palestinians turkos. And the Latinos would put a little tone in their voice when they talked about the turkos. But that was so, I mean.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I know we did have a lot of discussions on cultural differences that time, there was there was protests against the Vietnam War and the students would take me to the protest, but we'd stand in the back room because they said if they see a green go up in front, somebody come up and hit you. And then all.

[Assistant] Because you were a gringo?

[User] Yeah, yeah. And I'm a six foot two, so I stood up above everybody else. We also played a group of Americans played in the National Basketball League in Honduras. And I was one of the better Spanish speakers. So I got elected to be the representatives and went to all the meetings of the league teams. And that that's where I learned a lot of the cultural differences, for example, that in Tegucigalpa there were groups of called Arabased and they were mostly Palestinians. There were also a group of Jews. And they had businesses that competed. And one of the teams was mostly Autobus and the other one was mostly the Jews. And I hadn't realized that until I went to those meetings that there were those kinds of social or cultural differences. Yeah. Later I learned a lot more about the Lebanese and Palestinian influence. And in Honduras, I went to a geographers meeting about 20 years later and someone was discussing how the culture of the Palestinians was to help other people out. If you're successful, you give loans. So I hadn't realized that that's the way it was working there.

[Assistant] In the north, in the north coast. They called the Lebanese and Palestinians turkos. And the Latinos would put a little tone in their voice when they talked about the turkos. But that was so, I mean.

[User] They also used that term.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And so in terms of promoting better understanding of other people by Americans?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They also used that term.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And so in terms of promoting better understanding of other people by Americans?

[User] I think I learned an awful lot about Latin America. I knew, for example, during the Salvadorian conflict that we weren't getting the straight scoop from Washington. Ronald Reagan was claiming that there were arms being smuggled overland from Nicaragua to El Salvador. Well, if I went out on a ride in the couple of months later, they would ask everybody, see, a big gringo. I was tall, skinny guy, right? Them, you know, people out there see things you can't sneak it by. And if there would have been arms being smuggled, there would have been evidence, people would have seen it there. We've been witnesses. So I understood a little bit about that way at that time that we're just not getting the straight scoop flying.

[Assistant] And so do you, but do you think that there was some link into how the Hondurans felt about Americans?

[User] I really don't like really kind assess that, OK? All right. I got invited to there. We got invited to their parties. I got invited to join a local softball team with our Arturo Suarez, got us into their thinking, OK, if you guys want to send some ringers there, as we were, we were pretty good hitters.

[Assistant] The and he understood I thought he was Peace Corps staff at that point.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think I learned an awful lot about Latin America. I knew, for example, during the Salvadorian conflict that we weren't getting the straight scoop from Washington. Ronald Reagan was claiming that there were arms being smuggled overland from Nicaragua to El Salvador. Well, if I went out on a ride in the couple of months later, they would ask everybody, see, a big gringo. I was tall, skinny guy, right? Them, you know, people out there see things you can't sneak it by. And if there would have been arms being smuggled, there would have been evidence, people would have seen it there. We've been witnesses. So I understood a little bit about that way at that time that we're just not getting the straight scoop flying.

[Assistant] And so do you, but do you think that there was some link into how the Hondurans felt about Americans?

[User] I really don't like really kind assess that, OK? All right. I got invited to there. We got invited to their parties. I got invited to join a local softball team with our Arturo Suarez, got us into their thinking, OK, if you guys want to send some ringers there, as we were, we were pretty good hitters.

[Assistant] The and he understood I thought he was Peace Corps staff at that point.

[User] Peace Corps staff. Yeah.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it's interesting for me to hear the influence of sports participation.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I really don't like really kind assess that, OK? All right. I got invited to there. We got invited to their parties. I got invited to join a local softball team with our Arturo Suarez, got us into their thinking, OK, if you guys want to send some ringers there, as we were, we were pretty good hitters.

[Assistant] The and he understood I thought he was Peace Corps staff at that point.

[User] Peace Corps staff. Yeah.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it's interesting for me to hear the influence of sports participation.

[User] Yeah. I think I would, I would, I would coach the basketball team at the end of the year, but then we went out to visit another school. I'd have to be referee. And so I would have to tell those students to give you five start and after five minutes you come in and that I have to go out and be referee. They were friendly game.

[Assistant] Yeah, well. And they trusted you to be the referee.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Peace Corps staff. Yeah.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it's interesting for me to hear the influence of sports participation.

[User] Yeah. I think I would, I would, I would coach the basketball team at the end of the year, but then we went out to visit another school. I'd have to be referee. And so I would have to tell those students to give you five start and after five minutes you come in and that I have to go out and be referee. They were friendly game.

[Assistant] Yeah, well. And they trusted you to be the referee.

[User] I was the only one who knew the rules out. Well.

[Assistant] Oh, that's important. So have you continued any involvement with your country of service or contact with people from that country?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] How. It really changed my life. I wouldn't have gotten into grad school, I got into. Hmm. My wife and I got really close. We had our rough spots now and then. But usually she's also a very generous person. And you can tell when you watch her work that she learned enough Spanish that when she was in Toledo, she would have Spanish speaking clients. Mm hmm. And when she was on home care. Yes. Yes. So I think it was I think it was it really helped make me what I am.

[Assistant] Great. Great. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

[User] I've met Peace Corps volunteers on some of these trips, and I think. They're having a lot harder time doing they're doing their job, they're living allowance is probably not enough. All right. I know the prices are going up and so on, and they seem to have a little bit Peace Corps out of Honduras now because it's got too dangerous. So I think the Peace Corps, we were we were there at the golden era. And it was a time when relationships were quite close, I think, in the 1980s with the U.S. involvement in Central America. Americans really aren't well liked in a lot of places there anymore. I found out that some of the contacts I had as a Fulbright. But by then, I had become a little better knowing my way around.

[Assistant] Great. Great. Well, this has been very, very good. You you're obviously very comfortable with speaking and we're ahead of time. So is there any other thing that you'd like to say?

[User] I really think that service to others is a good way to develop your own character skills. You still try to get involved with the university, it's becoming formal. We now have a service learning projects, right? Yeah, some of the ones I get involved with, I'm a I'm a gardener, so I give advice on gardening and so on.

[Assistant] So it you're what you're interested in your strengths?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I've met Peace Corps volunteers on some of these trips, and I think. They're having a lot harder time doing they're doing their job, they're living allowance is probably not enough. All right. I know the prices are going up and so on, and they seem to have a little bit Peace Corps out of Honduras now because it's got too dangerous. So I think the Peace Corps, we were we were there at the golden era. And it was a time when relationships were quite close, I think, in the 1980s with the U.S. involvement in Central America. Americans really aren't well liked in a lot of places there anymore. I found out that some of the contacts I had as a Fulbright. But by then, I had become a little better knowing my way around.

[Assistant] Great. Great. Well, this has been very, very good. You you're obviously very comfortable with speaking and we're ahead of time. So is there any other thing that you'd like to say?

[User] I really think that service to others is a good way to develop your own character skills. You still try to get involved with the university, it's becoming formal. We now have a service learning projects, right? Yeah, some of the ones I get involved with, I'm a I'm a gardener, so I give advice on gardening and so on.

[Assistant] So it you're what you're interested in your strengths?

[User] Yeah. Also, I've gotten involved with a number of environmental issues, trying to stop a deep injection well for liquid waste in Michigan, looking at the loss of well water when they pumped it out of a quarry in Michigan. I've been having lunch some more landfills and you can believe that that's awesome of working with engineers to solve human problems.

[Assistant] Great. I like that. Working with engineers to solve human problems. It sounds like a motto.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I really think that service to others is a good way to develop your own character skills. You still try to get involved with the university, it's becoming formal. We now have a service learning projects, right? Yeah, some of the ones I get involved with, I'm a I'm a gardener, so I give advice on gardening and so on.

[Assistant] So it you're what you're interested in your strengths?

[User] Yeah. Also, I've gotten involved with a number of environmental issues, trying to stop a deep injection well for liquid waste in Michigan, looking at the loss of well water when they pumped it out of a quarry in Michigan. I've been having lunch some more landfills and you can believe that that's awesome of working with engineers to solve human problems.

[Assistant] Great. I like that. Working with engineers to solve human problems. It sounds like a motto.

[User] Well, the model is the one that John Hall, the engineer, says, tell me what the bad news is and I'll fix it. Great. Great. I'm the one that finds the bad news is a geologist who investigates what the ground is, what's going on underground, and then you'll fix it and usually does. A lot of my former students work for him. So I see my students out there in the environmental field. Some are partners in the companies.

[Assistant] Yeah, great. So you've helped contribute to a new generation of leaders?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. I was on the staff when they selected [the Class of 1978]. I guess probably the week I went on staff was the first week they all started coming in for all their exams and physicals and everything, and so every Wednesday night, we’d go down to the Gilruth Center and have a barbecue dinner, and John [W.] Young would make a speech, and somebody else would talk, and we would meet everybody and visit with them. That was senior staff—a few members would go down and meet with them to get to know them a little better.

[Assistant] Did you have input in the selection at that time?

[User] Oh, no. I was just there because I could. Because I was on staff. That’s a perk. Another perk was, Prince Charles [Prince of Wales] came to lunch one day. It was on a Sunday, and I could have gone to lunch with Prince Charles. I decided I’d rather come to San Antonio [Texas] for the weekend. Looking back, I think, “Ivy, you really should have gone, so you could have said you actually met Prince Charles,” but. I’m not a really great fan of Prince Charles. I guess I figured, “What difference does it make? All you can do is tell people that, and then it’s like you’re name-dropping, so what difference did it make anyway?”

[Assistant] Were you on staff long enough to see the women go through their challenges of being accepted as part of the workforce and in that position?

[User] Not really. I went on staff; we went through the selection process. They were picked in January, I think is when we had the orientation dinner, and they knew they’d been picked. Then they didn’t come back until July, and by that time, I had gone to flight software.

[Assistant] Did you stay in touch with them?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Any spaceflight. Any spaceflight. People—we get complacent. We get very complacent. The San Antonio paper had a FedEx plane displayed on it this morning—it happened in China, I guess, or Korea.

[Assistant] Japan, I think, was where it went down.

[User] It was overseas; it wasn’t local. But you know, one of the pilots was from here. I’m sure they may not have done that if one of the pilots hadn’t been from here, but again, you’ve got to remember those things don’t just stay up by themselves.

[Assistant] Well, you certainly have such a history as part of the design elements of the Shuttle. Watching the Approach and Landing Tests must have been very personal and gratifying for you to see, and then of course, the STS-1 launch. Can you share with us what it felt to know that your spacecraft was—

[User] Was doing it? What it was supposed to do?

[Assistant] Just doing it, yes.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They all left before I got out the door. Three of us walked with 20 years, and two took early retirement. I think it was three and two. It was me and Bill and Fred—well, I bet Jack left then, too. But I think he and Stan [Stanley P.] Mann—maybe they were the two that took early outs. So years later—or six months or a year later, I asked John Aaron, I said, “Didn’t it bother you that all your people left at one time?” “Oh, no, it just happened.” I said, “How come you always treated me like you did?” “I didn’t trust you.” “Why?” “Because you didn’t do things like me. You didn’t do what I would have done.” I said, “John, if I would have done what you would have done every time, we didn’t need but one of us. Then you’re redundant.” I said, “Was I ever wrong? Can you name one time I ever led you astray on anything?” “No.” Off and on, I worked with him from ’81 to ’84. What do you do? You don’t do anything about it. You leave. Pick up your marbles and go.

[Assistant] After 20 years, you had a lot of lessons learned on what to do, what not to do.

[User] The first time I became a section head, I told the people that worked for me, I said, “I don’t know that I know what to do to do this right, but I know a whole bunch of things to not do that I’ve learned from other people messing up. So I’m going to avoid those and make my own mistakes.”

[Assistant] I believe one of the things that I’ve heard you say was that effective communication is so important.

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Could you share with us some of the ideas that you have used for effective communication during your leadership time, or maybe just in your interpersonal skills of working with all types of personalities and skills, to pull them together?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, but I think, and I might have mentioned this, I had the benefit early in my career of some excellent bosses and mentors. And as I look back over my career, that really made a big difference. So for that, I am very grateful.

[Assistant] Yeah, sometimes it takes having some mentors or some really bright people to help you along and get you into those right places, right, who know your skills and where your best fit would be.

[User] Exactly. And I've tried to emulate that since then and even in retirement. I'm always looking for folks that need a hand or need some advice, and I continue to find that very gratifying.

[Assistant] I'm sure everyone appreciates that you've helped out. Okay. So kind of leading off where we were last time, we were just starting to get into when NARA became an independent agency from GSA. Do you remember anything from this time? Maybe some of the changes that were happening?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] What was involved in this sort of transformation?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And between now and the next time, I will once again see what I can do about making this computer work. The sound works so that I don't have to continually have this ceiling fan growing out of my head when we talk. [LAUGHS]

[Assistant] Yes. That is not a problem at all. [LAUGHS] In fact, my internet went out halfway through our talk, but I've been recording you on my phone. We've got the whole text message from the internet provider and everything saying there’s a power outage in the entire area. So . . . [LAUGHS]

[User] Oh, my God. Well, again, your smiling face, as still as it was, was still projecting on my phone. So, I mean, one of the ways I worked my way through college was as a radio announcer. And one of the things that radio announcers try to do is make each other laugh when they're on the air, and they do some outrageous things to each other. And I am very adept at just keeping on talking and hoping someone's listening. And so when you went from your video to your still, I thought, okay, here we go. I'm just going to keep on talking and see if I can hear her breathing on the other end. [LAUGHS]

[Assistant] That was another reason why I kept saying, “Oh yeah.” “Wow.” “Okay.” “Yeah.” Just so that you knew I was still here. So again, technology. It's great when it works.

[User] Absolutely. Well, thank you again for your time. And send me some dates when you get a chance. We'll figure out what works.

[Assistant] Wonderful. Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you again for today and enjoy your time. I think you were meeting a friend or something, so enjoy your time.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, my God. Well, again, your smiling face, as still as it was, was still projecting on my phone. So, I mean, one of the ways I worked my way through college was as a radio announcer. And one of the things that radio announcers try to do is make each other laugh when they're on the air, and they do some outrageous things to each other. And I am very adept at just keeping on talking and hoping someone's listening. And so when you went from your video to your still, I thought, okay, here we go. I'm just going to keep on talking and see if I can hear her breathing on the other end. [LAUGHS]

[Assistant] That was another reason why I kept saying, “Oh yeah.” “Wow.” “Okay.” “Yeah.” Just so that you knew I was still here. So again, technology. It's great when it works.

[User] Absolutely. Well, thank you again for your time. And send me some dates when you get a chance. We'll figure out what works.

[Assistant] Wonderful. Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you again for today and enjoy your time. I think you were meeting a friend or something, so enjoy your time.

[User] Well, I'm still in the fundraising business for one thing or the other. And I'm going with a friend and someone who he thinks might be interested in one of the causes I'm working on. So anyway, we'll see.

[Assistant] Okay, well, good luck with that. But yeah, I'll send you an email with some more dates and we'll get something set up here.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Absolutely. Well, thank you again for your time. And send me some dates when you get a chance. We'll figure out what works.

[Assistant] Wonderful. Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you again for today and enjoy your time. I think you were meeting a friend or something, so enjoy your time.

[User] Well, I'm still in the fundraising business for one thing or the other. And I'm going with a friend and someone who he thinks might be interested in one of the causes I'm working on. So anyway, we'll see.

[Assistant] Okay, well, good luck with that. But yeah, I'll send you an email with some more dates and we'll get something set up here.

[User] Great. Thanks so much.

[Assistant] Thank you. Have a good day.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, the scuba is just a means to get to your work, yes.

[Assistant] How many divers are on a retrieval team?

[User] Typically we take out eight divers. We’re all retrieval crew and divers. We try and break that up. The underwater work takes anything from twenty to thirty minutes of work underwater. The first part is the hardest, installation of the plug. Depending on the weather we will send typically four people to do that and hold the rest of the work for the last four. If there’s bad weather, if the booster is surging, if you have issues with the nozzle—every splashdown is different—the nozzles get torn up. If there’s problems installing the DOP on the first dive, you have a second team that can do that. We’re limited by Coast Guard regulation to no decompression dives, so we have a limited amount of time underwater. We have basically the two dive teams to do the work, and if we don’t get it done then we have to wait a day till all the divers are fresh again.

[Assistant] Has that happened on occasion?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you give us any examples?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, everybody [mixes].

[Assistant] Do the boats have specific divers that work one ship compared to the other ship?

[User] No. The captain and the first mate and the cook were pretty much always with the ship, and a lot of the crew would stay with the ship, just ended up that way. Most of the ship’s crew and the retrieval crew, we just went where we were told. We deliberately mixed it up so that everybody can work together. We don’t have one group start doing something different and then you get somebody else [to] join them and now you don’t know exactly what’s going on. You make the whole process transparent to everybody else. Everybody knows what you’re doing, and how you’re doing it. We have the same expectation from each of the groups.

[Assistant] Tell us how the photography mixed into this process.

[User] Well, it used to be a sideline. Wulf and I would take cameras down, and when we weren’t in the middle of doing something else we would take pictures. Occasionally they would actually allow us to take the video camera. As we got farther into the program the postflight assessment folks wanted some of that video and pictures, so we started doing a specific dive before the retrieval dives that were video and photo assessment. They didn’t use them often, but occasionally.\n\n You’d have the boosters here in the building and they would see a ding, a loss of paint, a bent piece of metal. They’d use our photos and videos to try and get an idea of when that happened. If it was something that we did to it during the recovery process, if it was something that was done at splashdown, or the real concern was if it was something that happened during flight.

[Assistant] How did your group use the photo and the video documentation that you were starting to accumulate?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They’re big, but when you got 23 other people that you know and there’s no gym—there’s a lounge, there’s a mess deck. One of the biggest problems is that there’s a walk-in fridge. If we’re not out too long there’s always food in it. One of the biggest problems is eating too much. And there’s nowhere to exercise. We had a couple folks trying jogging around the ship, and it just doesn’t work well. There’s not much distance you can go. With a ship in seas it’s almost hazardous to do. One fellow brought aboard a rowing machine. People have tried that. But again, with the seas it’s hard to do any motion that requires you to do repetitive action lined up with a machine.

[Assistant] Do you guys have any traditions when you take off or when you come home?

[User] No, not really. It’s another day at work. Which is cool when the weather is good.

[Assistant] Did you tell us how long you can dive for? I was looking through my notes and I didn’t see that.

[User] It’s variable. It depends on how deep you go. The regulations are that we can’t plan a decompression dive. If somebody were to get stuck and you ended up staying so deep that you had a decompression obligation, that just happened. But you can’t plan that. If you look at the Navy dive tables, it changes. If you only go down 100 feet, I think you have 20 minutes.\n\n Nowadays we don’t use the Navy dive tables, you use dive computers. They go with you, and based on where you are right now and where you’ve been on this dive it figures out how long you can stay right where you are. Typically we’re at about 120 feet, which is about 15 minutes.

[Assistant] That’s a short amount of time.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, not really. It’s another day at work. Which is cool when the weather is good.

[Assistant] Did you tell us how long you can dive for? I was looking through my notes and I didn’t see that.

[User] It’s variable. It depends on how deep you go. The regulations are that we can’t plan a decompression dive. If somebody were to get stuck and you ended up staying so deep that you had a decompression obligation, that just happened. But you can’t plan that. If you look at the Navy dive tables, it changes. If you only go down 100 feet, I think you have 20 minutes.\n\n Nowadays we don’t use the Navy dive tables, you use dive computers. They go with you, and based on where you are right now and where you’ve been on this dive it figures out how long you can stay right where you are. Typically we’re at about 120 feet, which is about 15 minutes.

[Assistant] That’s a short amount of time.

[User] Yes. And if you have problems, you call it and the next team tries to get it done. They have the same amount of time, and hopefully based on what you got accomplished they can finish. If not, you wait till the computer says that you’re able to dive again.

[Assistant] What do you do after you put in the plug? Do you come back up?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It’s variable. It depends on how deep you go. The regulations are that we can’t plan a decompression dive. If somebody were to get stuck and you ended up staying so deep that you had a decompression obligation, that just happened. But you can’t plan that. If you look at the Navy dive tables, it changes. If you only go down 100 feet, I think you have 20 minutes.\n\n Nowadays we don’t use the Navy dive tables, you use dive computers. They go with you, and based on where you are right now and where you’ve been on this dive it figures out how long you can stay right where you are. Typically we’re at about 120 feet, which is about 15 minutes.

[Assistant] That’s a short amount of time.

[User] Yes. And if you have problems, you call it and the next team tries to get it done. They have the same amount of time, and hopefully based on what you got accomplished they can finish. If not, you wait till the computer says that you’re able to dive again.

[Assistant] What do you do after you put in the plug? Do you come back up?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you need to do other work?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. And if you have problems, you call it and the next team tries to get it done. They have the same amount of time, and hopefully based on what you got accomplished they can finish. If not, you wait till the computer says that you’re able to dive again.

[Assistant] What do you do after you put in the plug? Do you come back up?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you need to do other work?

[User] Well, we have other work to do, but as far as the recovery goes, the last thing you do when you install the plug is put a hose to it, an air hose. The booster sits in the water and you’re pumping air into it. Water is coming out, and in about twenty minutes it starts to get vertically unstable and it ends up laying down. During that time, the divers are back on the ship. There’s one boat, a small crew, that stays out to hook up the booster to the ship for the towback. But everybody else, we’re back on deck and we’re covering the parachutes that we already recovered. We’re putting away our dive gear, we’re cleaning up the small boat, we’re cleaning up the deck. We’re separating the parachute from the frustum that we had pulled on deck earlier, just basically finishing the day out.

[Assistant] Has there ever been a time when you’ve been on one ship, and the other ship needs some assistance and you’ve gone over to help?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right. I was very interested in getting down here. You know, when something changes, get on with it. So I was really the first in the group to get down here. I started working in engineering. In fact, we were packing our house the day that JFK [President Kennedy] was assassinated. The moving van was there, and we didn't even have the television connected. The neighbors came running over and said that JFK had just been shot. All the way down, driving with the kids and some household goods down to Texas, and stopping all the way, every day it was, you know, more about the assassination and Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. I mean, all of that was just a blur of transition from Cambridge, Massachusetts, down to Houston, Texas.

[Assistant] That was an interesting route that you had to take through, and then you landed here and your new life began.

[User] Right. Totally new life.

[Assistant] You adjusted to a completely different culture and climate and became part of the—

[User] Well, it was probably a little more challenging for the rest of the family. Being in the Air Force, I had moved around a bit. Although my wife had, too, and the kids, of course, were coming along and they don't notice those things much anyway. [Laughter] But I was not unaccustomed to moving around at that point, so it was the next place to live. At that age, you go where the opportunity is, as opposed to this age, where I live where I want to live. [Laughter] Find out how to make a living.

[Assistant] Well, the program was new and the adventures were new. Tell us about some of those days of training and how you learned all there was to learn at the time. Were you helping them to learn more about the space program as well?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, it was a very good decision, you know. It was an excellent decision. We were really scheduled for the second mission, but again because of the LM 2 problems, we just kept running into problem after problem after problem in the testing and evaluating of the lunar module. Systems were just giving all kinds of problems, and integrating the systems was really havoc. So the LM kept moving to the right, and, you know, the calendar sits there and the deadline is there.\n\n Frank and I don't even know who all was involved in it, but certainly Frank was a heavy player in that game. He just saw a great opportunity for him to get to be the first guy around the back side of the moon, and Frank was willing to sacrifice flying the lunar module in order to be one of the first people to get around the moon, and he saw some value in terms of proving the navigation and communications capabilities by doing that, as well as the deep space capability and the reentry at high speed into the Earth with the command module.\n\n So Frank had enough material there to put together a good case, and in the end that was a very good decision. It simply relaxed the pressure a little bit on the Grumman team and on ourselves in trying to really push to get LM 3 ready and off the ground. So that put another mission in the middle and moved us to the third flight, and we forgot all about a second flight and Earth orbit, thank heaven. [Laughter] Who needed that?\n\n So I think it was great, and for us we could care less whether we moved from two to three. We kept the same mission. So it was good.

[Assistant] And your crew was together for almost three years.

[User] Yes, we were together for a long time.

[Assistant] Do you remember the first time that you and Jim McDivitt and Dave Scott had a chance to meet and talk about your mission?

[User] No. [Laughter] A non-memorable event.

[Assistant] I guess that's the good point.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, we were together for a long time.

[Assistant] Do you remember the first time that you and Jim McDivitt and Dave Scott had a chance to meet and talk about your mission?

[User] No. [Laughter] A non-memorable event.

[Assistant] I guess that's the good point.

[User] Obviously the first time was when Al Shepard announced who the crews were, and there we were as the backup crew to the first mission. So that was when we became a crew, and obviously we talked about it as soon as the meeting was over. But aside from that, there was nothing in particular. We all knew each other.

[Assistant] And of course you got to know each other very well over the next three years. [Laughter]


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No. [Laughter] A non-memorable event.

[Assistant] I guess that's the good point.

[User] Obviously the first time was when Al Shepard announced who the crews were, and there we were as the backup crew to the first mission. So that was when we became a crew, and obviously we talked about it as soon as the meeting was over. But aside from that, there was nothing in particular. We all knew each other.

[Assistant] And of course you got to know each other very well over the next three years. [Laughter]

[User] [Laughter] We got to know each other very well.

[Assistant] You worked very closely with Jim McDivitt, and of course Dave Scott was working on his effort as well. How often did the three of you come back together to work on simulations? Was that the majority of the training or did you have—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] [Laughter] We got to know each other very well.

[Assistant] You worked very closely with Jim McDivitt, and of course Dave Scott was working on his effort as well. How often did the three of you come back together to work on simulations? Was that the majority of the training or did you have—

[User] You mean after we were named as crew?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] All the time, every day. We had our office together. We moved into the same office. It was eight, ten, twelve hours a day. We would all do our own things, but I doubt, except for when somebody was on a trip on one coast or the other, something like that, if we were all in Houston, we talked every day.

[Assistant] One of the decisions you made is the naming of your spacecraft. [Schweickart laughs.] Would you share with us the details on how that came about?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] So we can pick up with your—

[User] There's lots more to come.

[Assistant] —next part of your career with NASA.

[User] Sorry I'm so long-winded. [Laughter]

[Assistant] No, we've enjoyed every moment of it and look forward to the next session. So, thank you.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That did not happen. We had two problems, though, in the programs based on things like that. One of them was [M. Scott] Carpenter’s mission, where he overshot the landing zone. I think that was the one where we divided by twenty-four. Anyway, we had two mistakes. But we took all constants out of the software code and put them in tables so that anybody who wanted a constant, even pi, they had to go to the tables. Any programmer that wanted it had to go to the tables and use it, so that everybody was using the same accuracy. One person wasn’t using four-digit accuracy and somebody else seven-digit accuracy. Everybody was using the same accuracy.\n\n The Viking [Mars lander] people came down. They heard we were good, and they looked at our system to see how we did it, and they copied our system.

[Assistant] Good. Let’s walk back a few steps. When you were working with Mercury, you were building a trust and, of course, building a new reputation as being very efficient. You assisted and co-authored three papers that we know of, that you helped do for technical papers. Tell us how you became involved in doing that. Do you remember those?

[User] I remember them. One of them was like Tracking—

[Assistant] “Tracking and Sighting Data for Stations”?

[User] Yes. They were just—

[Assistant] Was it a compliment, or was it an expectation that you would have been involved with technical papers at that time? Was it something that you were looking forward to do as part of your career, or was it kind of a surprise that you were going to be working on technical papers?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I remember them. One of them was like Tracking—

[Assistant] “Tracking and Sighting Data for Stations”?

[User] Yes. They were just—

[Assistant] Was it a compliment, or was it an expectation that you would have been involved with technical papers at that time? Was it something that you were looking forward to do as part of your career, or was it kind of a surprise that you were going to be working on technical papers?

[User] As hard as I worked on those documents, I wanted my name on them, but it wasn’t easy. The worst thing about documents like that, no matter who worked on them, they would put “compiled by” and there would be just one person’s name on it, or the section chief would sign them. But I worked hard enough on those documents, and I had enough of my work in them that I was very, very happy to sign them. I probably got to be third author on everything, but that’s okay. I got on them, anyway.

[Assistant] Was that a time-consuming task that you did those papers, or was it information that was already available that you just helped put into a paper?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. They were just—

[Assistant] Was it a compliment, or was it an expectation that you would have been involved with technical papers at that time? Was it something that you were looking forward to do as part of your career, or was it kind of a surprise that you were going to be working on technical papers?

[User] As hard as I worked on those documents, I wanted my name on them, but it wasn’t easy. The worst thing about documents like that, no matter who worked on them, they would put “compiled by” and there would be just one person’s name on it, or the section chief would sign them. But I worked hard enough on those documents, and I had enough of my work in them that I was very, very happy to sign them. I probably got to be third author on everything, but that’s okay. I got on them, anyway.

[Assistant] Was that a time-consuming task that you did those papers, or was it information that was already available that you just helped put into a paper?

[User] No, they were all original work. Once we did the first document, the next mission was patterned after the last document and just the data changed. But all of that was original. We didn’t have anybody's work to copy.

[Assistant] No, everybody was new.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] As hard as I worked on those documents, I wanted my name on them, but it wasn’t easy. The worst thing about documents like that, no matter who worked on them, they would put “compiled by” and there would be just one person’s name on it, or the section chief would sign them. But I worked hard enough on those documents, and I had enough of my work in them that I was very, very happy to sign them. I probably got to be third author on everything, but that’s okay. I got on them, anyway.

[Assistant] Was that a time-consuming task that you did those papers, or was it information that was already available that you just helped put into a paper?

[User] No, they were all original work. Once we did the first document, the next mission was patterned after the last document and just the data changed. But all of that was original. We didn’t have anybody's work to copy.

[Assistant] No, everybody was new.

[User] We did not have anybody’s work to copy.

[Assistant] Did you have an opportunity at a later time to do other publications?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, they were all original work. Once we did the first document, the next mission was patterned after the last document and just the data changed. But all of that was original. We didn’t have anybody's work to copy.

[Assistant] No, everybody was new.

[User] We did not have anybody’s work to copy.

[Assistant] Did you have an opportunity at a later time to do other publications?

[User] After every mission, I did the insertion papers. They were like memos of what the orbital insertion conditions were and what data we used to decide whether we were into orbit or not, like how many points we averaged to tell whether we were definitely into orbit or not, and all of the data from—I think we had four launch insertion sources, if I remember correctly. One was GE-Burroughs, one was Impact Predictors 7090, which they called the Azuza, and San Salvador, and Bermuda. We got data from those four sources and we compared that data for insertion. The reason we did is was so that we would know whether the data we were getting from those tracking sites were good enough to base an abort on. If not, we might not know whether we were really in orbit when we were. So we did post-flight analysis on data sources, a lot of analysis on data sources, and with different types of computations as to whether we averaged data or whether we applied short arc solutions and things like that to the data itself, just to make sure whether the transmission of the data was good.

[Assistant] Were there times that you could see that your work here, especially these post-flight documents, proved to save time or maybe cost or just affected the next missions down the line? Could you see the compilation of your work continually to positively affect the next missions?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We did not have anybody’s work to copy.

[Assistant] Did you have an opportunity at a later time to do other publications?

[User] After every mission, I did the insertion papers. They were like memos of what the orbital insertion conditions were and what data we used to decide whether we were into orbit or not, like how many points we averaged to tell whether we were definitely into orbit or not, and all of the data from—I think we had four launch insertion sources, if I remember correctly. One was GE-Burroughs, one was Impact Predictors 7090, which they called the Azuza, and San Salvador, and Bermuda. We got data from those four sources and we compared that data for insertion. The reason we did is was so that we would know whether the data we were getting from those tracking sites were good enough to base an abort on. If not, we might not know whether we were really in orbit when we were. So we did post-flight analysis on data sources, a lot of analysis on data sources, and with different types of computations as to whether we averaged data or whether we applied short arc solutions and things like that to the data itself, just to make sure whether the transmission of the data was good.

[Assistant] Were there times that you could see that your work here, especially these post-flight documents, proved to save time or maybe cost or just affected the next missions down the line? Could you see the compilation of your work continually to positively affect the next missions?

[User] I think it did, and it made us better. Every mission made us better the next mission. If we had not done that, we would not have known whether what we were doing was right or wrong. So every time we did these post-flights reports, we did the next mission better because of having done that.

[Assistant] You worked on landing site prediction, is that correct?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] After every mission, I did the insertion papers. They were like memos of what the orbital insertion conditions were and what data we used to decide whether we were into orbit or not, like how many points we averaged to tell whether we were definitely into orbit or not, and all of the data from—I think we had four launch insertion sources, if I remember correctly. One was GE-Burroughs, one was Impact Predictors 7090, which they called the Azuza, and San Salvador, and Bermuda. We got data from those four sources and we compared that data for insertion. The reason we did is was so that we would know whether the data we were getting from those tracking sites were good enough to base an abort on. If not, we might not know whether we were really in orbit when we were. So we did post-flight analysis on data sources, a lot of analysis on data sources, and with different types of computations as to whether we averaged data or whether we applied short arc solutions and things like that to the data itself, just to make sure whether the transmission of the data was good.

[Assistant] Were there times that you could see that your work here, especially these post-flight documents, proved to save time or maybe cost or just affected the next missions down the line? Could you see the compilation of your work continually to positively affect the next missions?

[User] I think it did, and it made us better. Every mission made us better the next mission. If we had not done that, we would not have known whether what we were doing was right or wrong. So every time we did these post-flights reports, we did the next mission better because of having done that.

[Assistant] You worked on landing site prediction, is that correct?

[User] It was the launch abort type.

[Assistant] Something regarding radar look angle.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think it did, and it made us better. Every mission made us better the next mission. If we had not done that, we would not have known whether what we were doing was right or wrong. So every time we did these post-flights reports, we did the next mission better because of having done that.

[Assistant] You worked on landing site prediction, is that correct?

[User] It was the launch abort type.

[Assistant] Something regarding radar look angle.

[User] That term? That was what I was talking about, the San Salvador and the Bermuda. That was the radar looking at the spacecraft. So those post-flight reports is taking that data and analyzing it after the missions.

[Assistant] This was in Mercury. Did you continue this effort as Mercury moved into Gemini and then on to Apollo?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was the launch abort type.

[Assistant] Something regarding radar look angle.

[User] That term? That was what I was talking about, the San Salvador and the Bermuda. That was the radar looking at the spacecraft. So those post-flight reports is taking that data and analyzing it after the missions.

[Assistant] This was in Mercury. Did you continue this effort as Mercury moved into Gemini and then on to Apollo?

[User] We didn’t have to after Gemini.

[Assistant] How did it evolve? Did you find this work then be applied to the other programs as well, or this was finished and so you started on a whole different process of doing things for Apollo, as far as your new duties, as Apollo progressed?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That term? That was what I was talking about, the San Salvador and the Bermuda. That was the radar looking at the spacecraft. So those post-flight reports is taking that data and analyzing it after the missions.

[Assistant] This was in Mercury. Did you continue this effort as Mercury moved into Gemini and then on to Apollo?

[User] We didn’t have to after Gemini.

[Assistant] How did it evolve? Did you find this work then be applied to the other programs as well, or this was finished and so you started on a whole different process of doing things for Apollo, as far as your new duties, as Apollo progressed?

[User] I did the same thing. I did the launch requirements and the launch abort requirements, but the Gemini was so different from the Saturn that it was just a totally different program.

[Assistant] How did that affect your work? The time is changing, the spacecraft was changing. But are you finding that your tools were changing to help you do this as well, with the computer starting to evolve along with the spacecraft, to help provide you support you need?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We didn’t have to after Gemini.

[Assistant] How did it evolve? Did you find this work then be applied to the other programs as well, or this was finished and so you started on a whole different process of doing things for Apollo, as far as your new duties, as Apollo progressed?

[User] I did the same thing. I did the launch requirements and the launch abort requirements, but the Gemini was so different from the Saturn that it was just a totally different program.

[Assistant] How did that affect your work? The time is changing, the spacecraft was changing. But are you finding that your tools were changing to help you do this as well, with the computer starting to evolve along with the spacecraft, to help provide you support you need?

[User] If we hadn’t had Apollo, we’d still be back ten years. You wouldn’t have a desktop probably now. Apollo drove the computers in the United States, as far as I’m concerned. If we had not had the Project Apollo, we would not have had computers for at least ten years. We would have had them eventually.\n\n From way down looking up, there were two people that I can say that helped us get the computers that we went to the Moon with, and that was Dick Hanrahan [phonetic] and Lyn Dunseith. Dick Hanrahan worked for IBM, and he was Bednarcyk’s boss. But they were little brains just working all the time, and they knew we had to have something better than we had had. Of course, IBM was always at that time these big number generators. But I think knowing what our requirements would be to go to the Moon helped develop the computers. We could not done as many computations as we did. We couldn’t have gone if the computers had not been getting better and better. We could not have had the requirements to get more detailed as they were and as many as they were.

[Assistant] Can you walk us through the evolution of the computers that you’ve worked with? You said you started out with paper and pencil, and, I guess, an eraser on occasion.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had Freidan calculators, and then I had a Bendix G15, which was a single instruction. From there we went to the IBM 1620, which was a low-decimal machine, and we had a Flexiwriter paper tape input, and if you missed one key, you had to start over again because it had little holes in the paper. I have taken a pen and corrected the paper tape to get it to read so we wouldn’t have to do the whole program over again. They were basically the only computers that I programmed for, because once we got to Gemini—well, that’s not true either. I programmed for the 7094 a little bit when we got into Houston. But basically we hired IBM as our software programmers for Gemini and Apollo, and all we did was we looked at the code. This wasn’t like you don’t see the code. We did flow charts and we did code and NASA got to see the code, where I’m sure now no one ever sees the code. We did have people who could correct the code in hexadecimal. There were a couple of people that were that good. So it was basically just the capacity, and, now your desktop calculator computer has much more power really than the computers we used to go to Moon with.

[Assistant] Was there a time where the technology was coming up quickly and your requirements were still needed as quickly as they had been, where you were having to learn the new technology and still do your job and meet all these deadlines at the same time?

[User] Always. But it was no problem. It just evolved. If there was a problem, we weren’t smart enough to know it was a problem, or dumb enough, as the case may be.

[Assistant] Just adapted to the moment, huh?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I can imagine that it—because sometimes if you’re on one system but yet the new system has to be implemented, but yet you still have to get your work done, it must have been a little challenging at times to have that happen.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Always. But it was no problem. It just evolved. If there was a problem, we weren’t smart enough to know it was a problem, or dumb enough, as the case may be.

[Assistant] Just adapted to the moment, huh?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I can imagine that it—because sometimes if you’re on one system but yet the new system has to be implemented, but yet you still have to get your work done, it must have been a little challenging at times to have that happen.

[User] We were very fortunate that throughout Apollo we were able to keep the same contractor without going out on bid. The government does itself an injustice by trying to change. We were very fortunate that we were able to keep IBM and IBM computers, as far as all of the software requirements go, and the programmers and everything, because a lot of the programs that were used, if you just move it from one computer to the other and that you had the same operating system and same programmers, and we wrote our own operating systems at that time, and we had a whole section that had operating system requirements. So we were fortunate in that we did not have to go out on open bid to replace our coders. That made a lot of difference.

[Assistant] The people that you dealt with IBM, you felt that they were very supportive of the NASA goals and the country’s goals as well?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I sure did. The hardware people started out as Philco Ford. I don't know who they are, I guess they’re Lockheed now. We kept the same contractors. They changed names, but we kept the same contractors for the hardware and the software from Gemini through early Shuttle, and that really made a difference. I think if we had to go out on open bid and got a different contractor every two years, we’d have never made it. No way. I think they’ve just put out a consolidation contract. We tried that in the early eighties, an awful, awful lot of work, and it basically went down the drain, because as soon as they came on board and they were supposed to be a fixed-price, "Here's your job. Do it," NASA wouldn’t let them do it. So it was not good.

[Assistant] How was the rapport with the IBM folks on a one-to-one basis with you? Were you their supervisor? Were you the one that checked off to make sure they had gotten their job done correctly, or were you mostly kind of their peer, where you worked very closely with them to tell them what you needed and they gave it back to you? Explain that whole relationship to us.

[User] In Gemini and Apollo, I was basically equal to the programmers. I gave them the requirements. I would sign off on all of the systems tests and subsystems tests as far as launch and launch abort goes. But later in my career, I was a section chief, so I was their boss basically. But I did have to sign off on all of the subsystems tests for the launch and launch abort systems for Gemini and Apollo.

[Assistant] Were all the programmers IBM employees, or were there NASA and IBM?

[User] They were all IBM employees.

[Assistant] Were they housed at NASA?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In Gemini and Apollo, I was basically equal to the programmers. I gave them the requirements. I would sign off on all of the systems tests and subsystems tests as far as launch and launch abort goes. But later in my career, I was a section chief, so I was their boss basically. But I did have to sign off on all of the subsystems tests for the launch and launch abort systems for Gemini and Apollo.

[Assistant] Were all the programmers IBM employees, or were there NASA and IBM?

[User] They were all IBM employees.

[Assistant] Were they housed at NASA?

[User] They were housed across the street at the IBM Building. I don’t know what building it is now, but it was across in Nassau Bay. We had couriers that carried decks of cards back and forth because we compiled all the programs with decks of cards.

[Assistant] I’m glad you mentioned that, because so many people now who work with computers don’t realize that. So maybe you can give a little background on those cards worked and how many hands that those cards went back and forth to, to give us some background on that whole system.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They were all IBM employees.

[Assistant] Were they housed at NASA?

[User] They were housed across the street at the IBM Building. I don’t know what building it is now, but it was across in Nassau Bay. We had couriers that carried decks of cards back and forth because we compiled all the programs with decks of cards.

[Assistant] I’m glad you mentioned that, because so many people now who work with computers don’t realize that. So maybe you can give a little background on those cards worked and how many hands that those cards went back and forth to, to give us some background on that whole system.

[User] Well, as I said, we had couriers hired, and they would bring these big boxes of cards over, and they have been dropped. Of course, they had a sequence number on them, and some people would have to put them back in sequence. Everything would be recompiled if you made a change. It wasn’t like if you made a change now like you do in a PC. You had to punch a card, recompile the program, and rerun it. So it was time-consuming, very time-consuming compared to the way you input data today.

[Assistant] There were only so many computers with only so much computer time. How did everybody who needed time on those computers get time to do their job to get the results that were needed?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, as I said, we had couriers hired, and they would bring these big boxes of cards over, and they have been dropped. Of course, they had a sequence number on them, and some people would have to put them back in sequence. Everything would be recompiled if you made a change. It wasn’t like if you made a change now like you do in a PC. You had to punch a card, recompile the program, and rerun it. So it was time-consuming, very time-consuming compared to the way you input data today.

[Assistant] There were only so many computers with only so much computer time. How did everybody who needed time on those computers get time to do their job to get the results that were needed?

[User] We had a meeting once or twice a week, and you had a form to say, “I need X number of hours to run a certain program," and you were scheduled, and twenty-four hours a day we ran the computers. Well, most of the time we ran them twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes we started not running them but two shifts later in the program. But we ran them twenty-four hours a day, and you could schedule on every computer but one. That was an earth resources computer, and that did not have programs. But you could load any program on any machine. That may not be exactly true, but for the most part, any machine could run any program. It was manually scheduled, everybody with their little block of time. Then it was put up on the bulletin board over in the control center, and you’d go find out when your time was, and you’d better show up, because if you were a no-show more than once or twice, you didn’t get any computer time anymore.

[Assistant] Did you ever get bumped?

[User] Yes, we would get bumped. Flight control could bump us any time they wanted to, if they decided they wanted to have sims [simulations] or if anybody wanted to go in and practice, they could bump us a little bit.

[Assistant] Where were all the computers housed?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We had a meeting once or twice a week, and you had a form to say, “I need X number of hours to run a certain program," and you were scheduled, and twenty-four hours a day we ran the computers. Well, most of the time we ran them twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes we started not running them but two shifts later in the program. But we ran them twenty-four hours a day, and you could schedule on every computer but one. That was an earth resources computer, and that did not have programs. But you could load any program on any machine. That may not be exactly true, but for the most part, any machine could run any program. It was manually scheduled, everybody with their little block of time. Then it was put up on the bulletin board over in the control center, and you’d go find out when your time was, and you’d better show up, because if you were a no-show more than once or twice, you didn’t get any computer time anymore.

[Assistant] Did you ever get bumped?

[User] Yes, we would get bumped. Flight control could bump us any time they wanted to, if they decided they wanted to have sims [simulations] or if anybody wanted to go in and practice, they could bump us a little bit.

[Assistant] Where were all the computers housed?

[User] They were in Building 30. All the flight controllers were in Building 30. All the flight support people were in Building 30, and all the mission planning and analysis people were in Building 30. Beautiful situation. That’s the way it should be, I think.

[Assistant] Clearly it worked.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I’m talking about when I was doing the costs.

[Assistant] Where did you go on from there?

[User] From there I applied for and got a section chief position for the control center software, so I was section chief for about three years. My division chief at that time said, “I need help over in simulation. I think I’ll send you over to simulation and let you be a section chief over there.”\n\n I said, “I don’t even know how to spell simulation,” because I had never worked there or anything.\n\n He said, “It doesn’t matter. We need you over there.”\n\n So I went over to Building 35, knowing this, and to a section that felt like they didn’t belong on site, I think. They didn’t even get [the Johnson Space Center] Space [News] Roundups in that building. Nobody had ever said we’re not getting them and nobody ever knew or anything. But I went over there and stayed over there and stirred up the pot and learned how to spell simulation before it was over. Had some great guys working over there, really did. They’re spread out through JSC now, and I’m sure are doing great jobs. But that was quite an experience to go there when I didn’t know anything. I told them. I said, “I don’t know a thing. You’ll have to teach me," and they did.

[Assistant] I’m sure it didn’t take you long to learn.

[User] Well, I never did learn it all. You don’t learn it all in simulation if you live there forever, but I did learn a lot and I think I helped a lot.\n\n From there I went to two source boards: the Control Center Source Board and the Simulation Source Board. I stayed there for almost a year for those two source boards.

[Assistant] Now, that was a different type of a job. Would you like to explain to us what your duties were as a source board member?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I never did learn it all. You don’t learn it all in simulation if you live there forever, but I did learn a lot and I think I helped a lot.\n\n From there I went to two source boards: the Control Center Source Board and the Simulation Source Board. I stayed there for almost a year for those two source boards.

[Assistant] Now, that was a different type of a job. Would you like to explain to us what your duties were as a source board member?

[User] I did most of the evaluating the cost proposals. That was fun and hard. That was probably one of the hardest jobs I had, in that all the people who bid would bid differently. You could tell them to come with a bid costing a certain way in the proposal, and they’d come in with their own costing. Everybody has a different definition of what a manager is, or what an assistant manager is, and they would cost them at different levels and everything. So to get all of that for all of the proposals on the same plane was a very difficult job, but fun.

[Assistant] And you made some order out of chaos at times.

[User] Well, you had to end up with them all on the same plane, so you had to change them to where they would all be the same so you could compare apples and apples.

[Assistant] And from there, did you move on to yet another position?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I did most of the evaluating the cost proposals. That was fun and hard. That was probably one of the hardest jobs I had, in that all the people who bid would bid differently. You could tell them to come with a bid costing a certain way in the proposal, and they’d come in with their own costing. Everybody has a different definition of what a manager is, or what an assistant manager is, and they would cost them at different levels and everything. So to get all of that for all of the proposals on the same plane was a very difficult job, but fun.

[Assistant] And you made some order out of chaos at times.

[User] Well, you had to end up with them all on the same plane, so you had to change them to where they would all be the same so you could compare apples and apples.

[Assistant] And from there, did you move on to yet another position?

[User] It was another section chief. I moved back into section chief back into the control center section chief area, and stayed there until that branch was abolished. Then I went into the ground software development environment, which was a fairly new environment. It was developing the tools for all of the Space Station software development, which had planned to do software development with tools instead of people and requirements. Basically it was building the software support environment. There we had just that little area. There were two of us doing that, and we had about a little over a million dollars a year to spend in that area. So that was interesting and challenging, because that was in the new era of computing and Internet and really getting automated to develop software rather than doing it manually, the way we had done it before. That was where I was when I retired.

[Assistant] Well, you can literally say that as far as computers were concerned, you had done it all.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, you had to end up with them all on the same plane, so you had to change them to where they would all be the same so you could compare apples and apples.

[Assistant] And from there, did you move on to yet another position?

[User] It was another section chief. I moved back into section chief back into the control center section chief area, and stayed there until that branch was abolished. Then I went into the ground software development environment, which was a fairly new environment. It was developing the tools for all of the Space Station software development, which had planned to do software development with tools instead of people and requirements. Basically it was building the software support environment. There we had just that little area. There were two of us doing that, and we had about a little over a million dollars a year to spend in that area. So that was interesting and challenging, because that was in the new era of computing and Internet and really getting automated to develop software rather than doing it manually, the way we had done it before. That was where I was when I retired.

[Assistant] Well, you can literally say that as far as computers were concerned, you had done it all.

[User] I had done it all, from a little Freidan calculator to something much smaller than the Freidan calculator doing more than the computers were when we were going to the Moon. But it was interesting.

[Assistant] Is there a time during that period of evaluation that you found to be the most challenging and rewarding at the same time, of having to turn theory and hopes into something that was reality and a success?