This is an oral history interview with Tom Barrow junior class of 1948, conducted by Maryland's summers on September the 15th of 1998. We are at Mr. Burroughs home here in Atlanta, Georgia. And the subject of our interview is Mr. barrels life than his experiences at Georgia Tech. It's very kind of you to come home from work and spend time with us today here at your lovely home. We're delighted to be here and looking forward to hearing your story. Thank you. Let's begin with you. 

When did where did you come about when and where? 

Well, flora lived in Pelham, Georgia, which is down between Albany and Thomas for and he had lived on a farm and then moved into town and married school teacher and I was born in Pelham. And your mama was that school teacher or the school teach? 

My family roots were in Georgia. Dad's family was from Athens and my grandfather went down to South Georgia. He was a veteran, I guess, of the Indian Wars. 

And they gave them land grants since we went down there to look after his grandfather's land and he stayed on and eventually became a Baptist minister and move into town. Died when my father was 15. And so he stayed there and live with his mother and a confirmed bachelor. He was in World War One and came back and was considered the town catch I guess. 

But when mother came to town, she was from keratin Georgia. Smith was her name and had gone to GSC. W was called in and going in and taking a teaching job. Soon as she came to town, the story was that everybody said, Well, here's Mr. Toms, glad we finally found him a wife. And sure enough, they did get married. I guess maybe she told about a year and stayed on. And he was in banking business and then I bought a farm. 

And mother always said that every time daddy got any money ahead that he had go buy a farm until he lost it all, need to go back to doing whatever he'd been doing before. 

Did he not have the original barrel farm then that your granddaddy and your great grand daddy had? 

No, it was actually done in Grady County. 

It's still there called board and K What was the name of the plantation? 

Grandfather had given that up when he got serious about being in the ministry here, three churches. 

And so it never really got passed onto your dad did there was a little farm, 100 acres right on the outskirts of poem that none of us have a little bit old, but it was, everybody knew it is Ridgway. 

And when daddy retired 60 years later, he moved back to Pelham and bought the forum adjacent to Ridgway and had it for the last 1015 years of his life is how are you really did want to be a farmer? 

He always did other things, gotten his way along the way, but he really was a man or the man of the soul. Always, it's been interesting to people. I'm kinda the outcast of the family because they went to tech. 

All of our people have been University of Georgia people and because of the roots and acids breach in Athens, and that's where the family was from. And my father went to school there and lived It's Chancellor was house. Dave Crenshaw, Barrow was my father's Oracle. And he lived there and went to school. And so it was always, you mentioned earlier how we felt about going to college. It was always assumed that my sister now we'll go to college. 

We didn't know how or when or how it would work out, but it was just assumed because our parents had been to college. You born in what year? 

In 2016. You your sister your sister when she older or younger? 

She was older. She's 3.5 years old, I guess she was born in 23 or thereabouts. Knew from the very beginning you were gonna go on to higher education. When there was really, we've talked about much, it just always assume there's gray go to college. 

But then when the tobacco blight hit him, I was about three. 

He got into the canning business, went to work for man who had had a canning plant in Pelham and he was then located in Jacksonville. And so we moved to Jacksonville, Florida. 

And then can within about a year or two and then they moved to Lakeland in the candy industry is unusual kind of an industry or it was in that time and because you were seasonal, but you had to operate year-round to justify the machinery and equipment. 

So we would spend from winter and spring in Florida. 

And then soon as school was out, we would move to Georgia and which spend the summer and early fall in Georgia. 

So always had Georgia roots in Georgia presence every year because we came up here for the canning season. Can citrus fruit in Florida and in Georgia. 

The main staple crop was per minute. The mentors were canned on a contract basis. 

They can do other things, but aminos were stable because they contracted with the forum or in other words, they actually play it with located first and wayside. 

And in Mano shallow, but that whole area of middle Georgia from Griffin and across to Haddock and gray and just north of Macon. It's pretty good from the implementers industrial grown there. 

But the thing that made it so desirable that canning is you would go to the farmers and get a contract with them. 

And he would agree to grow five acres or permanent rose and would agree on the price and he would sell all to the canon plant. 

So you weren't subject to the ups and downs of the market. 

They can peaches, but you can, can pan, couldn't canned peaches every year, a lot of years the cold weather would get featured. There wasn't a reliance on years. The price would be so high on features. Let you couldn't begin to afford to Cannes them. They will all go to the Freshman. Minos, stay pretty stable. 

So you didn't look contracted to price. The contract with the contract with the pharma. They agreed on the price. 

So everybody knew they could make an income from the farmer, knew what he was going get. And they grew the plants for him in the early spring and pull them out. And it was a showman crop, but it wasn't, and it was also a long-lasting crop. Peaches is very short crop. You've got to kn, 24 hours a day doing the peach season. I guess crop last maybe three or four months. The last right up under false, they continued. False kills women. Soon as the first frost, we would all pack up and go to Florida. You remember being a part of all that and go with the band is the oldest. You learn firsthand how these yeah. It was all very much hands-on business. He was I guess he was sort of a general manager and fruit bar in contract with the farmers. 

Wayside was a dirt road connected making an eighth inch and wayside was about a third of the way up there, had DO school, had no electricity and no running water. Did have a telegraph line that came through rainy, you simply could not traverse the road. Cars would be skidding off this red clay road, right and left. And I remember all that. 

Just stayed home when mother worked in the plant too, she sought a supervised the women and they decided, I guess the first year up there that I needed some business experience. And I had a kid Johnny and said John, it was my valet. 

Journey was about 11 or 12, you'll call it boy, that was from the wayside area and it was his duty to look after me every day. And they decided that it would be good for me to have something to do. 

So with the Dr. Pepper slogan 1024. That's the time that you're supposed to stop for refreshing. Refreshing. 

So every day at tend to enforce, I would pack a bucket full of ice and Coca Cola's and maybe some other drinks by I think it was just cool Cola's was where we were operating within enjoy would carry the bucket. It was too heavy for me. I was five years old. And so he would carry the bucket and I would make the change. You were businessman at five years, five years old. 

But that's the way you learn. 

And I continued to operate drink stands and commentaries in the plant until, I guess probably my second year of high school. Eventually got way ahead to lunch counters and made sandwiches and all this kind of thing. 

But that's amazing. Child labor laws out the window. I guess. So. You're learning. 

And what school did you count already went to elementary school? 

Well, the first year elementary school, he sent me back to my grandmother who still lived in Pelham and thought that would be a good start for us. 

Then after that, we went to school in gray until fall scheme grade Georgia, which was about 20 miles away. 

And then soon as false game, we will transfer to Lakeland Florida weather canning plant was then and that wasn't disruptive? 

No, not doing elementary schools, it became disruptive. 

And about the seventh grade, the reason it was so disruptive then there's the Georgia schools only had 11 years than Florida schools had 12. And so when you get to about the seventh grade, you began to get out of kilter. You'd have some courses in one school that wouldn't be offered a deal that that grade level. 

So what was the solution to that? 

So every year, Ms. Shaver, one of the mothers contemporaries and the plant, will take all the kids. I say all the kids are about a dozen of them. Florida and she would look after us and fetus and houses until frost and ferrets came down. I have. 

So you got a head start on them and she sent you up and just kept an eye on her? 

Well, she had her challenge is 12 to keep track of. 

I don't know for sure if she had about three or four children and then our two and then it was I guess to others, What's that? 

About eight maybe. Sounds like fun kind of effect. And then after a while that disappeared. I don't know why. 

And then for three years, I guess I went down early in, stayed with a friend and therefore knew the family or friend of mine. And we're just bored in somebody's home until it for month-and-a-half until my parents came down. You primarily get your high-school education in Florida then time it was down there. 

They had moved to the plant to mount a shallow or you open a new plant that they still had, the one that belongs to somebody else. Shaver was his name in wayside and then they move opened up a new plant in Monticello. 

And so we went back and forth to Monticello, which are lovely little town to know people and be in waste sides. Too small. There were no contemporaries but stable model. 

So it was nice town, you know, Monticello. I've been through it. 

I don t know it well, it had been pretty much unchanged for a 100 years and it hadn't changed much since then? 

Yes, then either. 

But I had a lot of friends and a lot of fun. And that was really spent most of my growing up Summers was in Monticello. We always worked in those days. You worked at everybody's like you had a happy life. 

So for Walsh, had good, great parents, worked in the plant, we worked in peaches and we worked in whatever work that was available. You came up through the Depression times, but not devastated by the department. Devastated. We never had much. 

We had more than most we always had a car and never remember being hungry or barefooted or anything like that. I'm sure sometimes if everybody's in the same boat, you don't know your child. And so many people have so much worse. 

The country was kinder for people in the depression than being in a city, because at least you could grow your own food and such is that not the case? 

Country folk shared? 

I'm sure that was true. I'm sure that was true. 

I don't remember that being cruised much in Lakeland as it was in a small town of Monticello on wayside, but I can't remember too much of deprivation for my family. I remember tell the store and it makes my kids cry when I tell it. Of the little gastrin boy who I don't know much about him. He lived across railroad tracks from the plant. 

So I knew the family and he had no father. I don't know what his mother had ever been married or not. 

But I remember one day in a two sisters, I think, and he showed up for school one day and he had a one of his sisters skirts pinned up the middle. Sure. It would be kind of like pants. And nobody knew it was pants. Somebody teased him and he went on crime. 

And you think does anyone know what they had been in? 

I knew the gastrin house that nothing just nothing. 

So it wasn't a choice, It was no common covered. 

But you can imagine tough times, the worst up. 

But nonetheless for you, it was a happy time growing up was that it was always happy time for me. Hardware. The planet always ran, you know, started early and ran late. And we're usually working on Saturday and sometimes on Sunday. 

But dad made a real effort to do something on Sunday. We did a lot of traveling. 

About traveling is we might go down to see an uncle and she bring goes in and what a haven or go to the beach and walk on the beach or something that it wasn't extensive traveling like people do now. 

But we will much more travel than most because of this journey that we made every year back-and-forth between masala and wayside or Lakeland I mean, in wayside or Lakeland in Monticello. 

And we would pack up and we knew what to do and what to take and feels kind of a kind of a fun life before anything. When did you make up your mind? 

You we're going to go to college for sure. You said? 

Yeah, but you had to make a decision that you were actually going to college. That's an interesting and that's another story. I guess You want me to tell that part of it. When I graduated high school in 44 and went into the Navy V12 program. The Navy the 12th for them was a program that was designed by the Navy to train younger officers. Pulled the invasion of Japan, we were beginning to look like we were going to win in Europe. We knew that the conquering of Japan and all those islands was gonna be a long slow process. And Nolan was planning for the atomic bomb. 

So they incorporated this program and they would take people that passed physical and mental test out of high school and send them away to college. 

And the original plan was that you would go to college for eight months and then you would go for much to meet shipments school and it turned a young age of 1920, you would be an ensign in the Navy on board ship somewhere? 

Well, I was pretty good student, I guess, and did took the middle test and did well enough on it. 

So you heard about it in high school. They offer. Okay. 

So you took it took it and I asked him and they sent me up to Jackson Bolter, take the physical and psychological tests and all the things, decide if I was qualified to be a naval officer and sign me up for this program. 

Then allowed me to finish high school with the understanding that shoes I finished high school, I would go into the program. And I don't know when I got my orders but they sent me to Emory was a Navy V12 program at Emory. Dean Ajax was our executive officer. It was actually associated with the inner ROTC at tech. 

And the captain that ran the navy program at Emory was subordinate to the captain or admiral who ran the program. Tech. Tech being a much larger programming, having many more people in it. 

But they had these little V2 programs at Marsha and Emory and wherever they could put shops and schools all over the country. Saved a lot of those little schools do because they couldn't get enough civilians, students. And suddenly we had hundreds of Navy students on campus living on campus, so it kept them going. 

Had you ever been to Atlanta before? 

True? 

There last weekend, back from Monticello all the time till here, so it will be locked on the weekend. 

Did you consider that a good move? 

Were you happy with the assignment? 

It was a great, great place to go? 

Or were you thinking about the war at that time? 

What what does somebody in the 12th grade? 

Grade. 12th grade? 

Yeah. You remember I mean, it wasn't an exciting thing, right? 

No. No. What? 

I'm trying to remember something that would help you kinda get a feel for it. We were so totally in war, was no ambivalence about it. The country was threatened, the world was threatened. People felt Audubon and new ones, but the window sides, everybody was on the same side. And so it was an admirable thing too. And there was this very strong patriotic feeling of, we've got to do this. And of course you were fed propaganda and it can only be propaganda. Let's go do our part for our country and let's all pitch in. And there was a lot of real feeling of unanimity of what we must all do together. 

And if you healthy and considered yourself brave and considered yourself loyal and honorable than thing you wanted to do was to get into the wall. 

Father had been in World War One and my grandfather had been in the civil law and my great grandfather had been in the Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War. It never occurred to me that me and all my cousins wouldn't go and they did. A lot of them were injured and some will kill, but everybody went. It was a family loyalty thing that you didn't my family didn't question. And so I was happy to go and I wouldn't particularly eager to go kill **** or anything like that. You probably didn't think that far ahead. 

I didn't think that far ahead, but I was certainly anxious to do my part and be part of the what was going on. 

The fact that they sent me to training school rather than into active service didn't bother me too much because I wanted to go to college anyhow. And I had heard enough to know that being an officer was better than being enlisted man. 

My dad had been an officer and I always thought that because I need to get a cup a year of college under my belt. Sounded great. Grace by law. That's where I met Virginia. At Emory. Yeah. 

Actually, I came to town and as parents did in those days, they said then when you get to Atlanta, be sure lookup cost because of lookout for you and you need to keep contact with your cousin Atlanta. 

So I do definitely call my cousin Charles Ross and said I'm in Atlanta and so we're going to get together. And there was a dance at Emory and I called him and sat down. I can get us tickets to the dance, but we'll know anybody. Can you get me a date? 

And he said, Yeah, I think I can work something out. 

So Charles got he got his date. He didn't even know Virginia, but he got his date to get a friend for me. It turned out to be Virginia. Yeah. Yes. In fade. Wonderful. How old were you? 

I guess I was 180. Worse. She was she was she was about 16. Oh, you were babies? 

She may have even been 15. I don't know. How did you fall in love right off the bat. I fell in love will not make more. Squeak a little bit. 

But I certainly was fascinated. That's a good beginning that she says that I said I don't remember that. She said Can I call you and see you again sometime and she said yes, that would be fun. You don't remember him skin? 

Not specifically, but I'm sure I did because I was fascinated. I thought she was marvelous. Did you call? 

Sure. Yeah. 

When we continued to date after that and we didn't eat a screws leaving each other. 

Well, she was in high-school still? 

Yeah. 

She was just, uh, I guess she was just as she was between a junior and senior year, which meant she wasn't normal fault and so on that she had not yet gone into our 11th grade. A child. Did that make her one of the pinks? 

She wasn't paying? 

Yeah, absolutely. It was one of the things I wanted to call our pink, but she she said she was pink. 

Well, the story that this navy man, Whoa, tell you one story that I always like to tell because it's kind of interesting. She said that this dancers, that the Egyptian wall roomed at Fox. 

And as you may remember, there's a big stairs that go up to the second floor and that's where the Grand Ballroom was. Short intermission. 

She went up there to the ladies room and chatting about all the dates and all these boys were down at the stairs. And when she came out of she must have looked. When she came out on the top of the steps, she looked down and saw this sea of guys and Navy uniform. Everybody who was in their uniform, she says, I'll never pick out my days. 

So much for first impression. And she said I made it easy because I found you found her. She stood out in the crowd. I'm sure she stood. I was looking for yeah. That's right. You were all in uniform. You were almost like about it. What should notify me? 

Long did you stay at Emory? 

I was at Emory a year. The war started running down and they extended the program. And they transferred part ofs to do part to Chapel Hill in part to Tech and I was in the group. They're sent attack. 

So that's how you got to do shoot deck. I was in part to do excuse me. 

You went to do said the wrong thing now what to do? 

So they kept extending the program because by then the war was over and over in Europe. And they could see that it was winding down. They said, Well, we don't need these guys in the Navy yet. Let's extend their program. 

So they sent us to do, and then we were there, I guess, for eight months. And by this time the war was over. 

In fact, it was over while I was still at Emory and VJ Day was in Emory, they extended the program because couldn't muster out all these millions of people at one time they had no. Were you studying what we're at Duke, what did they have? 

You know, setting engineering still. It was engineering. They had an engineering school. Okay. It wasn't it wasn't much of an engineering school, but they think it's pretty good. I can't hear you are at Duke. 

So when I got out of Duke, I wanted to transfer it back to Tech. 

Oh, I wonder why? 

Well, I'd always going to because the Georgia connection, if I wanted to go to a technician school, George Tech was where I wanted to go to Virginia, didn't have any influence. Sure. 

But did it at this time, Georgia Tech was very much disinclined to admit out-of-state students. They had all the in-state students could handle. And financially, they weren't paid as much. They were. For some reason it was a financial problem. 

We will in the GI Bill and they did they had better economically with the Georgia students and the out-of-state students. And that concerns you out of state school. And we took the stand that I was really a George and I spend all his time in Georgia. My family was from Georgia and we did all we could to get me in. And I guess we pulled strings. 

We saw people at the Capitol and we wrote letters and we saw people in the legislature and we tried our best through my family and through Virginia's family to get them to admit me and they did. And one of the things that would have been when? 

In 194646. 

So you aren't already completed your freshmen and your sophomore year? 

Well, except though a lot of freshmen courses that I didn't have. 

So when I came back to Tech, it can't begin to realize how mixed up tax was with all these veterans. Some of them it was just out of school or some of the men and 40s, I guess. 

And people from other schools and transferring in credit hours a quarter as a freshman recorder as a sophomore, a quarter as a junior, and then two quarters as a senior. 

I think that's where it or something like that because they considered you in a class based on what courses you've taken. And I hadn't had any drafting courses. 

So you had to catch up to catch up with that. And those were freshmen courses. 

So I was enrolled as a freshman, which did terrible things to iwi football tickets. 

You started for you lucky to get into stands at all from the ground up front because the school was very crowded. And know everything we hear was that it was just inundated with people. We'll finish to finish telling you interesting texture. I don't finish telling you this story. 

Is that after all of this, maybe pressure to get me and I never knew all the reasons that I got in, but I thought it'd be nice if I wrote to Dr. Brittain, who was President school. And in the letter I remember I ran across 11 that long ago. I said, I want to thank if any special consideration I might have been given to get me in tech. And he wrote me back up, Eric Church law and said, we did not give you any disabuse you was the word. I remember that. I don't think I've used it since they were not written. 

So disabuse you of any. 

Impression that you may have that you were given any special treatment you got in purely on your merits only, which was a left-handed compliment. 

Compliment my hands, and also avoid any misunderstanding if somebody were accused him of paying political any kind of special treatment, treatment, he was really right at the end of his presidency and he was a very old man at that time. 

So we'll talk, disabuse up too much. It could have been wonderful to read Lear. 

You don't remember the schedules? 

Well, they kind of got him out of there by 46 and family or came in. I'm not sure who wrote the letter names. 

Now, maybe it was family, maybe. Tom, if I may, Mr. Barrow, you're here in tech now. You've got yourself established. You quickly got through that freshmen. 

But Laura, I want to ask you, did they make you wear a red hat because you were taking a freshman class? 

No. None of the veterans had to wear Oh, they didn't help you do that. Okay. 

So can you imagine some 35-year-old guy that's been fighting in the Pacific where Iraq and Iran, they had to suspend it there for a while. 

You were on a seasoned professional, whatever, you'd gone off to be a Navy, but you were still just to call it. 

I don't know why they call you going to call you an officer yet because you never went to that status? 

No, I haven't finished. 

But you are competing with a lot of very definitely seasoned veterans. 

What was the academic environment of coming back? 

What was that like for you coming to the camp? 

I can't remember the being much difference, really. Everybody was serious about education. Did you find yourself challenged? 

Yeah, but not not difficult. I made good grades and was on the dean's list most of the time. 

The one thing about mine that was a little bit different maybe because I was very anxious to get out of school. You want to take every patch that told us that we couldn't get married until I got out of school. 

And it never occurred to us to challenge them on that, probably because we couldn't have afforded it anyway. Anyway, Virginia, I guess, was working but I don't think she could have supported us. And they had said, We want you to finish school first. 

And so we were, of course, been talking marriage and for a long time and I guess we got engaged while I was at tag. 

But you're only 20 years old? 

Yeah. 

So I guess that was 21 my senior year. I you're seeing here and it was only 19, I guess she was 20 when we got married. 

But that seem reasonable from there at the time was so your social life was built around Virginia? 

Yeah. Yeah. Not to dissipate and tech things. 

But not not, you know, I was in fraternity and dancers and I went down to Westley where she was on weekends when a current and football games after you gotta show. You participate in the dances, did you bring her to the big dances they have? 

Yeah. You know, I went to sum all of them. 

I remember going to some dancers when she was in Macon and couldn't come up and participate in some of the fraternity parties and this sort of thing, but only limited. 

I was off campus and had a girl and so I was not looking for anything in the way of female companionship. And it was working off. The heart is I want to start to say is it amazes people now, but I took 23 hours, one-quarter. Wow, Naomi was a senior and you know, you had to work pretty hard, but that's what you call brutal. It is kinda brutal. I didn't I never was caught. And you always had more to do and you could do. And so I worked off the hard because I figured it out how I could get out in December or 47. Had to even coach off one class but clean quorums that they had an arrangement if you could. 

It was if it was a non required course that you can take it in and took materials handling in two or three weeks between quarters and finished and got out and 47 shot. I took pretty brutal academic level. I wanted to do well and they do pretty well. I'll show it to you. It was it was something you had to get to and you just did it. Most people were working pretty hard. You know, there will be people. 

There were a few people playing, but most people are pretty serious about school and you see a lot of them. 

I would not want to help them of course, but a lot of people who lost five or six years of their life and they wanted to catch up, catch up, catch a lot of them. Pretty fair number. 

And I think that this is not often spoken out, but a lot of people that had never planned to go to college. And because of the GI Bill and because they had seen enough of the world are allies. 

There was a value technical education or any education that a lot of older guys that never would have gone to college with the advent of the GI Bill able to go back to school and get an education, they found themselves there. 

Then you will find that particularly among the classes of 4849 and a lot of guys that are from blue collar neighborhoods had never thought they'd go to school, college. I mean, did you feel that tech was a fair environment for you? 

I mean, you did well. Were you nurture? 

Did you have good professors? 

What was your take on that? 

Good professionals. 

But you weren't nurture. You weren't nurture. You made it if you could make it on your own. Any professor, sure, a lot of that tech, a lot of challenge. You make it if you can. And if you Kate didn't, maybe you ought to find another school. Yeah, shame on you. Yeah, I think it's a mistake. 

I think tech has never been nurturing enough and I'm glad they're doing more of it now than they used to. 

The phrase that I'm sure other people that you've interviewed said was just that you get out, you don't graduate. 

And when tech person sees another Tech Columbia say, Well, when did you get out? 

Yeah, it's it's almost like it was a boot camp for a jail or something that you got through. 

Were there any professors that stand out in your mind at all? 

Yeah, though there were a few one that stands out in my mind was Professor Holland. And it was interesting. He had been a professor in engineering school at Duke. And he came to talk about same time I did. And he taught the refrigeration and heating and air conditioning courses. And so I had him for a couple of courses and I like professor. He was a low keyed trove, quiet little mile man of God. There was a fellow in the ceramic engineering. 

I took Ceramic engineering isn't alternate that I remember somebody told me his name recently and he was sort of a legend over there. He was the head of the ceramic engineering department lane maybe. And I remember him as being an outstanding professional. Just from his manner. Your expression, we talked about Shari'a nomadic. Yeah. Yeah. What a great teacher he was. He certainly has a wonderful reputation as having been agreed to Bartle in physics. That was pretty outstanding. Lemke, you had the experience a lot of people didn't have of having been in to other units. Yeah. 

Because you were at and where you weren't too can then you came to tech, comparatively speaking, did you feel you are getting a quality education? 

Sure. Depending on what you're talking about to another story that I like to tell this because it's musing. 

Attack at the time would not accept any D's has transfers from other schools, only had one d from all the news consumer courses, and that was in English literature. And they said, Well, we're not going to give you credit for that. And I went over and argued with him. I said, Look, our D from English, English literature, from emerges English literature. It's probably about equivalent of a b. That tech. They didn't they didn't agree with that. 

But it was a two semester course at Emory because the immersion semester that made a satisfactory grade and d11 bargaining. 

This one thing I was telling you earlier to assist them about is you got to go there and talk to these people. I said, Well, how about me making a deal with you? 

And they said, All right, we'll make a deal. And I said You give me credit for one for from a transfer from the Emory. I take the third quarter. It was a three-quarter course. 

If I make good in it, then you'll give me credit for my D from him. And they said, Yeah, we'll do that. 

So I aced the course at Tech. There was no piece of cake. I don't worry about English that or to attack. It was a minor thing but it was a big deal, yes, or things like that. I found a big difference. Shortening the math and sciences at tackle harder than it had been at. Emory was a good school, but very limited facilities. 

The engineering school at that time was on the old Trinity College campus, which was the back of the West of the East Coast East Campus, they call them which is a girls school in NAD. Very lean facilities and many professors. And it was struggling to be an engineering school. I didn't much like the atmosphere, atmospheric. They were very non student friendly. I thought it was Gothic buildings. $4 million, Duke Garden, and the total recreational facilities for the students was a ping-pong table. It just really didn't isn't there for the student, wasn't there for the students. Emory was a very warm, friendly place. It was a little Methodist School at the time. And in a good place to go to school. It was not nearly the elitist school that it is now. 

Had a lot of Methodist and Methodist ministers children there and people that came there because they wanted to somewhat parochial small school atmosphere, but in a big city. And it was very much a wooded campus. 

So much more so than it is now. 

But put a friendly, pleasant place. Tech was a factory. That's what the other people referred to it as the factory room. Both Avenue and February trade school, how to assemble was a smokestack and the Western. And it lived up to it. And people will all dirty clothes. 

And we had a foundry and the machine shop and a woodworking shop and pattern-making and welding and all those courses you see that's been the biggest change tack since I was there. It was so much more of a hands-on called trade school, of course now a trade school. 

But the idea behind a lot of it was how could you teach people to make a piece of machinery? 

If you didn't know what the process is worth, if you didn't know what you had to do to turn it on lathe or put it through a welding process. And they taught you very much, I'm a hands-on in all the courses, not just mechanical engineering. Shove they actually went out and ran levels red line. The philosophy of it was to also to teach you to think so you could solve problems. 

And so you would have had to have experiences with all those things to think them through to understand the problem. 

Well, that was certainly true. 

But that was a sort of a different aspect from what I'm talking about. 

This was just that it taught you that if you are going to help somebody, does that an air conditioning system, you need to know how to compress your work. Did what you learn, serve you well? 

Sure didn't. Yeah. You remember your graduation? 

Yeah. Not too well, but see, I finished in 48 excuse me, December 47. And then graduation was not until June of 48. And so a lot of people didn't come back for it, did you? 

Yeah. I went back and went through the ceremony and went up to the Fox Theater where the Hilda folks come. Do you remember if they came? 

I don't believe it Did. I mentioned Virginia was there. She was there. That's good. What happened when you married by then we married in April. 

So you got married right after graduation and you measure the weight known graduate. The contract was met with Matt. 

Well, what did you do? 

What was the job market like? 

What was your job market was good. You know, they will know a lot of interviews and lots of places to go. And who did you decide to go with? 

Well, I had gotten interested in refrigeration. The idea of refrigeration, air conditioning was not a part of our of our world. And while few places and refrigeration was fairly common. 

And I had gotten into it through various reasons and things that I've read and I was interested in refrigeration. And I had been told that selling was a very good way to make lots of money. 

And I thought that I was pretty personable and get along with people, had enjoyed some positions of leadership in high-school. Little bit in college, not much, but mostly in high school. And so I thought I would like to be in sales, having something to do with air conditioning. That was the job that I took. I went to several interviews and maybe half a dozen, maybe eight or ten. Wasn't a very good job. Oh yeah. You have no problems. I get jobs. 

And how did you decide what companies you decide to go? 

Well, it went with a little one man operation. He ran a manufacturer's representative, which is what my business really is. 

I may have called it distributor ship, but we most often referred to as a manufacturer is representative. 

He had a crunch, had hoped that his office was in downtown Simpson Street, which is where the Centennial Park isn't now. I guess I liked his operation because it was small. I had always been associated through the father's company with small companies. And I thought someday I would like to have my own business. 

So that's where the idea came already. By that time, you already thought this might be what I would do. Yeah, you know, I thought that that would be great to feet wet here. Didn't learn this business and eventually have my own business. Did it pay you enough to support your wife? 

Out of $200 a month? 

It was closed. We didn't eat we didn't eat meat every day. You learned how to manage it. We were pretty lucky we got a little cottage on betrayals Avenue. It was actually built as a temporary house while they were building the house in front of it. And it had never had anything done to it. It did not have any walls which is a wall outlet, sir. Ceiling fixers will merge with the ball. Oh, dear. 

So we found it, I guess in the early part of 48. 

I don't remember when, but I moved in there and for several months I spent all my free time fixing it up. 

So I painted it and put it in wall outlets and wall switches and I bet it was a labor of love to watch and we eventually moved in there. 

But the deal that I made with Mr. whatever his name was, didn't come to MIT moment was he would rent-free easier so he couldn't go up on the rent and he wouldn't even talk about going on the rent if I did all the work. 

So I'll rent was thirty-five dollars a month. Imagine what I put. You know, it was a much better house when we left and we live there about three years. He left out. Yeah. 

So tour dollars a month. Got us. Got it. 

So I'm pretty good. Virginia. Save enough money to buy me a watch. You still have it? 

Yeah. That's the same. Why? 

All those years saved out of a bird egg money every month. Isn't that wonderful? 

Wonderful. 

So it's a pretty good life again, pretty good Watch. That's a really good one. 

So you went to work for this company, this little company, and you learned everything that man had to teach it? 

Well, the man worked there about a year. He was up very fast dealing kinda guy. And after about a year, he wanted to get into something bigger. And when you get into the contracting business. 

So he sold out to another man who was doing the same thing that he had been working somewhere else. And so this recalling Felix commerce. Yeah. 

So I worked for him for another six years, total of seven years and from 48 to 55, and then started my own business. 

So by 35 you were ready 1955. You were ready to start time Barrow? 

Yeah. 

I probably wasn't quite ready, but I had a little disagreement with him that made it she may end of the limb so to speak, had another fortunate break. My grandmother had died and had left. My sister and I. An orange grove was a little girl and it was sold and I had $3 thousand. Wow, which was enough money that I figured that I could get by for a while. And I guess by that time we had two children, maybe three. 

Well, let's talk about these children. Did they come along you got married 48. 

The first one, I guess was born in 5051. That was Ruth Rose. Elizabeth was our second. She was born 2.5 years later, which was in 52 or 53. And then Tommy was born 2.5 years later in 55. 

So if 55, you've got a lot of responsibilities here. I didn't know what worry about that. Yeah. And you confidence that a lot of confidence, yeah. 

So you started the company and it was not difficult first first location was desk space with a woman named Ruth who had desk space for manufacturers rep on Spring Street. Your tech about three blocks north on Spring Street north of the varsity, upstairs. Similar each spring, I believe, was addressed. 

Then she moved out to pause to Lee and after about a year and then I guess it was about a year old, total. 

Moved in some office space on tech would really just around the corner in the flagpole building, which was right across from Centennial Park on tech would follow that had a manufacturer representative finished their died. And we took over his officers and got one to the lines that he had. 

This was a year later and I brought in a partner falling Francis Doherty, little bit older, and he was also Tech graduate. And we continued the partnership for about seven years. 

So that worked out pretty good and we called it then barren, dirty. During that period of time. 

That your job was to find companies who produced heating this H Back equipment, heating and air conditioning equipment, and then resell it to mechanical contractors, not to the public contractors that we're selling houses, commercial industrial equipment. We're still doing the same thing. 

And we sell this to mechanical contractors who put mechanical systems in hospitals, office buildings, hotels. 

So rather than, rather than them dealing directly with the manufacturer, they come to you and you want to go find out what they need and what's specifications and whatever to take just a minute. The distribution of the major equipment like carry on York. They do such a large business that they're able to set up a factory office. 

Smaller firms doing, you know, say a $100 million a year in less, can afford to establish separate factory office at all because they depend on rep, but they need a local presence. And so they have an exclusive contract with somebody like us. And so it is sales. I thought you had it was sales, so you don't have to talk to both sides. You're the man in the middle. Time to the manufacturer will talk to the client. 

We have to do some selling to manufacturers to get them to agree that we're the best people to handle that product, right? 

But most of our cells just don't do the actual contractors. 

We also spent a lot time selling engineers because the people that are designing these systems, we want them to design the systems around the products that we sell. Not around I competitive products. We have a lot of touch. 

So this is a lot of layers to it then. 

Well, we had a lot to three, whatever. 

We have a lot of dealing with Tech graduates who are engineers, engineering, design, business, and also who are in the mechanical contract. You have your tech connection served you well oh, sure was a good place for you to go? 

Yeah. I don't know that it has gotten me a whole lot of business. 

I don't think that there are many people that give me business because they went to tack on our way to attack. 

It creates a common meeting ground sometimes that we talk about, but I don't think that's I think that's greatly oversold. At least it is in our industry. I was just more a matter of product and price and it is where I went to school. 

Who's got the best product for the best price? 

It I'm not sure how much the old-school ties make a difference. I guess it does some places. It hadn't in my experience in my business. You're very supportive of Georgia Tech though? 

Yeah. Very supportive of me. Great education. 

Why would you said had my connections at Tech helped me? 

No, no education has helped me tremendously. Alright. 

Well, and I was getting to the point that you are renowned for using co-op students from Georgia Tech, so you weren't around? 

Yeah. You can employ a lot of them. 

I've seen several articles they noted you is finding that was a good thing to have co-op students from Georgia Tech. Would you like some of the history on it? 

Yeah. 

What got you started on such a thing? 

Phoning flank player, who was a customer of mine, his office one day. And he said, Tom, I'm working with the young people at All Saints Episcopal Church. Then I got a young man and he's a part-time job. 

Can you somebody on a part-time basis? 

We heard from him, Dan Kurdish, who I talked to just the sheer he's from. He was that the President's dinner. 

His wife, he's doing something different now, but he was from Tampa, Florida and he came to work with us on a part-time basis. And we worked part-time students for several years. 

That's a little difficult because a lot of times they are having exams when you need them to figure a job. 

So we switched to more co-ops. After about three or four years. 

We started with two alternating and then we went to four and then eventually we had about, I guess it one time we may have had 15 to 20. One time. Yeah. 

It didn't work out as well as we had hoped it would as we tried to send co-ops, we've got other officers in Florida and Georgia and Tennessee and we tried to hire co-option send them to places like Jackson will in Orlando and Tampa at Albany to work for us. And a lot of times it didn't shoot them to go there. We had to pay the cost of housing. Just didn't work out too well. 

And they ended up with other co-op programs in Tampa and Orlando that we can hire from the local engineering schools. 

So we discontinued that and we probably work maybe 12 to 15 co-ops now. Some from Georgia Tech sell them something. You're looking for industrial engineers, mechanical engineers. Industrial mechanical is what we tell them we would like. Our business is not high-tech. It doesn't require deep understanding of calculus and these kind of things. You don't need racket sign. No. 

We liked for somebody to fake and they need to be proficient with arithmetic and math, and they need to be able to have some technical skills, but not, not high-tech. 

So we found that engineering Students, for most any discipline, workplace, we've had several different things, but most of them either ended up being industrial engineers, which they call something else. 

Now don't they have it? 

And we've had some industrial management people and systems engineering. I think that's true. That's changed. 

So how has your business changed? 

The 40 plus years that it's been? 

Have you seen change from one person to we work about a 150 people now. 

So it started out with just Tom have officers in Atlanta, Albany, Savannah, Jacksonville, Orlando. Temple, fort Mao's, Nashville. Admit how many is that? 999 our offices on his home office. Including the home office. 

How how has it changed? 

How is the business change besides expanding or you basically doing what you were doing? 

Some years ago, they were doing basically the same thing. 

We do a lot more stocking, lot more inventory than we used to do all of our own billing now instead of in the early days. 

Because shipping to handle the financing, the fact crude build a customer and then pay extra commission, work nails done on. We buy it from the factory and resell it. Customer because we care the account. Not much difference in the way we do business. It industry hadn't really changed too much. It's pretty much the equipments the same. There's a lot more. Ddc type controls, digital controlled, but the industry is not greatly changed. 

I think the thing that's changed that's been most dramatic to me is I started out as an engineer and spent most of my years as a salesman and now a lot of my time is spent as a manager. And I haven't had training for all those amount. A lot has been on the job training, which can be the best kind. Okay. With Mr. 

Barrow, there were some points and it will go back in time here, back to your high school days that you want it to make, pickup the stories that you have. I guess a couple of influences that were pretty important to me. Scouting was always a big part of my life, a lot of years, and eventually became an Eagle Scout. And this was important, very important. 

And I don't want to leave that out because if children, grandchildren see this, I think it's a tremendous training for people they remember someone describing scouting is the first time the boys really put away from parental influence in Cub Scouts. It's sort of a parent program. 

When he goes into Boy Scouts, he's thrown in with a bunch of other kids and some other leader, and he's no longer quite under the same parental care that he's had all the rest of his life. And that was important to me for a lot of years. Very positive experience they want. And then I was involved in athletics and high school and shared with sports. I didn't. 

I went out for track and then they discontinued tracking the war years and played football a couple of years. 

And E, two important to me, I think the they gave me a lot of competence and gave me a lot of feeling of being able to happy to compete, which I didn't achieve all that much, But to be the winner, to learn, definitely the winner but association with one of the problems with a one high school city. It oftentimes it's split into the blue collar north side and the white-collar south side. And a lot of times they don't mesh. Farewell. 

And a lot of times when I first got in high school, they were high school fraternities and they will review the belonged to the one on one side of the other clicky. And then they dissolve. 

And through sports you begin to get an appreciation for some people haven't had all the advantages you have or that will not be planning to go to college. And you get an appreciation for the character and what these people mean. And you got to get that somewhere. Yeah, athletics make a common denominator. That was good part of your life and in a service did that to the service, let you appreciate it. 

Didn't much care whether you were sure it was a little bit twisted because most of the people that I was in v2 with people that had made good scholastic records, and most of them were from the pretty well-to-do families that well-to-do, but middle class. It was probably not as leveling experience with athletics. 

And I think that some people find that they are, overall education is hampered if they've never been in a position where they had to work with people of different classes, ids, work classes, but comes that don't have the same background and value system that they have about material that's so it helps you, those things helped you in your business or your life, all your life, getting along with it. And I think one of the biggest factors in success, it's confidence. 

I think that people without governance carries such a tremendous burden of trying to overcome that lack of confidence. 

And I think everything that builds competence, whether you are an eagle scout or just attend to foot, or whether you made the team, who didn't make the team, or whether you. Graduated or didn't. It makes a world of difference in your confidence level. One more texture in LTE about with children. Because it's so important I think to the tech attitude and why so many tech people are successful. 

They've got the work ethic and they've been taught how to find answers, but they also have a degree of confidence. We were sitting around a table one day talking with the couple. That was a Tech graduate from Augusta. 

And he was telling about having I think he had five children and quit his job because of a disagreement with his boss in Virginia was just wide-eyed and said, weren't you? 

Hi in the world did you think of that you will feed those five children with no job? 

He said, Well, you know, I had a tech degree and I said sure, you know. 

And I remember the feeling I had at the moment while I don't understand what question you might ask the question. I have never known tech people that were hungry. Maybe I'm sure there's all out there. It's really almost a guarantee that the guarantee of at least middle-class life. You have to really try to goof up. You really got to work at it. 

I mean, you could drink enough whiskey to yeah, to drink your life, but pretty much you've got the equipment to do well. 

And he and I were telling trying to tell his wife and Junior said, you know, we feel like that when a tech background and we ran a filling station, we can be successful at it. And I mentioned this because I want to pass this on to the tech. Whatever you are putting together. 

Is it I think that that's one of the greatest things that a good school tech specifically gives people is a combination of work ethic and a confidence that I know if I work, I can make it. No question. It's a big gift, isn't it? 

It is big. You'd ask about my family. 

And I guess one of the things that sometimes I almost feel guilty about, all three of my kids always assure me that I have no feeling of guilt, but I worked pretty hard building the business. We were lots of Saturdays and lots of nights. 

And it was always difficult and I think it is for a lot of people running a business to try to manage being a good father and doing what I want to do and feel a need to do with the business, giving them time. I never had a lot of idle time for my kids. They say that's alright and I was around when it counted. The idea that me and my boy sitting on the river fishing for four hours on a Saturday afternoon. Just didn't happen. We did a lot of things, but part of that, Mr. 

Barrow, you didn't sit around the river with your dad either? 

We're doing things with my dad, took me on trips with him and we traveled with him and if he was going out to buy peaches, he had taken me with him and we would talk in the car. 

But I guess that I am an activist temperament to just sit lateral and let things happen. Didn't work, Why didn't fit with my personality? 

I guess it doesn't. 

I guess maybe they've inherited it from me, which is a good thing, which is a good thing that they told me about roots as Ruth did. 

Well, ruth is the oldest and she works with us now. She left school and got married at a young age. 

The marriage did not work, but she grew and ways to verify and daughter who's now in Wyoming working with your business? 

No, she's not. She's guess she's working in a restaurant or a daycare center. She graduated from Presbyterian College, but two years ago when it rained, daughter, that's Anna. Ruth started with us doing just the most menial filing duties in the office. And actually terrorism, irresponsible position with the company. She's an officer and knows as much about the running and the operation. 

Probably is anybody there in more than I do, has the respect of all of our fellow employees and is a very hard working person that has a great insights into how the business is ruined and what we do. The middle daughter, Elizabeth, is never worked in the company. She always said, well, no, she did work in it. 

She worked in at several times during her growing up years, but she never wanted to make a career out of it. 

She said she wanted things that were more outdoorsy and it was too much sitting at a desk to shoot her. She was very artsy and grew up as a great lover of horses. Unfortunately, we couldn't persuade her to finish college at the time she should have finished. She decided instead to continue with the art and with horses. I was concerned because I didn't see how she could do very well financially with it. 

She got married and when that didn't work out and she found herself a young mother with two small children. No skills. She said, you know, maybe I do need an education. And so we have to go back and finish school. And she went on and got a graduate degree in psychology, doing very well. 

Now she's working with an industrial psychologist in Austin, Texas and they work with large companies to try to help improve the management people in how they manage the business they matches to their own drummer at their own time? 

Yeah. A long time. A lot of heartache. 

What two grandchildren now, which to her that she has a son and Mary Elizabeth in their 129, I guess, right? 

Yeah. And they are in Austin with her, of course. 

The son, tommy, worked with us off and on during his growing up years, but in his senior year at love it, he fell and I use the word spelled, very charismatic drama teacher. And he decided he would like to go in the theater. 

And he went to F issue and decided pretty soon that since he couldn't sing and dance, that technical theater would be the thing that he would do. 

He transferred SMU and got his undergraduate degree and then went back to f issue and got graduate degree doing lighting and stage design and that sort of thing. Did that for several years. Got married and wanted to start his family. And he said, You know, this lifestyle is just to nomadic for me. And he heard that we will open an office in pay up. When he said if you'll let me do that. I think I'd like to come back to work for you. 

Part of the thing I think was that he wanted to work for me where he wouldn't be working directly on to me. I guess. One man started business, you use auto show, you couldn't even be working in my shadow. He wanted to make it on his own his own life. He ran that office in Tampa for ten years and did very well. 

Came back to Atlanta about six years ago when people began to say, tell us about your plan of succession. Always explain. 

Lander would then get this very serious and far away look and said Yes, but suppose something happens. 

And I guess they were trying to tell me that if you die, what then what happens to the rest of us? 

So I decided it was time to name of succession. He came back and worked as vice president and sales manager up until June of this year. And then we made impressed. And I'm the chairman of the board. Tell me about the children. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. To each other. He has a daughter, Alice and her son, Daniel know. 

So yeah. I'll be pretty close to 1511. Okay. 

So 1411, You got a lot of cultivating to do here for Georgia Tech. You've got all kinds of prospects, their touch. I don't really know what serious about it and then follows Tech, athletics. Some Alice might be interested, I don't know. 

I don't think Asia and Mary Elizabeth would either one particularly interested in coming to tech? 

Well, you never know unless you try to navigate into looking back. And this is a question I frequently ask people. Looking back at the time too. 

The choices, the times you got to make choices in your life, decisions you make, would you change anything? 

I'm sure that a lot on that would change if I thought about IT. Staff at the fake things would have gone into business for yourself? 

Oh, yeah. You still would have married Virginia? 

We just know what it meant to be. By enlarge. It's been a pretty lucky life, has it? 

Oh, I've been very blessed. Are those blessings back to the community. 

So tell me about your community. 

Well, my church has always been important to me. We have Presbyterians. 

I grew up in the Baptist Church and when I'm married, and I could see that there was a much better chance of me becoming a Presbyterian and Virginia becoming a Baptist. And so we've been in the Presbyterian Church and been in the same church for, I guess 48 years or so. Trinity presbyterian, which is in our neighborhood here. And that has come most of my community involvement, some tech involvement. 

The north side Shepherd Center that you mentioned earlier when we were off cameras, institution works with elderly people in Midtown in downtown Erica was started about 20 years ago. 

But it's just on edge at the Tech campus on 10th Street. 

And it shipped, it provides improved quality of life for elderly people in their neighborhood and they need a lot of help. 

And I helped raise money and keep width as my church's representative because it's something that Trinity has supported over the years. We're pretty excited at my company now because we have agreed to build a habitat house next year. I know buddy.