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>> Right. This is a living history interview with Frank Dench at class of one nine hundred seventy one conducted by Marilyn summers on April the fourteenth the year two thousand and four we are at his office our findings GA and the subject of the interview today his life in general experience with the Georgia Tech Mr dancers he said I may call you Frank.

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And I will welcome thank you for letting us come and be with you today we're looking forward to hearing your story. So the begetting Where were you born where was I born. I was born in a small village really in in Hungary and what with the name they are the village was rubble to look for them how they were there and how they were thought yeah mouthfull rubble took over and it's so located on the river Robbo Arabia so translated it means a village on a Rob a little of that rice a figure and what were your parents doing there.

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Well my parents of course were made as to that country. The family had been in that village in that area. Records in the churches with births whether these deaths went back to the fourteen hundreds. They really were you know the family had been in that area for all that time.

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What was your father's occupation. My father was an electrician his family. My grandfather on my father's side were the railroads he was a conductor on a railroad and I'm a mother side they were farmers. I had fairly substantial holdings Even though was behind the Iron Curtain there was a section of Hungary that didn't get collectivize So people still own.

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Their own farms and they didn't collectivize unless they you know really got very prosperous so my grandfather my mother's side and that farmer still in the family in the structure itself it dates back to the fifteen sixteen hundreds of miles and structures added out you know more rooms and barns it's now we're talking and take you back a lot of real history not real years that we consider history here in this country in a maze and that there was always interesting to me in the line of work I got into when.

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History got important historical structures and what you are you're born I was born in one thousand nine hundred eight made of this Cinco de My it was they say here so. And where they affected by World War two way. Well yes they were my father was in the hunt Gary an Air Force.

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He was a he was a navigator. Not a pilot and he was on a Russian front so was a tough go. At the in that war. He of course was captured and then turned in a prisoner of war camp in Russia. He had the misfortune of being on a German base near the end where they had some of the new jet station that So you know everybody was wanting to learn about that technology so he.

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He actually didn't get home after the war until some time in forty seven forty seven. I didn't know how many brothers and sisters did you have or you're part of a large yours. I have three. Well it was four boys and you were others and all older than you younger I was younger and I mean oldest You were the all this one.

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So your father and mother were just began to establish their families after the horror of the war. Get themselves put together your father became an electrician. Do you have to go to school for that there is something he learned in the military. It's a trade. So he was going to try and I said type a program in and then you know you get to be journeymen in the master in there and I just like to hear correctly.

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And what your mother occupied other than as housewife mother she might just so you can say that out the wire another way it was she you know she was at home and as I said my grandfather did have a farm. So she stays and she was there and they worked the farm of course with the war effort.

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The food was important. So anybody that was in the in the farming realm of things that would I had an uncle or her oldest brother that wound up being able to stay out of military service because they also needed you know the skills to sew is a pretty full operation.

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You know running out there so you know that that was. That was a part of the history that they talk often about or did talk often about and you know the suffering that went on is a war dragged on and in the end of course at the end of the war as Europe that divided up and and we wound up on the wrong side of what Churchill want to call in the Iron Curtain.

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Things got even tougher and they was it was a case of after the war to Russians of course were interested in helping their population as much as possible and things were pretty restrictive in the food in short supply. So it was it was tough. So they have and you came along and your brothers subsequently after you are boys born there or your parents really knew the meaning of a work ethic didn't they.

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They apply did out and it got to you know it was a community effort family effort. My grandfather had a farm so there was always produce my father had a skill and then he brought in some hard cash and my mother did work differ. And different jobs different places just to you know help out and they all work the farm so it was amazing.

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It was you know daylight the sunset type of operation to make ends meet. What are your memories of that are the earliest Let's say your earliest memories there. Well I recall a number of things I can still recall as a young child the courtyard. Of my grandfather's farm and a courtyard of my father's family and their property and both my grandmothers not all remember my grandfather my father's side he died in a in a railroad accident before I was born died fairly My father comes from a family.

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I say fairly young not too young. Because my father comes from a family of thirteen. So he was there long enough to factor that long. All right. Yeah. But they were one after the other so her. And it's an interesting silver you were raised really in a very large family.

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Yes because you had many many cousins and aunts and I wrote a thing and I can remember and I can remember my grandmother's when they were still alive telling me about my mother being busy and what I needed changing trooping off you know with a diaper when my grandmother makes me sick.

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So let's go and are and. You know they are things were tight as they were in the lot of money around and this time of year when it started getting warm to shoes got put up and made there we would barefooted and it was it was summer the way everybody did to me when I got.

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Despite I thought hardships was the happy growing up time for you. Yes You know I don't recall thinking that you know I'm miserable or or ever being in a position where you know you feel like you're you don't have adequate shelter food or anything else and I can remember boyhood memories of you know playing different games and.

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Games that we here in this country don't play like we do we made ourselves. Well one that I guess they did here also was hoops off a barrel. You know just to have all this I can get all of that right there. So that we had a game you know we didn't have baseball there but the soccer was a sport so I always had pigs bladders that we use is really right as as as your boxes are ball and they were in a pig killings in the ember they were always the bladders a got blown up and that was a co-op or what they called a car which was which was heating it was a central heating just a massive ceramic type furnace where you just put wood in heat up the mass and then it really is our night.

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So would you rather I was about to have a dry out and come springtime when we'd have them but we usually warm up for them. And then again they. I don't know if it's similar to what you had here called mumbly peg it's just a it's just a lot of in stick stick.

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Carved on the points on either end and then he's a stick to hit the pointed end and it kind of rolls up and then you hit it like a baseball and that's something you play between a group to see you guys are yeah go in or you'd have races and everybody in the sticks trying to get to you know and identify the imports nothing where they were going eyes but everybody was always busy when I don't write something to and I can remember a seal stealing cherries and I was back.

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Well been back visiting on a regular basis and there are still people that risk getting into their cherry trees and the cherries taste out and get sick because we ate because they were green. Why would you read Green cherries because they were there because if they're here just one and then you know harvest time you can remember and of course most of the farming it was done was done by hand and with.

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And very little mechanized equipment around back then. Except for during harvest time when they'd bring in some of the big not necessarily combine but just a combine type of machine for a helper to actually separate the grain from the chaff. And I can smell remember smelling diesel the first first time you know you smell of these smoke because that was something that was a part of was never part of everyday life.

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Now my father was very good at soccer and he played in the kind of the semi-pro league in the region of hungry that we that we grew up in and I can remember my mother tossing us into the back of the big flat bed with him when they were going off to play a different place.

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So you could hearts. So we could watch and we'd be out of her hair for free for a few hours and then you know you know they're yours don't let So you know and that's a pretty happy memory sure. And you going down the river for swimming as I learned to swim out my uncle who's still alive and I hold it against him but he laughs.

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I remember learning to swim just. Three like a freight to go into the deep water just pick me up through the end and stayed in the water kept on pushing me out into the deep water and you know you're all right. Yeah. That we're worried about injuring your psyche you already been down there just the way things that are common sense raised you.

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And then you know school I remember a lot of starting in school. There was a little different than here much more intense much more focused the expectation was you would do what expectation was high that you would do well and I remember an incident must have been second grade.

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Of having to write something that had to be written in ink and making a mistake and then have to read this thing all the relatives there for. Or a circus made a mistake. So you know it had better start all over Start all over didn't have the paper to start all over again and I can remember punishments.

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You know corporal punishment even and here too you know did did happen you know if you messed up somebody's house you accountable. Yes and if you got out of a live in in school. You got it from a teacher a note when I when you got it. I know it wasn't considered abuse.

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Now I don't I don't think I was abused it was common sense to bring you up the way. It's an interesting thing when you compare it to the way. Children are being raised for them. You're right it is and you did I know a lot of choices. You know what you were supposed to do right and now of course I only went through third grade because we did leave in one thousand nine hundred sixty one year and resolution.

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My father little hotheaded Unfortunately he got tangled up in that revolution and and some assaults on police stations were so He will they die and he was politically involved or just involved as I just it all just involved as I guess you call rebel. This is involved as well as a foot so it was a bit of a firebrand Yeah and.

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You know when the Russians came back in we left and went right across the river because our and I never did finish that river is the border between one hundred Austria and Haitian I lived in was I think or that kind of stuck out in Austria was on one side of that river and about five kilometers from where our village is the other way going south was Yugoslavia.

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So we know you are very very very western end of home. So it was just a ride across the river to get in Austria and I can remember being woken up in the middle of the night. We had gone to bed with full the clothes because the expectation was that we might have to leave and and being on the wagons and rumbling across the bridge to get in Austria with you know of course the rumors that flew in my young mind you know we see tanks right behind us but the issue they were you know ten kilometers away or whatever and people packing up and leaving especially the ones that had gotten themselves involved in the uprising.

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Pretty complicated for your parents to take four or four of us revolves around had four little boys to safety to worry about their earthly possessions and their leaving home star that had been there a lot of it right now far beyond what anybody can remember I was the oldest I was you know eight and a half.

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And my youngest brother is old and he was at the time he was three little over three. So he had probably had no memory of it or not but the rest have to remember with going on that. Yeah you were aware that it was a crisis situation anything you did and you were going to behave and I was fully aware of my mother my father arguing and you know my mother telling him to get family responsibilities out of that mess and he didn't and he didn't and I you know I can remember being in Austria escaping to what you didn't even know that was that are known to west and that was now the plot of the expectation was that you know you get across the border and the Russians would come back and maybe some kind of forgiveness or whatnot and folks go back home and a lot of people did go back.

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Unfortunately there was some folks that went back that wound up disappearing. And you know there was communication you are likely dad. There's communications back and forth across the border. And you know both both sides of the family sent the message to my father. But it not come back so they were keeping alert to the fact he was the right person and then what was the reception and Austria.

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Were they willing say OK yeah they were very open to you coming. They were and you know later on in the studying history. You know I learned that the Americans also had America had a role in that in working with the Austrians to accept those refugees because they're going to wind up taking them off their hands to a large extent.

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So refugees going into camps going where in the camps. We went into a camp outside of Grotz which was not too far from where our village was. But then by the parents to get processed to come to the U.S. and there's an interesting story behind that because both of my grandmothers both of my father's side of my mother's side word in the US back in the early part of one thousand nine hundred six were really you know how did that come about.

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Well they came out and there was a almost like a work program where there is a lot of folks that were moving back and forth. Both of them worked in the Bethlehem Steel area in Pennsylvania or me and I had and they had come back to Hungary actually very they came out and you know the family would get the money together for a ticket and they would work most of them worked as a nannies housekeepers those kinds of things for some of the industrialists of managers in the steel plants and and usually got that connection from family members that had come out back in the eighty nine hundred really I mean really.

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Right. Immigration and then would work. You know pay back assembly for the ticket. Plus save money and then go back home you know fairly wealthy women. My grandmother on my mother's side wound up buying quite a bit of land and then having her pick of who she wanted to marry in Hungary.

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Now that's got her South right. Very progressive woman. So the concept of going to America was not our knowing it was it was something I thought had been before not did your grandmothers. Both escape as refugees when you know that they didn't think that they stayed there and sent the message you know go to America.

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OK because I'm a father side. So they weren't held accountable. No I was going on a my father's side my grandmother came up place. Once and right after World War one. And it came out during a major depression in the army in the thirty's. She was crying in the adventure after she'd already been married and didn't know when she came but she was pregnant.

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And so she came to this country that around back. Well she came to this country and my father's oldest brother was Lauren hare. Interesting. Born here. This was back in the twenty's. Right right. And what was interesting is just before World War two during the Depression. They got money together to send him over here to do the work and send money back home routine and he basically got trapped here because of World War two.

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And he never did get back home but he was an American citizen of course it left. So there was a good contact for the family and you know they got reconnected after World War two And he. He sponsored us. That was wonderful. So you know my grandmother on my father's side said you know remember your brothers there and it was interesting because we arrived.

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Well go back to being in Grafton in Austria and actually going through the process. Xander is when the U.S. Open. You know they were going to accept so many folks and it helps to have someone here to have somebody here tap dancer so you know I was able to say that they were.

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We have had the country. Do you live in New Jersey and New Jersey the New Brunswick area New Jersey has a big Gary community had a big game. So you had a destination. When you left to go. Well when we left it was we were transported across Germany and came out of the northern German ports out of the Baltic Sea And I remember coming over just to see how well you know Dog This is December was a rough winter and I was old enough to where I was diving the hold with my father my brothers were young enough to where they were the women in the Open up above decks with the women's it was a long journey.

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It was and there was a major storm because it took us a little longer than normal to get here and we lay in the New York January one thousand nine hundred sixty seven literally the first generation of Jack a new light from the dysentery and P.B.S. has had specials where now they showed the story of the game revolution and I actually got my mother and my brothers coming off.

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How wonderful. Now you were eleven years old by this time that you know I was just fifteen I was born in forty eight. You were nine yourself assigned the nine years they have almost nine. Yeah. So you're old enough to know what's going on all the share price and I know you were out of school for a while.

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Yes So that would have destructed your school life. But what I found out when we got here is when we did get in the school I was probably a year ahead of the focus of what everybody else was doing more than a year ahead of the mathematics you know.

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You could apply and what was the language situation like why it was a problem. Everybody spoke and Gary and nodding I didn't speak a word of English but we had a special to do you know as a crash. Forced to learn English. There has been you had never met your uncle you know because he had never been back down.

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So you were coming to a strange country with a strange family. Not knowing anybody. What does that feel like well there are I think it was more. I think it was more wonderment and all over you know coming into the harbor there in New York and seeing the skyscrapers and you know the drive a different world.

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You were kind of morning it was still dark and all the lights. You could just see all the cars on the bridges and I was just totally overwhelmed. I must say I'm going to a different planet event I mean when you think about it is so far what you were used and I was just glad to be with my family because what was happening along the way there after the war it was a lot of families that had lost so many.

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Children that there was two or three occasions where folks were at some of the train stations as we were being transported. And were looking to adopt sons they would tell them had lost it because they had lost the children had no airs and like and like a one time I can remember there was a man who wanted to adopt me you know and they paid.

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I mean they would pay we're going to have to adopt think that your parents were attached to you know I guess. So you know it was great to be still together and it was it was nice because we hadn't actually had a chance to communicate with my uncle.

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But I just died grandparents had written in the meantime you know that we would be coming for them to be looking for us and the processing center was no longer a real asylum and at that time. Ellis Island was already shut down so we were processed and for Dick's.

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And my uncle's wife who was also Gary and from a different part of Mary was looking for the family name and she found us at Fort Dix. So she found you know. So we we basically were only in Fort Dix for a day and then we were with them so I said she could attest that she knew who you were and give credit that you belong there.

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You are not like them and she took you back home into the family. My uncle was a tailor and he did a lot of tailoring work for a number industrialists in that area. Now there's six of you though right now and there's then you're going to take on six people.

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Well he had a four story house in New Jersey for all we New Jersey is where he is located. He is tailor shop in the basement. I mean he's been on the first floor level. OK And it is a living quarters where the second floor level and then he had it was like a third floor and I kind of an attic loft area so that was further cleaned it out you know it was cramped.

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But he also got a job for my father with a man that you probably heard of Regina vacuum cleaner the man that owned that business was one of his clients. So I can't who you know help than right. If I got a job that he was comfortable with.

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Yeah you know electrical work in the motors and things like that and the order of the day was to get you guys into school with no ingress no English but you know there's nothing else spoken you learn that kids do and you probably learn much faster than your parents said yes my mother still has a very heavy you know used to Europeanize children have the capacity to gather language and that was that time we for you.

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It was a good thing you could do that you probably within three months. Pretty well knew your way around. I did by the end of that school year you were fine. You know we were able to. We were able to navigate. Now my parents want to go on.

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You know nights. And you have a you're not being an interpreter for them in many situations. Yeah the interpreter. Does this consult with the letter that you were reading and you were answered all their stuff in the display and about Gary and what it isn't and you know help them out to get the good things along.

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It's a role I played myself so I really I think for you. You become very important very young when you're the only one who knows what's going on and you don't really think about it you know I mean I. I've never really thought about it and then I'm going to scope was OK you are knowledgeable enough to make your well and I had started into that I think I was maybe a year and a half ahead of my fellow classmates for the math side to the point where it was a lot of times that you know we had to take some time out of regular class time to be tutoring English and when the math side came up the teacher would really you know excuse me when they were doing the case we were doing and had a lady that bilingual that came in and and it was me and my brother and we were all of the same elementary school was there were school.

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Yeah. And we you know started learning English and it was tough. You know people said Gary is hard to learn English in my mind is was much higher much harder to be exceptions. So many words that are pronounced that way. I don't mean that I have my own meanings.

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I can imagine how you started in my grave with that five or thirty third grade. OK great. And he stayed in that public school system in New Jersey for how long. I graduated from all the way through elemental way through high school and high school rowing New Jersey right around when you're just so and the family it was that hungering community there so they'd not really not know that there were hungary and families around so you guys just keep traditional isn't it.

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Community per se. But we went to a Catholic church that was you know when. I don't really Gary. But it was sure I had it was in the year and we live right downtown and we live with them for maybe the first three months. My father got on a lease they know they don't any money and moved almost across the street and you know again into an apartment and by that time.

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Some of the other family like my mother's side there are three sisters and all their families left and settled all in the same area so that they did they did the European thing they wound up pooling their resources helping us are helping each other. I bought a three story.

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Sadly residence that was actually three different flats with three different apartments and moved into that pool their money and bought it and moved into that and it was the system that worked right and then they would save their money and as there was enough each would be able to go out and buy their own home and then the bench really you know moved out of that so that move into a move in the smaller one family residential structure that was always upward mobility because of it right.

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Helping everybody and everybody worked where along the line. Did you begin to realize you're probably going to go on to higher education. But I don't think you were raised to think about no no no that's not it wasn't a tradition in Europe. In Europe. Usually you with through elementary school.

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And then you went on the high school. If you showed the talent. And they usually identified that early in elementary school and I always loved to read and loved math and sciences so you know there there was hope that I would be going out at least a high school because after six years of education.

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Most folks wound up into an apprentice program or they went away to a world where they. Went into agricultural right technical education and then you know going out of college. It was unheard of for basically we we were you know as you call a peasant stock. I mean farmers.

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So you know when we came. The lady that taught us English. You know always said encouraged us to read and her and it's funny now but at that time it was one of the primary learning tools was comic books. Sure I think a lot of the right kind of had us reading comic books if you wanted to that was right you know it was it was so good it was colorful pictures and and you got the words and you know she would question the storyline and those kinds of things or learn a vocabulary and learn it.

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So you very much story and you know what you were you what you were reading and and I never lost never lost the love of reading. So I was always reading and loved to read a lot of science type things science fiction and to be honest with you.

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I wanted to fly. You were thinking about want to be a pilot which would be very much. So somebody not timeline to do and then in high school I had a physics teacher and we all have one of those kind of a something where a mentor a person that that sees something in you and encourages and I love physics I love the sciences and math or my English teacher kind of said one of the last reports I wrote he says you know where you plan to go to school.

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This is why the next at the Georgia Tech. He's as good neck as I give you be at this point. Let's you know go to liberal arts school. He was trying to do that. So how do I just talk. How did Dr Martin Well going back to Mr Busey that was there's I mean my thanks to.

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The. He was a man that worked in industry and when he was teaching me he must have been in his the early sixty's. He had been very successful as a scientist in the business world. Had his Ph the doctorate and wanted to give back. So he with into teaching high school physics and he incurs a lot of us you know he says you know your this talent don't don't stop you know don't think that's wonderful.

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They're going to work at my Ford Motor Company or someplace and and he's the one who kind of encouraged number of us you know to continue because my parents. They were not in a position where they could afford to send me to college. So he's he and some counselors at the school are the ones that help me out kind of put a package together or I could go on the school.

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Now a package of what scholarships. Some scholarships who had back at that time you also you know had. The national student a sense alone. You had a number of different things I can do so we're talking about the end of the sixty's here what sixty six sixty six.

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I graduated in June of sixty six and by that time he had already heard about Georgia Tech. Well I had long discussions with him you know and what he would i wanted to fly. Now he says well that's fine. You know you can get a pilot's license any time if you didn't see that as your primary not like you know and then he said you know what's need to do is get your education.

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And he says you know. Have you thought of their own space. And you know get you an engineering degree because then you have that use it any time because with flying that's going to be you know how do I make a living as a clean never know what's going to happen and you know if you're not going to you know you almost need to go on a military.

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Or you can get trained there in this and what not. He says the don't do that. You know go this route and then do that. So he respected former officer listen. And he's the one that really directed me towards aerospace engineering and that's where Georgia Tech came in the kitchen and I would take came in the picture and you know he and the counselors help me fill out applications there might be Georgia Tech.

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Arizona and Chicago on the circle versus. Illinois Chicago on the circle that had aerospace programs. There was space programs and how I wanted to take this kind of interesting because needless to say you send a draft occasions and wait and wait and then you get word back to your Except they didn't send in your check.

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Now what do I get that I'm good hard fifty or two hundred dollars and you know what the check for Georgia Tech was not much twenty five dollars which put it right up at the top level right where I go I had I had I had say that you could manage that application.

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I had I had been running a paper back then it just it was a good deal. So the deal and at that time and still Georgia Tech had high reputation. So even up in New Jersey people had heard of it and said well I have to be a good school and I sat down with them and they went through the numbers and you think about taxis were a lot a lot less than anyplace else even for out of staters I mean it was more expensive than for in-state years but even at that it was a good deal.

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Yes and did you get some scholarship help. I did I did. Now you're making another big adventure for yourself because you're leaving a family that was in the family to go into the south. A whole different culture and my mother was all upset about that. I mean that's it was you going to go go to Rutgers.

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I think that's what it was but yeah. Which is you know just the rivalry. Thank you. Why would you want to do that since I have a fake ID Yeah just down the road and I had I had an aunt that was working at Ford Motor Company. I'm a touch and play Jersey and she got me job they're doing a summer it's a concern some good money.

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And that was that was a plan that was making Ford Mustangs so I was working ten hour shift in the production are good money and you learn. You're already learn how to say. Obviously you came from a frugal family. Hello money for anything that would massively in this campaign.

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How did you get from New Jersey to Atlanta Georgia to my first airplane ride. Did you really think people who download where you throw Yeah. So unfortunately that's not what I wanted to fly. Yeah I mean so that first time that what I had only been in your imagination was a reality you were up there.

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Yeah I love to go and I can remember landing at the airport and hiring a cab first time ever done that to your man of the world and coming in. By five and seventy five and seeing the skyline and that's a memory that gets triggered every time I come back time to read about your car I can remember just writing that first cab ride in the town.

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You had never been here. You knew very little about it did a little reading. Maybe you know you had some reading in you know Georgia in Georgia Tech in the rivalry and as a matter of fact and I don't know if tech still has a program or not but the freshmen were actually brought in a week early and we spent a week down at the camp for each camp the camp program and I remember George was there.

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Also you know with all the sand then right. And then what not to go to kind of an initiation. Sure sure. You got assigned a dorm. I got assigned a dorm and I lived in brown dorm that first year. And were you prepared academically for Georgia Tech. Yes.

[00:38:03]
Lucky you cared academically for Georgia Tech but I was. I don't think I was prepared for the freedom that I had that's called emotional maturity that's all I just yeah I mean you know I hear that you're having a lot of things from my parents but it was always with and you know the the confines of four walls of the family truck sure didn't have many choices as all of the sudden you had a whole bunch of choices and it really does grab you by the throat when guys are not accustomed to that and my parents you know I have nothing but respect for my parents and what they did I don't know if I could do.

[00:38:44]
Or I could have done at the age they were when I do it. Not unless. It's just super scary to think I am you know both of them their education level formal education level was like through sixth grade. They can read write do basic Psalms. So you can you know you can get through life and then my father had you know more training but it was I'm afraid of training so with school there really wasn't you know anybody to help it was something that I puzzled out for myself or at least so my teachers that you know.

[00:39:23]
Were interested in and helping students. Now when you were enrolled attack. What did you declare as your major. Where were you going to space so that was going to be it. You have that idea that you're going to invest for years. We know it's just core classes right now how undertake you to figure out that maybe that was what you wanted to do.

[00:39:41]
Well I started my junior year and and I was close to a couple professors in aerospace school and they said well you know what do you plan to do the turtle question and I told him what I was interested in you know by that time I had gotten interested in in the space.

[00:40:02]
Rockets missiles those kinds of things and one of the professors Danny and I wish I could remember his name and he was he actually was my advisor or anybody you know but just somebody you know but honor but he said you know with your background because we had talked about you know my history my background.

[00:40:22]
He said Maybe you better call the local F.B.I. office and find out if you're going to be OK and find out if you can even get into that kind of work which would have not been something you were even thought of I didn't know course we still had regular correspondence with family back behind a curtain and all and I called the F.B.I. office and went you know they did a little interview and you know the kind of work that I was wanting to do and they basically told me to be very hard to get security clearances with.

[00:40:51]
You. Just because you were born in another country and their folks were stuck behind the curtain and you know I mean I'm Sam only people that we know that we knew. Well you know it was. It was a little it was a little bit of a shock a little bit of a kick in the pants and I said you know well what are the chances are you can always take the chances.

[00:41:13]
That and and by that time you know I was pretty heavy in the some of the heavier mathematics of those along with their space program and materials and whatnot and and I was struggling but you know I was I was getting along and I talked with my advisor and you know.

[00:41:32]
We talked about you know what are my options and he says well you know you could. You know if you if there are space is going to be something that is going to have the door closed to you. Is mechanical or you know your base course is what pay you for civil whatever.

[00:41:49]
By this time I was you know kind of towards the middle end of my junior year so there was a horse is there that. I need to be making some public decisions and decide where my going with this and my. Roll the dice or do I want to you know jump ship into something where there's not going to be any problems.

[00:42:08]
And that's why things of this is because it just made sense that it made sense and it was a fit. So that I didn't lose too many of the great hours. And at the time I was starting to get you know pretty tight on signs and one. So I did not know you must have taken Johns on campus.

[00:42:27]
Yes I was working on campus. Matters that by that time I was actually directing the small crew of students and we were working men in the grounds program they deigning to grounds and help and you know. Maintain the grounds with the taste and the cleanup and that kind of thing.

[00:42:46]
So I changed majors went to civil and the interesting thing about it is that. That was in nineteen sixty eight sixty nine. I think it was sixty nine back and does that right after that and I don't know I don't exactly remember the sequence or how long ago after that it was is one of the bottom dropped out among the aerospace industry.

[00:43:16]
In a Lockheed laid off which was being you hadn't none of their not in effect a lot he laid off ten thousand engineers my God like an island seventy I think if it happened it happened to Boeing out on the West Coast. I mean you know there was just the system was a wash with the aerospace engineers.

[00:43:34]
So it was a timely. So it was a decision. It was you know. It was just pure luck. But let's go back to the beginning of getting signed to Brown did you make friends. Yeah. Roger I was an interesting experience I wound up with a roommate from California which in itself was interesting.

[00:43:54]
Somebody It was the way the other side were all so to speak another side of the world not just from. Geography the total outlook on life. Different cultures and and I will mention names but you know that was also the time when the drugs start to get pretty heavy and unfortunately this.

[00:44:15]
This was a young fellow that was you know already indoctrinated in the in the that culture or that lifestyle or whatever. And he he made it a year and a half before he just finally couldn't anymore. Couldn't he couldn't do both and he just. Just burned out and we later I found out he got into naval architecture and was working on a lark a tax office in San Diego where the surviving ships but not designing ships there was a technician it was more of a you know not an engineer but a technician.

[00:44:50]
Of all the places in the country going through that time temp was probably lesser affected than a lot of schools where without the theory being that everybody had so much to Aba believe there was you know much but it was there. Peachtree in tenth we're just across the expressway or fortunately in there and I don't kind of height as very Vironment there and there were a number of folks that you know might have played around the edges with that.

[00:45:21]
And step back real quick but some didn't. And unfortunately I know some folks there you saw them that didn't then went down in a couple of them that didn't make it. What was sort of like on the Tech campus in the sixty's late sixty's. I think you know I had girls.

[00:45:40]
It was exciting. You had well at that time there were thirteen girls on campus and I remember there were thirteen because in my sophomore year I joined a judo club and that was after twelve or fourteen years of them being they're still very limited they were in that one house and I forget what street that house was on the fourth or fifth and.

[00:46:02]
And the only reason I don't know the number is because three of them joined the club you know just for exercise protection exercise and we had a Korean instructor the work for. They became the see this bank. It was a scene I spent. And he was an officer to the Korean community and he came on campus and was our advisor for at that time did you have to belong to the know you did not have to not have to not have to and I didn't join a fraternity Needless to say I never could afford that I was a sailor would you have had the money to have almost from the beginning you were looking for part time jobs.

[00:46:42]
Yes. I worked but I worked my whole whole time Georgia Tech. Did you on campus over the summers. Too. Or did you know how during the summers I went home. I'd like to have that relationship with Ford Motor you know that I mean so I could go back and there was a couple couple years where I actually took an extra quarter off to where they had what they had a position open to work to continue to work so I kind of there I was at a really co-op program going there for you to raise just sort of your personal.

[00:47:11]
I looked into the co-op program and sometimes I wish I had got to have done it because you not only paid some money doing that but you also that work experience and it gives you an intro into the market into the market but working at Ford Motor Company and living at home I was able to put away money like I couldn't.

[00:47:32]
And that's really what I wish your school was right as you're somewhere because there was one one year where the autumn market was down the unions were striking or something and I couldn't work there and I won the pole and two jobs and still only making two thirds of the money I made at Ford Motor Company.

[00:47:51]
So it was really a good move for me it was a. You know we. What was your social life like it. Georgia Tech days. First year I couldn't say that much. It was nose to the grindstone who all you could the second year I had gotten plugged in had gotten a new roommate that was from Columbus Georgia and I wound up going home with him a few times and experiencing on the right side of the dating some some some of his of our city in the usual think yeah of our city was there in Junior's across the street from Brown I was a lifesaver a spent many a meal handed and I can I can remember a Towards the end of the actual academic year my funds being low enough to where it was sardines and crackers with Vasco So you know I have never really thought higher and yeah you know I'm a pretty hefty guy but there was a those first couple years by the end of the year I got down to about one hundred ninety pounds one hundred sixty.

[00:48:59]
And let's review what tragic I was somehow distractedly wasting away. But you know. Again I didn't notice that it was all part of the draw you were just like your heart. I mean either way and you know the football the in the basketball and those kinds of things that they were never out of your regular season were diversions and I can remember.

[00:49:23]
Upper class and coming through the dorm as a freshmen and chasing us out. You know for the game the rats as you write that you know that yeah but I was a pretty big guy and he was a few times I was able to blossom and say you know.

[00:49:37]
Not today I got an exam Monday and then I kind of things. It was a it was a good time it was a good life. It was. It was eye opening it was as you said you know you had to sum the touring emotionally and you had to learn that along with freedom comes responsibility and learning how to prioritize and what to you know one of my issues was.

[00:50:02]
Almost from the get go and when we came to this country. I was put in the position of having to help my socks interpret and understand and and I have to operate in the adult world and I was looking forward to getting away from home so that I might get another able to do more that for themselves and my brothers were old enough to help translate things that they you know didn't fully understand.

[00:50:28]
And it was I guess the word of comes to mind as heady it was you know. Ready to go but then overwhelming sometimes you're in one of my doing here and you know gradually you acclimated Yeah you and yes there are social activities for the one social activity I remember and I miss tremendously is we can poker games that was part of student life as Penny any poker game that would start Friday night would run until Sunday evening when the class.

[00:51:00]
You're getting that would come in and would get out within hours I think that easy it was always there was always a table going and I got into a bad habit of the getting the bridge bug to bite me and I always said that was popular always a bird's eye game there was always somebody running up and down the hall trying to get a fourth or somebody had to leave in the great games and after a break and they get so bad.

[00:51:25]
It did affect my grades and I had to give it up. I really had played playing yourself. I played bridge sense really really disappointed but you can actually see what was having an effect on the way to make I mean it's got to be erratic as obsessive I guess obsessive is the word.

[00:51:42]
So you know those those things are going on with the dorm so you know who's likely what did you think of the faculty. Tremendous respect for everybody that I ever had as a professor instructor attack. They knew their stuff. They knew their stuff. There are always ready there to help.

[00:52:07]
I can remember many occasions going to a professor's office and getting something explained as I didn't understand that's really good to know because that's a critical part of a thoughtful story and the students the quality of the students that were there you know we had our debates about religion about everything.

[00:52:26]
Northerners and Southerners and you name it. You know blondes brunettes who you prefer. And why everything was OK and I mean anything was up for discussion and when it came time to study there was always a study group available there was always somebody that you know had a place and groups would float in and out that people are you know have the article I understand what you and I and if you use the library very much and use library a lot that was a good place to go away.

[00:52:59]
It was quiet. You could actually get. Almost like a little room to yourself or a small study group there was a fellow when I was still in the air space program and wanted to be a doctor and wanted to go to space medicine and he made it to me Yeah and he and I always studied together and and you know he's he's one of kind of showed me the ropes of the professors there you know you go to him you got to take you and you go to right.

[00:53:27]
You got you know you're paying their salaries in of course he came from a family that both parents were college educated and and they were advising him so you know getting hooked up with him was good for me you learned a few trade only thing I didn't do that he did and I should have done is that he would get into doing a course work.

[00:53:47]
And if he was having problems with the course and he didn't have and they want to come time for drop. He dropped of course and you didn't do that because he had wanted to maintain for all the averages he could to get into medical school. And I said Jim that's.

[00:54:02]
Past that but I can't afford this was a school that was and that I know if I can if I can get to the city of this course it's going to be R. and some of these courses if I get a deal. It's not critical for my graduation I won't take the D. just to get the credit behind me because it costs money because it costs money.

[00:54:19]
And as it is it took me you know over five years to get out for bat for changing your degree that's not bad. No and I did take some extra time and I ran into a little problem as some of us do with the opposite sex along the way and got preoccupied I know their emotional it had and probably had to have had a had a couple bad courses and I had to sit out one.

[00:54:42]
So you know that happens but I'll never tell my what I did the way it told her she saved me. So you did meet her while you were in school. It's an interesting story. Yes I did meet her. I was in school you know the longer you stay at Tech the broader your your your circle of friends gets.

[00:55:06]
And it's interesting because you get friends from your coursework. Civil engineering school gotta get to know bunch of folks there and it's not folks that I lived with and I had the dorm life and got to know bunch of folks in the dorm from all different disciplines. And then when I moved off campus lived on fifty acres with a lake and when folks found out that we had that I had a lot of friends.

[00:55:33]
Whoa you did indeed where did you find fifty in southwest a cab County. From the architectural school that knew the people that own the property and they rented to techno it was up on the soapstone ridge at most you know you're having already and it had all kinds of archaeological artifacts.

[00:55:52]
Sure. So the condition was they they ran and there was an old cabin. There's an old Boy Scout camp that they bought and there was a trailer in there and they always had. Students living there just as kind of being there so that people didn't come through it and pick up items that you were working on silent security is just sort of and cheap ravishing the other rent was seventy five dollars a month and there was four of us living in the cab and I were.

[00:56:23]
That's the real he did somebody have transportation by that time I had bought a car I had a cousin I was in a used car business so you're right he found a card it. No the lady had driven and been the only owner and virtually all never and never had a problem when I was a tester that I had a problem with it not.

[00:56:43]
And it was many times I drove it between Atlanta and Jersey going back and forth. With the five years you spent in Atlanta. Did it start being home to you there. Yes. So it had to the city had a tremendous the campus had a great field and the City had a great field.

[00:57:03]
I got very comfortable. And to be honest with you didn't want to leave. I was ready for another adventure it was when I graduated was about the time that. The oil fields in Alaska were being opened up and they were building a pipeline. But by that time I had met my wife and we started on the road to that story.

[00:57:24]
We never got very far. Where did you meet her but I was go back to the circle of friends you know one of the one of the guys in the dorm. Had dated a young lady that went to that this medical that used to be downtown I don't know if you the nursing program nursing program.

[00:57:40]
If you remember the building down there. I've heard stories now. It was quite a few of us they did this it was a mistake from a brewery I think I heard at one time could that be the same place for you which it was and not nurse this time well he he was dating her and she had kind of problem I had dating.

[00:58:02]
Somebody else that got involved with that whole scene Peace Tree and the next thing the one going anyway. But she wound up having to go someplace else for a semester. Instead of the nursing program because the grades were suffering. She went to a Young Harris college. Up in the mountains.

[00:58:28]
And he was forever. Every weekend looking for guys to go out there with them to share running a car is a good day. And part of the deal was that you know she would set you up with dates. And I got I got sucked into that one weekend and I said I'm going but I don't want to date because I got a big test on Monday.

[00:58:52]
I just want a quiet place where I can study study but you know Sara was was one that was always pedaling Georgia Tech students up there Young Harris you know setting up day. So you know she got me a date with a young lady from let's say it was so you say the North Carolina.

[00:59:19]
Unfortunately her family ran a hotel motel and they had a heavy weekend and she had to go. So they got to stand in. Who was a girl from down in the Fort Lauderdale area and I was Dorothy my wife. For heaven's sake. So that's about a serendipitous So was it was a never planned I had been so blind date with somebody you had to stand then because the light at least the and and you met her that weekend and I started dating her years out of that weekend and then you know we got the corresponding And so she was mean and dating geographically desirable she was out of the state.

[00:59:57]
Yeah well but but and her story of how she got to Young Harris was interesting. So. You know when we were still together two children retired and Iran and Atlanta is definitely home land is home she was from Fort Lauderdale I was from New Jersey. And what we decided that we were going to we were going to become family.

[01:00:18]
We talked about it you know I told them my grand plan of of Alaska says I don't think you're like This is far enough north for me. Don't laugh for a lot of death. So that and by that time. Also my brother had been killed of the mountains of the nine March the ninth and I had been seriously thinking of government service federal or state and it again.

[01:00:45]
One of these freak happenstance. Bumped into somebody that had interview with the Department of Transportation and they said you know they're hiring. So it's just a word of mouth thing too is the word of mouth thing in the way we have talked about we had talked about. You know being half way between my folks and halfway between her folks and this would be a good location we both like the Atlanta area.

[01:01:11]
And I went in for the interview and. They hired me on spot. So they weren't recruiting on the campus you had to they were not you heard the word and went out to look for them and that time they were not recruiting on campus. Is that the only place your preference or was that the it was now I was at kind of the end of my career I mean my career the end of my tenure at Tech it was it was fall of one nine hundred seventy one and you know you had all the different things that you did with a counseling center a job placement center and bills and had visited all those and were setting up interviews and people going to be on campus and as I said somebody had said you know hey you know D O T's.

[01:01:55]
There and they are hiring and they're doing interviews and I went down and. They offered me a. Before I walked out of the room. I just thought and I never bothered applying anywhere else because in some ways you know it fit into what you had your mind into my life planned with we had Dorothy and I had been talking by then about get married after I graduated and that becomes paramount importance to get settled and know for sure what you can count on which they offer you a job back.

[01:02:25]
But what they had an entry level jobs for engineers and Georgia D.O.T. had a two year training program. So you were not only going to be working but you're going to continue our of learning and it was attractive because what it was is the trained you in all aspects of transportation work.

[01:02:45]
And you actually had an opportunity to go on construction in the design office with the company aerials and test offices and survey out of this and you paid for all of this as as you do the training and then you had the opportunity to see different offices of people in the offices of the caliber of the leadership of those offices so that you could start you know formulating your plan of what is it you want to do.

[01:03:10]
Now did you get out in the traditional May or June of that of seventy one. No I graduated at the end of December in December of seventy one of seventy one. OK So you started to work immediately immediately as a matter of fact it was it was an interesting situation because my family had talked about coming down for graduation.

[01:03:34]
And in the meantime Dorothy and I talked about get married and we had set a date for late January. So everybody said well not coming twice. We're not coming out after graduation. We're going to we're going to go for a wedding in a larger they've never been to Florida and as a matter.

[01:03:51]
So it was January January twenty ninth as a matter of fact going from you know middle of winter to NOT A Florida and they never experience funny because they come in wearing heavy. As in everything else in that pic of the airport they were roasting. But so graduation as a matter of fact graduation that you want to be cancelled.

[01:04:13]
We had a snowstorm. In the in from the now seventy one. So what happened was that the president had small groups of students with their families that had come into town into his office and they received their diplomas. But I when the other thing that happened and it's a good thing that my parents hadn't planned on coming because I couldn't go to graduation anyhow.

[01:04:38]
I was taking the engineer and training exam. So get your getting ready getting ready for you know professional registration was scheduled for that Saturday of graduation. My word and. It's no do you think I cancelled except that test. You started I was I was in the test all day Saturday.

[01:05:00]
You didn't want for you right away sat on them there when everybody. You know I think you were so glad to get out. It didn't matter. Probably just one of them given they think that exam and get you know the release get a seventy. That's there and get it over with because I was starting work the following Monday.

[01:05:17]
It would be nice if you were certified as an engineer would be nice to get that behind me and then I worked out. That that is what happened and it did and then a month later you went to Florida got married months later with Florida got married in convinced the folks that were reading that property to Georgia Tech students to let us stay there and we lived out there really about how the seventy five was a good deal for you think yeah yeah.

[01:05:42]
Save your money and it was convenient. I twenty one too far away it was real real short drive down to the Capitol where the GA D.O.T. offices were and the other satellite offices I worked out of were up to eighty five so. It was a good location. I mean it was it was.

[01:06:02]
Well there was one of those a one of those things is you know. Let luck was on yeah on my side you're calling it done better had you planned that as a matter of fact it didn't plan that makes you look good. I mean you know that looks like a play and then the turn out like a like a play.

[01:06:19]
Now what with the situation with the D.O.T. and one nine hundred seventy two. That's when you play well in one nine hundred seventy two D.O.T. still was in the throes of completing the interstate system in Georgia. We had finished two eighty five around Atlanta at that time yet.

[01:06:36]
The connector had been put through connector had been put through some sections of to eighty five had been built and my first tour of duty on a training program was construction. I actually was out on a winding Memorial Drive winding Buford Highway. We were finishing off finishing up to eighty five in the cab County around I twenty and.

[01:07:03]
I was going to be assigned to a widening project and I eighty five. We were doing the first winding and I eighty five at that time taking it from a four lane to a six lane highway and Reed and and reworking all always through Gwinnett County. So you were learning from the ground that were brown and all about.

[01:07:24]
And there were some problems on that particular project so they rearranged my training schedule and I went in the design office for three months and went to the materials and lab the materials test lab to learn about how we design concrete pavement Sasol pavements doing the drilling where you actually go out and drill in the ground to find out what's underground in the areas where you can put bridge structures so you know how to design the foundations.

[01:07:54]
So it was. It was a tremendous program it was a it was a reliable an herb out just how complicated transportation. It is you know which we still don't really understand people like to say close enough for transportation work but it's not it's not at that time where we recognize leaders and transportation but no one you know not at the time so we were still as a matter of fact in the in the sixty's you know we were we had a reputation of of having a pretty rough road so we were still pretty much back when we were still we were still trying to dig out dig out of the mud and we were building new facilities and really didn't do an adequate job of maintaining what we had the but the philosophy D.O.T. changed there in early seventy's.

[01:08:46]
When Tom Moore the became director of operations and he ran the materials lab when I was there and then he became director of operations and eventually chief engineer commissioner. And the board got to be very active this was asked a time of Jim Gillis Mr Gillis was. The commissioner for a long time.

[01:09:07]
So we got Jimmy Carter change so more progressive. More money. We got more progressive in a sense of. Better focused on assuring a quality of of transportation that work instead of building a quantity of transportation that work OK for ever with now on how to move more people.

[01:09:33]
More efficiently correct and Georgia has always had wanted to Lowe's motor fuel taxes so you had a limited resource and you had to do what you had to do within a resource that you had so it was it was always it was an exciting time to have the charge it was familiar to you.

[01:09:50]
So what you would like yeah well that's that's the way my life was yes if ever there was any there who understood it had to be you and do with what resources were and. The. Three years on a training program. I want to be a designer. I want to create so I don't really have to make it.

[01:10:08]
Your decision as to what you were going to be when you grow up I wanted to create and that was that was that was my love. That's what I want to do. How much responsibility or opportunity were you given to do that. Well I think that's one of the wonderful things about public service.

[01:10:30]
Anybody with an engineering degree to goes into public service. Tremendous responsibility right off the bat. So it's really back to my fire. It is for my first day on the job I had construction responsibility. You know was in the hundreds and thousands of dollars range of suring that what a contractor was putting together that the citizens were going to be using the world as a according to plan and according to specification and made sure they were sampling so that our materials lab could actually do the testing to assure that we were getting the strength of the concrete we were getting the asphalt content for our roadways so that they would be falling apart three years after they were built.

[01:11:17]
And you know it's immediate it's immediate it's possible that I mean this was a necessary thing because you could have been taken advantage of if you could have been do. Sure whether intentionally or by ignorance a sure thing you need to be vigilant for right. And again it gets back to that's what the training program is about making you aware you learn what the specifications are you know what standards things are supposed to be built to you you know Georgia Tech prepares you with the theoretical background.

[01:11:50]
You know how to do the calculations you know you know what goes into materials. You've got to apply all of that. And you've got to make sure that what the public. This pain for their game is what they get getting their money's worth. Not anything less. And if you get more it's great that you were taught to be a trouble shooter to be a problem solver.

[01:12:13]
That's more or less what we produce such were basically yes exactly. You. When did you start feeling you were in the right place right time from the get go. I think from the very beginning I was very comfortable doing what I was doing a lot of good people around lot of Tech graduates around and.

[01:12:31]
The fraternity of Tech graduates is amazing. You know those folks take you under wing and give you advice and exactly when they'll give you should I say they give you not for OK we can climb up or you can hang yourself a lot depends on you in my will.

[01:12:52]
You took the training that you received. But the association gives you the confidence put into right now and it's something you can buy it now and the right thing will happen and. Take graduates have tremendous respect in the industry. From the contractor side private sector side and so on sides as well as as a public sector side and the public sector you know cross the country Georgia Tech and recognize the quality of Engineers put out of my experience.

[01:13:23]
So you're watching it as a certain amount of respect just comes with that and you need to live up to it. OK So you there was considered a very formative time in Georgia's transportation issues. We are where we thought this was the last time that well. Trying to work today.

[01:13:40]
This is what are your issues. I think we need to look at having transportation issues transportation congestion. Yeah. It is a measure success but the service success in a transportation a RINO. But success for the state as attracting jobs. You know if you didn't have a job you wouldn't have the.

[01:14:02]
Well you would have the congestion. We've got boom town here is better to have that problem than the problem of you have surplus capacity but you get no jobs. So you know to me. People complain and carry on about and I keep on telling them I says Well you know if this wasn't a great place to be you wouldn't be here.

[01:14:19]
So you know that broad your horizon to look at that way just like you have those day are right and then you need to make adjustments to solve their sense of the last problems and you yourself have to take some responsibility for for trying to make adjustments to avoid those things.

[01:14:35]
During your your time you move that steadily at the D.N.C. from taking on responsibility. When did you actually become that see things in this day when I became chief engineer in April of ninety ninety one. No excuse me if one hundred ninety three times together but I came off the training program went into what's called the urban design office and that was where you know you enjoyed it dealt with design in areas of urban population of five thousand or more.

[01:15:05]
And I got involved in a program that dealt with solving spot problems immediately on a short term basis trying to do about a five year solution so I got to work with communities all across the state. Brunswick Savannah Columbus. So this was where all the uneven Valdai fly Dale you make in Athens Clark Athens Clark County up normal Rome.

[01:15:34]
So all of those smaller communities trying to solve their immediate problems and then you know with experience moved up the workings of a major interstate projects in the. I guess my two if you want to call them crowning glory is in the design a Rena that I'm proud of that I was involved with one was really the president Parkway which is freedom Parkway now right.

[01:16:00]
As you know that been around since the early. Seventy's and it was a big mess controversy are all controversial and we're just happy I mean resolved. I hated the design group that got the contract together and where we let the first time. And it wound up in court then got knocked down because of some political shenanigans and only to be born again only to be to come back in a different form.

[01:16:29]
And I got involved in that later in my career. Because after that I moved up to what's called the Environmental Office and that's the office that does the environmental impact statements. That's a required step in the planned production and project development. You can't build anything using subtle money without taking that step and I had the opportunity to continue a project I started in the urban design office which was George four hundred extension to eighty five down I thought that you know the crowd began to design on that and I actually was involved in the negotiations and all the design work.

[01:17:11]
Involved with getting the land a financial center built and to leave those two big holes under that building to put the road through. And then I was able to finish up the environmental documents the rest of it could be built and that that was that was an interesting project it was thank you.

[01:17:30]
Leak it was one of the very unique projects that people still talk about now by ninety three when you were founded this is that time that this became a twenty four seventh's job. No I think it had it started with the environmental job. It did that was where it started because in that office I got involved with the national level with the legislation and working with Congress through American Association of State Highway Transportation officials and with our delegation because.

[01:18:02]
One thousand nine hundred ninety. We had the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act. OK and made everything more complicated and and that that act tighten everything up on the air quality arena and Atlanta had had problems in the past and with the way that law was written it was a major problem with the program being able to use federal funds I mean you could see it in nineteen eighty nine is that legislation started being put together and I was again involved in one nine hundred ninety one with the actual drafting of what they call a stadium also Surface Transportation Act which is the funding source for for highways and for transportation.

[01:18:48]
So I think that process that becomes not just a case and not just the John did but you're totally of the R. and B. I would leave that or because we don't you know the point of calls three o'clock in the morning. I'm home is things are being debated on how much like a good doctor on the floor of Congress and they are wanting you know which way should we go which is but what's best for Georgia.

[01:19:09]
So you know start to move out of the realm of engineering and moving more into an even moving out realm of managing because by that time I was managing an office but actually starting to administer a major program like I was seeing it on even political negotiating and that's government change for mayor and the Governor's coming go very late is insane.

[01:19:35]
It's amazing that everybody would say rises every two years you have election the Congress and you got all day by different players and in Congress. You've got admired young people who work for these congressmen and senators because they burn out of the SAS raid very intense of their so they are forever changing staff.

[01:19:55]
As a result of know that activity moved into what's called a planning and programming job it. D.O.T. which really dealt with the money the financing. Where's the money come from. How do we put together a program how to projects get selected and of course there you get a lot of input from legislate tours and and I already know how delegate everyone you know not only write and yeah you develop different skills.

[01:20:23]
But I think something very important that you said earlier about you know your tech teaches you to be a problem solver. It's still Problem solved. So it's goes back to the basics and goes back to the basics and goes back to the discipline and knowing how to think think President Serzh because at the same time we had the air quality problem here in Atlanta and we had the Olympics come along.

[01:20:47]
Well yeah that must have been exhausting Also I know that for years with the Olympics everybody wanted something and really nobody had any money but D.O.T. because we had a guaranteed revenue source that was coming in federal funds and a state motor fuel tax. So we were a big player in putting together the transportation plan for the Olympics.

[01:21:07]
Which you couldn't have done that are right. It's so so smooth for all of the naysayers and obvious Kramer's inquires about how we were going to be gridlocked right now. And one of the big things in that that that I had a big role in and when Shackleford who was commissioner at the time.

[01:21:28]
Had a big play in as we can then it's Environmental Protection Agency. To let us put in those extra lanes Rachel. There was a critical piece of the lympics transportation plan instead of taking away a lane on the downtown connect and that's right. So I thought yes that's the way that that's the way it was designed and that was a lot of the commitments that were made when we reconstruct a D.N.R. state system that's how we managed to reconstruct the interstate system so that that that was one of those.

[01:22:02]
Well hidden accomplishments that nobody ever talks about the we've got a whole lane of capacity. For next to nothing. And that is something that because you know when I was just squeezing things up a little bit and by that time I was just friends in here and I was the lead negotiator with E.P.A. and and several highways to get that accomplished so.

[01:22:28]
I don't major accomplishment as somebody who was commuting every day during war like this and on the road continually It was like what we thought was friend about. Well we put the fear of God did I mean we lost successfully we had we had a national effort and talk with the National Trucking Associations or the trucking associations from our border states.

[01:22:52]
You know don't send a truck through Atlanta. So it was big picture big planning it will become like a big planning and then you know the media effort locally to get everybody to plan their vacations and holidays or whatever. All of that help them too much to be gone if you were going to be a major partaker of the Olympics and yes downtown work great.

[01:23:16]
Now we also had a system in place where we were tracking where the traffic was going and the traffic on the perimeter onto eighty five really jumped up a number of places significantly. So people were you know avoiding taking the through route through town route to get someplace and that actually you were very aware that that was going to make a difference that will make a difference right now prescient you know that it was there was and you know right after the Olympics as when the air quality problems hit us and the program in the land area pretty much was shut down for new capacity.

[01:23:51]
And that was part of my final final gift to the state before I left was working through and again not not done. Vigil even you know this to be a problem for any one individual to accomplish but working in a in a team setting in a group setting against something that the tech is good at stressing that you know you can accomplish nothing by yourself necessarily working on a project you have to work on projects and you've got to break it down into pieces and you've got to have a team and you've got team responsibilities and and you have to respect people you have to and you have to bring something to the table.

[01:24:34]
Right now today two thousand and four you pick up the paper and I guarantee you're going to pretty something about traffic something about should we go trains should we have the interconnected line should we tell the H.L.V. like there's going to always be that that's what was going on when you came in and I think that needs to yes it was controversy than controversy about her are there any is there any ads against you know how much I don't know the reference to you know anybody else.

[01:25:07]
Not unless you go to European model. You know in Europe and even there they have their huge traffic mess and all these days because everybody wants to have that individual mobility one that's an American thing that's gone across well and I don't know. It might be an American thing it's got a cross and you're right a passenger in this country is getting a license.

[01:25:26]
Yeah but in Europe for many years. They really didn't have problems because because they are like transportation. Well it's not only that but they are dense you know they love you. They live in town. You know you go to places like Rome. Yeah and your population density is in town.

[01:25:50]
They run around on their vespers and I still got to get from one side of town the other but they don't didn't need to change my word didn't have the huge commute from the suburbs but even they have disk. Over to the suburbs in life outside of town and they having near the transit Iran same problems we are including air quality.

[01:26:10]
You know I remember about three years ago reading an article about. The air quality problem in Paris. One summer and in some ways it was worse their quality problem ever measured. Because they had weather and and everything come together at the wrong time and which can happen. They can happen anywhere.

[01:26:31]
It's funny the people that's great. A lot of us are ones least willing to give up anything they've grown accustomed to him in and I've been in court a lot on environmental cases and. In the air quality cases and. I share something is the funniest incident I've ever run across.

[01:26:52]
We were in court in downtown Atlanta and the opposition attorney was coming and you know what he was driving. But I work for Environmental Defense and work for Environmental Defense and S.U.V. They're the ones that scream and holler about S.U.V.s you know the low gas mileage in the pollution you put in the air and I say you know you got your nerve he says yeah but I got my family to worry about and because it is on Highway one source.

[01:27:19]
So you know we are all driven by different things and quite frankly in many ways this whole issue of our traffic and traffic and gesture and not so much traffic congestion but air quality gets back to our affluence and I realize that you definitely notice that you know my parents couldn't afford two cars my father that there was one car.

[01:27:46]
And there was four of us boys and when we got our licenses. My father working night shifts because because of the differential more money. If you were going to use the car you had to stay up and go pick him up. This was going off to work. Now it's happening right now.

[01:28:02]
Yeah well yeah. So it was that kind of thing that made you think twice. And now and I'm as guilty as the next person I got two drivers at home I got three cars and that's because we do we can because we can sure because we can. And the thing is I think we were so watched and we think of our immediate face and not the global effect rightly our decisions are but like if you're not willing to make a sacrifice and give up.

[01:28:27]
It was so often we say Listen to what I'm telling you but don't let you know what I'm doing what I'm doing right now and we go away from being we've gotten away from being a walking society. Very definitely I mean I've had opportunity to visit Europe quite often and when I'm in your I must walk ten times what I walk here and I think yeah.

[01:28:48]
And then there's no countries like Ireland and the old country that come in with new ways that are not set up for the systems that we've got going to happen. And they're going to have more problems than we ever dreamed of having. Because it's happening so abruptly. But you know transportation and we have visionaries amongst us.

[01:29:08]
That you know have Invision transportation and transportation and layers. You know right now. And before I retired I did a lot of traveling and you know we hop on a plane and we go right. It makes sense especially after my eleven that there be an intermediate transportation link.

[01:29:34]
So sometimes. Other than airplanes because our airports and our sky ways are congested too. So should we be thinking trains. So you know high speed train which they do in Europe and they do in Japan successfully successfully and there's a new technology magnetic levitation. They have a maglev line in China.

[01:29:53]
They've built they've got a test track in Germany to strike the trying to remain going to bow out from between here and well between here and Chattanooga was. Pozole. Well it just rides on magnets and and it goes at speeds over three hundred miles an hour. Wow and quiet as you can imagine.

[01:30:16]
Literally could commute from somewhere for hours or three hours and and that intermediate range of you know. A couple three hundred miles an hour and a half on the train. You know trying to ride the plane that same distance take you a lot longer than that with the current security checks and everything else you have to go through and then airports are not downtown they are out on the fringes they have to drive there where like you.

[01:30:47]
Atlanta is as close as it is right that people don't realize how much they do travel there are major cities. I have huge difference. So there is that going to media link there that you know something like that could serve now. This had to be a national decision that we were ready to take that out.

[01:31:03]
Because the trains went the way of the covered wagon for the price because we got a damage with the car Amtrak for years and we like that independent mobility. But you know if you go on the for business purposes and you can be done on any likely matter but every place else.

[01:31:24]
That is a government operated system and service is just like our roads or government. Yeah is. If we went to something like that to the magnetic train system something I value more environmentally friendly than our individual hires it's trade off. You know the magnet maglev system is is electronic.

[01:31:53]
OK runs on electricity so you've got to generate electricity. You know how do you generate electricity. Use Nuclear or nuclear energy. You've got. Radioactive but got out of those Again you use fossil fuel plants. You have the emissions problem. The metal kind of fossil fuel use You've got to have an arms.

[01:32:15]
Not enough hydroelectric power around to do that. So you know there's always trade off. So Russia is where you produce it. There's no perfect solution to any of this anywhere and if you produce it. You might have an impact on an area right there not just a few Look at the big chair.

[01:32:33]
There's no happy solution time powers that well and it's something again that you mentioned earlier it's trade offs. What are you willing to trade off and I will that ever talk to the public that we. Are you know politician ever talks to the public eye with us. Not with the public wants to hear.

[01:32:51]
I know it's not an island really comes right out and says what we need to hear and our leadership we want to. And I leadership will do that because there will be leadership as I say when you get reelected just that it's back to the individual and collectively as individuals.

[01:33:06]
It's pretty complex what's important to us. You know we say that clean air clean water is important that we say that you know we don't like congestion and we don't you know we don't like this. We don't like that. I mean what are we ready to do about it.

[01:33:23]
We all wind. You know I I made a conscious decision that I was going to live where I was going to raise my children were there was going to be safe and healthy lifestyle for him and for us and quite frankly I wanted to get someplace and do and do what I wanted to do for when I eventually retire without having to relocate so that meant that I had I had to commute.

[01:33:52]
They were going to and I made a conscious decision that as I got aggressively Worth's worse each year I had to remind myself I made this decision and I was a transfer. Haitian and I knew it was going to get bad because when we design roads we usually look at traffic projections you try to design for twenty year life it's just when you said it was about twenty or twenty years out.

[01:34:14]
Tell me your opinion on the northern arc and all the fuss that when our left back where you are prowler again I was pro there was one again the other one of my projects I did the first environmental documents that cleared away from being able to go to construction if we don't ever found the money.

[01:34:32]
I'm going to be honest the northern arc. The outer perimeter around Atlanta. The whole was one of. I don't know maybe the first times. That Georgia D.O.T. got out ahead of the transportation demand curve. Most of the time we were reacting. I say when we react look at the department as a department you know we built the DOD freeway system in the sixty's in the seventy's and when you got still there when you know we are back to how desperately need it right and we had to freeing a freeway program we reconstructed it and put a lot more capacity out there we were reacting still running as fast as you can you could barely keep up right now that we saw back in the sixty's in the seventy's when to eighty five was conceived it was first being constructed.

[01:35:27]
That you don't need to have something outside the two eighty five for that cross radio movement because back then the demand will start get change. OK And those are all ate out in the end it was originally laid out in the seventy's about fifty miles closer the word wound up when it got to be known as the northern arc or D. I remember better and I got laid out in the early eighty's.

[01:35:53]
I was running the environmental in and located where are you talking about it when we were laying that out communicating with the counties trying to keep corridors open. So and then intended to be twenty years. Well it was intended to come along a lot quicker than a did that we didn't have the resource.

[01:36:10]
So in the mean time. If you driven around the north side of Atlanta recently you had development like you wouldn't believe you still have it out there still have the damn scary you know seven hundred eight hundred how subdivisions are being permitted in the ground being broken out an annual basis and lo and behold the corridor that was located in was one of the most open chords and they started building right up against it.

[01:36:39]
So when people bought and they found out didn't do due diligence to find out it was going to be a road there over so they got to be a political football right. And quite frankly any kind of major public works if you don't have political backing for you know it's not going to happen because it is a political risk and there is no public works since time immemorial.

[01:37:01]
The pyramids. Because it meant just that they don't worry. You didn't have an impact on people. The fact that. Every time a new survey comes out for that land as got all these counties are the fastest growing county. Not only in the north but now to the south and to the east and to the west.

[01:37:21]
Hey what's going to stop this. Well it's not we haven't got any place to put it you know if you. You could as collectively as a community. The Atlanta metropolitan community which is a staggering amount of people now make a decision that we're going to have no growth policy.

[01:37:41]
I think going to happen. I don't think so that means that you're a successful as you want to be and you want no more success. No that's not going to happen you know Seattle tried it it didn't work. Iowa didn't work and what happened was Jobs started flame because the cost of housing in property got so expensive and so they had to.

[01:38:02]
Companies couldn't stand that in fact probably right. So you know it gets back to one of the strategies and in a land area there was a strategy back in the sixty's and early seventy's of hubs and spokes of that you needed to look at your land use planning in your growth planning for activity centers like this one that we're in right here which is the Cumberland Galleria C I D and then you had a look at the water the spokes that connected to other activity centers and try to control your development in your transportation corridors along those activity centers and those folks that connect those activities others.

[01:38:45]
Unfortunately that means that there are winners and there are losers. When it comes to the value of land. Control with not a word that comes in right and that would by the wayside and the political will of that time was there do it so it became this let it grow like an amoeba.

[01:39:09]
And that's how Elana has grown. If you look at the densities of Atlanta. By the decades from the fifty's to the sixty's the seventy's the eighty's and ninety's just kind of see it. Sorry. OK so you have no concentration along any particular or in any particular activity center or along any particular spokes where you could put in higher density type transportation modes.

[01:39:36]
That's almost too right. It's almost too late. It's so after you know a region with through that process again and we came back to the same conclusion. And that's what that's what they are see did and we did collectively as we try to work through this air quality problem.

[01:39:57]
And there's a major push on now to try to control that development and. Try to have it in what they call Little Book communities to try to have mixed use development. You know that is that having a place like this which is nothing but commercial property and retail property.

[01:40:18]
How do you mix into that. Entertainment residental trying to do with your station. Right. I don't even know right now work hard work. So you know it gets back to you have to do things differently if you're doing the same always you got the same zero zero zero S. and I get back to.

[01:40:40]
The political will and what lumps are you willing to take and how much are you willing to I would say browbeat although I just did that. How much you will have educated population about you know. The reality is that that that you have that are going to determine the outcome and that you're going to have to deal are going to have to deal with you know as they are surprised that's what's going to come out it.

[01:41:09]
We we in our society all have a tendency to want to blame somebody else for the problems that we have number one and number two I just so the Tejas in wanting to blame somebody else and it's impacting me hurting me somebody owes me something that you've got you've got folks that are making decisions that are all good.

[01:41:31]
And who can find them. No you can't but and a whole career but that having been said and I have I was in that position. You know some of those decisions that are right decisions to make even if they're paying for their painful and. And I think you know there's a there's a learning curve to everything.

[01:41:50]
And even in that kind of setting where you know there's going to be pain associated with it it becomes part of your decision making your psyche your your. Who you are. That's just part of how business is done today and hopefully it's going to change and I don't see it that hopefully is going to change.

[01:42:11]
I think it's going to ask you Are you acting mystic optimistic about as they're going to change are people going to come through. I mean how bad are things going to have to get before the less popular or the personal sacrifice is going to actually make a difference.

[01:42:27]
You know we we're an incremental change. We're in it when you're on the evolutionary processes. I love history and I do a lot of reading history and you know these things happen before they get out of it like Thomas Jefferson has always said you know even as a as a as a republic as a democracy is freedom.

[01:42:49]
You always need to have a revolution every now but it doesn't mean you can run amok and I would run amok with you always. You know it always needs to be a revolutionary change. Instead of an evolutionary change and somewhere along the way it's going to be a revolutionary change so it's going to be something that will correct itself.

[01:43:09]
Well through that kind of I have I just I have faith that I might I mention here I don't know that you cannot be an optimist. If you know the right looking for solutions that you're always looking a solution to problems and I'm going to be honest with you.

[01:43:26]
I've never had a problem that we eventually couldn't solve some of them or more intractable than others. I had some that I saw that had been hanging around since one nine hundred thirty eight when I was a D.O.T. and we finally saw them solve them in nineteen. Yes it was about ninety ninety.

[01:43:46]
OK but if you're a student of history you know you can look back on the world in great spans of time and know that there's really nothing new. Actually there for you know there isn't and I was around and looking back at history you know that it puts it in kind.

[01:44:02]
There's a. There's ascendancy and then there's always someone going away. There is where you come down. And correct. And then and I go on from there. Do you think we're going to end up with this inner city that core of Atlanta still being a vibrant place with proper transportation like you're talking about the peach tree trolley and the circular trains were using off the tracks around or do you see the death of the city and a little hug starting up instead I think this core city is going to be.

[01:44:38]
I'm so happy to get back that I'd like to think that we're going to be just as a look at history and have been so you know humankind is going to gather and you know have to have a little master to to have commerce to have a culture to have our Or you can support that and I think our spirit thirst for that kind of thing.

[01:44:58]
I mean you can look at you know the Mayan civilization. They came together and you know they disintegrate into some took their place and somebody else came in and again it all wound up getting back to having urban centers and reaching that critical mass to where you have civilization.

[01:45:16]
You can't have civilization without that regardless of that's OK Let's say that you know the Internet. Most everything else is going to change those things you have that. Well you can't have a large you can't have human relationship which I mean internet. No that's OK And again that's something that that's something that we thirst for.

[01:45:35]
Whether we want to miss it or not tell me about your family and sadly. Well I have two daughters and the longer that goes of course I'm wife. Yeah that's what I think. Dorothy is has where to shop from CHRIS Right. Christina Melissa and Christina went to Georgia Tech she went to Georgia Tech.

[01:46:00]
Actually both the girls started off their. Careers and bury. Wonderful we with my experience of Georgia Tech. I think one of the one of the hard things was and back then Georgia Tech wasn't as big as it is now one of the hard things was as big as it was getting connected and you know knowing my children.

[01:46:25]
That no other soccer star Yeah they grew up you know a fairly close knit family and a close knit church community and a close knit education program we moved to our current residence in Forsyth County in seventy five and been there ever since one of these folks to lose it for fun.

[01:46:45]
So they they're used to community and we were looking to where they could immediately plug into a community and very kind of yeah sure I think you're always understanding that they wouldn't be there but for a couple of years. Christina started off as an engineering kind of the what we call of the.

[01:47:06]
It was five year joint program to create your product and three to program. But then kind of decided that where engineering was going she was not interested in you know sit behind a computer terminal for the early part of her career and not having a real you have to go to school the find out you know when a night out.

[01:47:28]
You have to go. So she changed into a business major and finished up two years of Berry and then went down to Georgia Tech and graduated as we were talking I think it was ninety nine I got a job into the baker that he had been chosen talk.

[01:47:43]
Yes that he would have been happier she chose an engineering. OK you can't have everything I know that and and we're all different you know engineering has been a good career for me and I just advise it. You know it would be a good career for her because she's got she's got.

[01:48:02]
Scott that his mindset. She's got the rest of that is that how it's all right now. You know she mathematically she might she she she's very organized. So she had a talent for that but she she's not comfortable I wish she graduated in though. Went to work for a dot com firm.

[01:48:19]
Ironically. What can you make big money compared to what dad would say yeah I think that if they all come here. Of course the bubble caught her. And then she wound up. She wanted to do that she's always been very strong in her faith and wanted to and always were always plugged into service.

[01:48:41]
So she took a year and did the work with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Well that's a remarkable experience for her when all we had to Portland to do it but that's still a great variance for her and of course the one nice thing about it is she's got some She's got some credits and some money not to go on to graduate school she wants to when she said it's that tour she tried and is right now working in the nonprofit side of the business where the American Cancer Society where it's but it's a place that somebody has to feel it's good that she's paying your dues.

[01:49:21]
So she's working for American Cancer Society was going to do that for two three years and then think about which grad school. So what she wants to write were she wants to go back to school. What does she want to do with the rest of her life but in some way she's a prime example of you know that issue these days of Genex years of having multiple careers.

[01:49:44]
Very few people just multiple jobs more careers I don't have to do that with the amount of the rest of their life just one of my going to do for now. Or maybe the next ten years. And what about Melissa Melissa did two years at the dairy and went to Medical College of Georgia.

[01:49:59]
She did the gusta. We encourage her and she's got the talent and the intelligence to have been a medical professional but her interest is in working with autistic children. So she went to medical college and got got her degree and that sort of sick and national sort of occasion for occupational therapy which was you know a tool for working in that arena and is currently going to Northeastern up in Massachusetts in the Boston area getting her master's and she was working full time for the women Center for Children neck they call it which has resident autistic and kids with behavior problems and she's studying Applied Behavior Analysis worked there for two years and then is working for a private sector friend of works and schools and homes again with autistic children.

[01:50:57]
She begin her master's this year was a three year program was work and it's almost like a co-op program she has an internship huge experience a background come out of that not just a degree so that's great. You must be very proud of. But we are doing. I am and then mom as to that but not there.

[01:51:16]
Not any area. Well nothing is here. Christine is there a list as an article in the northeast about she's going to get working on a thesis right now she's she said Finish of September when you retire from the D.O.T.. I retired from the O.T.S. to want to sect of October one to last year after thirty two years but you didn't stay retired very Lynette I don't know I'm glad I just thought well you know I have.

[01:51:44]
But I did a lot of work around the house were kissing up on that honey do list that I was about and I can't say I caught up on all of that. I guess with the vast. Background experience I managed to accumulate over thirty two years there's a lot of folks in a private.

[01:52:02]
To sell that they could could maybe use put that to some good use and. They would leave me alone. So my wife finally told me you know decide to go back to work or stop answering the phone. One of the two is one of the two of you and you didn't come back to work and full time work.

[01:52:17]
I did this is another job. This is that is my job but you're enjoying it. I'm enjoying it and I am still working in the transportation arena. Nationwide and it doesn't have to be twenty four seven. No it doesn't that was the guy actually one of the conditions is that I would be putting in normal working hours when I'm not out of town and the nice thing about it is my wife travels with me when I go.

[01:52:42]
So it's a whole different market nice more fun more fun much more relaxed. You know work in the public sector working for government can be very stressful especially if you move out of the arena of pure engineering right. Which again we engineers love purees in its hand it's hard to come by these days.

[01:53:04]
And it's hard to come by. It's hard to leave but there are also challenges that we engineers. I think can can make very well in other arenas and that's why you find so many of us from Georgia Tech. Sometimes or in areas that got nothing to do with training for Georgia Tech but it doesn't matter because you can apply which you know that's correct and apply successfully.

[01:53:29]
So there's rewards are really you're finding now rewards the sides of the grind and the fact that. That's correct and long hours and everything. It's good it is but you know even the long hours. I was on the grind. There was in the day I didn't go home feeling good about what I was doing or that's an amazing thing to be you know there are times where I wish I made different decisions and came to that under some decisions but I think that's part of maturing in your in your work ethic that and the world is changing us like right now that you know you can't.

[01:54:02]
Well decisions are going to pan out and you have to back up and correct the dentist's family stayed in the United States. Nobody went back to Hungary. Nobody went back. Nobody went back. Not my mother. She's contemplating going back but to live or going back going back for extended periods.

[01:54:23]
She does and you know a lot of things we were talking about congestion and you know that little village that she's she's going to be seventy seven later this month. And she lives on the Denver area and did live in the New Jersey area and she's saying you know things are getting so complicated that it's hard for her to get around would rather be in a simpler village and she would rather be back in the village life where you know things are a little calmer a little quieter and you don't have the now that's still a bit of the Yes it does so time has gone past in that direction.

[01:55:01]
Now one of the problems though is that young people leaving and moving into town because we were talking about urban centers and that's going away too. So but you know we're we're contemplating. Her moving but I expected you know after about six months of. That we have had like you know we don't have.

[01:55:25]
They don't have shopping malls they don't have this you know I think you have to you know she's going to trust them to our ways. And so it will be very difficult but it might be a night's rest. But for her to go back and see. And she still has a family there.

[01:55:38]
Yes much of her family things. And they want to come to you know she probably always held it you're against your father for being the firebug and that implies that I have absolutely. And a part of her mind on the other hand we can be grateful for that or we wouldn't have had you here.

[01:55:55]
Well. Had you to come to Tech help you to come to Georgia and make a difference in our lives. So I'm. But your dad was somewhat of a rebel so well I'm glad to be here. You know it's been a good life for you here and it has always played a what is game.

[01:56:10]
What is well there's no way it could have been better if you just stayed in Hungary not for Georgia Tech couldn't have been so. Thank you so much for giving us time today in your your busy schedule we really appreciate you taking the time probably this time last year.

[01:56:25]
You couldn't a spared me a minute. Now you're right this much time. So this has been great. Yeah half hour was limited. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. You're welcome.