This is an oral history interview with D. Raymond Riddle, class of 1955, conducted by Marilyn Summers on August the 30th, 1995 at Mr. Riddle's office in Atlanta, Georgia. The subject of the interview is student life at Georgia Tech. Mr. Riddle, thank you very much for having us here today. We're anxious to hear your story. Why don't you begin at the beginning? Thank you. I grew up in a small town in South Georgia called Oglethorpe. We had 1,200 people, and I was in the last 11th grade school in Georgia. My father told me that no one had been able to stay at Georgia Tech from this school and that he would pay for me going to college any way I wanted to if I went to Georgia Tech. So that's how I got there. And I did go to Baylor School up in Chattanooga for six months to get a prep course. And I started in the spring at Georgia Tech. I was then 18 years old and we had draft connected with the Korean War going on. So if you were not in college, you were subject to the draft. So I left my prep school days three or four months early to start at Georgia Tech. For our country boy, it was a huge place. Not by today's standards, because I think we only had about 4,500 people there then. But the school was in full swing when I went, and I fell right in with the pack easily. As a matter of fact, my midterm grades came to my father, who wrote me a note and said, Dear son, it took General Sherman four years to take Atlanta. Don't try to do it in one quarter. That was pretty good advice, but I still enjoyed myself. I lived in Harrison Dormitory right across the road from the Varsity. And I heard the horns blowing all night, and most of the time I thought they were blowing for me. But at any rate, my first quarter was very eventful, and I met a lot of new people. and I pledged a fraternity, Phi Alpha Theta, and that gave me a center of focus that I became very good friends with about 100 people in the fraternity. And my college career got off to a rocky but eventful start. Did you feel prepared mathematically? The six months I had spent at Baylor had pretty well given me a base of preparation for the freshman year. Baylor is a very good academic school. We had about 10 or 12 people in the class. So they really gave us what we needed to know to get ready for school. And I was taking a postgraduate course. And even though our school was just an 11-year school, we had pretty good preparation there. But in the sciences, that was a weak point in all the small schools around. We didn't have the scientific background and so forth. So things like chemistry and physics were tough for me. But at the same point in time, I had a pretty good background. Did you know where you wanted to be? Had no idea. The day that we signed up for school, they said, what course are you taking? And I said, I have no idea. And they said, well, we're in the industrial engineering building. Does that sound all right? And I said, that sounds all right. Later I changed my course to industrial management. But I don't think I was dissimilar to most of the students coming up. Higher education was something that was not as formalized as it is now, and you don't find out too much about it until you get there in those days. So they were generous with the lack of knowledge that we had. Dean Griffin, who was the dean of students then, was an absolutely outstanding man. During my first quarter there, I had some academic problems, and my mother called him, and Dean Griffin called me up for a fireside chat and told me to get on with my business. And later on, two or three quarters later, when I went to my home for a visit, my mother sent him back a dozen frozen quail. So I took them up to him and I said, my mother sent these to you, Dean Griffin. He said, well, she should have. So I don't know what he did behind the scenes to help me, but he certainly did something. And that gives you an indication of how personal Georgia Tech was in those days. I don't know how it is now, but it was certainly a personal school, and everybody had an interest in people's success. No one wanted to see anyone drop out, and we did lose a lot of the students. About a third of the freshman class, I think, didn't make it through the first year, so. Were you surprised to see yourself there at the end of the first year? No, I never, you know, I was always smart enough to figure out how much work I needed to do in the past. So from that standpoint, it was good. But the regiment, we went to school a lot. We went to school from 8 o'clock in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, five days a week until noon on Saturday. and a lot of the people didn't make it through school because they didn't go to class. They measured what they taught you in class, so if you didn't go to class, you couldn't pick it up, and so I was always one of those that felt obligated to go to class, so I got up in the morning regardless of how late I'd been out the night before, and went to class. So it was that type of environment. And we were taking about 20 hours a quarter, which is much more than they take now, but the techniques are different. And our friends over at the University of Georgia were taking about 12. So they thought we were crazy at Georgia Tech, and maybe we were, but we had a good time with it. The campus life was very active. I would say that I knew at least half the people at school on a personal basis, and even though we were in sometimes different fraternities and clubs and so forth, everyone got along well together. Football was the big campus sport, and that was during the period that Georgia Tech was on top of the polls and all four years that I was there. And so it was very exciting, and the stadium was full for every game, and there was a huge party before and after each game. I remember that I was in a club called the Ramblin'' Rec Club and each fraternity elected someone to be in the Ramblin'' Rec Club and it was a school spirit club that helped to organize things around campus having to do with the campus activities. And we were having great difficulty with Auburn University because the students at Auburn had to wear their rat caps up to Atlanta to the football game because we've always played Auburn and Atlanta then and these rat caps were subject to being snatched away from the heads and that kind of thing and so they a number of fights would happen so they sent a delegation from Auburn up to talk with the Ramblin'' Rec delegation about how to solve this problem, and the committee got in a fight. So at any rate, the spirits ran high in those days, and we were very intent on seeing Georgia Tech at the top of the heap, and even if we had to do it sometimes with a small altercation. Now, that was before we had a rambling wreck, the car itself, right? Right. I don't believe we had a rambling wreck then. It didn't come until the 60s. That's right. Well, I don't believe we had one. So it was really a spirit club then. That's right. And we had the big rambling wreck parade at Homecoming was a big feature. And you can't imagine the vehicles that were created for this particular thing. There was always two or three people in the fraternity that had a mechanical bent. And they would get a case of beer and go out in the backyard with a welding torch and come up with some of the most incredible things that you've ever seen. Most of them didn't run the whole course and had to be pushed over into Peters Park to make room for others, but we saw some unusual situations, as well as the homecoming displays in front of the fraternity house. The final theater displays never worked, but they were always grand in design, but we never we quite got them to do what they were supposed to do. And it seemed that many of the homecoming weekends were rainy and so forth, and the electrical fires and so forth would keep it from working. But there was a lot of creativity there, and a lot of interest in activities as well as academics and so forth. So college was the whole, your own life? Oh, yes. It was, I mean, you didn't have time for anything else. There was something to do every minute of the day. There was a hole in the wall on West P Street called Harry's Bar. And you could buy a steak for $1.15. And that's where the students hung out. And when they had $1.15 for a good meal, they went up and got a steak. a beer and a boiled egg at this place. And I have seen fights in that place that are beyond belief. It was like the old John Wayne days where they were throwing furniture and that kind of thing. But no one ever seemed to get hurt, and they eventually stationed two policemen there. And the fights broke up about as quick as they started. But there were a number of places that catered to the Georgia Tech people. Strangely, I was thinking about it, we never had anything to do with the Emory people. That was a, they were just, might as well have been on the other side of the moon. But, uh, the rivalries were more with the schools that had the football team. That's right. Rival, right. Although, on On occasions, the people did go over to Emory and paint a line at the SAE house and that kind of thing. And we had a lot of fun intramurally there. I remember once that one of our fraternity brothers hung a dead fish down the SAE house chimney, and they never did find out where the smell was coming from, but it was awesome. and we would do things like that to one another for fun. Kind of keep everybody going. And keep everyone going, and that was kind of the spirit of life. The academic stuff was pretty rigorous. I mean, everybody was pretty serious about passing and making grades and so forth. So I was there just as the last of the veterans were finishing up. So we literally, at 18 years old, some of the fraternity brothers were 26 or 27 years old. So we had a pretty interesting mix of ages at that stage of the game. And, of course, these veterans were much more sophisticated and mature and things of that nature. And they also had a little bit better judgment sometimes about some of the things that, you know, brand new people can do. So they were sort of role models, sometimes good, sometimes bad. But they were also anxious to see that you didn't do anything foolish and get hurt. So that was a... Did you live in the dormitory the whole time you were there, or did you eventually live in the dormitory? I lived in the dormitory for two quarters, and then I moved into the fraternity house. Where was it located? 734 Final Street. It's still there. It's just been renovated. It was almost torn down. About three years ago, they called, and the fire marshal said that if the thing is not repaired, that he's going to have to vacate it. and over a period of 20 to 25 years with no renovations to it, it was in a state of shock. And the alumni took a look at it and it was a toss-up between whether it should be pushed down know whether it should be renovated. And we got the number, and it was a non-taxable, I mean not a non-tax-free deal. You couldn't deduct it. And nobody in the meeting, Charlie Yates was there, and a number of the old time guys that had built a fraternity house in the 30s to begin with, and they didn't think we could raise this much money. But the fraternity raised over a million dollars to renovate the fraternity house, which was just absolutely incredible. So it is still there in the same place, and it's in magnificent condition, and we've got a short lease with the fraternity brothers. If they don't keep it up, we'll close it up for them. But that's the way we put the conditions that we do that, and And I think that's good because that will allow the fraternity house to be refurbished every year as opposed to running downhill. And these boys don't have any money. So if they don't address the condition of the house every year, it won't get done. But fraternity, you know, some people are for them, some people against them. I had a good experience here. It was a positive for you all? Very much. Very much so. Do you remember any of your professors or your classes at all? what kind of classes were you taking in those days? Well, we had, we had, I mean, the courses were very broad. We had a smattering of everything having to do with business and also engineering because the idea was that in industrial management, people were going to be managing engineers, years, so we took a lot of engineering electives and that kind of thing. The academic side of the deal is that it was interesting. We had a professor who's well known there, and I don't know if anyone else would talk about this or not, but he taught a course in production control, which was a very complicated system then. And that, I mean, the idea was, you know, what is the most efficient way to manufacture something and keep all the parts coming in at the right time and so forth. And it was so deep that no one understood it. And he was eccentric and believed that bats sent out ultra-violet rays that caused people to do things that were not normal. And he was very concerned about these rays. And each class had a bat warden, and if the bat warden declared that a bat had been in the room before he got there, before the professor got there, and sent out some bad rays, he would call off the class. So we had... This actually worked? Oh, absolutely. And on the test and so forth, you could say that last night you were studying for this test and a bat flew over your house and gave you these rays and wiped out all knowledge of what you had and you got a C. But at any rate, that was not the typical class. That was just one of the professors. But we had a, it ranged from that to the very tough, demanding math courses that were specific and you had to do it just right or you didn't make it. And it was a nice blend of, you know, different kind of academic experience. And And I can recall some of the professors, but right now I can't think of any I'd like to mention that were either good or bad. But we, I would say on average, we had way above that average instruction. And especially in the technical courses like chemistry and physics and stuff like that, you're either right or wrong and that kind of stuff. So you either have, you either know it or you don't know it, whereas some of the more, the softer courses, we didn't place a whole lot of attention on literature then and so forth, which Georgia Tech is doing now because they understand that it's very important. And I would say that in my era, the shortcoming of tech is that they never taught anybody how to write a letter or anything of this nature, and that was fed back to them, and I think they got that fixed, you know, in the early 60s. So you didn't learn how to write letters. Didn't learn there. But looking back at your academic experience, it was definitely valuable to you? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's not only valuable, but, I mean, anyone that got through Georgia Tech at that stage of the game had an education that would give them a foundation to do most anything they wanted to do. They were very competitive in the marketplace, and they could always get a job. And Tech had that reputation then as now. And the system, I think, has been very, very effective for, you know, this part of the world. And anywhere you go in business, you find some people from Georgia Tech at the very top of these companies, which is you know sometimes helpful speaks highly right experience a typical day after going to class from 8 until 4 and then studying you had to spend some time studying was there social life every night or was it big weekends well as you would expect there's something going on every night. And you had to time your studying and work. For example, in the years when you had math, which were the first two years, there was a test, math test, every Friday. So you did your studying to prepare for that math test. And math was a five-hour course, which was a big course, so if you didn't do well in that, you didn't do well in your school. So toward the end of the week, that was pretty tough. All the movies changed in town on Thursday night, so that was a temptation to want to be the first to see all the movies that changed. So, but Friday night was, generally speaking, a night that was at a party somewhere, and also Saturday night. And so those two nights, you spent with the girls if you could find one. Now, how did you find girls? Where did the girls come from? Well, there were three basic places for girls. Agnes Scott, which was in Decatur. And they had very strict rules on the girls. Freshmen had to double date with seniors. So it was, you know, you had to, it was a coordination process. And they had to be in at 11 o'clock on Friday night and 12 o'clock on Saturday. which meant that if you were at a dance at the fraternity house, you had to leave an hour before it was over to get out. They had a big nursing school at St. Joseph's Hospital and they had some very attractive young nurses there and the Buckhead Pinks, which were high school students, generally speaking, didn't have to get in at any time. So they were a very sophisticated, cute bunch of girls. So we had a lot of things going on there as far as that's concerned. And we had a few women on the campus. They got there the last in 19, I believe, 54, maybe 53, 54. That was the toughest bunch of ladies I've ever seen. Did you ever encounter any of them? Oh, yeah, yeah, and some of them were very good friends. But I can assure you, this is not like you've been reading about the Citadel. These ladies really wanted to go there, and the men didn't, I mean, we didn't care whether they came or not. I mean, it was just the fact that they'd never had any women there. And all these ladies were, I mean, a number of them were past the 20 years old. I mean, they were 25 and 6 years old. They wanted to be architects or chemical engineers or things like that. None of them went there for a business degree. I mean, they were all scientifically oriented. And everyone, they realized that they wanted to get a good scientific education. and they were swept right into the deal, and there was no problem, as I recall there. Did you, have you ever heard of any problem? We're just beginning to explore this, and I'm curious from your point of view. You didn't resent them being there at all. Oh, no, I mean, we were all in the same boat. It was a little unusual to see girls without makeup at 8 o'clock in the morning, But, you know, you get accustomed to seeing that, too. So you did see that. That's right. Even if they were all there for a serious reason. Right. As you know, Georgia Tech had always been a scruffy dressing place. And they fell right into that. They didn't have an impact on you. You had an impact on them. That's probably right. We drugged them down with the rest of us. So they were not a source of social life. Well, I mean, they came to fraternity parties. if they wanted to, but a number of the first girls that came there were the more serious group. I mean, they were, you know, really focused and they lived off campus because there was no on-campus housing. So it did put them at a disadvantage as far as the social life's concerned, but the cuter ones and so forth quickly went right in the swing of things and all the fraternity parties. No ripples just went on? No, no problem. No problem. I mean, we had a lot of things that bothered us in those days, but it was not the kind of things that you see now. I mean, it was not the philosophical things. I mean, we were not very philosophical. And you've got to think about it. Everybody there was going to the military after it was over, after college was over. and if you didn't do well, you went to the military then. So the draft was in full swing, and Korea was going and so forth. So there was a little air of seriousness about the fact that you had to go on and do your business and move on through school. Were you involved with the ROTC program? Yes, I was in the—I spent one quarter in Navy ROTC, and then I switched to the Air Force. And I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force when I got out and spent some time in the Air Force. Now, what part did that have in your day-to-day routine? I mean, did you have to go to ROTC classes also? It was a three-hour course, and we had to go to drill one day. One day a week? One day a week. So it was, you know, just like any other course, and we wore our uniforms on drill day, I think, which might have been Wednesday or Thursday. And other than that, it was just a course and just like anything else. So it didn't have a big impact on you. Right. Mr. Riddle, tell us a little bit about some of the people that you went to school with, people you were impressed by or friends with. Right. Well, there are hundreds of people that during that period of time, they were absolutely outstanding that we could spend all day, but some of the more notorious ones that I remember from school is, for example, Pete Silas, who's the just-retired chairman of Phillips Petroleum, was a fraternity brother and a chemical engineer there, which was a very difficult course, and he was, even at a young age, he played basketball, but he was a very good student and a serious person, and was just outstanding from the word go. One of my best friends was a person named Renda Creighton from LaGrange, Georgia. He went on to be a naval aviator and was shot down over Vietnam and spent seven years as a prisoner of war there and was one of the really heroic stories of the Vietnam era. He's now retired in California, but he was a champion all the way through, and even at 17, 18, 19 years old, you could tell that person had depth that you don't normally see in people. There are a number of business people in the area there that went to school, Ray Anderson who's the chairman of a company called Interface in LaGrange, Georgia. Carpet Company was a fraternity brother and friend. Larry Comer from Americus built one of the largest light fixture manufacturers in the United States and sold it to Cooper Industries seven, or eight years ago was a good friend. So we had a lot of people that even at an early age were outstanding. And so from that standpoint, you had a lot of role models to follow even then. Well, now we're coming to the end of your four years, and you had ROTC, Air Force, looking at your friends. Tell us what happened. You graduated, you didn't? The Korean War was coming to an end, and the ROTC gave you two options. If you were an engineer, you could go into an engineering type specialty in the military. But if you were a management person, you signed up for flight school. And so I signed up for flying school and reported to my post in San Antonio, Texas, three months after I finished school, and checked into the military. We had people from all over the country in flying school. And it was interesting. We had a number of people in my primary flying school that did not have an automobile driver's license, which was kind of hard to teach about a flying airplane when they couldn't drive a car. But they were from the northeastern schools and so forth. and it was a great mix of people. They were all college graduates. And we were there to fly airplanes or not to fly airplanes. And so I took six months of primary flying school in Kinston, North Carolina. And then I went to jet school in Greenville, Mississippi, and we learned how to fly jet airplanes there, and when we finished there, we had our choice of assignments, and I was able to get an advanced fighter school assignment, and I went to Sherman, in Texas and learned how to fly all-weather interceptors. And I then reported to my squadron in Boston, just outside of Boston, and we were a test squadron for the ground control radar system that now you see everywhere. I mean, in those days they didn't have that, but they were trying to develop a ground control radar system so that they could track the planes and tell them where to go and this and that. So we flew there for six, eight months and I was in for three years. And they came in one morning and said, all of you guys have three choices. You can get out today, you can finish your tour, or you can sign up for two extra years, which gives you some preference on assignments. And I said, I think think I'd like to get out today. So I got out of the military suddenly before I had given any thought to what I was going to do. And that was sort of a cold turkey thrust into the business world. Did you come back to Atlanta? I put my clothes in the car and drove back and got here, I guess, about November the 1st. And I went to my home in South Georgia. And I shot quail every day. And about February 1st, my dad asked me, he said, son, do you plan to go to work? And I said, yes, sir. I thought I'd go right after bird season and look for a job in Atlanta. him. He said, good, you won't be working with me, will you? I said, no, sir. So that settled my job search activities. It was in 1958, had a severe recession going on, and I had a snack of rejections for jobs two inches high. And a friend of mine got me an interview at the First National Bank of Atlanta. And they gave me an aptitude test and called me back and said, you've done good on this aptitude test, you know, would you like a job? And And I said, I sure would. And so that's how I got into banking business. I thought to myself, well, as long as I know how to borrow money, whatever I do, I'll be all right. And as it turned out, from day one, I liked the banking business. And the management trainees were then subjected to a little bit like boot camp. they tried to see how much work you would do before you fell out and having been through flying school and and that kind of thing and Georgia Tech right and you you know that work was something that was not to be feared and so that process helped me in the early parts of the training program there. And we would work at the bank. They call us the mole men. We got to work in the dark and left in the dark. They said, you don't know that there's sunlight out there. But at any rate, the first year or so, there was a lot of commitment to the organization. And I got a chance early to take a traveling job, mainly because nobody else wanted it. But for the next five or six years, I traveled 26 weeks a year. Every other week, I was on the road. And from the time that I started to the time that I was made president of the bank, I never really had a job in town. It was always out of town somewhere, so the banking business was good to me, and of course we wound up with one of the top banks in the country, and that was very, very lucky for me that I made the right choice to start with, and I retired from the bank two years ago after 35 years. You literally worked your way right up it there. every step on the the deal and it was all serendipitous absolutely sure sure things got good breaks and good opportunities and and being being in business in Atlanta was just absolutely fortuitous because it's a it was during that period time the best place in the country to be in business and so So having been to Georgia Tech helped because I, you know, had a natural contact with a lot of the business people in the community. And that was a tie that made it easy to meet people and that kind of thing. Some people say that tech in itself is a big fraternity. It is. Do you think that? It is. and I can't think of anybody that went to Tech that I couldn't call and ask them to help me and they wouldn't do it right now and I would do the same thing when that happens and, you know, I don't know why that's that way. It just seems to work that way and we are all interested in what goes on there and you'll find that the volunteer effort there is very good. I have been on the National Advisory Board, for example, and you get people from all over the country that come into Tech four or five times a year just to talk about what they can do to help. And so that gives you an indication of the kind of commitment it has. And I guess it's still true, but at one time we had more numbers of people who went to Georgia Tech making donations than any other school in the country. Public schools. Public schools, right. So I think that continues to be true. And from, you said you retired from... I retired from the bank, and I went to work here at National Service Industries, and I've been here about two and a half years, and I'm going to retire from here in October. And so I've had two nice careers, and they've both been very, you know, rewarding to me, both, you know, from a financial standpoint as well as interest and so forth. And I don't intend to die. I've got plenty of other things to do. What's coming up next, then? Well, I don't, you know, the great thing about this part of the world is there's plenty of things to do. And I mean, I'm getting in a stage now where the kind of things I want to do are a little less complicated, perhaps, than they were when I first went to work and a little more focused. And I think I can have some fun and do some good things, too, for the next few years. Mr. Riddle, when you look back at the whole thing of your life, Raymond Riddle's life, what is your greatest sense of accomplishment? Well, you know, I tell you, every time I think of something that I've done that I'm proud of, I think about the way that happened and so much luck's involved in it and so forth. it's kind of tough to get too happy with yourself about accomplishing something. And what I've always tried to do is look ahead to the next thing we're trying to do and just hope that old luck's there this time. And there are a lot of things that have been fun. I mean, even the tough times, when you look at it, look backward, they accomplish something, too. And so I think the thing that I'd like to think about is what's going to happen next and look back at the things that have happened as a nice mosaic of enjoyment that I've been lucky enough to have. You had a good relationship with your dad. Oh, yeah, sure. Was he proud of you? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And he would, I always had his vote, and he would always support whatever I did and wanted to do, although he would tell you what he thought. And, you know, I think of all the things that could have happened, that kind of support I think maybe is the most important. to have somebody saying, you know, I got you. Whatever you do is going to reflect on me, but go do it and do the best you can. And he was, you know, he was quite special, and I was lucky to do that. I feel some people that don't have that relationship, you know, miss a lot. Were you the first one to graduate from that school from Georgia? In my county. But let me tell you, we've had a number of them since then. He had the satisfaction of knowing that. That's right. That's right. That's true. Well, thank you very much for sharing your story with us today. Is there any last thing you'd like to say? No, but just thank you. I mean, at some stage of the game, maybe somebody will view this and say, who is that nut? But it'll be nice. I don't think so, Mr. Roy. Thank you very much. Thank you.