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David Lenhart
No full textDavid Lenhart oral history interview as conducted by Jerry C. Grover.
Dave Lenhart talks about the many jobs he's had within the Fish and Wildlife Service, issues with the insecticide heptachlor, developing various response plans, developing a pesticide monitoring program for starlings, and heading up DDT studies on robins, grouse, and juncos.
Organization: FWS
Name: David Lenhart
Years: 1955-1986
Program: Refuges
Keywords: Biography, Employees (USFWS), History, Pesticides, Biologists (USFWS), Birds, Fishes, Waterfowl, Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge, Heptachlor, DDT, InsecticidesOral History
of
David Lenhart
Interviewed by:
Jerry C. Grover
Date of Interview: September 5, 2014
Location of Interview: Portland, Oregon
Interviewer(s): Jerry C. Grover
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife
Service: 33 +
Mentors: George Black, Leo Couch, Dan Slater, and
Homer Ford
Colleagues: Bill Hazeltine, Jack Savage, Mark Morton,
Norm Chupp, Dick Myshak, James Teeter, and Roger Allan,
John Chattin
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held:
Matanuska Valley, Alaska, 1955, GS-5 doing creel census,
fishery sampling surveys; 1956 GS-5 Umatilla, Oregon,
doing bird and fish counts, waterfowl surveys Columbia and
Snake River, Oregon and Washington; Portland Regional
Office 1958-'61 as GS-7/9 in River Basin Studies as a
wildlife biologist; Sacramento Office 1961-1966 as a GS-11
wildlife biologist; Portland, Oregon 1966-1986 as GS-12
under Wildlife Services, responsible for chemical and
pesticide use on refuges and hatcheries; two-month detail in
Washington D.C. as National Response Coordinator for
Ecological Services; was in Ecological Services for
Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Has also been the
following: Regional Environmental Coordinator, Regional
Acid Rain Coordinator, at times was the Regional Raptor
Coordinator and Regional Coordinator for investigation of
Fish and Wildlife mortalities.
Most Important Projects: Heptachlor, Kesterson,
Rogue Basin, Trinity Reservoir, Santa Barbara oil spill, Wild
River Surveys, Waterfowl surveys, Sikes Act.
Brief Summary of Interview: Dave talks about his
early life, going to college Humboldt State U. in
Northern California, being drafted into the military 1952,
served in the Veterinarian Corp, going back to college, and
getting on with the Fish and Wildlife Service. He talks
about the many jobs he’s had within the Fish and Wildlife
Service, many of the people he’s worked with or knew, and
stories of his time with the Service. He also talks about
many of the issues that he dealt with, including issues with
heptachlor, developing various response plans, developing a
pesticide monitoring program for starlings, water drainage issues
such as at Kesterson, doing a two-month detail in Washington,
D.C., and heading up DDT studies on robins, grouse, and juncos.
He shares what he feels are the two highlights of his career, and
also mentions who his mentors were. Dave retired from the Fish
and Wildlife Service on January 4, 1986.
Dave Lenhart, September 2014 – Age 84
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THE INTERVIEW
Jerry: This is Jerry Grover, a retired Ecological Services & Fishery supervisor in the Portland Regional Office. I’m in the home of Dave Lenhart in Portland, Oregon, doing this oral history. Joining us today is Dave’s wife, Judy, and my wife, Judy, is also sitting in on this interview. The purpose of this interview is part of a program to preserve the history, heritage and culture of the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service through the eyes of its employees. Dave, would you state your full name for the record, and your birthday.
Dave: My name is David James Lenhart; confused a little bit in high school, I was known as Jim until going into college. My birth date is November 6, 1930. As a little aside, I weighed two pounds, thirteen ounces. I was put in a shoebox in the oven; it was turned on to keep me warm. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa. And that’s where I started school and lived until about 1944 when we moved to California.
Jerry: Also for the record, where and when did you retire? What was you position and grade?
Dave: I retired on January 4, 1986 from the Portland Regional Office. My position at that time was GS-13 Fish and Wildlife Biologist, Contaminant Specialist
Jerry: You moved in 1944?
Dave: Yes. Actually I was in junior high and when I came to California they put me ahead a half of a year in Downey, California. Now in Iowa, my dad worked in a sporting goods stores, he was a champion fly and bait caster. And so we did a lot of walking with him when he went hunting or fishing, or went to contests, so that’s where I kind of learned about the outdoors.
Jerry: You said you were an only child and you had a trip to California in ’39.
Dave: Yes. We went to the San Francisco World’s Fair, and we went to all the places like the Painted Desert, the Badlands of Grand Canyon, et cetera. And of interest, the National Fly and Bait Casting Tournament was held as part of the World’s Fair in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. And dad being an Iowan, of course, went out on San Francisco Bay and caught a salmon, which made it exciting, so based on our trip, we determined that we would eventually move to Downey, California, and so that’s where I ended up in 1944.
Dad, during the war, worked both in an ordinance plant and tested military ammo in Iowa and in the 6th Ferry Command in Long Beach, California. We hunted and fished during that period and made trips to Yellowstone Park. I attended high school at Downey Union High School in California, and graduated in 1948. And then went to Fullerton, California Junior College, which was nearby, and graduated from there, and transferred to Humboldt State to get my Bachelor of Science degree. During the interim I got my draft notice in 1952, and went into the Service and ended up in the Veterinarian Corps of the U.S. Army. So all my officers were veterinarians, many of them drafted like I was, and I was in the Meat and Dairy Hygiene Food Inspection. So I worked in slaughter houses, packing houses, etc. etc. on all sorts of products, meat and dairy products including fish, chicken, eggs, things of this sort.
Jerry: So was your teaching so far in your degree or your…?
Dave: I started out in kind of like Fish and Wildlife Management basically in Junior college -- it’s just you take all the science. When I went to Humboldt, I started it in January of ’52, in a semester school basis. So I took a variety of both fish and wildlife courses, then I was drafted, and then I came back out in September of ’54 in essence for my junior and senior year at Humboldt State.
Jerry: Okay, Humboldt State at that time was no longer Humboldt State Teacher’s College; it had developed the school of forestry…
Dave: It was part of the state college system and it just started forestry, I think……in ’54. The fish and wildlife students was 10% of the student body. We had over a hundred students in there and there were about 900 other students.
Jerry: Did you live on campus?
Dave: Did both. I started in the regular Redwood Hall Dorm. In the summer of ’52, I worked for California Department of Fish and Game on Grizzly Island Wildlife Refuge in California. And generally, the work there, in the summer it’s dried up rice lands and farming so there was not much wildlife there, but we put in a phone line. It was on an island, we had no fresh water to drink, we had to get there by ferry boat, which required that we go back and forth at least once a week to get water. So I had a lot of free time on the island. Grizzly Island is out of Fairfield. It is near Travis Air Force Base, very close to Suisun Bay.
And then when I returned to college at Humboldt, I majored in Fish and Wildlife and my emphasis was on the wildlife, but I took many fisheries courses and even ended up taking one forestry course. As every student was required, when they were a senior, to have a special project and my project was banding waterfowl. And I probably banded about four or five hundred ducks and coots, the majority being about three hundred coots, which is extremely unusual.
Jerry: Well, coots were a big issue and a problem in California and the Central Valley at that time. 3
Dave: And the location was on a gun club in tide water Humboldt Bay. The water was generally fresh, but the depths changed with the tides, so learning how to set the trap where birds could walk out of, if on dry, or swim out on the wetland; it’s a clover leaf trap, so that was good experience for me later in my career. While I was in college, I worked two times at the Department of Fish and Game, Pheasant Co-ops they called it. The state had a cooperative program where they generally release pheasants on some of the islands in the delta, open the pheasant season and we’d check the hunters in and out on that. So I had those two periods of working for the state in addition to the previous on the waterfowl area.
Jerry: Did this interfere with your schooling? It sounds like pheasant season…
Dave: They would let us off; it was around Thanksgiving, I think. So then in ’55, I got out of school a little bit early; I took my finals early and went to Alaska Territory, before Alaska was a state. Worked for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1955 in the Matanuska Valley, Palmer, and Wasilla, Alaska, doing creel census, fishery sampling, surveys, etcetera; the Matanuska Valley is where the old homesteaders lived from the ‘30’s. And I ran into homesteaders that knew part of my family from Minnesota, so I was treated like a king when I was in Alaska. And I was offered three or four jobs when I was there to stay, but I said I had to go back to college and finish my degree. My fisheries supervisor was Roger Allan.
Then in the senior year, probably about January/February, I got a telegram from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offering me a job at Wenatchee, Washington, or Umatilla, Oregon, and state my preference in wildlife river basin studies; no description of the job just fact: “it’s open.” So I said I would take either position, never heard back. So at school I had an opportunity to go work for California Fish and Game, it would be a summer; it would be a long position until I could get on the Fish and Game register. Or I had an offer from the Inter-America Tuna Commission, which looked good; it paid more than the federal government except you didn’t put your money into the federal retirement system. And the other was, the Tuna Commission was a thing that could be abolished, but has stayed on periodically now for 50 years.
Jerry: Did you have your degree by then as you graduated in June 1956?
Dave: Yes, well they knew I’d graduated. Then about a month before my graduation, I got the same telegram from U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And so I’d take either one; I got a notice that I would be employed at Umatilla, OR. And I should meet my supervisor in front of the Umatilla, OR Post Office…
Jerry: In Oregon.
Dave: …in Oregon either the night of, I’ll just come up with a date like June 5th, or the evening of June 6th. So being that I was driving through Portland, I stopped at the Regional Office and asked about the job; I didn’t know what it was. They didn’t know who I was. My supervisor was in the field in Wenatchee placing the other position, which was Norm Chupp, a graduate of Idaho, University of Idaho, with his Master’s degree. And so I found out that the job was that the Corps of Engineers transferred money for John Day Lock and Dam on the Columbia River, Oregon, and Washington. I was to ascertain what effects this dam would have on wildlife, and so the instructions were to do surveys, populations, get maps and draw in where the Reservoir pool would be, wetlands, if there could be marshes formed, if the Service could have some of the corps lands, etc., etc. At the same time, I was asked to do the Snake River Ice Harbor Dam, which is out of the Tri-cities of Pasco, Washington, to do the same thing for that dam. the John Day pool flooded seventy-seven mile of the Columbia River and the ice Harbor pool, thirty-five miles to the Snake River.
Jerry: That was out of the main stem Columbia.
Dave: On the main stem Columbia River in Washington state. Norm Chupp had four proposed PUD Dams on the Columbia River out of Wenatchee. He only did migratory bird studies. the other Fish and Wildlife studies were done by Washington State biologists. The first thing I did, the John Day pool was 77 miles long, and here I was with a vehicle and a pair of binoculars. And so I started out and I would go out and I’d divide the river into seven sections, some of it accessible by direct highway, some you could walk down to the river. And I’d cover 10 miles a day, which is 20 miles round trip; I walked it out, and I tried to cover the area that flooded and surveyed wildlife populations. Now this is in June, this is after the geese had hatched, going into July they’re flightless, both the young ones and old ones. So I was able to determine the number of birds that I saw, but where they went, where they brooded, where they went up the banks to get insects and eat the greens to grow when they were flightless. The Columbia River reach contained about forty islands that were used by nesting Canada Goose and wintering water foul.
Then I had, as part of that, I, of course, met with the Washington Department of Game people, and the Oregon Department of Game and their local biologists. And I worked with them on various pheasant surveys, quail surveys, dove surveys; I also interviewed into local ranchers and checked bird hunters. No fishery biologists, so I also did fishery surveys and things of this sort. They hired a fishery biologist in September/October 1956, and I was told to meet him at the bus depot at 6:00, they didn’t say am or pm. So you know how that went. He arrived on the 6:00 in the evening from New Mexico. The first thing he asked was, “Where are my boots? Where’s my boat? Where's my thermometers?” Of course, nothing of that was furnished; I didn’t even have a typewriter. The Fishery Biologist was Jack Savage a recent college graduate from Colorado State University.
Jerry: When did you meet your boss?
Dave: I met him/boss, Bill Hazeltine on June 5th, 1956, he gave me a Government car, and he stayed the night and I put him on the bus to go back to Portland.
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Jerry: Who was he?
Dave: Bill Hazeltine, Irving Billy, but it was Bill Hazeltine, who worked in the Regional Office.
Jerry: So in September you have this new biologist on board, no boats, no boots, no thermometers, no nothing.
Dave: Yeah. And so I got a place I rented. I learned that I would not be counting fish, but I’d be doing these wildlife surveys; I did comparable. On the Columbia River you could drive the Oregon side from literally the mouth of the John Day River all the way up to Umatilla McNary Dam. The road, you could almost see the river everywhere. There were some old abandoned highways and railroads; you could drive to the river. On the Washington side, the river was only accessible only to a town called Roosevelt, and then there was no road along the river. So there was an area that I really could not cover. There were a couple jeep roads where I could walk down through a canyon to the Columbia River, and so I would do observations and counts there. The major thing was the goose populations that nested on the river islands would all be destroyed by the pooling of the water; but there would be some islands formed. There was approximately, I think, over 40 islands, some of them very major, some small that the geese nested on. Washington Department of Game had done surveys in Washington State on the island previously, so we knew approximately 250 geese nested on those islands. So that was the next year in April we would start out on the goose nesting surveys by boat.
So then in September, I would fly, rent an airplane and a pilot every two weeks and fly that 77 mile reach of the Columbia River and reach the Snake River, I think was about 35 miles, and survey waterfowl or other observations. If I saw fishing boats on the river or not, and I did that for literally three years, and flights would start in September and I would go through to about February. On part of my surveys, when I knew the geese were nesting I actually, two or three times, I would go out and fly aerial transects to see if I could flush geese and come up with a count. And then within the week, I would go back by boat with cooperators like Washington Department of Game would be with me, but it’d be a government boat. And we would survey those islands, and we’d come up with approximately 260, 270 nests, knowing there’s still more nests that we probably missed and/or there’d be some in the cliffs. And so I would have that data, but I would also conduct the winter inventory for waterfowl. Now that’s different in they count by county, and they count after January 1. So I’d fly the entire Snake River, probably a couple hundred miles up to Clarkston and Lewiston from the mouth. And I would fly by county down to The Dalles Dam, Klickitat County; extends pretty far. I was the first biologist to fly winter water foul surveys in this segment of the Columbia and Snake River. Over the years I probably made forty flights.
Jerry: Okay, let me ask you this quickly here now. What grade were you hired in?
Dave: 5
Jerry: You were hired as a GS-5- 484 wildlife biologist.
Dave: Yes.
Dave: Yeah, now remember, I was hired temporary not to exceed six months; I believed that. At three months, I went to California. I met George Black who was Fish and Wildlife Service doing the Klamath River, Trinity River, Eel River Studies. We interviewed, based upon all my background, he wanted to hire me.
Jerry: In the timeframe, this is after you’ve done the winter survey…?
Dave: After three months. September 1956.
Jerry: Oh, after three months.
Dave: ‘Cause I thought I only had a job for three more months. And, of course, during this period I only met my supervisor once in three months. As an add on, the fishery biologist never met his supervisor for a year and a half.
Jerry: Who was the fishery person that was there?
Dave: Jack Savage.
Judy G: There’s a name from your past, Jerry, (Judy laughing).
Dave: Okay, I’ll explain, I’ll explain.
Judy G: We could do a whole chapter on him.
Dave: When I was in Alaska, I was required to keep a daily diary and I did everything beautiful; you had to turn it in once to get paid and then the per diem. Okay. Now…
Judy L: And you still have it.
Dave: No, the Alaskan one you turned in. So I did the same thing when I was on my project. I had to turn in weekly reports, monthly reports, progress reports, meet with the Corps of Engineers what we were finding. This might be a moment in time; this is a letter of June 13, 1956, from the Regional Office of David Lenhart, post box in Umatilla, Oregon. And it points out if I traveled overnight, I had a per diem rate of nine dollars. Okay. And then they told me when my first check would come, found out the national per diem rate was twelve dollars, only Washington staff could claim that, Regional staff would get eleven. So think of eating and staying in a motel for nine dollars a day when you’re single, you couldn’t share. In the sequence of time we were confronted with how come everybody charges nine dollars, it should vary below nine dollars.
So we took our supervisor with the agreement next time we went on a field trip, we would stay at a little bit better motel, we would eat at a little bit better restaurants, and make sure we spent over nine dollars to show the supervisor that you couldn’t really live on 5
the nine, and you couldn’t live on eight or seven. So that was my career, so in Umatilla; I did these aerial flights.
A couple highlights was the fact that we were going to move Chupp out of Wenatchee. So I was tasked to cover the Columbia River, all those PUD dams over there. I took aerial flights over there and discovered so many power lines, it was impossible to fly low. And part of the fact was when I flew the Snake River I was the first one to ever discover salmon spawning on the lower Snake River. And it was in October, and the Snake River is always muddy, but on this particular flight it was kind of clear. I spotted salmon redds; I counted approximately twenty; I saw adult salmon from a couple hundred feet up. The pilot that I hired, this was all hired aircraft, he said, “Would you want to get closer?” Said, “Sure, that’s okay.” Unknown to me, he landed on the island in the Snake River. When we got out of the plane, he took the wheel covers off because he was afraid a rock would get caught and flip the plane; I didn’t realize that rocks were so big. Well, if you ever get involved with fish spotting twenty feet under the water, there’s no way you could see with the waves, their depth. Two weeks later on my waterfowl flight, I couldn’t see them. A month later, when I flew, I could see the redds and a few dead salmon. So the next year, I got the fishery biologist I reported; the fishery biologist from Bureau of Commercial Fishery flew with me. And I found a few other spots in the Snake River where they spawned.
Also, when I flew the lower Snake, I discovered an Indian fishing from a platform. I discovered I could cross wheat fields, run across the fields, worked my way to the river; that was Fishhook Jim who was the last Indian fisherman on the Lower Snake River. His family would take him to the river, he would have to float into the site, he would build his platform, he had a tent, he built his platform, and then he kept a calendar so when Friday came he’d start fishing with a dip net and keep the fish because his family would come across the wheat lands and pick up the fish on Saturday and Sunday, then he would stop fishing. And so I di
Kridler, Eugene
No full textEugene Kridler oral history interview as conducted by Jerry C. Grover.
Eugene Kridler was the first biologist permanently assigned to oversee Service lands and represent the Service in policy decisions in the Pacific. he dealt with superior graded Generals & Admirals and other Federal Agency Regional representatives in conducting the work of the Service.
Organization: FWS
Name: Eugene Kridler
Years: 1952-1981
Program: Refuges
Keywords: History, Biography, Employees (USFWS), Surveying, Tagging, Endangered and/or threatened, Birds, Management, Biologists (USFWS), Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Complex, McNary National Wildlife Refuge, Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Midway Atoll National Wildlife RefugeName: Eugene Kridler
Date of Interview: January 27. 2006
Location of Interview: Sequim, Washington
Interviewer: Jerry C. Grover
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: Worked for CCC for 2 years, 1 year with Park Service, 6 years with military, and 29 years with Fish and Wildlife Service.
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: For the Park Service: worked as a temporary ranger/naturalist at Lava Beds, CA. Fish and Wildlife Service: Bowdoin NWR as a GS-3 Clerk, in 1952 went to Salton Sea NWR as GS-5 Assistant Manager, then was the 1st Refuge Manger at McNary as a GS-7, went to Tule Lake as refuge biologist as a GS-7, Sacramento Complex (Colusa, Sutter) for 4 years as refuge biologist as a GS-9, went to Malheur in 1960 as GS-11 biologist, worked at Midway, went to Hawaii as the service biologist GS-11 and was also the endangered species coordinator as GS-12 and eventually got his GS-3 as endangered species coordinator.
Most Important Projects: Forest Bird Survey of Hawaii, tagged monk seals and sea turtles, worked on goony birds - Laysan and Black-footed Albatross - on Midway, acquired James Campbell Refuge and Pearl Harbor areas, and endangered species and brought 10 other areas into the NWR System.
Colleagues and Mentors: Colleagues include: Ed O’Neill, Lynn Greenwalt, John Sincock, Winston Banko, Leon Synder, Kenneth McDonald, Tom Horn, Gene Branson, John Scharff, Chan Robbins, Dick Griffith, Darrel Herbst, John Finley, Dave Olson, Karl Kenyon, Mike Scott, and Dave Marshall.
Important Note: Was the first biologist permanently assigned to oversee Service lands and represent the Service in policy decisions in the Pacific and as an unheard of low GS level (GS-11) had to deal with superior graded Generals & Admirals and other Federal Agency Regional representatives in conducting the work of the Service.
Most Important Issues: Endangered Species & Pacific Island NWR lands acquisition
Brief Summary of Interview: Eugene Kirdler was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on December 30, 1919. Eugene first became interested in birds as a child when he noticed a scarlet tanager living in a lilac bush. He worked for CCC for 2 years before enlisting into the military for 6 years. He then went to college under the GI Bill, and would work for the Park Service as a temporary employee at the Lava Beds for 1- year before joining the Fish and Wildlife Service. Eugene met his wife, Edna, while working for the Service and they had two children together. Eugene talks about the various refuges he worked at and mentions various projects he worked on. He also shares a few stories of his experiences with the Fish and Wildlife Service and says that he had an enjoyable career with them, and feels that it can be a rewarding career for young people.
Eugene, age 87, & Edna Kridler
January 2006
NOTE: Gene passed away in January 2009
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THE ORAL HISTORY
Jerry: This is Jerry Grover a retired Ecological Services & Fishery supervisor in the Portland Regional Office. I’m doing an oral history today with Gene Kridler regarding his career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The purpose of this interview is part of a program to preserve the heritage and culture of the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service through the eyes of its employees. With me today in Sequim, Washington, is his wife Edna and Judy Grover. Would you state your name for the record.
Eugene: I’m Eugene Kridler, no middle initial, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on December 30, 1919. I was the runt of the litter; I’m the youngest member of the family.
Jerry: Gene, what got you into the Fish and Wildlife, did you have an experience as a young man that led you to the field of Fish and Wildlife?
Eugene: Well, I was in the CCC for 2 years and I enjoyed it and it was hard work, but I enjoyed it. It was during the depression and we needed every penny we could get. I got 5. And later on made an assistant leader and was paid 11; I was rich! And I enjoyed the outdoor work. It was also the thing that got me started on birds when I was a kid. A scarlet tanager lived in a lilac bush, it was a red and black bird and I was entranced with it. And then after that when I came home I couldn’t find a job.
Jerry: Home then is when you were still in Milwaukee?
Eugene: Milwaukee! I couldn’t find a job because they didn’t want to hire young people with no experience. So I enlisted in the Army horse cavalry with my brother. We were part of five other brothers that had been in the horse cavalry at one time or the other.
Jerry: When was that?
Eugene: 1938. And then 1940 we lost our horses and they converted us to field artillery. They mobilized us in October 1940 and we went down to Louisiana. We were down there for a while and we maneuvered all throughout the south. Then we got the news that we were at war. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I said, “Oh God almighty!” and I was in field artillery as an anti-tank sergeant. Later on in 1943 I was sent overseas to England. I spent some time in England and I landed in Normandy 2 weeks after the initial invasion. It was still pretty hot then. I had my moments of terror interrupted by long periods of boredom and misery. And I’m expert on the soils because of foxholes I’d dug.
Jerry: You’re what?
Eugene: Foxholes I’d dug.
Jerry: You were an expert on that?
Eugene: Yeah, yeah that’s how I got to be an expert on soils.
Edna: Because he dug so many foxholes.
Eugene: My unit started in northern France and Belgium and the Netherlands and then we wound up in Germany. Then I came home in 1945 and discharged at Fort Sheridan in Illinois. So then I didn’t graduate from high school, I had a year or so to go in high, so I went Milwaukee vocational school and got my diploma there. And then I went to University of Wisconsin in 4
Milwaukee, the Milwaukee campus for a year and a half majoring in Forestry; I wanted to be a forester. But then University of Wisconsin did not have a four-year forestry curriculum.
So I wrote to Minnesota, but at that time the colleges were swamped with GI’s under the GI Bill. I never dreamed of going to college when I was a kid because we were poor and only the rich kids went to college and only rich kids would ride streetcars to school. We walked. Anyway, so I wrote to various universities throughout the north, Michigan State and University of Minnesota, New York State, but they wouldn’t accept non-resident students. So then I wrote to the University of Montana and Montana would. So I went to University of Montana for a year and a half.
Jerry: Okay, what year was it you wrote to the University of Montana, what year was that?
Eugene: University of Montana was 1948.
Jerry: ’48 okay, so you’re a 28-year-old guy then.
Eugene: Yes! They had a lousy curriculum and it was a very small Forestry school at that time. So I switched majors to wildlife and transferred down to Utah State University. I got a degree in wildlife management down there. And I got my diploma in 1950, 1951.
Jerry: In ’51, I graduated from there in 1960. From Utah State. So you’re another Aggie, huh?
Eugene: We had to take a field trip with a bus and we visited all the major national wildlife refuges and national parks in the west. We wound up at Lava Beds National Monument in northern California and the superintendent came down and was talking to Jess Lowe who was the co-op unit leader of the University. And they were looking for, he was looking for a temporary ranger/naturalist. So I said, “I’ll take it.” So I worked there for a year and at the time the National Park Service hadn’t given an examination for a ranger for 9 years. So I said, “Oh God how long am I going to have to wait?” So then I was talking to Gene Munson, who was assistant manager at Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge - it was just adjacent to the national monument. He said, “Well I guess they’re talking about needing a clerk up at Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge up in north central Montana.” So I wrote to the regional office about it and they said, “Well if you want the job, you’ve got it.” So I went out there and Leon Snyder was refuge manager at the time.
Jerry: So the time that you went to Bowdoin, had you graduated from college from then?
Eugene: Yes.
Jerry: Okay, that was a senior trip that you took?
Eugene: Yes. I graduated with 45 more credit hours than necessary for a bachelor’s degree because I transferred from one University to another. And you know the thing that got me disgusted with Montana, they were requiring the forestry majors to take such things as the American novel, Shakespeare. I’m interested in forestry, not Shakespeare.
Jerry: So what grade did they hire you in at Bowdoin?
Eugene: As a GS-3 clerk.
Jerry: Okay so it was only upward from there, Gene.
Eugene: Yeah. But you know Leon Snyder was very happy to get me and he was a nice boss. So he turned much of the biological work over to me. It was mainly with waterfowl, with antelope and shorebirds and that sort of stuff.
Jerry: What, inventories or surveys?
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Eugene: Oh inventories and also making periodic counts, weekly counts. And which birds are nesting, which birds had young, and the broods they had and what was the production of various species.
Jerry: So just baseline data basically?
Eugene: And then after a while, after I worked for them for a while and I wanted to get to be a biologist and they said, “Well no!” I said, “Well okay, I’ll write to Michigan State, get a state job as a biologist.” And low and behold they said, “Well we’ve got a position at Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge down in southeastern California. That was in 1952. So I went down there and boy that’s hot country; day after day, week after week, month after month, over a hundred.
Jerry: Did you get a promotion going down there?
Eugene: Yes, I was assistant manager as a GS-5.
Jerry: GS-5, okay that’s the standard college degree entry level.
Eugene: Yeah. And after that I was down there for almost two years under Ed O’Neill. Do you know Ed?
Jerry: Don’t know Ed.
Eugene: Oh well, he was, he was a good man. And he wrote a book, Under the Blue Goose Sign, which I got. And anyways he now lives in Merrill, Oregon, by Klamath Basin, Oregon. Then in the regional office he asked me if I wanted to be the refuge manager at McNary Refuge. And I said, “Oh yes I’ll accept it.” And I was the first refuge manager they had at McNary.
Jerry: McNary where?
Eugene: Near Burbank, Washington, which is just close Pasco. I had three refuges, small refuges under me. And McNary, which we inherited from the Corps of Engineers because they constructed McNary Dam and did a lot of flooding of back land. And so the Service said, “Okay we want some of that land for a refuge.” So I was sent over there and only had one maintenance man to help me. We worked like dogs developing that area and also had Cole Springs, which was a reservoir in Oregon and McKay Creek Refuge, which is a refuge just outside of Pendleton; all three areas were under McNary.
Jerry: Did you get a promotion going up there then?
Eugene: I got a GS-7.
Jerry: Project leader.
Eugene: Um huh.
Eugene: Yeah (chuckling). Yes and back then the grades were very hard to get and very low compared to what they have today. And now they got personnel coming out of their ears, which we didn’t have. And so I was chief bottle washer on McNary and one day McDonald came with Leo Lathe for an inspection. And we had an old house that we lived in that the Corps of Engineers had gotten in the process of getting the whole area for the McNary Dam. It didn’t have a sidewalk, they had about two inches of dust and…
Edna: Black widow spiders.
Eugene: …and our oldest son, Gene, was born in 1951 in Pasco, Washington. And I had to go to McNary Game Range, which was a state refuge adjacent to McNary Refuge for water because the well that we had over at McNary was polluted; so heavily polluted we couldn’t use it for drinking water.
Jerry: Now let’s back up a minute, Gene, somewhere along the line here Edna came into the picture.
6
Eugene: Well I married her. I saw this real good-looking gal walking by me at, what was the name of that dance hall?
Edna: Eagle’s Ball Room, we both liked ball room dancing and…
Eugene: And polkas and tangos.
Jerry: Is this in Milwaukee or?
Eugene: Yeah, it was in Milwaukee.
Edna: That was before he started college. He went to school on the GI Bill.
Eugene: No I was going to college at that time, I was going to University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee campus at the time.
But I had a part-time job slinging cement blocks used for construction; each block weighed 60 pounds, we took 180 to a load. So the average truck driver lifted 25 tons of block a day and that, I just said, “Well I rather go to school then work all the time as a truck driver.”
Jerry: So when did you get married then?
Eugene: We got married in 1947.
Anyway getting back to McNary, and so anyway Kenneth McDonald and Leo Lathe came by and… McDonald was regional refuge supervisor
Eugene: You know who Leo Lathe was the Regional Director. He came up the ranks of the Gopher chokers, the rat control.
Jerry: Yep. P & R C they were called, Predator and Rodent Control back in those days.
Eugene: Gopher chokers and rat stranglers.
Eugene: Well anyway, we didn’t have a sidewalk leading up to the house from the road and it was a real dusty place and McNary was really a dusty place. And so I had some old broken down concrete slabs that I picked up from somewhere and I started laying them down because the regional director was coming with the regional refuge supervisor. And McDonald and Leo Lathe they came up and Leo says, “Every time we go to a refuge, the manager is working on his house.” And I told him, “God damn it, if I wanted to be a farmer,” which I was mainly growing grain crops for wildlife, “if I wanted to be a damn farmer, I would’ve gone to college to study agriculture instead of wildlife.” And that took him aback, you know, but they got me upset. So then about a couple weeks later they asked if I would consider going to Tule Lake or Klamath NWR’s as a refuge biologist. I said, “Yeah!” Because Tule Lake had quite a reputation at the time.
Jerry: Still does.
Eugene: Yes but now they’ve got more land than they got birds. It’s gone downhill because of the water situation. So I was at Tule Lake when Tom Horn was a refuge manager and Gene Branson was the assistant. I was by myself as a biologist. And we also had Clear Lake, Upper Klamath, Lower Klamath, and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges to take are of.
Jerry: What was your grade at that time, GS grade; did you get another promotion?
Eugene: I was just a GS-7. As a refuge biologist.
Tom Horn wanted a guy over in Stillwater NWR, Nevada and he wanted him as a biologist. So I guess he prevailed upon McDonald to transfer me down to Sacramento Refuge and he’d bring in this guy from Stillwater. So, and let me see what year that was—1950, ’55. I went to the Sacramento complex, which had Colusa and Sutter under Vernon Ekdahl who was a hell of a nice guy and a refuge biologist. I was down there for 4 years and then we transferred over to Malheur in 1960. 7
Jerry: Okay, 1960 you were transferred to Malheur from Sacramento? With a promotion?
Eugene: Yeah a promotion, a GS-11.
Jerry: GS-11. Did you get your GS-9 at Sacramento?
Eugene: Yes. And then I got my GS-11 at Malheur under John Scharff, who undoubtedly you’ve heard of. He was a hell of another nice guy. And I worked there as a biologist, the only biologist. A lot of not only biological work but weed control; we had a carp problem and did public relations, I’d take groups around. The groups always came around on Saturday or Sunday and that’s when headquarters were 30 miles from Burns so we had to go there for groceries.
Eugene: I enjoyed the work because I did a lot of leading groups around. I was interested in bird banding and I was president of the Western Bird Banders Association for a year. And I did a lot of public relations work, and I wrote a lot of the news releases for the local papers at the same time, so John Scharff pretty much left me free. But I didn’t agree thoroughly with what John Scharff did with a number of cattle that would graze on the refuge.
Jerry: Yes that was an issue, wasn’t it? That issue was around for a long time.
Eugene: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was the manager, I was just a biologist so he called the shots. And then one winter Dick Griffith asked me if I wanted to go down to Midway and help Chan Robbins with his aircraft project along with Ed O’Neill. Well Ed O’Neill, at the time, was refuge manager down at Salton Sea NWR. He got in jangle with his supervisor and came to Sacramento Refuge. Ed was kind of a difficult person to get along with. I got along with him but a lot of his crew did not. So he wound up being the biologist at Tule Lake later on. So anyways Ed and I went out to Midway with Chan Robbins and worked on the goony birds over there. Then he asked me if I wanted to be a refuge manager there. It meant going to Hawaii permanently. I was the first and only Service biologist stationed on Hawaii at the time, and my district included all of Guam, Yap, Pohnapei.
Jerry: The Trust territories of the Pacific.
Eugene: That’s right. And American Samoa and Johnson Island. And it’s just overwhelming. I went into regional office on my way over there, Dick Griffith says, “Oh yeah there’s a few other projects we’d have do.” They’ve got a lot of refuges out there now. It takes personnel to run a refuge so I can understand why…
Jerry: So what were the other things that Dick Griffith asked you to do?
Eugene: Well at one time at Kealia Pond, which is next to the Kahului Airport on Maui there was a movement a foot by the FAA to fill it up. It was the most important, I think, one of the most important endangered water bird areas in the world. So I went over there and did some on work on the kind of birds there, at what height they flew, and when they crossed over there. As result of my research, we shot down the FAA. They couldn’t fit the airport extension over there so it helped the State out by doing that work.
Jerry: At what, that wetlands was not refuge at the time?
Eugene: None of them were. And through the years I was responsible for the acquisition of James Campbell Refuge, and also the Pearl Harbor areas. I got together with the Navy or I worked with the military services to develop wildlife plans for their various bases; Hawaii has a lot military bases.
Jerry: Now in you’re in Hawaii, what grade were you then when you went to Hawaii.
Eugene: I still had a GS-11.
8
Jerry: Okay and you’re dealing with admirals and generals and… administrators of FAA…
Eugene: That’s right.
Jerry: …representing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Just you in your underwear.
Eugene: State Fish and Game, Michio Takata was director at that time so I had office space with them for a year or so. And then I had office space the GSA found me in a different building. I was also the refuge manager for the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge on Midway Island and that had been a refuge area since 1909. The Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor agencies had ignored it all these years, with all the goony birds – Laysan and Black-footed Albatross - and the petrels. They had endangered species over there endemic to the refuge. The Nihoa finch, Laysan finch and the Laysan duck on Laysan Island; very small areas. And not only that but Hawaii has had more of its species become extinct than any other place in the world. So anyways I was a refuge manager there for a number of years and then I just felt burned out and I said, “God d*mn it,” John Finley was the regional director at the time. I said, “I want to get back to the mainland.” And he said, “No, no you know more about the Pacific than anybody else in the service.” So I said, “Okay, provided that I work strictly with endangered species.” So I wound up as endangered species coordinator and then…
Jerry: Did you have any staff at that time?
Eugene: No.
Jerry: Or did you get staff?
Eugene: I got staff. I got Ernie Kosaka
Jerry: And Ernie’s still there.
Eugene: He’s still there. I had Darrel Herbst as a botanist, but that was a couple years later. And I got together with the State Fish and Game and worked with Ron Walker and Dave Woodside in publishing a number of these books. Have you ever seen those about endangered species?
Jerry: Okay these books that you worked on, one is Hawaii’s Endangered Forest Birds?
Eugene: Yep. We started out with endangered wildlife as a whole. And then we went to endangered water birds.
Jerry: There’s a whole series of these books?
Eugene: Yes, there are three books.
Eugene: John Finley was very, very good to me and helpful. So he asked me to get a whole bunch of people together and hold a
Oral History Bruce Cannaday Fishery Resources Program - Hatcheries
No full textBruce Cannaday oral history with wife Pauline interview with Jerry C. Grover as interviewer.
Bruce Cannady played a significant role in the siting, funding and construction of major new and reconstructed fish hatcheries located on Indian reservations in the Pacific Northwest. He also played a major role in the professionalization of the hatchery manager cadre.
Organization: FWS
Names Bruce and Pauline Cannaday
Years: 1939-1971 (Bruce)
Program:Deputy Assistant Regional Director, Hatcheries
Keywords:History, Biography, Personnel, Fish hatcheries, Fisheries management, Salmonids, Carson National Fish Hatchery, Leadville National Fish Hatchery, Coleman National Fish Hatchery,
Fishes, Columbia River Basin, Pacific Salmon, Steelhead trout, chinook, Coho, sockeye, Pacific RegionO R A L H I S T O R Y
BRUCE CANNADY
FISHERY RESOURCES PROGRAM - HATCHERIES
Interview
by
JERRY C. GROVER
March 23, 2000
Portland, Oregon
Oral History Program
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
National Conservation Training Center
Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Bruce Cannady at age 95ABSTRACT: Bruce Cannady played a significant role in the siteing, funding and construction of major new and reconstructed fish hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest. These hatcheries located on Indian reservations and along major water courses doubled the annual release of Pacific salmonids to enhance Tribal benefits and meet mitigation objectives of Federal water development projects. He also played a major role in the professionalization of the hatchery manager cadre in the selection of college graduate fishery biologists and developing a training program for the entry level personnel into the National Fish Hatchery system. He retired as a Deputy Assistant Regional Directory for the National Fish Hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest with 32 years of service. Notable, as of January 2009 his 32 years of service has resulted in 38 years of retirement as he approaches his 97th birthday.
Oral History
Interview with Bruce Cannady (age 89) (and his wife Pauline – age 92)
At his home in Portland, Oregon
Interviewed by: Jerry C. Grover
March 23, 2000
Jerry Grover: I’m talking with Bruce Cannady, retired Deputy Regional Supervisor for Fish Hatcheries for Region 1, the Pacific Region, and his wife Pauline.
Bruce Cannady: I was born in 1912 in Central Park, Nebraska. I went to high school in a small school at McGrew, which is in the country. Dad was a farmer
Jerry Grover: How did you meet Pauline?
Bruce Cannady: Another gal and I had split up is the best way I can say, and I went back over to McGrew and I knew there was a dance, and I went to the dance, and there was a girl there and I met her.
Pauline Cannady: She was a teacher he knew. First we went to the church, didn’t we?
Bruce Cannady: No, we were at Albertine’s Place.
Pauline Cannady: Well, they said that they were going to have a dance afterwards, so we went there. I went with another fellow, but I got there and I kept dancing with Bruce. I thought he was the one that brought me.
Bruce Cannady: And then she was surprised when the dance broke up and Aldin showed up, and he said, “Well, we’re ready to go,” and Pauline looked at me kind of surprised. I liked her.
Pauline Cannady: Bruce lived in town, but Aldin lived out in the country and he’d come in to see me, and Bruce would come right over.Jerry Grover: So after that it didn’t take long I take it, that the love birds kind of got in you...
Bruce Cannady: She moved to Scotts Bluff. I was in the town of Bayard, and that’s where she had graduated from high school. I worked at the sugar factory there as a chemist. And then I finally decided she was right for me in 1934, and boy things are really, anyway, I’m trying to think. I went to Scotts Bluff. I was at the factory for five years at Bayard, and then I was up there for two years. Oh, I was still at Bayard after we got married because I stayed with her mother. We only saw each other at the weekends because she was working in Scotts Bluff and I was working in Bayard. So we got married.
Pauline Cannady: He’s younger than I am, and I didn’t want to marry a younger fellow.
Bruce Cannady: Yeah, we got married, 65 years of it. We got married when I was only 21. I tell you, the reason, one of the reasons I got married is it was right in the middle of, I got a job over here and she had a job here, and we, and I had to walk about eight blocks, and we’d get together in the evening, and I’d walk home, and I finally said along in the spring, I said, you know, this is the silliest thing in the world. You know, in these days you just shack up and let it go at that. Well, those days you didn’t do it that way. So I said one day, “You know, this is silly. We’re both paying rent and maybe we ought to just get married and move together, and we would have more money and not be spending it for rent.” Pauline surprised me. She said, “You know, that sounds like a pretty good idea.” We waited, remember, we waited until the Fourth of July.
Pauline Cannady: Yeah, we both got days off. We got married the third of July in the evening
Bruce Cannady: We waited about six weeks, and we both had the time off on, lets see, what was it, Saturday and Sunday. We got married on Friday evening so we could go somewhere over the weekend, which we did. Well, we didn’t want to wait until the fourth.
Jerry Grover: How long was it then you started, the kids started coming along then?
Bruce Cannady: Seven and a half years, one. No, she had told me, I believe it was before me, when we began to think about, you know the future, and she advised me that there would never be any children because she had broken, had her back broken the year she got out of high school.
Pauline Cannady: The doctor told me be sure and tell my boyfriend if we got engaged, think of it to tell him that I may not be able to have any children. So I did. Well, we didn’t want any children then anyway.
Depression time!
Bruce Cannady: So we went along and then, and then when I went to work for the government, we’d been here two, two and a half years and we made a trip out West and that was the first time we’d never been on the West Coast, and so I said, “Why don’t we move out to Washington?” And I managed that, got all set up, moved in out here in the spring. We’d come back to Leadville and things were beginning to get to where I was getting to be moved, and then she said she was pregnant.
So we left Leadville and got out here, and he was born in May. We landed out here in November, and Mike was born in May.
Jerry Grover: Did you have lots of sisters and brothers? Did you grow up with sisters?
Pauline Cannady: Yes, I had five sisters and two brothers.Jerry Grover: What about you, Bruce?
Bruce Cannady: I only had one brother, and he’s seven and a half years younger than I am. We both started out in Nebraska. I wound up with the Federal service, wandering around and finally landed in Portland. He got a job out of Nebraska with Boeing up here at the end of the war. When he got out of that, he got his degree at the University of Washington and went to work in Seattle; wound up finally as Assistant Planning Director here in Portland for the City of Portland. And so we both wound up a few blocks from each other. We started in a different place and wound up in the same place doing different things.
Jerry Grover: You were living in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, and you’re applying for a job with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Bruce Cannady: I was expecting an answer, and here I am reading this letter about Fish and Wildlife Service, and I don’t even understand what I’m trying to read . I just figured, well, I’d forgotten about it. But as it happens, I was caught, when was it, about in March. Didn’t really have a job. So I said, well, what shall I do? Pauline says, “Why don’t we go over and just ask for a job, and maybe we can go over to Denver or somewhere.” She was working at the time at Woolworth’s in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. Wound up with that idea when we went up to Leadville, Colorado that if after three months, if we didn’t like it, we’d go back to Denver to look around.
Jerry Grover: Are these summer months or winter months?
Bruce Cannady: We went up on the 4th of April, 1939, and I wound up getting a job for 32 years instead of three months, and stayed at Leadville National Fish Hatchery for about two and a half years. They sent me out to Carson National Fish Hatchery, Washington. It was a beautiful little place, but I tell you, they couldn’t raise fish there at all, really, because they didn’t have any ponds. So we were there one year, sent to California to Coleman National Fish Hatchery. We were there five and a half years. My first year there, I was at the old hatchery, Battle Creek substation that they finally closed. Then I went up to the main Coleman station and stayed there until 1948, and then they sent us to, back believe it or not back to Carson again. Pauline had no more idea of wanting to go back to Carson than the man in the moon. But then we were there one year, and then they sent us to Cortland.
Jerry Grover: What grade were you hired in at when you went to Leadville, Bruce?
Bruce Cannady: When I was at Leadville, and an unknown thing at that time, I think they called it the Apprentice Fish Culturist.
Pauline Cannady: Apprentice Fish Culturist.
Bruce Cannady: Yeah, Apprentice Fish Culturist, and I was in that, what, two years.
Pauline Cannady: And they, they could have you leave after what, six months if they weren’t satisfied.
Bruce Cannady: Yeah, the old probationary period. And then when I landed back at Carson, I was called a Junior Fish Culturist, and then when I went to Battle Creek, what did they call it then? They called...
Pauline Cannady: Assistant Superintendent.
Bruce Cannady: No, Senior Fish Culturist, I don’t remember exactly. I wasn’t in charge. I was working for......, he died, and then I was acting manager for three or four months.Pauline Cannady: He was dying of cancer, and so Bruce...
Bruce Cannady: Can you remember his name? Isn’t that awful? That is my problem anymore. And then I was there, oh, about a year when I went up to Coleman, and I worked then as a foreman, something like that, foreman fish culturist? No, it wasn’t that. Foreman what? I was in charge of, they had this thing all cut up in some fashion and I don’t really remember, but I was... Anyway, I was there, what, five years. Then they sent me as the manager at Carson. I felt pretty good because I’d, come in and not knowing anything about what I was getting into, and nine years later I was manager, and most of the fellows around there had either never made manager or they made it later.
Jerry Grover: Were those GS grades at that time, with Manager?
Bruce Cannady: I was a 6 I think, at that time. Yeah, I know I was a 6 because just a year or two later they moved us, and we had to do it twice. We moved from a 7 and then to a 9, and that was about, well, I’d been at Carson, I’d been to Cortland [,New York Training School] and back. I went as a 6. God, that ís what everybody was, GS-5 or 6. Then we come back as a, and I come back as a 9 about a year later. Well, a 7 and then a 9, and I was there from 1948 to Cortland and back...
Pauline Cannady: 1957.
Bruce Cannady: And in 1957 I came..and in 1957 I came...
Pauline Cannady: We came to Walker.
Jerry Grover: Where were you between 1950 and 1957? Were you at Carson or at Cortland?
Bruce Cannady: Seven years...
Pauline Cannady: They remodeled it all for them ponds and...
Jerry Grover: In Carson?
Pauline Cannady: He was heading up all that remodeling.
Jerry Grover: Okay, they had just the three houses that were there.
Bruce Cannady: Oh yeah, but they built the other houses and put in ponds. That was done when I was there.
Pauline Cannady: And all those ponds.
Jerry Grover: Okay, and then you came, in 1957 then you came to the Regional Office in Portland, Oregon.
Bruce Cannady: I came in as Assistant Regional Supervisor in 1957.
Jerry Grover: What grade was that?
Bruce Cannady: It was a GS-12. Well, I came in as 11. Let’s see, again, I was a 9. I had to wait a year, got my 11, and then another year to 12. But that is what practically everybody was having to do if they moved into the office, because you know, they’ve always had this little problem of when people are promoted, and I held there until, well I was a GS-13 when I retired.Pauline Cannady: You had gone to Washington, DC between that time.
Bruce Cannady: 1950, after I’d been there three years, they sent me to Washington, DC in a training program. I was here, well first they called me in about September and kept me in Washington until December. Then I came home; I was home 17 day. They sent me back in for a training program, middle management training from January until June, and then I come back to Portland and they...
Pauline Cannady: He wouldnít stay there.
Bruce Cannady: Now, let me tell that story in my way. When I come back to Portland, they wanted me to go back to Washington and stay there and take my chances on wherever I wanted. I felt I had a couple of things that was wrong. First, I didn’t have a degree which was never, I always figured that was going to always be three strikes on me anyway because practically, well I think everybody had.
Jerry Grover: You didn’t have a fisheries degree or you didn’t have a college degree?
Bruce Cannady: I didn’t have a college degree.
Pauline Cannady: Some college classes but……..
Bruce Cannady: Oh, I had some here and there, and even when I was in Washington, DC up there in that middle management I picked up six credits in George Washington University. And anyway, people, including Abe Tunnison and Ray Johnson, Bill Hagen all wanted me to come back there, and I was a little reluctant, very reluctant in fact, because the more I thought, the more I’m probably going to wind up with a Washington office career. And I liked it here. I had a home here.
Pauline Cannady: But there was, you also liked the hatcheries and they weren’t so interested in hatcheries.
Bruce Cannady: Well, you spent your time in Washington, DC, and you know that it’s different.
Jerry Grover: I had two trips, yes.
Bruce Cannady: It’s a different climate.
Jerry Grover: Yes, it is.
Bruce Cannady: Completely different climate.
Jerry Grover: Well, the people at the time, did Bill Hagen have a college degree?
Bruce Cannady: Oh, yes. Everybody had it.
Jerry Grover: Everybody. The people that were back there then, so you were, you felt out of place?
Bruce Cannady: Well, when I was in Portland, the Assistant Director, I mean, Assistant Regional Director Barnaby had his masters and he begged me to go to Washington, and I kept telling him I could go and I’m sure I’m smart enough, but I know a few people in Washington that would resent the hell out of anybody that would even think they should have any kind of a promotion, and I’m not going to get into this, and I didn’t.Pauline Cannady: And so when he come home, they called me and talked to me, tried to, said, “Get him to come to Washington.”
Jerry Grover: Who was that? Is that Barnaby or was it Bill Hagen?
Pauline Cannady: No, I don’t know.
Bruce Cannady: Bill Hagen sat, stood in my house one evening, told Pauline, “Goddam it, you’ve got to get him to go back there or he’s just going to sit here and rot.” So I sat here and rotted.
Pauline Cannady: And he enjoyed it.
Jerry Grover: Okay. So now you’re out here. You were, you said you came out when you came back from Washington DC under the training program. You came back as what, essentially the same job?
Bruce Cannady: When I came here, see, when I came here in 1957, Ned Tuttle was the Supervisor of Hatcheries, and I was the Assistant, and that was it. There was two of us was all. Just before I left in 1960 to go back to this, that, and the other, Marv Smith came in. I approved him in fact. He had to have my approval because we’ve got to have a man; “what would you think of Marv Smith?” I thought he would be great. Anyway and then he came and I, I had to leave, and I was gone about eight months or so, or nine. So the two of them handled it then. So when I come back for the first time, we had three. Well a little later, (I don’t remember just when) Ray Vaughan came in and worked for us a couple of years, and then Paul Handy. Galen [Buterbaugh] was here. Oh, we had a lot of nice people going through here and going up, and up, and up. Paul Handy and John Miller were here up until the time I retired. I was the, somewhere in there, I became a, the Deputy, it isn’t Deputy, what do they call it? Anyway, Tuttle was the Supervisor of Hatcheries, and I was the Assistant, and that was it.
Pauline Cannady: You were working with then.
Bruce Cannady: Well, this, this was a little different. This, about five years before I retired, which would be about 1966, Kimmerick, when I came into Washington. He said, “one of these days I’m going to be going, and I’ve been into building hatcheries. Whatever has been going on, and you better kind of watch and do whatever you have to do as you go along because this is going to happen.” Well, he was right because about 1960, I don’t know, mid-í60's was when we had, began to build things like the big one out at Spring Creek.
Jerry Grover: The rebuilding the Spring Creek.
Bruce Cannady: And the one out at Dworshak.
Jerry Grover: Dworshak Hatchery. Before that, Kooskia NFH.
Bruce Cannady: Well, I also was into it for the State of Oregon here at Bonneville Dam. I was into some of the work that was being done in the Warm Springs reservation, down in California at the spawning channel at Red Bluff. I had Quinault and Makah Hatcheries up in northwest Washington, that was, Dan Slater agreed to have that. Well, and then I kind of helped out here and there on that, and anyway...
Jerry Grover: So you were basically into the construction money bag, organizing?
Bruce Cannady: That was the last five years I was working; I had a hand in, and one of the reasons I retired. We began to, we planned to move on these hatcheries that where were beginning to be constructed or were already half finished or wherever we were. One day the Corps of Engineers called me from Walla Walla and started telling me about the hatcheries that they were going to have built in eastern Washington, what they called, oh what was the name of these?
Jerry Grover: That would be the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan.
Bruce Cannady: They wanted me too, they said. I said, “good Lord, this will take five years just to get the thing lined up and get people thinking it would be a good idea, and I’m not going to wait that long to retire.” And they kept bothering me so I retired, and it was never built. It was not planned. It would have been if I had been there, I think, but I don’t know, because I didn’t stay long enough.
Interviewers Note: The Lower Snake Compensation Plan hatchery system was built and is operating as a joint venture between the Federal Corps of Engineers, the construction agency, the Fish & Wildlife Service, the budgeting & technical administrative agency and the States of Idaho and Washington, the operating entities.
Jerry Grover: So you retired then in 1971.
Bruce Cannady: Yeah. I was 58 years old. 32 years of service, and I had planned to wait until I was at least, well, maybe even 62, certainly 60, and the day that I went down to tell John Finely that I was going to retire, you wouldn’t believe it. We ate lunch, John and Gib Basset and a little group of us, and one of them said, “Hell, you’re not going to retire because we don’t even have any word about that.” The other one said, “Oh yes, we did.” It just fell on his lap just about 20 minutes ago.
Pauline Cannady: You .
Bruce Cannady: Oh, that is another hatchery.
Jerry Grover: Lahontan, in Nevada.
Bruce Cannady: Yeah, I was in on the end of that one too. I was into, I suppose I could sit down and probably count, there was probably eight of them, at least.
Jerry Grover: And if they weren’t built brand new they were reconstructed, like Spring Creek.
Bruce Cannady: Yeah, but some of them were new. Quinault was new. And Makah, yeah. And so was Warm Springs for the tribe. And the one in California was new, Tehama-Colusa, the spawning channel. The Russian River. That was one that California ended up operating. It was a Corps of Engineers project.
Well, most of the time I knew who was going to operate. The one that finally come out that I thought was going to be built by the State, fell apart and we wound up with Spring Creek [National Fish Hatchery]. It was just one of those things. Because I was working with the states and we all knew what the policies were, and we might argue and talk about it, but when we got down to talking finally, like Bonneville Dam, there was no question about where it was going to be and how much it was going to be. But they were expecting one person to kind of carry the ball.
Jerry Grover: They, the Corps?
Bruce Cannady: When I began working with the Corps, hardly anybody was speaking with the Fish and Wildlife Service. It took me three years to get some fences mended, and when I finally got the fences mended with a lot of other help, guess what? --you just stood back and got out of the way, because they were going to build places like Dworshak whether you wanted it or not..Jerry Grover: Well, Dworshak, as I understand it, was going to be a state operated hatchery until halfway through and then Idaho backed out. Was that a surprise?
Bruce Cannady: Not really, because I was almost sure that the Federal Government was going to build it because I had been talking along with the Corps, and we were talking about the State. We had
Oral History of David B. Marshall Portland, Oregon November 30, 2000
No full textOral history interview with David B. Marshall as interviewed by Jerry and Judy Grover.
Mr. Marshall knew he wanted to work for the Service after visiting the Malheur Refuge as a teen. He got a student position, then became permanent as an assistant refuge manager at Stillwater NWR. He held several positions at different refuges and Regional Offices, including DC and Portland, throughout his career. Mr. Marshall also was responsible for taking cranes to Japan.
Organization: FWS
Name: David B. Marshall
Years: 1949-1981
Program: Refuges
Keywords: History, Employees (USFWS), Personnel, Wildlife refuges, J. Clark Salyer, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, Ira Gabrielson, William Finley, Carl Hubby, Ed Averill, Tom McAllister, William Telfer, J. Clark Salyer, LeRoy Giles, Kenneth MacDonald, Stanley G. Jewett, Howard Sergeant, Vernon Ekedahl, Ray Erickson, Gene KRidler, Ray Glahn, John Chattin, John ScharffTHE U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE
R EE T II R EE D
PPaacciiffiicc RReeggiioonn
Check out the Fish & Wildlife Service Retirees Website: www .nctc.fws.gov/history/heritagecommittee.html
ORAL HISTORY
of
David B. Marshall
Portland, Oregon
November 30, 2000
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID B. MARSHALL
BY JERRY C. GROVER
and Judy M. Grover
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Retired
PORTLAND, OREGON
MR. GROVER: I am with David B. Marshall, a long time
employee of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Can you give us
a little of your background and history? When were you born?
MR. MARSHALL: I was born on March 7, 1926 in Portland,
Oregon into a pioneer Oregon family, at least on my father’s
side and to some extent on my mother’s side. I had an early
interest in birds; no doubt through my family. My family was
composed of a number of naturalists including my great
grandmother who was a close friend of William L. Finley, the
famous Oregon conservationist, wildlife photographer, writer
and naturalist. So I developed an interest in birds. Some of my
earliest memories are identifying birds in the backyard at the
feeder. I learned their names from my mother and father. My
father and his family were very active in what was then called
the Oregon Audubon Society, now Audubon Society of
Portland. As a result of exposure to activities and members of
this group, I had further exposure to things in the natural history
world. My parents were particularly interested in wildflowers.
But that didn’t interest me at the time. It was just birds.
MR. GROVER: What did your father do?
MR. MARSHALL: My father was a Civil Engineer and a
Surveyor. He and his brother had an engineering firm here in
Portland and did a good part of the lot survey work and
subdivision work in Portland, starting in the teens up until the
mid 1950s. Also they conducted engineering work during
World War II designing the docks at the shipyards and laying
out housing projects. During the depression my dad was County
Surveyor for a short time when business slacked off. This was
an elected position. I also had the opportunity to get in the out
of doors on numerous family outings and camping trips.
Camping wasn’t popular then, but we did a lot of it over
various parts of the state.
MR. GROVER: That would have been in the 1930s?
MR. MARSHALL: Yes, the 1930s and early 1940s. We really
got around, particularly in southeast Oregon including Steens
Mountain. Then it was tough getting around. Many a time we
were delayed for a day or two because storm flooded the roads.
Those family trips meant a lot. Then there was the exposure to
things like the Audubon Society lectures, which were weekly.
My dad was the chairman of the programs.
MR. GROVER: Was this the Oregon Audubon Society?
MR. MARSHALL: Yes, it was then called the Oregon
Audubon Society. It was the only one in the state. There were
the Christmas bird counts, which were important to me.
Audubon activities brought me into contact with William L.
Finley and Stanley G. Jewett and a number of other famous
people like Ed Averill. So I had this contact as a boy,
particularly with Finley and Jewett, which meant a lot to me. I
was impressed with the things they were doing from a
conservation standpoint. I would overhear them talking over
conservation problems and their strategies and what they should
do about various issues. Finley and his wife, Irene, came to
some family Christmas celebrations. I got to listen to Finley’s
lectures. One that I can most vividly remember was on the
California condor. That inspired me in terms of the need to
protect endangered species. Another event that got me
interested in endangered species was this; in 1937 we were at
2
Borax Lake east of Steens Mountain, OR. We looked down at
the fish in the lake and my father told me, “That fish does not
have a name, and this is the only place that it is found in the
world”. Somehow, that really got to me. I picked up a lot of
interest then. This fish didn’t have a name and this was the only
place in the world where it was found. The only way my father
knew about that was through his association with Carl Hubbs.
MR. GROVER: Was that Carl Hubbs of Hubbs and Lagler
fame?
MR. MARSHALL: Yes! Hubbs had told him about it. He told
him that the fish hadn’t been described at that point.
Incidentally, the fish did not get described until the late 1960s or
early 1970s and is now referred to as the Borax Lake chub. I
made sure it got listed under the ESA when I was with that
program. So, I had an association with natural history in
boyhood. Then I met two boys, Tom McAllister and William
Telfer, who were about my age. We became close friends. I
had a bicycle and saw to it that they got bicycles and we
bicycled all over the Portland area on bird watching trips. And
we contributed to work that was done to document birds of the
Portland area, what seasons they were there and where. We
contributed a lot to that. Our adventures just came out in print
in Wild in the City by Houck and Cody published by Oregon
Historical Society Press. In it is a story titled “Home Town”
which Tom McAllister and I wrote. The story was also
published in the Oregon Historical Quarterly in the Fall 2000
issue. That tells a little bit about our adventures. We rode our
bikes to Mount Hood. At one point we even bicycled to Olallie
Lake, OR. This was in the early 1940s. We also bicycled out
towards Maupin about 100 miles from home to see birds of
eastern Oregon. These were bicycle/camping trips. At that time
you could bicycle from here to Government Camp and you’d
have to get off of the road maybe every fifteen or twenty
minutes to let a car by; nothing like the traffic of today. The
pavement wasn’t really wide enough to accommodate a car and
a bicycle too. These experiences gave us a lot of self confidence
and independence.
MR. GROVER: Did you have any jobs at this time? I know it
takes a little money to go out to Olallie Lake. Did you ever
work for pay?
MR. MARSHALL: No, I didn’t until I was 16. Well, I had a
family allowance if I cut the lawn and did little chores like that.
But I remember that to get my bicycle, I had to pay half of it. If
I could save up enough money for half of it, my father would
pay for the other half. These bicycle trips added a lot to my life.
In 1939, when I was 13 years old, Oregon Audubon conducted a
week’s auto trip to Malheur Refuge. My dad’s brother, C. L.
Marshall, set up the logistics for it. But the real leader from a
technical standpoint was Stanley G. Jewett, who was called the
Regional Biologist for what was then the U.S. Biological
Survey. Jewett was co-author with Ira Gabrielson of Birds of
Oregon, which was published in 1940. Jewett took quite an
interest in me as a boy. He would go over our bird notes from
our various trips. We would call him with questions about
birds. We didn’t really have good field guides then. He would
usually say, “You come down to my office.” We’d do down
there and we’d discuss things that we had seen. But the trip to
Malheur really told me that I wanted to be like Jewett, a wildlife
biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service. I was kind of
headed that way. He advised Tom McAllister and me to get
summer jobs outdoors just as soon as we could even if it was
building trails; this would help lead to careers. When we were
still in our last year of high school the Forest Service recruited
youth for fire control and work crews as well as forest fire
lookouts. Physically fit older young men were in the military.
This was in 1943. Tom McAllister and I both applied and we
got put on the Fremont National Forest. About July 1, at the
beginning of the fire season, both of us were put on fire lookout
stations on peaks. We were seventeen years old. At that point
there were no tourists, and no pleasure travel because of the war.
There was gas rationing. We were put up there alone with no
contact with the outside world except by telephone connected to
the nearest ranger station. Tom was put on Hager Mountain
near Silver Lake and I was on one called Colman Point near
Bly. We kept bird notes of course and that led to an article in
The Auk, the journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union,
titled “Summer Birds of the Fremont National Forest, Oregon.”
We thus published in a professional journal before we’d ever
gone to college. Jewett encouraged us to do this and went over
it before we sent it in. He said that it was fine. It was published
in the April 1945 edition.
In 1944, after high school graduation, the war wasn’t over. I
went into the army air forces. I became an aerial gunner on a B-
17. My position was as the “belly” gunner otherwise known as
the ball turret. I flew four combat missions over Germany and
the war in Europe ended. Then in 1946, I was out of the
military and entered Oregon State College where I majored in
what was then called Fish and Game Management. Tom
McAllister did likewise. We were right away pegged as being
‘different’ because the class, which was all war veterans but
one, and all men of course, enrolled in the major because of an
interest in hunting and fishing. We were the first post-war class
at Oregon State in Fish and Game Management. Tom and I
picked Oregon State because it was one of only two or three
schools that offered a major in that field on the west coast. It
was a really good curriculum. We turned out to be well
prepared for professional positions, even though not one of our
major instructors had a Ph.D. They really worked hard on a
curriculum that would fit what was needed for us. Some of the
classes such as ornithology and mammalogy, I see most people
taking now as graduate students. The agencies at that point
badly needed trained people. It was a case of just getting them
out just as fast as they could. We really weren’t encouraged to
go to graduate school at all.
The summer after I got out of the military, I worked again for
the Forest Service on the Fremont National Forest as a fire
lookout. The summer between my freshman and sophomore
year at OSU I did likewise. Between my sophomore and junior
year, I worked for the National Park Service at Crater Lake
National Park. I wanted to vary my experience, but I was
simply one of those rangers at the gate who pulled in the fees. I
wanted to be a ranger/naturalist, but they wouldn’t hear of it.
They said I didn’t have enough college yet. But I ended up on
the side helping Don Farner, who wrote The Birds of Crater
3
Lake National Park. I wanted to get into the FWS and saw that
I had better head that way. So in about January of 1949 I went
to see Stan Jewett and asked him, “How do I get in to the
FWS”? It was the usual answer, “You come down to my
office”. That was when I was junior at Oregon State. He told
me I should apply for a Student Assistant position and
introduced me to Kenneth F. MacDonald (known as “Mac”),
the regional refuge supervisor (The Portland Regional Office at
that time had the states of WA, OR, CA, ID, NV and MT
assigned to it). They had Student Assistant positions at the Tule
Lake and Malheur Refuges and were going to establish one on
the Stillwater Wildlife Management Area. So I applied and
nothing happened. So I called Jewett again and said, “What do I
do?” He said, “You come down to my office.” I went down
there and he marched me back to see Kenneth McDonald again.
Jewett, I found out, wasn’t too well liked by some of his peers
because of his bluntness. He said, “Mac, do you have this boy a
job or don’t you have a job for him?” Mac kind of chewed
away on his cigar, and grumbled like he did. Finally he said he
did have a job for me. Then Jewett, who was not with refuges
but served as the flyway biologist at that point, told Mac that he
wanted him to put me at Stillwater. Of course, that didn’t set to
good with Mac either.
MR. GROVER: Who was Mac again?
MR. MARSHALL: Mac was the Refuge Supervisor in
Portland. He was a Scotsman who had no biological training
whatsoever. He came to the service from Montana where he
had been in charge of state hatcheries, but he had no formal
training in fish and wildlife. But in many ways he was a good
administrator. Anyway, this was all kind of innocent on my
part. It was all because of who I knew that I got into the FWS.
There was no good formal review of applicants or advertising. I
don’t think it was proper, but that’s what happened. I wanted to
know how I could get in, and Jewett told me to come down to
his office! He was determined that I go to Stillwater. He said it
was a new area. He told Mac that we had virtually no
information on it - no real idea of what the bird or plant life
there. Jewett told Mac, “This is the man who can do it!” This
probably happened in April. In June upon termination of spring
term, I drove to Fallon, Nevada, the headquarters of the
Stillwater Wildlife Management Area, and met Tom Horn, the
Refuge Manager, at his home on an afternoon in early June of
1949. He had arrived on the site with his family several weeks
previously. I believe there might have been one maintenance
man. I drove down there in a surplus World War II jeep that I
had. Tom Horn must have taken a liking to me because I just
talked to him for an hour or two, and he said, “Well, do you see
that jeep over there?” It was a new jeep pickup truck. He said,
“That’s yours for the summer. I want you to inventory
everything that’s here. All the bird and mammal life, plants and
so forth.”
I became very fond of Tom’s family. In fact, I wasn’t there but
for an hour or two when he sent me with his daughter, Nancy,
who was about eight and knew the way to the refuge. She
guided me out there and showed me a piece of it and we came
back to town. The summer turned into a great experience
because I was given a free hand and wrote a report on the area at
the end of the summer. I still have a copy of that report.
During the course of the summer, J. Clark Salyer showed up
with Mac. Salyer was national Chief of the Wildlife Refuge
System. He was an extremely colorful and competent character.
Salyer came to determine what part of this refuge was going to
left open to public hunting. It was a 205,000-acre area of which
we had jurisdiction over about 155,000 acres through an
agreement with the Nevada Fish and Game Commission, the
Truckee-Carson Irrigation District and the FWS. Most of it was
to become open to public hunting. Salyer came to talk to the
local people about what part of the area would be open to public
hunting and what wouldn’t. This is a really interesting piece of
history. He and Mac went on a tour of the refuge with Tom
Horn. They borrowed my jeep pickup that day. It was the only
vehicle with 4-wheel drive, which was essential. There were
almost no roads. Mac was a very fastidious man who didn’t like
a bit of dust or dirt. In the front of the pickup there was just
room for Tom Horn and Salyer. I didn’t get to go because there
wasn’t enough room. But Mac had to sit on a box in the back of
the pickup in all of the dust. Of course, Salyer outranked him
and Tom Horn had to drive! Besides, Salyer delighted in
teasing Mac about his not wanting to get dirty. They had a
meeting that night with the local sportsmen. Salyer drew a line
across the map. He said, “Okay boys, which side do you want?”
This was in reference to which side of the line they wanted for
hunting and which side did they wanted to be closed to hunting.
They were furious because they had been sold on the idea that
they could break it all up into little units and have a little piece
here and a little piece there for refuge and so forth. That didn’t
go over at all. But the map they had of the refuge didn’t have
half of the wetlands delineated at the north end of the area.
There was no good map. I discovered all kinds of marvelous
habitat that wasn’t on the map at all. In fact the map showed
about a third of the wetlands on the area. The local sportsmen
could see that. When Salyer drew that line which looked like an
even split to him, they naturally picked the good half, which had
all of these marvelous wetlands for waterfowl habitat that were
not on the map.
MR. GROVER: They wanted this part as their hunting area?
MR. MARSHALL: Yes, it was to be the hunting area. So they
came out way, way ahead in terms of the hunting area. That
was an interesting experience in how things came about at that
time. But that’s also how I got to come into the service on a
permanent basis. Before that meeting, and after Salyer’s tour of
the area, I walked into the office. It was around 5:30 in the
evening. I came to town for some reason, probably to pick up
the jeep truck. Tom Horn was in the office along with Salyer.
Salyer was standing there in his under shorts. He was changing
his clothes for the meeting. Tom said, “Dave, meet J. Clark
Salyer”! Well I shook hands with Salyer standing there in his
under shorts! Then, Salyer said…he had kind of a funny way of
talking: “How about coming to work for us permanently?”
What brought that on I have no idea. Tom insisted he did not
say anything about me. But I still wonder! But that’s what he
said. I told him, “Yes, I’d like to”. He then said, “Okay, do you
have a girlfriend?” I told him that I did and we were planning
4
on getting married at the end of the summer. Salyer told me to
get Tom to give me three days of leave to go up to Oregon, get
my girlfriend, marry her and bring her back here. He said, “I
want to see what she thinks of this place”. At that time I later
learned, they were very concerned that employees be married
because they were in isolated places and unmarried men didn’t
seem to stay in one place or work long hours, as was customary
then. So in August, I did go home for several days. Betty and I
got married and we drove back down there. We stayed at the
Canvasback Gun Club where I was housed. That took care of
that necessary requirement I guess, in Salyer’s eyes. But like I
said, I guess he really did want to see what Betty thought of the
place because Fallon, Nevada was a pretty isolated area for a lot
of women, I can assure you. So I was back at Stillwater as an
Assistant Refuge Manager beginning in March of 1950 after I
completed the necessary requirements for my B.S. degree from
Oregon State College.
MR. GROVER: So Dave, this was in a permanent position?
MR. MARSHALL: Yes, this was my first permanent
assignment.
MR. GROVER: So you arrived back there with a wife and….
MR. MARSHALL: Yes, and a pregnant wife at that, by then!
But as soon as I had enough credits at Oregon State, which was
in March, I just left. The last courses in the last term didn’t look
too interesting to me. One of them was in big game
management and I wasn’t too interested in that particularly. So
we moved down there in March. The paper said I was Assistant
Refuge Manager, GS-5. But there was also a biologist assigned
there at that time. Tom Horn was not too crazy about him and
he wanted me to be the biologist, so he put the fellow that was
the biologist who had quite a bit of experience, on
administrative duties and I was really the biologist. I felt bad
about that. He was LeRoy Giles. He was really a very
competent guy. We got along great despite what Tom did.
I’d like to back up to one point.
MR. MARSHALL: MacDonald was Supervisor of Refuges in
Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana.
And he had one Assistant who was good at administrative work.
He name was Wilfred Anderson. He went from being a clerk at
Malheur to being an assistant to MacDonald. The Regional
office staff was two people, plus secretarial help. That’s all
there was. And MacDonald was supervisor then for the Refuge
Managers in those various states. You can see how many
people he had to supervise. You can also see what freedom they
must have had because Mac couldn’t watch over them that
closely.
MR. GROVER: Do you recollect how many refuges there
were, staffed refuges, in this area?
MR. MARSHALL: Well, I would judge about 30 that were
manned plus satellites.
MR. GROVER: How were they typically manned?
MR. MARSHALL: Typically, they were manned by a Refuge
Manager. On the big ones, also by an Assistant Refuge
Manager and several maintenance men and a clerk. That was
the typical staffing. Some of them only had one man on them.
Some of them had two. The big ones like Malheur would have
maybe ten. They were mostly maintenance people.
MR. GROVER: Okay, back to Stillwater. Here you are with a
pregnant wife back at Stillwater. What was your first
assignment there as a permanent employee, living the good life
as a GS-5?
MR.
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