Part V
MY LIFE STORY
My Early Career Years
(1958-1963)
Working for Purex –
The
first few days after our move were hectically spent purchasing
furniture,
supplies, and food and otherwise getting the house organized.
We had saved some money while in the USMC, after paying
off the $500 personal note that I had borrowed just before
reporting to the USMC.
Fortunately, the savings were sufficient to get us up and
running with our new house.
The pay for my 60 days of unused leave came in very
handy.
Cindie and Karen made the move quite easily, as Karen’s mother
and father helped us move in. They also watched Cindie as we did
some of our shopping, despite their fulltime teaching
responsibility and their part-time clerking at a local
department store.
We really liked our house, although the small backyard was
unimproved and needed work, it was not a problem.
We made the bedroom closest to the master bedroom a
nursery, hoping that our next baby was also a girl. We furnished
the third bedroom with a pullout sofa and a desk for my future
studies. The dining
room was part of the fair sized living/dining room.
The kitchen was adequate but small with no eating space.
The attached garage was the conventional sized two car garage,
although we still had only one car.
We settled comfortably into the house.
It was about 15 miles from Karens folk’s home.
Karen connected with a pediatrician and I reported to Purex on
June 4th..
I would begin work on Monday June 9th, our
second wedding anniversary.
When I
reported to Purex, I was advised that my job had changed,
as between my acceptance of the job and reporting for the job,
the plant manager had gained approval to hire a plant engineer
for which I was more qualified.
In the meantime, the plant manager had filled the job
which was originally offered to me by promoting an hourly
employee. I was
elated with this move as it increased the scope of my work to
plant wide responsibility and was more technical than
supervisional.
I met the plant manager, Alvin Oxley an experienced
manufacturing executive, the assistant plant manager, Charlie
Beason, as well as the processing supervisor, Steve Barris.
They welcomed me and generously asked if there was
anything that they could do to help us in our move to the area.
I liked them all, advised them that we had things well in
hand and that I would report to work on the following Monday.
After pretty well setting the house up, I began working on the
back yard, which was enclosed with a six feet high concrete
block wall.
There was a concrete slab patio about five feet by ten feet
immediately outside the sliding glass door from the living room
to the backyard, however,
the rest of the backyard was just as the builder had left it.
Preparing the back yard for an acceptable lawn was back
breaking work.
However, we soon had a nice grass lawn, with various landscaping
planted along the concrete wall.
Karen’s father helped considerably as he was an almost
master gardener/landscaper and had acquired considerable
knowledge of California plants in the two short years living in
California.
My
work at Purex after some orientation meetings and tours, began
with several cost cutting and environmental projects as well as
product quality improvement assignments.
I reported primarily to the plant manager but worked
closely with the other supervisors as I worked on
projects in their area of responsibility.
It was challenging, meaningful work which resulted in
learning a considerable amount about producing spray dried dish
and laundry detergents, household and commercial chlorine bleach
and silica based scouring cleanser, the three products
manufactured in this plant.
(Two other Purex
plants, one in Bristol, PA and one in Omaha, NE produced bar
soap and recovered soap making byproduct, glycerin for
commercial sale.)
Occasionally, I would be asked to work on weekends or some
double shifts, for
which I was paid pro-rata straight time amounts for the extra
shifts. The
extra compensation came in handy.
The
summer went quickly and again Karen had a reasonably easy
pregnancy. We
socialized with her parents and her brother and his family.
Karen’s folks were eagerly looking forward to grandchild
number three.
Fortunately, everyone was enjoying good health.
Karen’s father was extremely busy teaching,
working on their newly
constructed Methodist Church grounds and
clerking in a local department store.
We connected with Mother Swanson’s younger sister Joyce
and her husband, Merritt
a retired AF pilot, who lived in Southern California.
Seldom did the Stephan’s family all get together although
three of the five were in Southern California (Reece, Ruth and
Joyce), one in Phoenix, AZ (George) and one in Dayton, OH
(Marian). However,
we did see all of them but Marion occasionally.
George a bachelor, who was teaching in a suburb of
Phoenix, AZ traveled to California to visit on the school
holidays. We were a
long way from my family and unfortunately, we were not able to
get back to Iowa for Beverly and Allan’s wedding on August 23.
Beverly had graduated
from nurses training and would be working in Ames as Allan
finished his last year of college at ISC.
When September arrived, school resumed for Edward and Ruth (and
George). My work
continued to be both challenging and educational and Karen’s due
date was rapidly approaching.
Karen and I stayed close to home except for my work.
On the early morning of Thursday, October 2nd,
Karen awakened me and
said that her water had broken and she needed to go to the
hospital. We were
organized for the trip with a “go bag”.
I dressed and bundled Cindie for the ten minute car ride
to the Garden Grove, CA hospital.
We called ahead to the hospital alerting them of our
arrival. Karen got
settled in at the hospital and since we had a bit of time, I
drove Cindie to Karen’s parent’s home, where her mother was
waiting for us, having already alerted the school that she would
not be able to teach on Thursday and Friday.
Kimberly Diane Davis joined our family –
Kim
was born shortly thereafter.
The young doctor came to tell me that I was father of a
baby girl. I was
able to see Karen and Kimberly Diane Davis an hour after that.
At that time fathers
were not permitted in most delivery rooms for the birth of their
children. Karen and Kim
stayed in the hospital two days.
Now we had a competing daughters for the most beautiful
baby ever. Kim
weighed 5 pounds 9.5 ounces and was 18 inches tall. In those
days there was no paternity leave, so I took a week of vacation
to help around the house.
Kim also was put on formula in the hospital.
Kim was a very good baby.
Although Cindie and Kim were only 54 weeks apart Karen
handled their care with grace and competence.
It was very beneficial
to have Karen’s parents nearby.
I don’t remember what the hospital bill for Karen and Kim
was however, it was considerably more for their two day visit
than the five day visit with the birth of Cindie at the US Naval
Hospital.
Fortunately, our health insurance from Purex covered most of the
cost.
The
next couple of months passed quickly and soon the Thanksgiving
and Christmas holidays were upon us.
We again had the pleasure of enjoying them with Karen’s
parents and her brother and his family.
Cindie and Kim were growing like weeds.
Both were healthy
babies. Cindie had
begun walking but she was really riding her rocking horse for
all it was worth.
She was barely able to sit on it and
hold on while someone bounced it for her, but she
thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Their other cousin on the Swanson
side of the family, Lynn, was born on January 4, 1958. The
Swanson’s had four granddaughters, their only grandchildren, all
within 16 months! Karen
was quite busy with our two daughters and very happy to be close
to her parents and for their help.
The Purex factory was
closed for the week of Christmas, enabling the staff to take
some time off as well to enjoy the holidays.
I
enrolled in more business management correspondence courses
through La Salle University based in Philadelphia.
While in California, I completed about one-half dozen of
the courses as they were designed to progress through the
courses as quickly as one wanted to.
The more I studied business management the more attracted
I was to it. I had
decided that I wanted to pursue a career in management rather
than to progress up the technical career ladder.
I enjoyed my work
at Purex and the men that I worked with.
A really serious problem developed one night when I was
working late one evening.
One of the employees noticed that a five feet deep pit
containing two horizontal storage tanks, one of which contained
very concentrated sulfuric acid and the other contained spent
sulfuric acid, was partially filled with liquid.
The concrete pit should have been empty.
The employee alerted a
maintenance employee who activated a team to deal with the
problem. One of the
maintenance men dressed in knee high rubber boots had carefully
entered the pit. By
then we had determined that the concentrated sulfuric acid tank
was leaking. The
containment pit had a sump located at one end from which rain
water would collect and be pumped out.
There was a
steel grate covering the sump, however someone failed to replace
the grate after removing it earlier.
The maintenance man did not know this. He intended to
step on grate over the sump.
Instead, he stepped into the pit and his boot filled with
the acid resulting in an extremely debilitating acid burn.
Fortunately, he recovered but he had a very
long and painful recovery and a badly deformed leg.
The
Purex Southgate plant was land locked and any capacity expansion
was limited. We
focused on improving productivity, quality and
product innovations.
My work was involved with all of these functions
and I was able to contribute to the continued growth of
the plant. One of the major challenges at that time was meeting
the Los Angles County air pollution standards.
Los Angeles suffered from
major air pollution challenges, particularly ozone from
the vehicular traffic in the basin as it was nearly surrounded,
except for the side which was occupied by the Pacific Ocean,
with low elevation mountains which trapped the pollutants in the
basin. I well
remember days when our eyes would burn from the air pollution.
It was quite uncomfortable.
Likewise, we had reasonably strict particle/dust emission
restrictions. With
the spray drying of detergents there was considerable detergent
dust to capture from the hot exhaust dryer air.
Our dust collectors were large containers with many cloth
tubes six inches in diameter through which the dust laden air
was directed. The
dust was captured in the cloth tubes as the air was directed
through the cloth into the exterior chamber.
This filtered air was released into the atmosphere.
The cloth tubes were periodically shaken down/vibrated to
cause captured dust to fall into a lower catch chamber where the
dust was then recycled into new batches of detergent.
The periodic replacement of the cloth tubes was an
undesirable job.
As
Cindie approached her second birthday and Kim her first
birthday, Cindie was talking up a storm, learning new words
daily and acting as an interpreter for Kim.
Since Kim had Cindie talking somewhat for her, Kim was in
no hurry to talk, to learn new words or to make herself
understood to mom or dad, she just let Cindie tell us what Kim
wanted! That summer
my folks decided to make a driving trip to
California to visit us.
Beverly and Allan decided to join them as Allan had
graduated earlier from ISC and was waiting orders to report to
Fort Riley, KS for his basic officers training.
Janie was in high school and living at home.
She joined them on the trip.
My folks met both Cindie and Kim for the first time.
It was a joyous time.
Cindie would soon be two years old and Kim one year old.
We enjoyed an early celebration of their birthdays (and a
bit late celebration of my birthday).
It was my parents first visit to California although my
mother may have
visited California as a baby in 1914-6 with her parents.
When my folks were in
California, we visited Hanna Nixon,
Richard Nixon’s mother one evening in her Whitter,
California home.
Richard Nixon, the sitting vice-president at that time, was very
closely related through his families to my mother’s families,
however an actual relational connection could not be
established. I
guess the best way to describe it is that many of Nixon’s
relatives were connected to some of mother’s relatives by
marriage. Ms. Nixon
was most gracious and she and mom discussed some distant
relatives with whom both of them were familiar. (Below is a copy
of the postcard my sister Janie received from Mrs. Hanna Nixon,
President Nixon’s mother.)
While my parents were visiting, we made the round of the
local tourist sites, particularly Knotts Berry Farm and Sea
World. Cindie and
Kim were too young to do Disneyworld at that time, however, as
we will discuss later, they made up for it with their two
cousins (Ed and Lee’s daughters) later.
My parents were able to spend some more time with the
Swanson’s which is the first time that they had been together
since Karen and my wedding.
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My first promotion and employment transfer –
That fall, I was approached about a transfer to Purex’s Bristol,
Pennsylvania plant.
The Bristol plant was a large soap making and packaging plant,
to which Purex was adding a dry detergent and a liquid detergent
plants. With this
expansion, the plant needed a Processing Supervisor, and I was
nominated by my plant management.
I discussed this opportunity with Karen.
It would mean moving across the country, a promotion and
a compensation increase.
I had not met the management of the Bristol Plant nor
had Karen or I been to the Bristol area – which was about 25
miles north of Philadelphia on the western side of the Delaware
River. Karen and I
were not offered an interview trip to Bristol as we considered
the possibility.
We had no close acquaintances or family in the area,
however, we decided that I could not turn down this opportunity.
The transfer would become effective January 1, 1960.
I would be responsible for supervising the new dry and
liquid detergent plants which were expected to start-up mid-1960
as well as the existing soap making facility.
At that time there were some 150 hourly unionized
employees working in the plant and with the expansion this
number was expected to double.
The new construction was being managed by a quite
competent engineer from central engineering located in
Southgate, Blackie Gattis.
Blackie and I had worked together in the Southgate Plant
on a number of projects.
Karen and I looked forward to a new home, in a part of
the country with which we were not acquainted, with a new group
of friends and with new work opportunities.
The
move of our household goods across the country was handled by
Purex. However, we
had the responsibility of selling our house and experiencing
whatever loss or gain we might have.
We basically broke even on its sale.
We decided to leave California, driving to Iowa with a
layover at my parent’s home through Christmas and to complete
the trip over New Years.
The three day drive to Iowa and the two day drive from
Iowa to near Philadelphia were each a bit long, however the
girls travelled well and the trip was uneventful.
It was good to rejoin the Davis family for our Christmas
celebrations.
We
would be house hunting right after New Year’s and during winter
in Pennsylvania, - not the best time to look for a house.
We camped out at a local motel in Bristol, made contact
with the plant manager and assistant manager who provided us
with realtor contact info, and suggested areas in which to look.
Guided by their suggestions, we looked at some newly
constructed houses across the river in New Jersey, which was a
fairly easy commute to the plant, although it required crossing
a toll bridge ($0.05 each way!) over the Delaware River twice a
day. We purchased a
recently completed three bedroom split level/split entry house
with some 2000 square feet of finished space for $14,500.
The address was 203 Carl Street, Beverly, New Jersey.
The house was four levels with two of the levels on the
left end of the house, when looking at it from the street, being
the basement and the second floor, which included the living and
dining rooms and the kitchen.
The lower level of the right end of the house had a
family room, a bedroom with a bath and an entrance to the
basement and to the back yard.
The double car garage which was attached on the right
side of the house with its floor level with the family room
floor. This level
was one-half story below the kitchen level.
The upper level on this end of the house had the master
and nursery bedrooms and two bathrooms.
We set up the lower level bedroom as the girls playroom.
The house was comfortable.
One of the big attractions to the house and its location
was the large backyard which bordered on neighboring yards of
comparable size all of which were open for the many children in
the neighborhood to play together.
Our household furnishings arrived, we moved into the
house and began the process of organizing our house and our
lives for the second time in less than two years
- which is something that we repeated some 15
times in total. We
purchased a bit more furniture.
My office was a desk in the casual room or the kitchen
table.
Karen scouted out a local church, which just happened to be a
Presbyterian denomination.
She joined the choir, something that she had not
previously been able to do with all of our moves.
We became fast friends with the choir director (Paul
Bonhe) and his wife (Muriel) who played the piano for the choir.
Choir practice was Thursday evening.
I watched Cindie and Kim, at home when the choir
practiced. After
practice, the Bonhes came to our house and we played bridge for
several hours.
Karen, relying on our neighbors for suggestions, found a
pediatrician, a dentist and various other needed providers.
I tended to the lawn, shoveled the little bit of snow we
experienced and did the relatively little maintenance we needed.
The girls were healthy and they had a number of nearby
neighbor children their age.
On nice days they played in the expansive backyards and
on inclement days they piled into one of the many neighboring
homes to play games.
I
enjoyed my work with the new plant management.
The Plant Manager was a crusty, 60 year old Dutchman
bachelor by the name of Jack Hutt, who delighted in calling me
“Jimmy” - to which
I did not object.
He used it as a
term of affection.
We had a good working relationship, as he was somewhat
hands-off and delegated considerable responsibilities to his
Assistant Plant Manager and the three Plant Supervisors – The
Packaging Supervisor, the Maintenance Supervisor and the
Processing Supervisor – me. The Assistant Plant Manager was Russ
McKenzie and neat 35 year-old chemical engineer who had been in
the Bristol Plant since Purex acquired The Manhattan Soap
Company a number of years earlier.
The Bristol Plant was the flagship plant of The Manhattan
Soap Company. One
other management person on site was the Regional Vice President,
to whom both manufacturing and sales reported.
There were three Regions in the U.S.
Purex had only a small amount of International business
which was export sales.
The Regional Vice President was Lyle Loffdahl with whom I
had little contact. Russ was a delight to work with.
He was exceptionally helpful, understanding and totally
familiar with the current staffing, plant facilities, the
products and Purex’s organization.
We developed a close professional and personal
relationship. Our
families socialized together frequently, as Russ’ wife, Pat and
their two daughters Debbie and Gail, who were 11 and 13 years
old respectively, delighted in being with Cindie and Kim.
We frequently celebrated holidays together as neither of
us had family near-by.
While carefully following (1) the completion of construction of
the new plants, (2) participating in hiring the newly salaried
personnel to staff the new plant and (3) interviewing senior
hourly personnel who expressed an interest in the key operating
jobs in the new plant, I spent considerable time with the
foreman of the soap making department (Lonnie) learning the soap
making . Lonnie
process was a longtime Purex/Manhattan Soap employee having been
promoted to soap making foreman a number of years previously.
He knew soap making very well and was generous with his
time and knowledge in educating me.
Soap making
is an old art of heating fats, typically hog/beef fats and/or
vegetable fats, e.g., coconut oil and palm kernel oil, and a
caustic, e.g., sodium hydroxide, with steam in a vessel.
Purex used large wooden vessels some two stories high and
20 feet in diameter.
The fats, which chemically are
three long chain (10 to 22 carbon atoms each nearly
saturated with hydrogen) carbon products bound together at one
end by a glycerin molecule resulting in a molecule looking like
a three tined pitchfork without a handle.
The fats react with the
caustic soda in a boiling brew to form soap, which is sodium
stearate, with glycerin and water as by products.
When the reaction is complete, the vessel is allowed to
cool during which the glycerin and water, about 20% glycerin and
80% water, being heavier than the soap layer settles to the
bottom. When
sufficiently separated from the glycerin water, the liquid soap
is pumped to the packaging area. The glycerin water is separated
in large kettles by evaporating the water from the glycerin. The
concentrated glycerin is sold to chemical processors for further
refinement or other processing. The soap is a long linear carbon
chain molecule to which a caustic ion is attached at one end.
The result is a carbon chain molecule which is
hydrophobic except for end to which the caustic ion is attached
which is hydrophilic. Having
both characteristics at opposite ends of the molecule chain
enables the soap to combine with both oil based products and
with water, thereby enabling the soapy wash water to combine
with greasy materials.
The by-products of this reaction are a molecule of
glycerin and three molecules of water.
The glycerin, which is soluble in the water from the
reaction is recovered by evaporating the water.
After separating the glycerin/water solution from the
soap, this solution was concentrated to 80% glycerin by
evaporating the excess water in a large steam heated
vacuum vessel.
The glycerin was sold into the chemical processing market
for further processing and inclusion in various products.
In the packaging department, the soap is further cooled
and mixed with
dye(s), perfume(s)
and possibly other components..
It is then pressed into bars of soap and packaged.
Construction of the new detergent plants proceeded as expected
and soon we were into start up of the spray dryer, essentially a
steel silo of 20
feet in diameter and 60 feet high, into which heated clean air
is blown at the base.
The detergent to be dried is a water slurry which was
pumped into the top of the dryer, through spray nozzles and
under pressure sufficient to atomize the solution.
The water was evaporated and the powdered detergent fell
gently to the base of the silo.
A conveyor belt moved the dried product to storage bins
for further blending and packaging.
The
start-up of both the dry and liquid detergent plants went
relatively well, with normal start-up problems mechanically and
the usual challenges of training and leading shift foreman all
of which were graduate chemical engineers and only one of whom
had previous industrial experience.
This was my first experience of leading newly graduated
chemical engineers and introducing them to chemical
manufacturing. It
was difficult to find engineers who would work shift work and
gradually we moved to promoting talented hourly employees who
had leadership skills and capability to supervise the small crew
of five hourly personnel in the spray drying department.
The dry detergent plant operated twenty-four hours a day,
seven days a week to avoid the
lost time of starting up and shutting down the spray dryer.
Other operations were typically one, two or three shifts,
five days a week. The
dry detergent packaging line operated in a building contiguous
to the building where the spray dryer was sited.
The detergent powder was conveyed from the storage bins
to a feed hopper for the detergent packaging line, which
typically operated three shifts per day, five days per week.
The weekend production was stored on the weekend and
packaged during the following week.
The
liquid detergent was a blending operation of several chemicals
in a large mixing tank all of which was operated by a single
operator. The
finished bulk product was stored in large tanks in the liquid
detergent processing area and pumped some 100 yards to the
packaging line which was equipped with modest on site storage.
The liquid bottling line was located
in a large building
where the bar soap was packaged.
The liquid detergent processing operation was typically
a one shift, five days a week requiring two operators, with the
bottling line operating a two
shift, five days per week operation.
Within the first year of operation, the liquid and dry detergent
plants were operating as expected, producing about five
different dry detergents and a single liquid detergent.
We had the normal mechanical, electrical, staffing and
related operating issues; however, everyone
was generally satisfied with the new operation.
I followed the 1960 presidential
election with considerable interest because of our near close
relationship to Richard Nixon.
The coverage of the campaign was fairly reported by the
major TV networks and the then stellar newscasters, including
Edward R Murrow, Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner and Walter
Cronkite. I did not
participate in politics at that time nor donate to any
campaigns. However,
I was disappointed to see Richard Nixon lose to John F. Kennedy,
however, I do believe that John F. Kennedy was the better choice
as he governed well and he guided the country with respect to
space exploration, public service and a balanced approach to
politics.
As year-end
approached, Karen and I considered how we would celebrate our
Christmas holidays, some 1000 miles from my family and 2500
miles from Karen’s family.
We decided that with the difficulties of traveling with a
three and a two year old, that we would stay at home and join
the McKenzies to
celebrate the holidays.
The McKenzies thoroughly enjoyed Cindie and Kim and
showered them with Christmas gifts and attention.
The girls were growing nicely, enjoyed each other’s
company and played well together.
They were wonderful girls.
With the beginning of the new year, I continued to be interested
in pursuing a business career instead of just manufacturing
management. I
enrolled in business courses taught in the evening at Drexel
which was located about 25 miles from home.
Typically, I took only one class, meeting one evening a
week. These were
basically entry level business classes, which expanded on the
correspondence courses that I took previously.
I continued to excel in these classes as well.
The
Purex plant continued to operate effectively, meeting and
excelling the requirements for production of the various
products produced there.
We had no serious labor issues, no significant
maintenance or repair challenges or other operational
difficulties. It
was pretty much operational normal.
We were settling into a somewhat steady routine.
Karen, Cindie and Kim were all doing well, except both girls had
more colds and sore throats than we and the doctors wanted.
Their doctor recommended that both girls have their
tonsils out to reduce these issues.
Hence that summer both girls had their tonsils out at a
small local hospital.
The procedure went well. Both of them stayed over-night.
They shared a crib and when Karen and I went to their
room the next morning, both girls dressed only in their diapers,
were standing in the crib looking at us crying for attention.
I do wish we had taken a camera,
as I will forever remember this sight.
Karen continued her smoking which bothered me, but it was
a sore subject with her, consequently we did not discuss it.
We
did not enroll the girls in any summer camps or nursery schools.
We did however, have them attend vacation bible school,
even though we weren’t regular church attendees – other than
Karen participating in the choir.
Both girls were good readers, Cindie especially.
Karen worked with them on pre-school learning tasks.
Karen, began having difficulty sleeping.
She discussed it with her doctor on one of her annual
visits. The doctor
suggested that she try a glass of
wine before retiring at night to see if that helped.
Karen followed her doctor’s suggestion.
Having a glass of wine
before bed did improve her sleeping however, it was frequently
more than one glass of wine.
One
particularly funny – although not that Karen or I let on to it
at the time - was an event that happened in their downstairs
playroom. Cindie
for some reason thought that it would be nice to use some
Crayolas to decorate the wall of their playroom.
When Karen or I discovered it, we swatted Cindie’s bottom
– it seems that physically paddling mis-behaving children was
acceptable at that time, although I don’t remember any other
time when either Karen or I resorted to this.
Kim observed the discipline and approached us stating
that “I too colored on the wall.
Do you want to spank me?”
Karen and I were amused and playfully swatted her bottom
as well. As will be
covered later, Cindie and Kim were wonderful daughters and never
did we find ourselves in a position of having to discipline
either of them!
I
explored the possibility of joining an active USMCR unit.
As luck would have it, there was a
USMCR 155 mm Howitzer Battery based in Trenton, NJ, about
twenty miles north of where we were living which had the need
for a Platoon Commander.
I received orders dated June 8, 1961 to join Battery L, 3rd
Battalion, 14th Marines, 4th Marine
Division, USMCR based in Trenton.
I spent one weekend per month as well as two weeks each
year on training exercises.
I joined the Battery for the two week summer drill in
Virginia Beach, VA that summer.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, our unit, as many other
reserve units around the US, particularly the southeastern part
of the country were on a standby alert.
Fortunately, we were not activated and stood down
relatively quickly.
The
summer of 1961, Karen’s folks and her uncle George decided to
spend the summer traveling the country.
Her folks purchased a pick-up truck and a camper body for
the truck. After
school was dismissed for the summer, they in their pick-up
camper and George in his station wagon - in which he slept-
headed for New Jersey as part of their summer travels.
They arrived in mid-July just before
my two weeks of summer camp with the USMC.
Karen, Cindie and Kim packed their bags for a two week
trip to New England with her folks and George.
They skirted New York City, drove through Connecticut,
spent time in Boston as some of the historical sites and then
drove the Maine coast.
They camped out, slept in the camper and station wagon,
cooked many of their own meals either at the camps or in the
folks camper “kitchen”.
Cindie and Kim had their first taste of lobster, fresh
from the ocean.
Kim’s comment to her mother was, don’t tell dad how much I like
lobster! They all had a wonderful and educational experience.
Karen’s father who was particularly interested in
history, especially American history, insured that the entire
traveling party was well educated with the local history.
I returned from USMCR summer camp and was able to spend a
few days with Karen’s folks and George before they left us to
return to their respective homes and teaching assignments.
I thoroughly enjoyed the brief time that they stayed
with us. Karen,
Cindie and Kim thoroughly enjoyed being with them for almost
four weeks and particularly enjoyed their driving trip through
New England.
After Karen’s folks left, Karen and the girls adopted a six
month old Siamese Cat for the girls upcoming birthdays.
They named him Phoo Phoo Si.
Phoo Phoo became the love of our lives and provided us
considerable entertainment, as he was exceptionally active and
very loving. They
girls continued playing with our neighboring family’s children
in our back yard or in one of the many home’s recreation rooms.
On
November 8, 1961 my grandfather Tom Davis died after losing a
battle with leukemia.
I flew to Iowa to attend his funeral services.
He laid in his coffin at their home near Clemons, Iowa
for the viewing by his family and his beloved neighbors.
Fortunately, grandmother Mary Davis was in very good
health, as were dad’s other brothers and sisters.
The total number of members in my generation of the Davis
family was 34 of which 33 were living.
The one loss was a cousin of mine who died in very early
childhood of an unknown disease.
Shortly, thereafter grandmother Davis purchased a small
house nearby and moved into this comfortable house close to her
many of her family where she lived for another almost nine
years.
Christmas 1961, we decided to make the long drive to Iowa for a
Davis Family Christmas.
I took vacation and we decided that we would drive it in
one long day, with Karen and I sharing the driving and the girls
hopefully sleeping a significant portion of the time.
It was about a 20 hour drive, but all of it except about
30 miles was on interstates.
It was the first of many Davis family Christmases with
all of we six siblings, our spouses and our children attending.
Dick and Judy missed several of these Christmases over
the years because of deployment with the Navy, we missed several
because of being located too far away for a driving trip,
particularly over a short time frame.
Nancy missed some because of being located too far away
to make the trip, however, we had a remarkable stretch of family
Christmases at the family farm from 1959 through 1995.
Our immediate family was blessed with a closeness
reinforced by the family Christmases and later the family summer
one-week vacations, typically in the Ozarks.
Upon return from Iowa, we enjoyed a belated Christmas
with the McKenzies.
They hosted us for a feast and gift exchange.
As was typical with Russ and Pat, they showered gifts on
Cindie and Kim. Pat
and Karen had collaborated on a common gift from Pat to Russ and
from Karen to me - flying lessons.
I had not thought much about flying, but Russ had been
considering it, in part because our Packaging Supervisor at the
Purex plant, Bart, was a long time private aviator with his own
plane and many interesting stories about his flying experiences.
Later that spring, Rus and I enrolled in a program to learn to
fly. It was located at a nearby private airfield.
We spent several weeks
learning about flying sitting at a desk and reading the required
manuals. We both
passed a short informal written exam about what we needed to
learn in ground school.
We then separately spent several weeks in 30 minute
sessions flying with an instructor learning to handle a Cessna
172. Through the
summer, we took the necessary lessons, twelve in all as I
remember.
Near the end of one of the last lessons, the instructor told me
to land the plane.
I complied with a reasonable amount of skill.
The next lesson, he instructed me to take the plane off
from where it was parked near the hanger.
After doing so, he instructed me to do a series of
touchdowns, i.e., near landings where the wheels touch the
runway and then power is applied to the engine and the plane is
again flying. Then
repeating the process about five times prior to landing it at
the end of the lesson.
The final flying lesson was a short planned navigational
trip from the airport we were using to two other towns about 40
miles away and returning to our airport.
Upon the
competition of that trip, the instructor told me that I would be
on my own for my next flight, that I had completed all of the
flight training that I needed.
I was required to pass an aviation physical exam and
apply for a private license, which I did.
Russ had completed his training prior to me, as he was
more anxious to get into the air than I was.
A couple of weeks later, I soloed for the first time.
By
the time I had soloed, I had become convinced that I was going
back to graduate school and that the cost of flying a private
plane and financing a possible two year MBA program was not
compatible. More on
this as we get caught up on some other developments.
I
continued my limited business studies at Drexel and my USMCR
work with the Lima Battery in Trenton.
On June 22, 1962 I was promoted to Captain, USMCR and the
following month we spent two weeks of summer camp at Camp
Lejeune, North Carolina.
I enjoyed my continued involvement with the USMCR
however, I resigned from this position in middle of
August the following year.
In
October 1962, President Kennedy announced his plan to land a man
on the moon by 1970.
"We choose to go to the Moon", officially titled the Address at
Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort, is a September 12,
1962, speech by United
States President John
F. Kennedy to
further inform the public about his plan to land
a man on the Moon
before 1970. Kennedy gave the speech, largely written by
presidential advisor and speechwriter Ted
Sorensen,
to a large crowd at Rice
University Stadium in Houston,
Texas.
President John Kennedy, 1962
Work at Purex continued to be rewarding although, I was a bit
anxious to figure out what my next move might be.
There were no opportunities to move up organizationally
at Purex’s Bristol Plant.
I discussed the opportunities with Russ McKenzie,
continued taking evening management courses at Drexel and
thought about what I wanted to do next.
I explored with Lyle Loffdahl the opportunities in Purex
in non-manufacturing departments.
After USMCR summer camp, I took a week of vacation and Karen,
the girls and I did a driving trip to New England, partially to
see for myself what they had experienced the prior year and
partially to visit with a cousin, Willard Ware.
Willard, as reported earlier was a first cousin of my
mothers, who had graduated from William Penn University and
later earned his MBA at Harvard Business School.
Willard had a successful career with a large
pharmaceutical company, then purchased a small machine shop in
Worchester, MA. He
still owned the company which he built into successful envelope
manufacturing company, but was in the process of selling the
company to his employees through an ESOP (Employee Stock
Ownership Plan). In
discussing my career with Willard during one private quiet
afternoon, he responded to me that I “should attend Harvard
Business School” (HBS).
I had heard of HBS but had not seriously considered
taking two years from my working life and going back to school.
However, the more that I learned about HBS and thought
about the possibility of earning an MBA from HBS, the more
intrigued I became.
We
returned from the visit with Willard and resumed our busy life
of raising two daughters. Cindie began
kindergarten that fall
at a school only a few blocks from our house.
Karen and Cindie’s teacher soon became alert to Cindie’s
vision problem. An
eye exam detected that she had a combination of astigmatism and
near sightedness. She was fitted with glasses, the wearing of
which were a bit of a challenge for a five year old.
Cindie excelled at her school work, particularly with her
improved vision.
Kim missed having her older sister at home all day and anxiously
looked for her return from school.
Karen and Kim found things to keep Kim reasonably
occupied.
Work at Purex was going well, but was not seriously challenging,
flying was of interest to me, but not as much as making a major
career advancement and the USMCR was clearly a side interest,
not a career path.
Purex gave me no encouragement that I might move into a
different aspect of the business, further convincing me that I
had no real prospects of reaching top management with a
marketing company, while “pigeonholed” in manufacturing.
I researched HBS, its admission procedure, the economics
of attending HBS and not having an income for almost two years
and decided that even with little savings we had and the
probability that Karen would not be able to acquire even a
moderately well-paying job during the two years,
that I would go for it.
I never considered an alternate MBA program nor an
evening MBA programs that were available from a number of
universities. (All
of these alternate programs required on campus classes and none
of them began to compare with HBS, in stature or future job
prospects.) I
learned that the requirements for an admission application to
HBS was taking an
“Admission Test For Graduate Study In Business” from the
Educational Testing Service, located in Princeton New Jersey and
submitting an application, which included an essay.
The tests were administered in various locations around
the country at various times of the year.
I sat for the exam the following February in
Philadelphia. In
the meantime, I began making preparations, at least mentally, to
quit Purex and go to graduate school.
Karen and I discussed this move, the sacrifice that it
meant for our family, as we would be borrowing the cost of
tuition ($1750 per year) and the cost of our living during the
almost two year period.
I discussed it again with Russ McKenzie, who encouraged
me to go for a HBS MBA.
I stopped flying and we increased our savings modestly
while we prepared to make the leap into a whole new world.
Christmas 1962 again was celebrated at our Davis family
Christmas at the farm.
We had a
wonderful week of family gathering, attending the Hartland
Church annual Christmas pageant, making and eating homemade ice
cream and exchanging gifts.
Fortunately, everyone in our family was in good health, a
blessing we would enjoy for many years to come.
Our driving trip to and
from Iowa was uneventful.
Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Phoo Phoo Si
disappeared one night and we never found him.
The girls were particularly disappointed over his
disappearance.
We promised them that when we were settled after my HBS
work, we would adopt another Siamese Cat to replace him.
Upon returning to New Jersey, I focused on preparing for
the GMAT exam and my application, including the essay that was a
required as part of
the application.
After taking the test, I had no idea how well I had done.
I was able to finish most sections of the exam.
At that time there were only two parts to the exam a
verbal and a quantitative part.
I anxiously awaited the results of the exam, which I
received by mail two weeks later.
My results were 33 on the verbal and 41 on the
quantitative with a total of 602.
I no longer have the accompanying letter which detailed
the percentiles in which these results placed me.
As I recall the verbal score put me in about the 60th
percentile, the quantitative score put me in the 85th percentile
and the total score put me in the 70th percentile.
(A report on Google as I
am writing this seems to confirm these rankings.)
With the test results posted for HBS to access, I mailed my
completed application along with a check to cover the modest fee
that HBS required.
About March 20th, I received a letter from the HBS
admission officer advising me that my application was complete
and that I would be advised early July as to my acceptance to
HBS. I immediately
called the admission officer and explained that I was very
appreciative that I was being considered for the HBS Class of
1965, however we owned a house that we would need to sell and a
family to move to Boston, so
if I was to be accepted,
that I needed to know as quickly as possible.
He responded that he understood.
Early in April, I received a letter from the Assistant Dean and
Director of the MBA Program that I had been accepted to HBS for
the Class of 1965!
Karen and I celebrated by reviewing all of the things that we
needed to do asap.
The first was to contact the realtor who sold us the
house some three and one-half years earlier.
We had made the minimum down payment on the house when we
purchased it. In
the short time we had owned it we accumulated only a minimum
amount of additional equity.
We hoped to get possibly $2000 for our equity.
Unfortunately, real estate was not very strong at the
time and in the end the realtor agreed to purchase it from us by
paying us only $500!
We also had about a $1000 in my Purex retirement account
which I could withdraw.
We had modest other savings and knew we could borrow our
full cost of tuition, which was $1750/year, and living costs
through HBS if necessary, which we ended up doing.
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