Senior Year, First Semester

The first semester of my senior year my courses consisted of chem eng thermo, principles of chem eng II, organic chemistry and I believe metallurgy. I did well that semester, it was one of the two straight A terms I had at Iowa (the other was the concluding summer session in 1942).

At sometime in my senior year I had a further course in German — one semester of technical German. A different teacher however, much less personably than in the first-year German class I had taken. I can’t remember ever using my limited capability in German in my working career.

As I have already mentioned the term was marked by an easing of my financial situation, with the extension of the scholarship I had, and my work at the power plant.

Several things occurred during my senior year that I will recall and which affected my future, both at the time and more importantly for my entire career as an engineer.

The first of course was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I was passing through the cafeteria line at noon on that day when I overheard someone mentioning what had occurred in Hawaii. The Quadrangle where I was rooming at the time had been built by the US Navy during WWI and the Navy could in time of emergency commandeer the building.

After Pearl Harbor we were notified that we would need to find other housing. I and my roommate (Robert Lloyd) located housing east of the university on Iowa Avenue in a private home and I lived there to finish out the second half of my senior year and the following summer session. I can’t remember now if we had some kitchen privileges in the private home, but I do recall having some meals at a little restaurant on Iowa Avenue close to the university.

Early in 1942 Shell came to the university, interviewing students in the chemical engineering department (I suppose they also interviewed chemistry students). At the time I was still thinking in terms of taking another year to complete my engineering education (my memory is a little vague but I think I had investigated working for Eastman Kodak during the summer of 1942 and had summer employment lined up there).

But, perhaps at the suggestion of Prof. Arnold, I decided I would sign up for an interview with Shell. The interviewers were Millar and Vaughn, who were working at the time at Emeryville. Millar was the department head in physical chemistry. It happened that just at the time of the interview the class in Chemical Engineering Principles was beginning the section on distillation. For some reason I had read ahead, perhaps this phase of chemical engineering unit operations had roused my interest.

At any rate I was fortuitously “primed” for the interview as it turned out. Millar began the interview and it proceeded through a discussion of phase equilibria and how it was experimentally determined, fractionation calculation techniques and finally tray efficiency. The answers I gave seemed to satisfy Millar and when I responded correctly in the matter of tray efficiency he seemed to give unconsciously a stamp of approval on me as a potential employee.

From that point on the interview was conducted by Vaughn who described the Emeryville lab and in essence gave a little sales pitch. When I left the interview I felt that I had indeed made a good impression, in good part because of what I had read ahead in my class in unit operations. During the interview I indicated that it might be a year before I would finish my schooling.

Within a few days I received a telegram offering me a job with Shell, and in discussing the matter with Prof. Arnold he indicated that Millar and Vaughn had told him before they left that they intended to offer me a job and also to some other individuals they had interviewed at the same time. The offer carried with it certain obvious advantages in light of the war situation and possible draft deferment. Perhaps I was, because of my lack of experience in looking for employment and lack of realization of what industry had to offer, more disposed to act on this unexpected development in the matter of employment that I would have otherwise.

Anyway I shortly responded indicating I was accepting the offer of employment but that I wasn’t sure just when Shell could expect me to report for work. What had started out for me as a sort of trial run at interviewing for a job turned out to lead to a decision on my part that affected profoundly the rest of my life.

As the war progressed there developed an emphasis on having students complete their course of study as expeditiously as possible and I began to evaluate in my mind the route of completing my school work by attending the summer session in 1942 and graduating about August 1. This possibility was enhanced by the relaxed attitude on the part of the university (doubtless influenced by the war situation) on substituting some of my junior college credits for courses that I had missed in the normal first and second years’ curriculum.