Interview with George Conner, September 27, 2019

MUMMERT: The following is an oral history interview conducted as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority Retirees Association Oral History Project. The person being interviewed is George Conner, Jr.[1] Mr. Conner is a retiree of the Tennessee Valley Authority and he worked at TVA for nearly 34 years between February 1967 and December of the year 2000. He is being interviewed by Philip Mummert as part of the Oral History Project. The interview location is TVA offices in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Thursday, September the 19th--excuse me, correction--(Friday) the 27th, 2019, and the interview is now beginning. Well, George, thank you for doing this. I'm going to begin by asking you what were the circumstances that led to your being 00:01:00hired at TVA?

CONNER: I was in the Navy and as I was nearing the end of my career in the Navy--that would be in the mid-1960s--I started looking for jobs. I grew up in Knoxville and was somewhat familiar with the Tennessee Valley Authority and I looked into what might be available for civil engineers. In looking at other jobs throughout the country, I decided that this was the best opportunity for me--to more or less return home and work for TVA. As Phil mentioned, I worked for TVA 33--almost 34 years. It was a very good career.

MUMMERT: So could you give me a thumbnail sketch overview of your TVA career? What area did you work in or what types of jobs did you have? Then we'll dig a little bit deeper.

CONNER: I worked in TVA's Navigation Program for my entire career. I was very fortunate to have stayed in one area. So many people at TVA moved from job to job but, as I say, I was fortunate to be able to work in one specific area. And it was a good career.

MUMMERT: So navigation. What is that and what does TVA have to do with navigation?

CONNER: We worked with the Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, and the barge industry in maintaining the navigation channel and locks from Paducah, Kentucky, to Knoxville, Tennessee. That was some 650 river miles and I want to 00:03:00say nine dams that had locks in them.

MUMMERT: And this was on the Tennessee River?

CONNER: Yes.

MUMMERT: So, you said you worked with Corps of Engineers. What was TVA's responsibility for navigation?

CONNER: TVA was responsible for the dams and locks. We were actually the owner of the locks on the Tennessee River. The Corps primarily did the maintenance and operation of the locks. It was a close working relationship with the Corps in that we were--TVA--responsible for improvements and the Corps maintained and operated the locks. So there was a need to closely coordinate all 00:04:00work so that the locks were adequately maintained.

MUMMERT: So TVA had these dams on the river, and they were used for a number of purposes like hydro electric power and flood control to control waterflow. But at each of those there were these locks so, I guess, different watercraft could go up or down a stairstep that was created by the dams.

CONNER: Right. Barges were moved from the Ohio River all the way to Knoxville. Also, recreational vessels could move through the locks. One of the primary beneficiaries of the locks was TVA in that so much of the coal to TVA fossil plants moved along the river and through the locks to the various 00:05:00fossil plants along the river.

MUMMERT: What else was moving on the river?

CONNER: There was also grains, steel, salt--various types of commodities.

MUMMERT: And these would be transported by barge to various industries?

CONNER: Various industries, river terminals, and off loaded. And if they wanted to go back the other way, they were often times loaded back up.

MUMMERT: Now did you, in your job, get involved with any of the river terminals too?

CONNER: Only when we provided some recommendations on location of various facilities of the terminals so that it would not interfere with the 00:06:00movement of traffic on the river.

MUMMERT: Okay. And, I guess--I have a lot of questions about this--but how in the world were you able to monitor, I guess, what the conditions were or the needs were on this river? You are talking about what, 650 miles?

CONNER: Yes, we often had meetings with the users of the river. As I said earlier, we worked closely with the Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard. And as a result of these meetings and interface among the various users, we were able to set priorities on the needs and what should be improved, maintained, etc.

MUMMERT: What types of issues would be raised in meetings like that? I'm sure all sorts of things.

CONNER: One of the things is we had a schedule for unwatering the locks and inspecting the locks. So we would work with the users on scheduling the best time to unwater a lock for inspection. Often that would take a couple of weeks in which the lock would not be available. So we would have a meeting and schedule that ahead of time so that the users of the waterway could adjust their schedules accordingly.

MUMMERT: How frequently would a lock be inspected?

CONNER: We would inspect the locks every five to six years, so we had kind of a rotating schedule. And generally, the inspection--the unwatering of a lock and inspection--would occur during the summer months. During the spring of the year, there was a lot of flow in the river and it was a little bit--it just 00:08:00wasn't an opportune time during the early part of the year. Usually the summertime was the best time to do the unwatering and the inspection of a lock.

MUMMERT: And then did you get involved in the inspections themselves?

CONNER: From time to time, I would go and be there. We had--in our engineering group--we had engineers who specialized in the inspection of locks, particularly looking at the concrete and mechanical features of the lock.

MUMMERT: So inspections and the need to schedule them was one of the issues that would come up in one of your meetings. What sorts of other issues might arise?

CONNER: One that came up time after time was the flows in the river. 00:09:00When we had too much flow in the river--if it was during a flood stage--we had to just stop navigation on the river because it was just too dangerous. In the late summer, flows were reduced quite a bit. We often had to turn on a turbine, say, in the middle of the night to get enough water below a dam for the barge traffic to transit into a lock. So water control issues were another main issue that was discussed.

MUMMERT: So someone in your position might get a call in the middle of the night?

CONNER: Yes. That often happened.

MUMMERT: So if that happened and you got a call that the water needed to be lowered or higher in the middle of the night, what did you do then?

CONNER: Worked with and coordinated these types of requests with the River Control Branch. They were in charge of the maintaining or scheduling the flows in the river. So if a necessary adjustment needed to be made, I contacted someone in that control branch and that often occurred at night or on the weekend. And we were able to--most of the time. We were able to--if it was low water--to get a turbine turned on or some other type of adjustment to the water level.

MUMMERT: The river control people worked 24 hours as well?

CONNER: They had someone on call 24 hours, yes.

MUMMERT: I guess, in addition, this is not only 24 hours a day, but 00:11:00seven days a week 365 days a year?

CONNER: At times it felt that way--at times.

MUMMERT: And then--OK, we'll come back to that. But the other issues that may have come up in some of your meetings with the Corps of Engineers and the users--were there any special ones that you can't forget?

CONNER: Yes, I wanted to comment on some of the major projects.

MUMMERT: OK.

CONNER: Would that be OK?

MUMMERT: Sure.

CONNER: I participated with others in the planning, design, model studies, and construction of the new main lock at Pickwick Dam. That occurred in the mid- to late 1980s. I also worked on--

MUMMERT: Now Pickwick is where?

CONNER: Pickwick is almost at the--it's in West Tennessee. It's the second dam up river on the Tennessee River.

MUMMERT: OK.

CONNER: That was a major improvement with the new lock at Pickwick. We found out shortly after that we needed to widen the channel below Pickwick. The channel was cut through a rock. We found that the tows were--with the new lock, the tows were larger and they needed more room to maneuver below the lock. So we worked on a project to widen the channel below--below Pickwick. And that is an environmentally sensitive area in that there was endangered mussels in the riverbed below Pickwick. We--

MUMMERT: When was this about?

CONNER: This--the widening of the channel occurred a few years after the new lock went into operation. In the late 1980s, the new lock became operational, and then in the mid- to late 1990s, we were actually able to widen the channel. One of the key players in widening the channel, because of the endangered species, was a TVA environmentalist and mussel expert, John Jenkinson. And he worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service to relocate the mussels to another location down river from where we were working.

MUMMERT: I know this lies a little bit out of the area of your expertise, but how in the world would you do something like that?

CONNER: Divers.

MUMMERT: OK.

CONNER: We were able to use divers--both TVA divers and contract divers--and actually send the divers down and get the mussels off the river bottom and then move them down river.

MUMMERT: For what size of an area are we talking about? I guess, how many acres, maybe?

CONNER: We're talking about approximately two to three river miles. And the mussels were in the riverbed along the edges of the channel too. As I said, without John's help I don't think we could've gotten the project approved and carried out. It was a very interesting project to be involved in.

MUMMERT: Of course. That came in a time, I guess, within the decade after many of the environmental laws were passed.

CONNER: Yes.

MUMMERT: So this was kind of new thing.

CONNER: Yes. Of course, we had to get the necessary permits from the Corps of Engineers. That required coordination with the State Fish and Wildlife as well as the Federal Fish and Wildlife. So you're right. It's the environmental issues kind of coming to the forefront in the late 1980s on into the 1990s, and those were things we had to pay attention to.

MUMMERT: Now what was involved in actually widening the channel? Was that like dredging or--

CONNER: That was drilling into rock and blasting dynamite.

MUMMERT: OK.

CONNER: Blasting rock.

MUMMERT: Under the surface? Under the river?

CONNER: Yes, we were drilling into the riverbed, setting charges, then demolition, and then digging the rock up. You had to blast it to sort of break it up so you could get the clam shells then and dig it up. And that 00:16:00rock was taken over to the riverbank. It made excellent revetment or rock riprap along the bank to protect the shoreline. So there was some benefit--side benefit to that.

MUMMERT: And could you give me a bit of an overview. You mentioned the tows--the barges--were larger or maybe there were more of them. What was going on in that period in terms of the size, you know, of the vessels that you had to be aware of?

CONNER: The tow sizes--the number of barges that were being pushed by a tow boat--were because of the new lock--the wider and longer lock. They could push a larger size tow or arrangement of barges. As a result of that, we 00:17:00felt like we needed to go ahead and widen the channel because it was a rock cut through there. If you get up against a rock with a barge, you can rip the bottom--the hull of the barge.

MUMMERT: Do you remember, say, how big the tows could be?

CONNER: The tows could be as much as 12 to 15 barges.

MUMMERT: How big is a barge?

CONNER: A barge is 35 feet wide and 195 feet long.

MUMMERT: That's quite a sizeable array of equipment moving up the river.

CONNER: Yes. It's a very efficient way of moving materials and commodities, particularly in bulk--bulk commodities like coal and grain--and things that are not time sensitive. It's a very efficient method of transportation.

MUMMERT: Prior to this project of expanding the channel at Pickwick, were there incidents that happened that--

CONNER: Yes, there were--we had several tows go aground and some damage to barges. Fortunately, we didn't have any environmental spills or things happen like that. We were concerned about that eventually happening and that kind of moved the project along--that concern.

MUMMERT: Interesting. Anything else you'd like to say about that project?

CONNER: I wanted to--I had a couple of other areas that I wanted to mention that I worked in. I participated in the planning, design, and model studies for new locks at the Kentucky and Chickamauga Dams. All this planning, 00:19:00engineering, and model work, both at the Norris Engineering Lab--the TVA lab at Norris--and in addition to that, some studies were made at the Corps of Engineers lab in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

MUMMERT: What does a lab do--either whether it was the Corps or the TVA Engineering Lab? When I think of a lab, I think of chemical laboratories.

CONNER: Well, they actually built a scale model of the new lock and the upstream--immediate upstream and downstream of the dam where the lock is. And they send flows through the model to stimulate how flows--certain flows would affect the destruction[2] or the location of the new lock. MUMMERT: And so that's the first step in the design process?

CONNER: That's part of the design process--an important part. We often adjusted the design of a new lock--or did--based on the model 00:20:00studies. Because, as I said, the model was just a miniature scale of the lock and we could see how that lock would affect riverflows through the dam immediately upstream from the new lock as well as downstream.

MUMMERT: That model, I guess, was--had been used for all the other TVA dams or for the river before you ever worked at TVA.

CONNER: Yes, that's right. The Norris lab was--for years--was kind of a leader in that area. The Vicksburg lab is similar to the Norris lab but on a much larger scale.

MUMMERT: Well, the--go ahead and tell me more about the Kentucky project.

CONNER: Well, they're both under construction now. I've been gone from TVA almost 19 years and both of the new locks--the new lock at Kentucky as well as the new lock at Chickamauga--are under construction. And, unfortunately, lock construction is based on funds from Congress and is often spread out for years. And both of these locks will not come online until the 2020s.

MUMMERT: And when did the construction begin, roughly?

CONNER: At Chickamauga, the initial construction started--I want to say--around 2005. It was put on hold for a number of years because of a lack of funding, then started up a couple of years ago. So construction is actually 00:22:00going on at Chickamauga. Kentucky is ongoing now, as I mentioned. It has been spread out over the years because of funding. It just takes a long time to build locks nowadays because of getting the funding in place.

MUMMERT: Well, I guess it's also an aspect of funding of national infrastructure, which is a big issue today.

CONNER: Yes. Yes, very much so.

MUMMERT: Whether it be highways or airport runways or whatever.

CONNER: Yes, it's Federal funding and it's quite a challenge to get funds in place for these types of projects.

MUMMERT: Now, like Kentucky, this is a new lock? Does that mean there are two locks? How many were there before?

CONNER: Right now, at the present time, there's only one lock at 00:23:00Kentucky. It's a 600-foot lock. The new lock is 1,200 foot long, so it's twice as long. It'll definitely speed up barge traffic going through the lock. Now there's a wait to get traffic through the lock, but with the new lock there will be virtually no waiting to lock through.

MUMMERT: And what type of industries would be concerned about the lock, say, at Kentucky and the speed at which it's going to be improved?

CONNER: It'll be--

MUMMERT: What kind of holdups would there be?

CONNER: It would be holding up--the holdups are related to the commodities on the barge like the grain, the coal, the steel, salt, scrap iron, etc.

MUMMERT: But that would be a factor that constrains the expansion of 00:24:00an industry upstream.

CONNER: Yes, right.

MUMMERT: If they're willing and interested in doing that.

CONNER: Right. I had one other thing that I wanted to mention that I worked on. This concerns railroad and highway bridges. I worked in my capacity with railroads and State highway departments on improving or widening the navigation span in several of the bridges across the Tennessee River. When I started at TVA, the number one project was at Decatur, Alabama. There the railroad bridge was a turn-span. It only had a navigation width for barges a little over 100 feet. And it was a real problem in that, during windy periods, the 00:25:00barges had a very difficult time going through that bridge. They either just didn't go or often hit the turn-span. So we--working with the railroad, we put in--I say we put in--we actually helped fund a new what we call lift-span and it increased the horizontal channel span from 100 feet to 350 feet. And TVA, I mentioned, participated in funding that new lift-span. And we did a very similar project at Bridgeport, Alabama. That old bridge at Bridgeport had a turn-span of 100 or so feet in width and the new lift-span there was 300 more feet of improvement. So going from 100 feet to 350 feet is a big difference 00:26:00for the tows navigating the river.

MUMMERT: I want to make sure I understand this. The improvement was the height or the width?

CONNER: Both.

MUMMERT: Both of them. OK.

CONNER: Primarily the width. Because on the lift-span, it comes up.

MUMMERT: It's like an elevator.

CONNER: Correct, elevator.

MUMMERT: And the other was like a turnstile.

CONNER: Yes. And then as far as the highway departments, there were new bridges put in at New Johnsonville and Savannah. And working with the highway department, we were able to work with them on improving the span on a new bridge. The railroad bridges --I don't know whether I mentioned this 00:27:00or not--we actually helped in the funding. TVA actually helped fund the improvement. And the third railroad bridge that we helped to improve the horizontal clearance was at Loudoun, Tennessee. So that was--I was involved in all those bridge improvements in one way or the other. It was interesting getting the funding in place and working with the railroad and so forth. I remember Loudoun.[3] That was--the Loudoun bridge was in the mid-1990s, I believe, and it was--a million dollars was TVA's contribution to improve that. At that time, we had so many changes in the upper level management that that a million dollars stuck out. You know, you'd get 00:28:00a new manager in and he thinks he could use that million dollars for something else. But fortunately, in working with the legal staff here at TVA, we were able to put in a contract in writing on that particular bridge and it got signatures from the railroad as well as upper level TVA. So new managers couldn't come in and just do away with that without consequences. So it was interesting to have to inform the new upper level people that that's a contract that we have in place and you can't take that money and use it for something else.

MUMMERT: Now I'm familiar--Loudoun is where the highway bridge went over the dam, the old one. And then they built a new one.

CONNER: Yes. We-- the railroad bridge is downstream at the town or 00:29:00city of Loudoun. The bridge you refer to across Loudoun Dam was replaced by a new bridge downstream.

MUMMERT: But you didn't work on that one--on the highway bridge?

CONNER: I worked with the Coast Guard and the State Highway Department in the late 1990s on setting the horizontal clearances for the bridge.

MUMMERT: OK.

CONNER: The navigation channel below the Fort Loudoun Dam was over on the left-hand side of the river and that's where we needed the span for the traffic--the navigation traffic. So it was positioning of that span that I worked with them on and that--actually, I worked on negotiations or contacts with the State as well as the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard permitted all new bridges across the river. That coordination--early coordination 00:30:00started in the 1990s and, of course, that construction was recently completed in the last four or five years.

MUMMERT: Yes.

CONNER: And the old--

MUMMERT: I say yes because that's a bridge that I use because I live not far from there.

CONNER: As you know, the old bridge went across the dam--a narrow 2-lane bridge--and we did have concrete dropping from the--underneath from that old bridge onto the dam and the lock and so forth. It was a real maintenance issue with that old bridge. One thing TVA would have done--

MUMMERT: Excuse me for interrupting, but that bridge, I guess, 00:31:00would've been built in 1940 or 1943?

CONNER: Yes. What I was thinking about or a thought I had--if TVA had it to do over again, they would not have built any bridges across the dam. It's a real maintenance issue and some of the old bridges, of course, are very narrow. The one across the bridge at Watts Bar actually had--again, actually had concrete falling from underneath the bridge onto the dam and the lock, so it was a safety issue.

MUMMERT: There were highway bridges across all of the TVA dams on the main river?

CONNOR: Not all of them.

MUMMERT: Or most of them?

CONNER: A good number of them. I would say Fort Loudoun, Watts Bar, Chickamauga, maybe Wheeler, Wilson, Pickwick, and Kentucky. As part of the new 00:32:00highway bridge project at Kentucky, that highway bridge has been moved downstream, so it's off the dam.

MUMMERT: Well, any other projects that bring back memories of accomplishments?

CONNER: One of the very good memories, which you are very much aware of, was the trip with you and others and Director John Waters--at that time he was Director--going down the river from Knoxville to Paducah. I was on the entire trip and that was a good trip and good memories--very good memories.

MUMMERT: Yes. Director Waters wanted to draw people's attention to the river and had many people join him on a 2-week trip from one end--from 00:33:00Knoxville to Paducah.

CONNER: Yes.

MUMMERT: And that was a memorable trip for me too.

CONNER: Yes, a lot of good memories from that trip. We got to talk to a good number of the users of the river and people who were interested in various aspects of the river. As we keep saying, it was a good trip. Those are some of the projects that I was involved in in my career. I noticed here in my notes, I've got one other thing that I wanted to mention. In the Navigation Program, we had a what we called workboat that we used out on the river to do inspection work and we also maintained the secondary channels off the main 00:34:00channel. The navigation aids on the main channel were maintained by the Coast Guard. And the aids in the secondary channels or the channels off the main channel were maintained by TVA and that was done by a crew in the Navigation Program. And they had a boat called the Pellissippi. In the mid-1990s, the Pellissippi was nearly 50 years old, so we decided that we needed a new boat. We actually were successful in getting funding to build a new boat. And while we were under construction with the new boat, which was built in Alabama--in a place in Alabama--Director Johnny Hayes got word of the new boat and he used his authority or whatever. He said, "I want to name that new boat, and I want to name it after my hometown." His hometown was Sideview, a place over 00:35:00near Nashville, I believe. So that's the name of that new workboat--Sideview. And it came on--it was completed--construction was completed in the mid-1990s and it's still in service today working the secondary channels, doing inspection work and other things along the river. So those are--that's another memory that kind of stands out.

MUMMERT: Now, you worked with other people. But when it comes to keeping track of navigation operations, was that just primarily yourself? Or did you have a staff of people too that worked on all these things?

CONNER: We had a--I want to call a team--we had a navigation team. We had a handful of people that worked in the operation area and then we had 00:36:00some that worked in planning and statistics or economic issues along the river. In the operations area, I had, oh, two or three--four people that I worked with--engineers primarily. And I remember some of the people. Mike Huston was an engineer that worked with me. Clayton Minchew was another one--both, really good engineers. I had a lady who worked more or less as an engineering aide--Carline Bryant worked in the navigation area with me for many years. In fact, she came to TVA in 1969 and retired a couple years before I retired. She was 00:37:00there in the navigation area over those years.

MUMMERT: And all these people were in Knoxville?

CONNER: Yes. Our workboat--which started out as the Pellissippi and now it's Sideview--that crew is a 3-man crew. They were home ported in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. So they worked out of Muscle Shoals. And I wanted to mention a couple of other people along the way that I worked with. In the river control, Arland Whitlock was one that I worked with. I don't know if you know Arland or not.

MUMMERT: Yes.

CONNER: He was really a good one to work with. In engineering, there was Earl Spearman. And then at the lab was Dean Harshbarger and Jerry Schroll. 00:38:00A couple of other engineers I worked with in the engineering group--and they moved to Chattanooga in 1988 or 1989 as I recall--was Roy Fox and Rusty Tompkins. So those are some of the people that kind of come to mind that I worked closely with.

MUMMERT: I guess I didn't realize Roy Fox worked in navigation.

CONNER: He didn't work in navigation. He was in the engineering division.

MUMMERT: OK.

CONNOR: He helped coordinate work that the engineering group did for us. They often--the engineering group, in designing a new lock, say, they had a role in design. Roy was the interface between us and them on the scheduling, 00:39:00budgeting, and so forth. So he actually was in the engineering group, but worked with us as a coordinator.

MUMMERT: I see.

CONNER: The same way with Rusty. Rusty Tompkins worked with Roy Fox in that same type of work.

MUMMERT: Well, do you have any other memorable experiences that pop up?

CONNER: I jotted down in my notes here, and I think we've gone through all my notes.

MUMMERT: Any major crises on the river or those things that you can't forget?

CONNER: Nothing right now comes to mind. I know during--when we had 00:40:00floods on the river, we often had to work with--we had to go to the barge industry and explain to them the magnitude of the flood and that it would be best for us to kind of just pull over to the side of the river and wait this thing out. Of course, they don't want to do that. They want to keep going cause when they move at the lightest, it's cost to them. But it was sometimes a little bit trying to get to them that "it is a safe thing to do and we just need to do the safe thing right now. The flood will pass here shortly and you can get back to what you were doing, but right now we just have to kind of hold back."

MUMMERT: That's interesting. It's prudent to do that if you're on a highway in your car, but I never thought about being on the river.

CONNER: Yes. We--those experiences like that I can remember. I can remember--I don't recall the exact timeframe--but we had a shortfall in funds one year and it was just down to me. Everybody else kind of got shuffled out to other programs until we could get some money into the navigation area and get to pull them back in. I forget--that was in the 1980s--I forget the exact year that it happened. That was kind of different trying to do everything yourself and not really getting anything done.

MUMMERT: What--were there--was the significance of your work recognized outside the Tennessee Valley in any way?

CONNER: Yes, when I retired. I worked with the group called the Tennessee River Valley Association. They're a group of mostly barge industries. After I was retired a month or two, they surprised me with a get together and gave me couple of very nice plaques, which I still have and are actually up on the wall at my place. That was surprise and it was nice to be recognized by them.

MUMMERT: Yes.

CONNER: Also, when I retired--as I was retiring, the Corps of 00:43:00Engineers gave me an award as well as the Coast Guard. At the meeting--I'm referred to as a surprise meeting--I was given the Paducah--or something like that--and Kentucky Colonel awards. So those were very nice things that happened as I retired--right before I retired and right after I retired. It was very gratifying and very, very nice.

MUMMERT: Well, it's a great testament to the great work that you did for a long time.

CONNER: And the really nice thing about me as I look back--some people left TVA very angry or very upset, as you know. I left with a very good feeling. I just, you know-- it was a good feeling. I felt good about everything. I 00:44:00missed TVA the first couple of years after I retired. And the thing about TVA missing was the people. I felt we had good people at TVA--particularly the ones I worked with--good, qualified people, and very smart, hardworking, and very intelligent people. Even when I worked, and particularly after I left, you reflect back on the folks I worked with, just to see the knowledge they had and the expertise. And so many of them had masters and Ph.Ds. In fact, in 00:45:00the navigation section, we had a couple of people with Ph.Ds. It's just really--and two or three of them had professional engineering licenses. I was just really amazed with the folks.

MUMMERT: Well, it's certainly very good to be able to leave your job and have the good memories and also the feeling that you've been able to have a productive career and add to things that were lasting as well in those projects.

CONNER: Very much so.

MUMMERT: I'm sure there are some barge captains that go through Pickwick that don't know who you are, but are happy that the channel is wide.

CONNER: Yes. And it's just good to be involved in projects that make a difference.

MUMMERT: Yes.

CONNER: I felt like I was doing that. I was making a positive impact 00:46:00or difference, particularly in the area that I worked in.

MUMMERT: You had a really interesting career in an area that's also interesting--in navigation and keeping things moving on the river.

CONNER: Yes.

MUMMERT: Not many people, I think, understand or know that that needs to be done. But, I'm going to--I think I'm all out of questions here, George, but I have one question--one final question that I'd like to ask you--and that is are there any questions that I have not asked that you wish I had?

CONNER: No, I think you've been very thorough. I think--

MUMMERT: Well, I always ask that question just in case.

CONNER: Yes. It's been very good. I appreciate your having me in for this.

MUMMERT: Well, I appreciate your time and I think we'll end the 00:47:00interview right now. Thank you.

CONNER: You're welcome.