Interview with Robert Wetherholt, March 23, 2021

MUMMERT: The following is an oral history interview conducted as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority Retirees Association Oral History Pilot Project. The person being interviewed is Robert Wetherholt. [1] Mr. Wetherholt is a retiree of the Tennessee Valley Authority. He worked at the TVA for 28 years, between June 1960 and October 1988. He is being interviewed by Philip Mummert as part of the Oral History Project. The interview is being conducted via telephone. Mr. Wetherholt is at his residence in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021, and the interview is now beginning. Well, thank you, Mr. Wetherholt, for doing this. I'm going to begin by asking you what were the circumstances that led to your getting a 00:01:00job at TVA?

WETHERHOLT: Well, I was, I was in the service. And I'm a Korean veteran. I came back and I had the GI Bill and I thought well, I've got to do something and so I said I wanted to get into engineering. So I went to engineering school. I graduated from the University of Kentucky, and TVA had a representative there interviewing people for jobs. And I interviewed with the, with the, interviewer and I was offered a job in, in Knoxville. So I thought, well that's good, you know, it's near, it's near my home and near my wife's home. And so I accepted the job and I came down here in, in June of 1960. And I was on a training program for a year. I went to various TVA organizations. I spent three months on construction at Colbert's Steam Plant in Alabama, and visited 00:02:00Navigation and Water Control Planning, [did][2] Field Surveys, and all that.

MUMMERT: Now, when did you begin at TVA?

WETHERHOLT: In June 1960.

MUMMERT: And so, you had a quick tour of a few TVA facilities when you began. What was your first job?

WETHERHOLT: My first job was with--actually, when I finished the training program, which was a year, I was asked where I would like to work. And I suggested that, that Navigation would be a good place. And Navigation accepted me, and so I went to work with, with Navigation.

MUMMERT: I wonder if you might, before we dig a little bit deeper, just give a quick overview of your entire career at TVA.

WETHERHOLT: Okay, well I started in, in June 1960, a year's training program. I was in Navigation for several years. I worked on the Melton Hill 00:03:00project, the Tellico project, and then they [Navigation][3] split up into Economic Development and Navigation, and I was put in charge of Economic Development. And from there, my career really began, in industrial development. And I stayed in that until I retired.

MUMMERT: So, when you began and you were working in Navigation or at Melton Hill and Tellico, about how many years were you in that capacity?

WETHERHOLT: Well, I guess, let's see. Melton Hill was the first one and it lasted a few years. And Tellico was a little longer because it got delayed with, with different lawsuits and so on. And I guess, a total of all that was probably six years or so. Six or seven years, say, maybe a little longer than 00:04:00that. Maybe eight years.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh. So then you spent the rest of close to 20 years working in Economic Development.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah, yeah.

MUMMERT: Well, let's begin--

WETHERHOLT: Close to 20 years, but not quite 20 years, but it was close to it, yeah.

MUMMERT: Yes. Let's begin then. Explain the nature of your work at Melton Hill.

WETHERHOLT: I was, I was put in charge of clearing the reservoir for navigation. And so I would go out and inspect the shoreline and make sure everything was clear for navigation. And then, we, we did a little dredging up at the upper end to provide navigation to an industrial site that we had picked out above Clinton, Tennessee. And, and then I worked with the Corps of Engineers in setting buoys and things like that to set when the lake was filled up.

MUMMERT: That's interesting. What, now when you first worked at 00:05:00Melton Hill, was the dam built? Or this was before the dam?

WETHERHOLT: No, no. No, no, no. It was just planned.

MUMMERT: It was just planned?

WETHERHOLT: Well, it was being built when I went to work with--on the project.

MUMMERT: So--

WETHERHOLT: But it was not planned to be built before I went to work with TVA.

MUMMERT: So the reservoir area had been cleared? Or you were part of that project?

WETHERHOLT: No, I was part of that clearing. Yeah, I was, I worked with the contractors in clearing the, the shoreline.

MUMMERT: Interesting. The--how long did you work on something like that? How long did it take to, say, plan the clearing of a Melton Hill reservoir?

WETHERHOLT: Well, you know, it took, it took a while to saw those trees down and clear everything out. So, I guess, a couple years. It took a while to get all that out.

MUMMERT: Did most of your work--was it triggered by your being able 00:06:00to inspect and view things on the ground? Or were maps and things like that helpful to you?

WETHERHOLT: Well, I had maps, but I walked the shoreline--

MUMMERT: That's a lot of walking.

WETHERHOLT: To make sure that everything was out. And if there was something that was not out, I would talk to the contractor and have him come in and clear it out.

MUMMERT: And so you did that. Is that similar to the work that you did at Tellico?

WETHERHOLT: Yes. I was also in the clearing of Tellico. And I was involved in industrial work at Tellico.

MUMMERT: So I didn't realize the, like the industrial work, or the industrial sites, had been planned while the reservoirs were being planned in those two instances.

WETHERHOLT: Yes, yes, yes, they were.

MUMMERT: Is there anything else or any interesting stories about your work at Melton Hill or Tellico that you want to relate?

WETHERHOLT: Well, when I was working on Tellico, you know, that we had to stop several times because of environmental or, or lawsuits and things like that. So it drug on for several years. And also there was a new town planned for Tellico, which is called Tellico Village right now. And Boeing Company was, was given a contract to plan that town. And I was on special assignment with Boeing for a, for a few months and then went back to my, my Navigation job.

MUMMERT: I see. I think Boeing never--

WETHERHOLT: No. They--

MUMMERT: Never did anything with that.

WETHERHOLT: No, no, someone else came in and, and finished up on it.

MUMMERT: Well then after your first six years or so working in Navigation and at those two sites, you made a switch? Or you kind of focused into a 00:08:00new area.

WETHERHOLT: Well, industrial development was beginning to come on a little stronger. So they broke Navigation up into two sections: the Navigation section and the Economic Development section. And I was put in charge of Economic Development. And from there, we really got into industrial development. We created a lot of new programs in that we identified potential industrial sites along the Tennessee River, large areas for industry. And then that developed good, and then we started working with communities. And we had a lot of work with communities over the years and industrial development identifying sites and help them with industrial park designs and things like that.

MUMMERT: When you first began in this, in Economic Development, and 00:09:00you were trying to identify potential industrial sites, was that the first time that TVA was in this line of work?

WETHERHOLT: Yes. As far as I know, that was about the first time they were in it. And actually, we started it with the work with the communities.

MUMMERT: How did that work? I mean--

WETHERHOLT: Well, you know, we had some field representatives that we had cover certain areas and they would get requests for some assistance and they would get in touch with us. And we'd go out and meet with them and, and find out what they wanted. And then we would do the work for them and take it back and talk to them about it and present papers and presentations. We developed a lot of industrial park plans. They wanted, they wanted us to develop or build industrial parks, so we, we did a lot of that. And then we'd provide plans and--preliminary plans and preliminary cost estimates. And then me or my staff, we'd go out and 00:10:00make these presentations to the, the mayor or his, whoever he had assigned to meet with us, and make the presentation. And a lot of the things that we designed were built. I mean they were built. And at one time, the, the Board wanted to know how effective our industrial park planning was, and we had to prepare a plan, a report, outlining what we'd done and how effective it was. And in 1982, we had prepared 25 conceptual plans and presented them to the communities. And then there was 79 industrial parks built in the region that we designed, that we helped design. And they said that those parks 00:11:00employed, at that time, over 34,000--34,000 workers, with an estimated annual payroll of $570 million. And when accompanying the jobs and trades and services are considered, they created over 60,000 jobs in the TVA region. How about that?

MUMMERT: That was very impressive. When you were--started out in the industrial site designing, what was the state of industrial development in the Tennessee Valley? What--what I'm trying to get at was--

WETHERHOLT: It was just getting going good. It was, you know, people coming in. In fact, I would go out, they'd get in touch with me and I'd go out with them on field trips. I'd spend days in field trips with, with the industrial prospects, looking for sites along the Tennessee River, all the way down, you know, the river. And, and then, a lot of them would maybe buy those sites, or 00:12:00they'd say, "Well, this is not what we're looking for." And we'd go from there. And in some cases--(clears throat)--excuse me--some cases, like down in Loudon, the Staley Company came in and we, we got an idea of what they wanted and what they were going to do. And we prepared a conceptual plan, showing the plan on a particular site that they were looking at. And then we met with them and the city people on the site and presented the plan. And they liked the plan, but they had several other sites to look at, so they were gone for a few months. And in the meantime--(clears throat)--excuse me--in the meantime, a steel company here in Knoxville wanted to relocate down there and they went down and, and started construction on it, just barely started construction on the site that Staley had, had selected. And Staley came back and wanted to buy the 00:13:00site, so we had a problem there. But the local folks got them to move to another site, and we prepared a conceptual plan of how that, how their plant would look on that site. So they moved over and Staley bought the site and started construction. But then we had a lot of problems we had to work out. First of all, they had to have a railroad, and then we had to bring the railroad in. And you cross a little slue or a little creek, and the Corps of Engineers stopped the project because they didn't have a permit. So they had to go and do a kind of environmental statement on it and stop for a while. Then they got that cleared up and well we're going on. So we went on down and they wanted--had to have a barge [terminal][4] too because they were bringing all this grain in by barge, a lot of it. So, it just so happened that 00:14:00some people said, "Well, they've got endangered species down there in that river." So one weekend, we, we slowed down the flow out of Ft. Loudoun and Tellico so divers could go down and, and investigate the river bottom. And they didn't find anything, so we got that one cleared up. But then TVA came along and said, "Wait right there. You're going, you're going to be filling up some land in the floodway and that's, you know, that's going to be expensive." [5] So they, TVA estimated it would be $100,000 for, for that filling. Well, the city and county, they didn't have $100,000, so the director and I and some others went to the Board and got the Board to, to forgive that $100,000. And then Staley got the, the word to go ahead 00:15:00and they built their plant and employed a lot of people. [6] That was what won the case right there.

MUMMERT: So how--what about the, the barge terminal? Did that have to be--WETHERHOLT: They built the barge terminal. It was already, it was built.

MUMMERT: And the railroad as well?

WETHERHOLT: And the railroad as well.

MUMMERT: But how long did that take, for those--

WETHERHOLT: Well, it took several months. You know, I had to have a, have a--the, the Corps of Engineers, I had to have a notice in the paper. And that had to run for, what, about a week or something like that. And then, so it took, it took a month or so to, to resolve that problem. Or a couple of months. The same way with the endangered species. We had to find out how we were going to attack that problem. And so we decided we'll just cut down the flow of the Tennessee River at Tellico and, and let the divers go down and look at it. And so that took some planning and so and so. You know, we're talking 00:16:00about several months' delay.

MUMMERT: I guess, would you have been worried during that whole period whether Staley might've just decided to just do something different?

WETHERHOLT: Well, they'd already started construction, so I guess they had some money tied up already.

MUMMERT: Oh, I see.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah. And in another case, I'll tell you another case.

MUMMERT: That's fine.

WETHERHOLT: I was with the, on a field trip with the, with the chairman of the board of Quaker State Oil Company looking for a site down in the, in the Chattanooga area and below. And they liked, they liked the site in South Pittsburg. It was a nice little site, but it was across the river from South Pittsburg. Well, when looking at that, the only, the only access was a ferry crossing. So even though that, the board member liked, liked the site, he said, "I can't take it. We've got to have better access." Well, that got 00:17:00the local people interested in a bridge. And so, they talked to the governor and the local people talked to me and my director and a couple of people from UT [University of Tennessee], and we set up a meeting with, with Governor [Winfield] Dunn. And we went over in Governor Dunn's office. And I sat in Governor Dunn's chair at his desk while he and his staff sat around the room making the presentation for a bridge. And it went over real well, and the Governor asked me to come back and talk to the engineering staff. So I did that. Now, if you ever go down to South Pittsburg and you enter South Pittsburg from the east and you look at the river, you'll see a beautiful bridge, a beautiful bridge. [7]

MUMMERT: That is a beautiful bridge.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah.

MUMMERT: Now I, I interviewed Mike Parker, one of the architects, and, as a part of the Oral History Project. And he indicated that the TVA 00:18:00architects were involved in the designing of many bridges. Was that one designed by TVA?

WETHERHOLT: I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I don't think so, but I don't know for sure.

MUMMERT: Did Quaker State end up locating somewhere in the Tennessee Valley?

WETHERHOLT: No, they didn't.

MUMMERT: But did the bridge help out South Pittsburg with their industrial development?

WETHERHOLT: Well, you know, I haven't been back since, since then, but I'm sure it did. And it opened that whole area because South Pittsburg, if you've been there, you know, it's limited on, on the land base. It's right along the river there and it's got the hill behind it there, kind of mountain behind it. And this was a good place for them to expand either, either industrial or residential, or new businesses, you know.

MUMMERT: When you were looking for industrial sites in the very beginning, what did you look for?

WETHERHOLT: Well, we, you know, TVA had, had a lot of maps. We had good maps, topo maps. And I'd be looking, I'd check the topo maps to see, see if there was some area that looked favorable, like it had the river access, had rail access, highway access, and suitable land. And then we'd go down and we'd look at it and we'd inspect it and say, "Yeah, this looks pretty good." And, and so we would, we would show them a map as a potential, potential site. And we didn't check with the ownership or anything like that. We just, we were just looking for land that was suitable, and we did that all along the river. And then, and 00:20:00then in the communities, we identified a lot of sites in the communities. And actually, we were on special assignments to do some of that. I was on special assignment in--I was on assignment in Oklahoma. They sent me to Oklahoma to, to identify some potential sites in Oklahoma. And I did that and made a presentation to Kerr Center out there in Oklahoma on that.

MUMMERT: Well, on the--in the Tennessee, in your early years, you were looking for potential sites on the entire length of the Tennessee River?

WETHERHOLT: That's right.

MUMMERT: From Knoxville to Paducah?

WETHERHOLT: That's right, uh-huh.

MUMMERT: I don't expect you to know exactly, but how many sites would you say you, that were favorable ones after your first couple years of work?

WETHERHOLT: I have no idea. We identified a lot of sites. And these were big sites, not, not just 10 acres or something like that. You know, we're talking about plants that would come in, big plants that [required a large 00:21:00land base and][8] would use barge transportation.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh.

WETHERHOLT: And so on. So we identified a lot of sites.

MUMMERT: Were there any industries of size? Or any industries on the Tennessee River at that point, between Knoxville and Paducah?

WETHERHOLT: Well--

MUMMERT: Or was it really your work that triggered industrial locations?

WETHERHOLT: There were, there were not many at that time. That was early, and not many at that time. I just don't remember whether, whether there were any located or not.

MUMMERT: Do you have any other stories about looking for or trying to identify sites for various indus--industrial clients or communities?

WETHERHOLT: Can I tell you a little side story?

MUMMERT: Sure.

WETHERHOLT: Well, one of the, one of the companies that I went on a field trip with was the Union Camp Paper Company. And I was out there with them for nearly a week looking for sites all along the river. And then my son, my 00:22:00oldest son, he graduated from UT in Civil Engineering. And he got, he got an invitation to, from the paper company that said come over for an interview. So I--when he was going over there, I said, "Now look." I said, "I spent several days with these guys. I'll give you a couple names to look at and maybe they can show you around the plant." So he went over and when he came back, he said, "Dad." He said, "I had the best time." He said, "I met those people you told me about. And they were really good and showed me all around." And he said, "They took me up and introduced me to the president of the company and introduced me as my father"--he says, "My father is Mr. TVA." Now wasn't that something? Yes, I thought that was interesting that they thought, thought that much of me.

MUMMERT: The--quite an honor to be called that.

WETHERHOLT: I thought so, I thought so.

MUMMERT: Now, when you were doing work like inspecting sites with a client, would they be calling TVA directly? Or did you work through the different state economic development offices?

WETHERHOLT: It happened both ways. Either the state might call me or the industry might call someone in TVA or they'd call me if they got my name. And get in touch with me that way. Or maybe the field representative found out some information or something like that.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh. And did--what, what percentage of the sites that you 00:24:00inspected turn out to be winners? And, where industries actually moved in and located on one of the sites you were looking at?

WETHERHOLT: Oh, I don't know. This--we're going back a lot of years now.

MUMMERT: Yeah.

WETHERHOLT: I've got--I have in front of me here a report. Well, actually not a report really, it's letters from different people all over the Valley--industrial people, communities, and all that. This is about an inch thick of letters of appreciation for our services. Some of them from the state offices. Some of them from cities and all that. Some of them about helping them with certain industries coming in and all that stuff. And, and it's 00:25:00very interesting to look at all these things that we have received over the years.

MUMMERT: Well, I don't want to ask you to read them all, but I was wondering, based on your memory, could you name a number of the communities where you--there are industrial parks today that TVA designed?

WETHERHOLT: Well, in Knoxville here the Byington one [WestBridge Business Park] [9], you know, you know where that is out there. But we did, we did--let's see if I can come up with--maybe I've got something here to help a little bit.

MUMMERT: You want me to stop the--

WETHERHOLT: Let me give you some idea here.

MUMMERT: Okay.

WETHERHOLT: In Alabama, we did the work at Elkmont, Florence, Guntersville, Huntsville, Madison County, Russellville, and Scottsboro. In Georgia, we did Blairsville and Ringgold. Kentucky, we did Bowling Green, Fulton, 00:26:00Hopkinsville, Leitchfield, Morgantown, Paducah, Russellville, Scottsville. In Mississippi, we did Batesville, Iuka, Yellow Creek, and a couple of others there that I don't have any data on. North Carolina was Asheville, Bryson City, and Franklin. Virginia, was Bristol, Washington, Chilhowee, Dovefield, Lebanon, St. Paul, Wise. In Tennessee, there must be 25 or 30 of those.

MUMMERT: Keep--well keep on going if you can. Name the Tennessee ones.

WETHERHOLT: Adamsville, Blount County, Carthage, Cleveland, Clinton, Columbia, Covington--two Covingtons, Dayton, Dixon, Elkin, Fayetteville--two in Fayetteville, east and west, Gallatin, Gordonsville, Grainger County, 00:27:00Grundy County, Harriman, Henry County, Houston/Stuart County, Jackson, Kingsport, Knoxville Forks of the River, Lawrenceburg, Lenoir City, you know about Lewisburg, let's see, Lexington, Loudon--two in Loudon, Madisonville, Manchester, Meigs County, Monroe County, Morgan County, Moscow, Mount Pleasant, Oak Ridge, Pikeville, Piney Flatts, Roane County, Sevierville, Smithville, Sunbright, Tullahoma, Winchester. I think that's enough.

MUMMERT: That's, that's great, though, to capture all that. And now, these were all industrial park plans that were done and where the industrial parks were built.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah, a lot of them were built there.

MUMMERT: Yeah. And you said--

WETHERHOLT: And I have, I have a list of some of the, the ones that I mentioned that the industries that are there.

MUMMERT: You want to review some of those?

WETHERHOLT: It's too big. It's, it's--it requires too much.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh. Anyway, that's, that's great, Bob. And an impressive list of places all around the Tennessee Valley, in every corner of it. And--

WETHERHOLT: I think you can see now why I suggested that you, you get in touch with me.

MUMMERT: Sure.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah. Because we did a lot. And also I had one engineer that worked with expanding industries that wanted to do internal planning. And he worked with them in their, in their production lines to see if they could 00:29:00come up with some good ideas in how their production lines could be set up better.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh.

WETHERHOLT: And that was a pretty good, pretty good job.

MUMMERT: In doing these industrial plans, were there any conflicts with private consulting or engineering firms?

WETHERHOLT: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

MUMMERT: How did that work out then?

WETHERHOLT: Well, we tried to tell them--well, I had, I had some problems with some of them. And I had to tell them that, that what we were doing were not final plans. These were preliminary plans and, and preliminary cost estimates, that they would hire an engineering firm to do the final plans and everything like that and do c--help with the construction of it. And that got us by some, even though we, we had a lot of problem with it. We did have some, some problems.

MUMMERT: Yes, and that seems the way TVA worked in a lot of different areas. They came up with maybe some ideas, identified sites, but also did conceptual plans and then turned them over to--

WETHERHOLT: Yeah.

MUMMERT: Those in the private sector that did the rest of the work.

WETHERHOLT: That's right, that's right.

MUMMERT: Well, are there any--which, which plan--industrial park plans are you most proud of?

WETHERHOLT: Well, I tell you, I'm, I'm really proud of Staley. It required a lot of my time, and a lot of extra work, and a lot of negotiation. In fact, I was about the only person in TVA that Loudon County people would talk to. The General Manager wanted to go down and talk to them, and they, I had to go down with him and introduce him to the people. So, you know, that's, I 00:31:00thought that was pretty neat too.

MUMMERT: What did you like most about your work?

WETHERHOLT: You know, I liked the whole thing. I liked, I liked the meeting with people, talking with the, with the city officials, the mayors, and traveling all over the Valley, and, and coming up with some ideas, new ideas. You know, another, another little thing that we got into, we didn't get into, but we got in to it, and that is the, the nuclear plants. We were building the Hartsville Nuclear Plant and, you know, construction jobs require a lot of construction workers. And a little place like Hartsville didn't have much housing. But a lot of construction people had, had mobile homes, but Hartsville didn't have any mobile homes. So TVA came up with an idea of helping the private 00:32:00landowners in, in preparing industrial parks--I mean, mobile home parks for these workers that could be converted to, to subdivisions after the construction of the project. And we prepared a plan for a particular piece of property that the owner wanted, wanted us to look at, making that conversion. But before we could get the thing finalized and presented to them, we stopped the construction on the nuclear plant. So that thing went down, down the tube.

MUMMERT: And so nothing happened to the--

WETHERHOLT: Nothing happened there.

MUMMERT: Okay.

WETHERHOLT: But it, another one was down at Watts Bar. Those towns--Dayton was saying that TVA was impacting their community with all the workers coming in and going to school, and their roads, and their every--services and all 00:33:00that. So I don't know how I got some of those special jobs, special jobs of looking into some those things. I had my secretary at the intersection where the plant entrance goes to the main road, and counting cars as they come out and to see which way they go. And then another one down at the main road going into Dayton to see how many went down that way. I had an engineer travel with the garbage truck to see where garbage was picked up and maybe determine if these were TVA people living there. We looked at the roads to see what, what problems could be with the roads. And, and also schools to see what the impact would be on the schools. And that was part of our job. And then some of the other units in TVA were given other jobs. And we all got together and, to, to make our findings, and we--it was hard to figure out about price because, you 00:34:00know, roads, unless you have heavy traffic over it, it doesn't--it'll last a long time. And so, we got together and said, "Well, it looks like the thing to do is--there is impact. There's impact on schools, garbage, there's a lot of services impacted." So we, we said, "We don't know the amounts of impact, but there is impact." So we suggested that TVA determine an amount and give to the community every year for a period of time, maybe a larger percent in the early years and tapering off till the end of the period of what, 10 years or 5 years or something. And that's what TVA did. I don't know how much they, they gave the community, but that was, that was what was determined. So that's another interesting little job.

MUMMERT: And this was all done kind of in conjunction with the 00:35:00planning for the nuclear plant?

WETHERHOLT: No, this was under, under construction.

MUMMERT: Okay.

WETHERHOLT: This was, this was not the initial construction, this was, this was an addition to the plant.

MUMMERT: I see. Was that done anywhere else?

WETHERHOLT: As I require--as I recall, that was, was the second stage of the construction.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh. Do you know if that was done anywhere else?

WETHERHOLT: I don't think so.

MUMMERT: Yeah.

WETHERHOLT: So, you see, we had some interesting jobs.

MUMMERT: You sure did. What--in, in thinking about the--you know, all of your work, especially through the Economic Development days, what were some of the conditions that you had to overcome, that were maybe challenges? 00:36:00Inside or outside TVA?

WETHERHOLT: Well, gosh, I mentioned the outside because it was the conflict we had with some of the consulting firms.

MUMMERT: Yeah.

WETHERHOLT: And then, some of the meetings we'd go to, we, we, there would be people there from maybe some consulting firms or, or engineering firms or something like that. And they would make a presentation and then we would make a presentation. And there were a lot of times when our presentations were different. And sometimes that didn't go over too well with, with some of them, but most of them were okay. It was something that was in the planning stages anyway. So we had that occasionally. Not very often, but occasionally.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh. How about--did you have any issues with and local 00:37:00governments or--

WETHERHOLT: No, no.

MUMMERT: Yeah.

WETHERHOLT: They were glad to see us.

MUMMERT: And, I have one question here that I'd like to ask you about what your most memorable experience was. That's a tough question, perhaps.

WETHERHOLT: It sure is, that's a tough question. You know, I loved my job. I really did. I loved designing those preliminary plans, putting the preliminary plans together for the industrial parks. I enjoyed my, my trips with the industrial prospects coming and looking at different places. I loved taking these plans back and talking to the community about them and having, seeing what their reaction would be. You know, it was just a good time for me. I enjoyed my work.

MUMMERT: Yeah, it's always enjoyable when you're doing something productive that helps other people.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah, yeah.

MUMMERT: And, well also doing it under the banner of TVA didn't hurt.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah. TVA was a, was a great organization back then.

MUMMERT: Yeah. The--I want to ask you what--was the significance of your work recognized outside of the Valley? You mentioned, you know, having to, on one project, having to go to Oklahoma.

WETHERHOLT: Yes, they asked, they asked me to come out to Oklahoma.

MUMMERT: Yes, and of course a lot of industries that may have ended up locating in the Tennessee Valley were headquartered somewhere else. But was your work itself recognized outside the Valley in anyway?

WETHERHOLT: I, I have no idea, really. I don't know. We were, we were on this little assignment in Bessemer, Alabama, which is outside the TVA 00:39:00area, with some industrial sites down there. But I don't know of anything, any government, except, we did with TVA and North Carolina got together and made an agreement with them and we were part of that agreement for the industrial park. So there's one state that TVA worked with that we were involved with.[10]

MUMMERT: You think that what you were doing during your earlier industrial development years, in the 1970s, let's say, was kind of on the cutting edge? Or was industrial park development and planning going on all around the country? Or at least in the eastern part of the country?

WETHERHOLT: Well, there were industrial parks being built. But what we did was different, where we identified sites for them and let them make a 00:40:00selection of which, which one they wanted to develop, if they wanted to develop any of them. And then that's when we would prepare plans for them. So you know, we just did, we just did a lot in those early days. And a lot of that was not done by anybody else.

MUMMERT: Were you restricted to just TVA lands? Or it could be anything along the waterway?

WETHERHOLT: Along the waterway, yeah, any place. Most of it was private land along the waterway.

MUMMERT: Well, you've really given a good overview of your, your career and the impact that it's had. And it's been very impressive.

WETHERHOLT: We had, we had a small engineering staff.

MUMMERT: Yeah.

WETHERHOLT: I had draftsmen, I had some draftsmen. I would prepare the plans and the draftsmen would draw them up for us. Or, or we'd do ourselves. Or 00:41:00maybe they'd make conceptual plans of a plant on a site. And when we made a presentation, that was a good selling point when we, when we talked to industry about it on a property. You know, it was, it was good times.

MUMMERT: Was Staley the largest you said that you worked on?

WETHERHOLT: Yeah. At the time, I'd say it was the largest plant under construction in the State of Tennessee. About a month or so after that, they started construction, a Spring Hill development, the GM [General Motors] planned an automobile plant in Spring Hill and started construction. And they were the largest.

MUMMERT: Were you involved in any plant work like that? Or like within--

WETHERHOLT: No, I was not involved in that one at all.

MUMMERT: Or like, with the Nissan plant in Smyrna?

WETHERHOLT: No.

MUMMERT: The--well, you've given a great overview of this field or this area of work. And indicated that industrial park planning is a little bit more complex than probably many people would understand or know. And industrial parks are kind of taken for granted these days, I think.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah, right.

MUMMERT: But in that era where you worked, you cited that, that report in, what? 1980.

WETHERHOLT: 1982[11], uh-huh.

MUMMERT: Where there were 79 industrial sites that you had in some way or another developed.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah, right.

MUMMERT: And how many were added onto that after 1980?[12]

WETHERHOLT: I have no idea. I retired in 1988.

MUMMERT: Well, you had another eight years, Bob.

WETHERHOLT: No, I only had six. [13]

MUMMERT: Okay.

WETHERHOLT: But, I don't know. We didn't go back to check on it.

MUMMERT: Yeah.

WETHERHOLT: We, we, since the Board wanted the information on this, we tried to get some good information at that time.

MUMMERT: Do you know whether TVA does this kind of work or just primarily focuses on the super sites now?

WETHERHOLT: I think they're probably more on super sites now.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh. It's a whole different ballgame than it was when you were working.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, you know, we had some good ideas. I won't go into that, but anyway--

MUMMERT: But I suppose, too, that a lot of the, you know, smaller communities now have resources to be able to build upon what you started or maybe get other industrial parks started that are pretty much done by the private sector or commercial firms.

WETHERHOLT: Yeah, they could, they could take some of the information that we gave them earlier about various sites and then they could hire an engineering firm to do the planning for them.

MUMMERT: The--I think I have asked you all--just about all the questions that I have here for you. But I do have one final question, and that is that are there any questions I have not asked that you wish I had asked?

WETHERHOLT: I can't think of any, except, you know, I had a small staff of engineers, and, and we covered the whole area. We covered from near Bluefield, West Virginia,[14] all the way to, all the way to the Mississippi River, just about. And up in Kentucky and North Carolina and down in Georgia, you know, all, Alabama, all those, Kentucky, all those,[15] and it was a nice job. We, we had 00:44:00people that were out there. We'd talk to them and get some ideas from them and, and develop those ideas and bring things back to them. We, we had a good relationship with these people.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh.

WETHERHOLT: And that was important I thought.

MUMMERT: Do you want to name some of the people on your team?

WETHERHOLT: Well, yeah, I can, I can do that. I had, Bob Buchanan was, was my next in charge. I think Bob, he's retired and he's over probably in Virginia somewhere. He was a graduate of Virginia Tech. Joe Lane, he was an engineer and he graduated from UT. Al Robinson was a, was a Black guy and he was, he was good. And then Kerry Hunt. And then I had Bob Morris. Bob Morris is 00:45:00the one that worked with the industries that were going to expand and wanted information on how they could best set their assembly line up and things like that.

MUMMERT: Uh-huh.

WETHERHOLT: And then, I had, I had four draftsmen[16] and they did a lot of work for us on planning and so on. And I had a secretary.[17]

MUMMERT: Well, that's a good team. I've crossed paths with all, all of them and they were good people.

WETHERHOLT: Oh, well that's great. That's great. Yeah, that's great.

MUMMERT: Would you like to say any final words before we close the interview?

WETHERHOLT: Just that I enjoyed my, my years with TVA and I wouldn't give anything for them. I mean, they were, they were so good for me.

MUMMERT: Well, I appreciate your time, and this has been a really interesting review of your impressive career, Bob. Thank you very much.

WETHERHOLT: Okay, thanks, thanks for getting in touch with me Phil.

MUMMERT: Okay, I'm going to turn the recorder off now.

WETHERHOLT: Okay. [18]