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University of California • Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Western Mining in the Twentieth Century Series

Carl L. Randolph

RESEARCH MANAGER TO PRESIDENT, U.S. BORAX & CHEMICAL
CORPORATION, 1957-1986

With an Introduction by
Ian White-Thomson

Interviews Conducted by

Eleanor Swent

in 1990

Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading
participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of
Northern California, the West, and the Nation. Oral history is a modern research
technique involving an interviewee and an informed interviewer in spontaneous
conversation. The taped record is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity
and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The resulting manuscript is typed
in final form, indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and
placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and
other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material,
oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete
narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in
response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved,
and irreplaceable.

************************************

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement
between The Regents of the University of California and Carl L.
Randolph dated 10 July 1990. The manuscript is thereby made
available for research purposes. All literary rights in the
manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The
Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part
of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written
permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University
of California, Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be
addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library,
University of California, Berkeley 94720, and should include
identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated
use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal
agreement with Carl Randolph requires that he be notified of the
request and allowed thirty days in which to respond.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Carl L. Randolph, "Research Manager to
President. U.S. Borax & Chemical
Corporation. 1957 to 1986." an oral
history conducted in 1990 by Eleanor
Swent, Regional Oral History Office, The
Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley, 1992.

Copy no .

Dr. Carl L. Randolph, 1986.

Photograph courtesy of U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation

Cataloging Information

Randolph, Carl (b. 1922) Borax industry executive

Research Manager to President. U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation. 1957-1986.
1992, xvi, 111 pp.

Childhood in Arcadia, California; Whittier College; World War II, tanker USS
Sebec. South Pacific; Ph.D. chemistry. University of Southern California,
1949; research chemist. Aerojet; research manager, vice president, president,
U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation: discusses fifty-four day strike at Boron,
CA plant, 1968; Quartz Hill, Alaska, molybdenum mine opposed by
environmentalists, 1977-1987; service as trustee, chairman, Whittier College,
and president. Southern California Association of Independent Colleges; U.S.
Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Introduction by Ian White -Thomson, president, U.S. Borax & Chemical
Corporation

Interviewed in 1990 by Eleanor Swent for Western Mining in the Twentieth
Century series. The Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley.

TABLE OF CONTENTS- -Carl L. Randolph

PREFACE I

INTRODUCTION by Ian L. White-Thomson ix

INTERVIEW HISTORY xiii

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION xvi

I EARLY YEARS 1

Growing Up in Arcadia, California 1

Winning a Trip to Japan 4

Impact of the Depression 6

The Long Beach Earthquake of 1933 _ 8

Whittier College; A Liberal Education 10

World War II; Serving in the Navy 12

Return to Civilian Life and Graduate School 18

Research Chemist for Aerojet 22

II U.S. BORAX, RESEARCH MANAGER TO VICE PRESIDENT, 1958-1969 24

A Company in Transition 24

Dr. Donald S. Taylor, Vice President 34

Hugo Riemer, President 35

Assistant to the President 37

The Canadian Potash Venture 40

Attempts at Diversification 50

III PRESIDENT, U.S. BORAX & CHEMICAL CORPORATION, 1969-1988 53

A Challenging Management Situation 53

Taking the Reins as President 55

Establishing the Environmental Affairs Department 56

Labor Relations and the Strike of 1974 57

Lessons Learned from the Strike 63

Quartz Hill, Alaska; Learning to Lobby 64

Expansion into Glass Sand 75

Thoughts on the Collegial Style of Management 78

The Sale of Allan Potash 82

Sailing, Woodworking, Photography 84

Whittier College Trustee, 1970-Present 86
Chairman of the Independent Colleges of Southern California

1982-Present 87

TAPE GUIDE 92

APPENDICES 93

A. "How the Tenderfeet Toughened Up U.S. Borax," Fortune 94

Magazine . December 1974

B. Commencement Address, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 98
8 May 1983

C. Biographical Profile 108
INDEX 110

PREFACE

The oral history series on Western Mining in the Twentieth Century
documents the lives of leaders in mining, metallurgy, geology, education
in the earth and materials sciences, mining law, and the pertinent
government bodies. The field includes metal, non-metal, and industrial
minerals, but not petroleum.

Mining has changed greatly in this century: in the technology and
technical education; in the organization of corporations; in the
perception of the national strategic importance of minerals; in the labor
movement; and in consideration of health and environmental effects of
mining.

The idea of an oral history series to document these developments in
twentieth century mining had been on the drawing board of the Regional

ral History Office for more than twenty years. The project finally got
. :derway on January 25, 1986, when Mrs. Willa Baum, Mr. and Mrs. Philip
I adley. Professor and Mrs. Douglas Fuerstenau, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford
Heimbucher, Mrs. Donald McLaughlin, and Mr. and Mrs. Langan Swent met at
the Swent home to plan the project, and Professor Fuerstenau agreed to
serve as Principal Investigator.

An advisory committee was selected which included representatives
from the materials science and mineral engineering faculty and a
professor of history of science at the University of California at
Berkeley; a professor emeritus of history from the California Institute
of Technology; and executives of mining companies.

We note with much regret the death of two members of the original
advisory committee, both of whom were very much interested in the
project. Rodman Paul, Professor Emeritus of History, California
Institute of Technology, sent a hand-written note of encouragement just a
few weeks before his death from cancer. Charles Meyer, Professor
Elmeritus of Geology, University of California at Berkeley, was not only
an advisor but was also on the list of people to be interviewed, because
of the significance of his recognition of the importance of plate
tectonics in the genesis of copper deposits. His death in 1987 ended
both roles.

Thanks are due to other members of the advisory committee who have
helped in selecting interviewees, suggesting research topics, and raising
funds .

Unfortunately, by the time the project was organized several of the
original list of interviewees were no longer available and others were in
failing health; therefore, arrangements for interviews were begun even
without established funding.

The project was presented to the San Francisco section of the
American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers
(AIME) on "Old-timers Night," March 10, 1986, when Philip Read Bradley,
Jr. , was the speaker. This section and the Southern California section
provided initial funding and organizational sponsorship.

The Northern and Southern California sections of the Woman's
Auxiliary to the AIME (WAAIME) , the California Mining Association, and
the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America (MMSA) were early
supporters. Several alumni of the University of California College of
Engineering donated in response to a letter from Professor James Evans,
the chairman of the Department of Materials Science and Mineral
Engineering. Other individual and corporate donors are listed in the
volumes. The project is ongoing, and funds continue to be sought.

Some members of the AIME, WAAIME, and MMSA have been particularly
helpful: Ray Beebe, Katherine Bradley, Henry Colen, Ward Downey, David
Huggins, John Kiely, Noel Kirshenbaum, and Cole McFarland.

The first five interviewees were all born in 1904 or earlier.
Horace Albright, mining lawyer and president of United States Potash
Company, was ninety- six years old when interviewed. Although brief, this
interview will add another dimension to the many publications about a man
known primarily as a conservationist.

James Boyd was director of the industry division of the military
government of Germany after World War II, director of the U.S. Bureau of
Mines, dean of the Colorado School of Mines, vice president of Kennecott
Copper Corporation, president of Copper Range, and executive director of
the National Commission on Materials Policy. He had reviewed the
transcript of his lengthy oral history just before his death in November,
1987. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame,
Leadville, Colorado.

Philip Bradley, Jr., mining engineer, was a member of the California
Mining Board for thirty- two years, most of them as chairman. He also
founded the parent organization of the California Mining Association, as
well as the Western Governors Mining Advisory Council. His uncle,
Frederick Worthen Bradley, who figures in the oral history, was in the
first group inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame, Leadville,
Colorado, in 1988.

Ill

Frank McQuiston, metallurgist, vice president of Newmont Mining
Corporation, died before his oral history was complete; thirteen hours of
taped interviews with him were supplemented by three hours with his
friend and associate, Robert Shoemaker.

Gordon Oakeshott, geologist, was president of the National
Association of Geology Teachers and chief of the California Division of
Mines and Geology.

These oral histories establish the framework for the series;
subsequent oral histories amplify the basic themes.

Future researchers will turn to these oral histories to learn how
decisions were made which led to changes in mining engineering education,
corporate structures, and technology, as well as public policy regarding
minerals. In addition, the interviews stimulate the deposit, by
interviewees and others, of a number of documents, photographs, memoirs,
and other materials related to twentieth century mining in the West.
This collection is being added to The Bancroft Library's extensive
holdings .

The Regional Oral History Office is under the direction of Willa
Baxim, division head, and under the administrative direction of The
Bancroft Library.

Interviews were conducted by Malca Chall and Eleanor Swent.

Willa K. Baum, Division Head
Regional Oral History Office

Eleanor Swent, Project Director
Western Mining in the Twentieth
Century Series

October 1990

Regional Oral History Office

University of California, Berkeley

Western Mining in the Twentieth Century Oral History Series
Interviews Completed, August 1992

Horace Albright, Mining Lawyer and Executive. U.S. Potash Company.
U.S. Borax. 1933-1962. 1989

James Boyd, Minerals and Critical Materials Management: Military

and Government Administrator and Mining Executive. 1941-1987.
1988

Philip Read Bradley, Jr. , A Mining Engineer in Alaska. Canada, the

Western United States. Latin America, and Southeast Asia. 1988

Catherine C. Campbell, Ian and Catherine Campbell. Geologists:
Teaching. Government Service. Editing. 1989

James T. Curry, Sr. , Metallurgist for Empire Star Mine and Newmont
Exploration. 1932-1955: Plant Manager for Calaveras Cement
Company. 1956-1975. 1990

J . Ward Downey , Mining and Construction Engineer. Industrial Management
Consultant. 1936 to the 1990s. 1992

Hedley S. "Pete" Fowler, Mining Engineer in the Americas. India, and
Africa. 1933-1983. 1992

James Mack Gerstley, Executive. U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation:

Trustee. Pomona College: Civic Leader. San Francisco Asian Art
Museum. 1991

John F. Havard, Mining Engineer and Executive. 1935-1981. 1992

George Heikes, Mining Geologist on Four Continents. 1924-1974. 1992

Helen R. Henshaw, Recollections of Life with Paul Henshaw: Latin
America. Homestake Mining Company. 1988

Lewis L. Huelsdonk, Manager of Gold and Chrome Mines. Spokesman
for Gold Mining. 1935-1974. 1988

Arthur I. Johnson, Mining and Metallurgical Engineer in the Black Hills:
Pegmatites and Rare Minerals. 1922 to the 1990s. 1990

Evan Just, Geologist: Engineering and Mining Journal. Marshall Plan.

Cyprus Mines Corporation, and Stanford University. 1922-1980. 1989

Plato Malozemoff, A Life in Mining: Siberia to Chairman of Newmont
Mining Corporation. 1909-1985. 1990

James and Malcolm McPherson, Brothers in Mining. 1992

Frank Woods McQuiston, Jr., Metallurgist for Newmont Mining Corporation
and U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. 1934-1982. 1989

Gordon B. Oakeshott, The California Division of Mines and Geology.
1948-1974. 1988

Vincent D. Perry, A Half Century as Mining and Exploration Geologist
with the Anaconda Company. 1991

Carl Randolph, Research Manager to President. U.S. Borax & Chemical
Corporation. 1957-1986. 1992

Jospeh Rosenblatt, EIMCO. Pioneer in Underground Mining Machinery and
Process Equipment. 1926-1963. 1992

James V. Thompson, Mining and Metallurgical Engineer: the Philippine

Islands: Dorr. Humphreys. Kaiser Engineers Companies: 1940 -1990s.
1992

Interviews In Process

Samuel S. Arentz , Jr. (Escalante Mine), in process

Donald Dickey (Oriental Mine), in process

Wayne Hazen (metallurgy) , in process

James Jensen (metallurgy) , in process

John Livermore (geologist), in process

John Reed (rock mechanics), in process

Eugene Smith (U.S. Borax), in process

Langan Swent (San Luis, Homestake, uranium mining), in process

ADVISORS TO THE SERIES, WESTERN MINING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Professor Douglas Fuerstenau, Principal Investigator
Plato Malozemoff Professor, Department of Materials Science and
Mineral Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

Robert R. Beebe

Senior Vice President (retired),

Homes take Mining Company

Mr. Philip R. Bradley

Former Chairman, California State

Mining and Geology Board

Henry Colen

President, San Francisco Mining

Associates

Professor Neville G. Cook
Department of Materials Science and
Mineral Engineering, University of
California, Berkeley

J . Ward Downey
Engineering and Industrial
Management Consultant

Professor Roger Hahn, Department of
History, University of California,
Berkeley

Mr. John Havard

Senior Vice President (retired) ,

Kaiser Engineers, Inc.

Mr. Clifford Heimbucher, C.P.A.
Consultant, Varian Associates , Inc.

Mr. John R. Kiely

Senior Executive Consultant

(retired), Bechtel, Inc.

Noel Kirshenbaum
Manager, Mineral Products
Development, Placer Dome U.S.

Plato Malozemoff

Chairman Emeritus , Newmont Mining

Corporation

Mr. Joseph P. Matoney
Vice President (retired)
Coal, Kaiser Engineers, Inc.

Mrs. Donald H. McLaughlin
Founder, Save San Francisco Bay
Association

Professor Malcolm McPherson
Massey Professor of Mining
Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University

♦Professor Emeritus Charles Meyer,
Department of Geology, University of
California, Berkeley

Professor H. Frank Morrison
Chairman, Department of Materials
Science and Mineral Engineering,
University of California, Berkeley

Professor Joseph A. Pask
Department of Materials Science and
Mineral Engineering, University of
California, Berkeley

♦Professor Emeritus Rodman Paul,
Department of History, California
Institute of Technology

♦Mr. Langan W. Swent

Vice President (retired) , Homestake

Mining Company

♦ Deceased during the period of the
project

« .;-

-A:

Vll

The Regional Oral History Office

would like to express its thanks to the organizations

and individuals whose encouragement and support have made possible

The Western Mining in the Twentieth Century Series.

DONORS

THE WESTERN MINING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

ORAL HISTORY SERIES

1986-1991

Organizations

American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers,

San Francisco and Southern California Sections
Woman's Auxiliary to the AIME, Southern California and Northern California

Sections
California Mining Association
The Jackling Fund of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America

I Corporations

Bechtel Group Incorporated
Cyprus Minerals Company
* Freeport-McMoRan

\ EIMCO Process Equipment Company

r Homestake Mining Company

i Kennecott Corporation

I Krebs Engineers

f Newmont Mining Corporation

I United States Borax & Chemical Corporation

Patrons

James Boyd

Barbara H. and James T. Curry, Jr.

Donald Dickey

J. Ward and Alberta P. Downey

James M. Gerstley

Mrs. Paul C. Henshaw, in memory of her husband, Paul C. Henshaw

Arthur I . Johnson

Dean A. McGee

Mrs. Frank W. McQuiston, Jr., in memory of Frank W. McQuiston, Jr.

Gordon B. Oakeshott

Vincent D. Perry

Plato Malozemoff Foundation

Public Resource Foundation

Joseph Rosenblatt

Langan and Eleanor Swent

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Individuals

Claude J . Artero

Clemence DeGraw Jandrey Boyd

Philip and Katherlne Bradley

Catherine C. Campbell

Albert T. Chandler

Stanley Dempsey

Douglas and Margaret Fuerstenau

Louis R. Goldsmith

Mrs. Bruce S. Howard, in memory of

Henry Harland Bradley
Lewis L. Huelsdonk
Howard Janin
James H. Jensen
Jack M. Jones

Evan Just

James C. Kimble

Noel W. Kirshenbaum

Plato Malozemoff

Sylvia C. McLaughlin, in memory of

Jay Kimpston Swent
L. Arthur Norman, Jr.
Richard W. Rees
Richard M. Stewart
Simon D. Strauss
John R. Struthers
James V. Thompson
William I. Watson
William B. Whitton

INTRODUCTION- -by Ian White-Thomson

My first meeting with Carl Randolph was early in 1963. After a
little over two years with Borax Consolidated in London I was given the
great prize of a trip to Los Angeles, and my itinerary included a visit
to the U.S. Borax Research Corporation at Anaheim. Young, junior, and
technically ignorant, I was impressed to be given lunch by the head of
that organization. Dr. Carl Randolph.

One thing that will probably not emerge from an oral history is the
physical impression made by its subject. Extremely tall, formally
dressed, and on first acquaintance formal in manner, he looked a man
destined to be a company president- -and so, of course, it turned out.
Some five years later I was offered the position of marketing vice
president of U.S. Borax by Norman Travis, and on September 1, 1969 I
joined U.S. Borax, to work for Carl Randolph for the next seventeen
years.

As I soon discovered, Carl had taken over the presidency at a
difficult time in U.S. Borax's history. The career of the first
"outsider" president, Hugo Riemer, had ended unsatisfactorily and Norman
Travis came over from London as a temporary successor to select a
permanent replacement. As the new president, it fell to Carl to
reestablish a working relationship with the shareholders in London, which
while recognizing their wishes, nevertheless exerted the independent
responsibility necessary for a management separated by six thousand miles
from its parent. While these two conflicting needs no doubt caused him
some frustration over the years , Carl was able to strike a balance that
satisfied both the shareholders and the employees of U.S. Borax.

Another problem that Carl faced in his new position was a total lack
of teamwork in the executive group. Some of the long-established vice
presidents had become used to political skirmishing, and two were not
even on speaking terms. Carl made it clear from the outset that he would
not tolerate squabbling among subordinates and that while differences of
opinion were inevitable, they should be discussed and, if possible,
settled at an operating level before being brought to the president.
This principle remained a key-note of Carl's management philosophy
throughout his tenure as president, and was undoubtedly one of his major
contributions to the company, since the tone set by the executive group
inevitably pervades the rest of the organization.

Two other major challenges marked Carl's presidency, both of which
are dealt with at length in the history- -labor relations and political
activism.

The strike of 1974 was not sought by company management but was
precipitated by union intractability; while it ended successfully for
U.S. Borax, it proved to be a searching test of corporate determination.
Carl took personal charge of this issue, holding frequent "command
meetings" in his office and letting managers know of his resolve to hold
out. Salaried volunteers ran both Wilmington and Boron plants for
several months until the union locals capitulated. Even more
significantly for the future, after the strike was over Carl recognized
U.S. Borax's management shortcomings as being part of the problem and far
from victimizing the returning strikers, set about improving industrial
relations. This sensible and humane approach produced an immediate and
lasting change in employee attitudes, both management and union.

The discovery of the huge Quartz Hill molybdenum deposit in
Southeast Alaska in 1974 led to a different problem. Environmental
groups in Alaska launched a concerted effort in Washington, D.C. to
prevent its development by including it in a wilderness area. Previously
neither the company nor Carl personally had had much experience in
federal politics, having mainly worked through the American Mining
Congress. In the case of Quartz Hill it was clear that this was a U.S.
Borax problem which U.S. Borax must solve on its own. Carl hired a well-
connected young lobbyist and starting with the small but influential
Alaskan delegation, he began to build awareness of U.S. Borax's position.
As the debate continued, Carl led large company teams to Washington and
patiently tramped the corridors of government talking to any legislator
or aide who would listen. As a result, a specific exemption from
wilderness was negotiated for Quartz Hill and included in ANILCA, the
overall legislative package, in 1980. Subsequently, Carl was personally
active in Alaskan politics both at the state and local levels.
Unfortunately, in spite of its size, the deposit turned out to be not
immediately viable due to low grade and world over-supply; but the
experience gave the company a lesson in the importance of making its
voice heard, and increased its confidence in doing so. It also built
lasting relationships with political friends in Washington, which are
still valuable in other areas.

These episodes show Carl as a hands-on team leader. In general his
management style was more one of delegation to trusted subordinates. If
he felt happy with the general direction and was kept reasonably
informed, he allowed his staff considerable autonomy. Carl was not a
workaholic and did not feel the need to read every report and set of
figures; but he was a quick study and very good at extracting the key
facts from a briefing. Carl was personally concerned with people and
their feelings. The humane treatment of employees was very important to
him, and he would send a card to any employee he knew to be ill; after
his own by-pass operation he went out of his way to reassure others who
faced a similar process. He was the founder of the Twenty Mule Club, a

unique and still flourishing institution honoring the twenty employees
with longest tenure, regardless of their position in the company. He had
a curious mind, always seeking out new information, and a fine sense of
humor, making and enjoying Jokes even in the darkest of situations.

In addition to his duties as president, Carl found time for civic
involvement. An alumnus of Whittier College, he became a trustee and
then chairman of the board at a time when the resignation of the
president imposed unusual responsibility. He was active in the American
Heart Association, serving on the national corporate cabinet, and in 1983
he was named chairman of the Heart Ball . His work with the Coast Guard
Auxiliary, while certainly not incompatible with his passion for sailing,
involved much hard work, especially during his term as division captain.
He later became District Operations Officer for the 11th Coast Guard
District (Southern California) .

One would not have thought that Carl would have any time left for
hobbies, but he was in fact a man well endowed- -perhaps even over-
endowed- -with private interests. He was an excellent photographer, but
this hobby had to share a time and equipment budget with woodworking. It
happened that two vice presidents were also skilled woodworkers and this
led to many lunchtime conversations of semi-professional complexity,
irreverently known as "carpenters' lunches" by the rest of us. He had a
keen appreciation and knowledge of music, both classical and Jazz. He
was also a performer on the tuba and a member of the Fullerton College
Community Concert Band. He took the instrument seriously, while aware of
its humorous overtones; when traveling he practiced at night in his hotel
room using a tuba mouthpiece attached to a length of garden hose, to the
amusement of colleagues and no doubt the amazement of the adjacent hotel
guests. I remember a happy session at Corning when Carl was asked by the
director of purchasing (himself a singer and guitar player) to sit in
with a local Dixieland group. Beaming with enjoyment, Carl continued
playing long after his younger colleagues had gone to bed. When time
allowed, he was also a voracious reader, especially of history.

However, sailing was perhaps the most comprehensive of his hobbies.
While I knew him he owned a succession of boats- -initially sail, later
power, but always with special character. He spent as many weekends and
vacations as possible at his mooring in Catalina. I enjoy a photo of him
with sailing cap on his head and hands on the wheel of his Islander 41,
his everyday responsibilities clearly very far from his mind.

These comments would not be complete without a few words about
Carl's wife, Jane. Jane had been active in volunteer work in Orange
County, giving particular effort as Chairman of the Huntington Beach
Library Board to the expansion of the public library there, and also
being heavily involved with the Orange County Philharmonic Society. When
Carl became president, she cut back on her outside activities to have

xil

adequate time for her "new job" (as she once described it) as the wife of
the president. In no sense did she interpret this job as being the
"power behind the throne" or in exercising influence over Carl's business
decisions, although she certainly helped him deal with the inevitable
stress of his new position. She spent considerable time carrying out the
social functions which became increasingly necessary with Carl's growing
involvement in the political process. Also, and most important for the
company, she served as the nucleus for the sense of community between the
American and British managers and their wives which has so long been a
special part of U.S. Borax's culture, a role in which her kindness,
friendliness, and lack of pretentiousness made her most effective.

Ian L. White-Thomson
President, United Stated Borax &
Chemical Corporation

February 1992

Los Angeles, California

xiii

INTERVIEW HISTORY- -Carl Randolph

Carl Randolph was selected for participation in the oral history
series on Western Mining in the Twentieth Century because of his
significant role as president of United States Borax & Chemical
Corporation for seventeen years. This company is the successor to
Pacific Coast Borax Company, whose twenty-mule teams crossing Death
Valley are an important part not only of California history but also of
its mythology.

The company, under its various names, is distinguished by its
corporate sense of history and the longevity of its employees.
Nationwide, American employees spend 2.6 years with one employer; U.S.
Borax's employees average fifteen years.

United States Borax & Chemical Corporation was one of the first
corporations to support the oral history series on Western Mining in the
Twentieth Century with an annual donation. Even before the series was
organized, the first interview was with Horace Albright, then ninety- six
years old, retired president of U.S. Potash Company, which merged with
Pacific Coast Borax to form U. S. Borax. James Boyd, whose oral history
was fourth in the series, was the son of "Captain" Julian Boyd,
superintendent of the Pacific Coast Borax mines at Ryan. The oral
history of James M. Gerstley, first president of U. S. Borax, entitled
Executive. U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation: Trustee. Pomona College:
Civic Leader. San Francisco Asian Art Museum, was completed in 1991.
Another oral history is planned which will also relate to this historic
company, now part of the giant international corporation RTZ [Rio Tinto
Zinc], with origins in Spanish mines dating back to Phoenician times.
Borax House, at Carlisle Place, London, is the location of the parent
corporation. Borax Consolidated Limited; visitors entering the lobby see
a model of the twenty-mule teams and a photographic mural of the mine and
plant at Boron, California, as seen from the air.

Carl Randolph, a research chemist, was the first technically trained
chief executive of U.S. Borax. He was the first recipient of a research
contract given by the Office of Naval Research in peacetime. He worked
on the chemistry of borates for his Ph.D. from the University of Southern
California, and was employed as research manager for Aerojet-General
Corporation when boron fuels were being investigated. His technical
expertise, plus his skill at a collegial style of management, led to his
assuming leadership at United States Borax & Chemical Corporation, first

XIV

as research manager, then as vice president of research and sales, and
ultimately as president.

In his oral history, he praises his education both at Whittier
College and in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He is a person of
broad interests, including tuba playing, sailing, photography, and
woodworking, to each of which he has been seriously committed. He has
served as chairman of the trustees of Whittier College, and also of the
Southern California Council of Independent Colleges, as well as
operations officer for the Eleventh Coast Guard Auxiliary and a director
of the Oceanographic Associates of the University of Southern California.

He recounts frankly how he took the reins at U.S. Borax and worked
to build staff confidence and trust. He led the company through a 134-
day strike in 1974. He also successfully directed a major effort to
protect the Quartz Hill molybdenum mine in Alaska from .determined
environmentalist opposition; this took his attention for more than ten
years, from 1974 to 1986.

Thanks are due to F. A. S. Lesser, chairman of Borax Consolidated
Limited; Ian White-Thomson, president of U.S. Borax; Clay Lorah, vice
president; and staff members Charles Davis, Frank Gonzales, Elgian
Hurley, Jim Minette, Richard Walpole, and Dave Wheeler for their aid in
developing this oral history.

Before the interviews, I was privileged to visit the company
enterprise at Boron, California. Here I was shown the training facility
where employees are taught to upgrade their abilities, and I saw some of
the films explaining the company's history and operations. We visited
the pit where the borates are mined, and toured the up-to-date, emission-
free processing plant. We also had an exceptionally good Mexican lunch
at a restaurant in Boron. In Los Angeles, I had lunch at the Jonathan
Club and the California Club with other executives of U.S. Borax, giving
me further opportunity to appreciate the management style of this
corporation, which embodies great institutional memory and pride.

A letter inviting Carl Randolph to be interviewed was sent on 1 May
1990, and the interviews were held on 11 May, 9 July, and 10 July 1990 in
the corporate offices on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Mr. Randolph
came to the interviews with his thoughts well organized; he was at ease
and most gracious. When the transcript was sent to him for review, he
made few changes and returned it promptly.

The introduction to the Randolph oral history was written by Ian
White -Thomson, president of U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation.

The tapes of the interviews are available for study at The Bancroft
Library .

Eleanor Swent, Project Director
Western Mining in the Twentieth
Century series

November 1991

Regional Oral History Office

The Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

Room 486 The Bancroft Library ^"^^ Berkeley, California 94720

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please write clearly. Use black ink.)

Your full name C&rl L. Randolph

Date of birth May 30,1922 Birthplace Pasadena, CA

Father's full name Carl Lowell Randolph

Occupation Registered Civil Engineglrthplace Kansas

Mother's full name Lulu Gertrude McBride -Randolph

Occupation Admin. Asst. Birthplace Kansas

Your spouse Jane Taber Randolph

Your children Margaret Randolph Drue; Stephen Charl-es Randolph

Where did you grow up? Arcadia, CA

Present community Huntington Beach, CA

Education Whittjer College, BA 1943 ;Univ. So . Calif, MS, 1946;

Univ. So. Calif. Ph.D., 1949. All in chemistry

Occupation(s) Inorganic chemist; Technical manager; Corporation
President .

Areas of expertise_

Other interests or activities Music(perf ormance ) ; Photography;

Fine woodworking; boats and boatings Naval and maritime history.

Organizations in which you are active See C.V. for past associations.

U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary; Director, U.S.C. Oceanographic

Associates .

• ■ !<.>

I EARLY YEARS

[Interview 1: 11 May 1990 ]##^

Growing Up in Arcadia. California

Swent: Dr. Randolph, we'll just begin with your telling about where and
when you were born and something about your family.

Randolph: I was born in Pasadena, California, on Memorial Day, May 30,
1922, at Huntington Hospital. When I was about two years of
age, my parents moved to Arcadia, California. We had about, 1
would judge, three-quarters of an acre in peach orchards in West
Arcadia. My recollections of the early years are that we
actually had enough of a crop of peaches surrounding the house
that pickers came in and picked the peaches.

Swent: Who were the pickers?

Randolph: Well, the pickers in those days, I think, were basically people
that were resident in the southern California area on a
permanent basis.

Life in Arcadia in those days was truly a life in the
suburbs. As I recall, the population of Arcadia was around five
thousand people, and the later things such as the racetrack and
the arboretum, which are today major attractions in Arcadia,
simply didn't exist. I walked to grade school, the Holly Avenue
School, and I can remember still walking past the open fields
and hearing the mockingbirds and the meadowlarks in the morning.
Every time I hear a meadowlark today, I still think of walking
to school. It was not a long walk, three or four long blocks,
but walking to school every morning was the routine except in
the rainy season when we would get driven to school.

^This symbol (##) indicates that a tape or a segment of a tape has
begun or ended. For a guide to the tapes see page 92.

School was pleasant. I enjoyed school- -grade school,
grammar school, and high school. I suppose one of the few vivid
memories of grade school were the class pictures, because from
about the third grade on, here in the back row of the class
picture was always one kid that stood a head taller than anyone
else. In those early years, it seemed to me that being very
tall for that generation was a considerable detriment. Of
course, later on in life 1 came to realize that being tall was
really an advantage in the world.

Swent: How tall are you?

Randolph: Well, at my full height, I suppose I was six -five,
six- four and six- five today.

1 'm between

Swent: And you were tall very young, then.

Randolph: Very young; very thin and very tall and, consequently,

relatively awkward. I never was an athlete in any sense of the
word. The pursuits that I followed in high school and early
life were more directed to things and ideas than to sort of the
normal turn of athletic events. To this day, I don't really
participate in any active sports or even pay much attention to
spectator sports. It's just an aspect of life that never has
appealed.

I suppose while the formative years begin early, I think
the high school years are really the ones where things begin to
come together. In high school, I was the editor of the school
paper when I was a senior. I was the class valedictorian for my
graduation from high school. I suppose the one thing that I
perhaps developed in high school was a fairly reasonable talent
for writing, something which I felt was a considerable
contributor to success in later life.

Swent: Who did the academic interest come from? Were your parents
academically oriented?

Randolph: Yes. Well, I think that my parents were reasonably unusual for
their generation in the sense that both of them were college
graduates. They were both from Kansas, from small rural
agricultural communities in Kansas- -which I guess is about all
there was in Kansas, [chuckles] They were both graduates of the
University of Kansas. My father was a registered civil
engineer, and my mother worked before she was married and for
the short period afterwards as a journalist on the Pasadena Star
News after they had come to California. This was essentially
during the First World War.

They had an Interesting life before coming to the Pasadena
area and before I was born. My father as a civil engineer was
working for the Southern California Edison Company in the
construction of the hydroelectric projects on the Kern River.
They lived in construction camps and engineering projects up and
down the Kern River for half a dozen years. As a teenager, I
would often go back to that area for summer vacations ; I have
many fond memories of the Kern River in those days before Lake
Isabella was formed, and all the growth took place in that area.
So from the very beginning there was sort of an understanding
that I was going to take the college prep courses in high
school. You know, in those days, we didn't really question
anything. This was sort of a foregone conclusion.

Swent: And you had both the language and the science- -or the
engineering- -interests , then.

Randolph: That's right. My parents both encouraged what I guess I would
call "productive" pursuits from early age. As I said, I was no
athlete, and consequently I tended to turn to things that I
could either get satisfaction from doing or, I suppose,
intellectual pursuits of a sort. Photography became a hobby at
about age fourteen. My first darkroom was built out of a couple
of cardboard mattress boxes in a corner of the garage. I spent
a lot of time reading. My mother had a very close association
with the library in Arcadia and in later years was the chairman
of the library board in Arcadia. So there was a direction at
home toward achievement and to excel- -not extreme pressure, I
would say, but you had the feeling that you were expected to do
the best you could.

Swent: Who helped you with the photography? Did you do that on your
own?

Randolph: Yes. That was essentially self-taught, which has been true of a
lot of things I've undertaken in life. I tend to get books and
read about it. At one point in time, I had a 1936 LaSalle, and
I really hadn't any particular knowledge of automobile
mechanics, but I got the repair manuals out of the library, and
I tore down and rebuilt the engine in that LaSalle with a book
from the library, [laughs]

Swent: Don't you wish you had it today?

Randolph: I wish I had it today; it would be worth a fortune. It was an
elegant car.

Well, that was sort of the general way that things went
while I was in high school.

Swent: Did you have any teachers that particularly interested you?

Randolph: I was fortunate. All through my education, from time to time,
there would be teachers of really outstanding merit, who would
either make a difficult subject extremely easy or in some way
manage to inspire me, if you will, to greater effort.

I had two in high school. One was the twelfth- grade
English teacher who really was very, very good that way.

Swent: What's the name?

Randolph: Her name was Miss Mary Wittier. She was able to generate an
appreciation in the students for almost any aspect of English
literature. It really was great. She was able to humanize
Shakespeare in a way that few people can. I remember we had to
read [Alfred Lord] Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." I don't
remember that it made a terrible impact on me, but I remember
there were others in the class that really had no prior exposure
to that sort of literature background, and they just took off
under the tutelage of that woman. She was extremely good.

Swent: You said there were two?

Randolph: Yes. The other one was a most unusual man who taught solid

geometry and trigonometry. Looking back on it, I feel generally
that I've never had really very good mathematics teachers. I'm
not a terribly good mathematician- -competent , but it takes some
work. But Walter Wilson was able to sort of make solid geometry
and trigonometry an open book. To this day, those are easy
concepts for me, whereas I think I was cursed with poor algebra
teachers. I think everyone thought they were poor. To many it
didn't matter, but if you were going into science, your
mathematics is a tool, and the better you are at it, the better
you're going to be at everything.

Winning a Trip to Japan

Randolph: I suppose one of the high points of the end of high school was
the fact that in my senior year I won first prize in a national
essay contest put on by the Propeller Club of the United States,
which is an association of U.S. -based steamship companies. The

first prize in this essay contest was a trip to Japan and back
on the APL liner S.S. President Coolidge.

Swent: What year was it?

Randolph: The sununer of 1939, so it was roughly two years prior to the

war- -a year and a half prior to World War II. It was the first
time I had ever been out of California. It was a marvelous
exposure to another part of the world.

Swent; Were there other youngsters along?

Randolph: Yes, but not as a result of that contest. There were people
traveling. There was a family from Pasadena that I sort of
tagged up with. That made things easier. I went by myself, and
it was approximately six weeks out of the summer for the trip
over, time in Japan, and the trip back. Of course, in those
days, there were practically no signs in English, [chuckles]
Looking back on it, I sometimes wonder how I ever found my way
from one place to another.

Swent: Did they take care of you and provide an itinerary?

Randolph: No, not particularly. My parents had friends in Arcadia who had
spent some years in Japan, and who had friends in Japan. They
sort of laid out, "You ought to see these places," and what the
logical way to get from one to another was . Then they gave me
several letters of introduction to their friends in Japan,
Japanese friends, who were very, very hospitable. So it wasn't
like being just cast alone into a country, although it was
basically an unsupervised, unguided trip.

Swent: What a marvelous experience!

Randolph; Oh, yes, it was. It was great.

Swent: A formative time of life.

Randolph: That's right, it was.

Swent: Have you kept any contact with Japan?

Randolph: No, I haven't. Of course, the war intervened. I suppose my

whole attitude toward Japan changed rather radically. The next
time I was in Japan was about three weeks after the end of the
war. I was on the first navy tanker into Yokosuka, and, of
course, it was a dramatic change. What had been a serene,
beautiful country was ashes and rubble. The next time I was in
Japan was in the late sixties, I guess. By that time, it was a

crowded, booming industrial country again. So, really, I've
been there in three different phases, but the first one was
perhaps the most exciting.

Impact of the Depression

Swent: That was Just after you graduated from high school?

Randolph: Yes, it was the summer I graduated from high school and just

before I started college in the fall. So it was really a high
point.

I mentioned that I went by myself. [sighs] I ought to say
a little bit, I suppose, about the impact of the Depression on
my family. Really, I think, every one of us that grew up or was
an adult during that period has a fundamentally different
outlook on life than those that didn't have that experience.

My father as a professional engineer was fortunate in the
sense that he was never unemployed. At some point in the very
early thirties, he left the Edison Company. I'm not sure to
this day whether it was that the Edison Company was going
through a force reduction or whether he saw a better opportunity
with the Los Angeles County Flood Control District. He had had
a lot of experience in the engineering of dams and spillways and
so forth from these Kern River projects. With the flood control
district he was one of the principal engineers in the
construction of the San Gabriel Dam Number One, which at the
time was the largest earth- filled dam in the world. It was a
long project which really carried all the way through until
almost the beginning of the war. Although he was employed, the
pay scales in those days for civil engineers were relatively
poor.

Swent: What did an engineer make in those days?

Randolph: Oh, I suppose in the middle thirties, a registered engineer like
he was, I'm just guessing that it was on the order of maybe four
hundred dollars a month, four hundred and fifty dollars a month,
something of the sort.

So life was okay, but there wasn't a grand excess so that
one of my parents could go to Japan with me or something of that
sort.

Swent: You had peaches. Did you also have a vegetable garden?

Randolph:

Swent :
Randolph:

Yes. We lived sort of a rural life,
vegetable garden and- -

Chickens?

in a way. Ue had a

A few chickens. As I recall, we had a duck. The reason for the
duck was basically to keep the snail population down in the
garden. The duck was very good at that.

But you were growing some of your food, then.

Yes, although I don't recall that this was an economic thing.
It was more for the fun of it.

Were you helping with some of these chores?

I think that my father found the same thing that 'I found with my
kids, that it was easier to do it yourself than try to bulldoze
the children into doing it. [laughter] I don't remember that we
had any regular strenuous chores. The problem of weed control
always became something, and I remember we'd all get out there
and hoe down the weeds, cut them down in the late spring.

It was a pleasant life. A lot of people had a very
difficult time during the Depression. We didn't, but it was a
time of caution. .. ,

You were probably aware of other people coming into California.

Yes, and we saw in our own neighborhood people that were having
a tough time, whose livelihood was affected in some fashion by
the Depression.

Did

you have people coming to your door, for example?

I don't remember that we had much of
wife says that in Whittier they did,
stream of people asking for food and
remember that we had any of that sort
Depression left a stamp on us that I
that era tend to be financially more
successors- -you know, a concern about
behind you just in case something goe
right up to the hilt on credit and so

Yes, it makes a difference.

that sort of thing. My
that they had a continual
offering to work. I don't

of thing. But the
think makes all of us of
conservative than our

having a little something
s wrong instead of living

forth.

It does.

-.•>»; ^ .

Swent :

The Long Beach Earthquake of 1933

You might just mention the earthquake, too.
with the Depression?

Or were you through

Randolph: Oh, I think so.

Yes, vivid memories of the Long Beach earthquake. I think,
like a few events in life, you can place yourself very clearly
and exactly where you were when it happened.

It was in 1933. I remember that it was a warm evening. My
brother was taking a clarinet lesson in the house. As a
consequence, we were all outside, sort of banished from the
house while his clarinet lesson was going on. I was in the
front yard. We had a fish pond, which was sort of a thing to
have in those days in the front yard. When the earthquake
occurred, everything began to move, and the water in the fish
pond began to slosh from side to side. Before the ground
movement had ceased, we had goldfish all over the lawn,
[chuckles] Of course, the shaking of the house was very
audible, very strong. No structural damage that I can remember.
No one was injured in our area.

Long Beach, of course, had not only severe damage but a lot
of people were hurt by falling brick. It was still a period in
which there was a lot of unreinforced brick construction in
southern California. Many of Long Beach's buildings were of
that construction.

Swent :

The biggest impact that it had on people my age was that
virtually all of our schools were condemned. Let's see, I must
have been in the seventh grade at the time. We went to school
for about two years in temporary buildings, sort of tent
buildings at first and then more permanent temporary- -if there
is such a thing as a permanent temporary building- -until the
schools were rebuilt or reinforced. Most of that brick
construction was torn down and replaced at that time with
gunnited reinforced concrete.

I don't think it had an adverse effect on the quality of
education, but it certainly caused a disruption of facilities.
Maybe we lost some of the special things that schools could have
had, although it was in the days before they had a lot of visual
aids and that sort of thing.

It must have affected your father's engineering job to an
extent.

Randolph: I don't recall that it had any impact on the construction of the
dam. I'm sure he was working for the county by that time. No,
I don't remember any impact of that sort. And it didn't create
any problems with the house. I think we were far enough away
from the epicenter that outside of the unsafe condition of the
schools, our lives were not directly affected.

Swent: You mentioned your brother's clarinet lesson. There apparently
was quite an interest in music in your family.

Randolph: Again, my mother wanted us to accomplish things. We both had
piano lessons. My brother has real talent.

Swent: You have just one brother?

Randolph: Yes, just one brother. He's two years younger than I, and he's
a graduate of UC Berkeley [University of California at Berkeley]
in electrical engineering.

Swent: What is his name?

Randolph: His name's Russell, Russell Randolph.

We both had piano lessons. It didn't take particularly
with me. I really can't play the piano today. The best thing
it did was it taught me to read music. But my brother did very
well with the piano and in high school went on to take up the
clarinet. He played in the band and the orchestra and really,
to this day, is quite good. He's a much better musician than I
am, although we both enjoy it a great deal.

I should say a little bit about the direction that I felt
my interests were taking fairly early on. I mentioned early
that photography was a hobby that developed about age fourteen.
I think the initial appeal of photography was technical rather
than artistic, because from a very early age I was fascinated by
science and by the stories of scientists from the past, people
like [Louis] Pasteur and [Robert] Koch and Sir Humphrey Davey
and people like that.

I think from the time I was a freshman in high school , I
knew that I wanted to be a chemist. I really looked forward to
the science classes in high school. I did very well at them.
Freshman year general science is really your introduction to
more than just sort of mixing things together to see what
happens. But from general science to biology to chemistry to

physics, all of them were very interesting, and clearly nothing
along the way discouraged me from feeling that this was what I
wanted to do in my life.

Whittier College: A Liberal Education

Randolph: In applying to colleges, this really was the thing: where is

chemistry well represented on the faculty? Strangely enough, I
didn't apply to the University of California, either at UCLA
[University of California at Los Angeles] or Berkeley. In
retrospect, I'm not sure why, but I was strongly influenced, as
I think many young people are, by the teachers that you have in
high school. As it turned out, both my chemistry teacher and my
physics teacher were graduates of Whittier College. The
chemistry department at Whittier was particularly strong at that
time. There was a Dr. Gustav Ostrom who had been on the faculty
there for a number of years, and he probably was the most
inspiring teacher that I had at any point in life. All I had to
do was meet the man to know that that was where I wanted to go
to school. After that, Cal Tech [California Institute of
Technology] and places like that really weren't even in
consideration.

Swent :
Randolph:

I guess I was further drawn to Whittier by the fact that I
applied for a scholarship- -at that time, scholarships were
awarded on the basis of merit primarily, although need came into
it to some extent- -and I won the top scholarship that the
college offered that year, which was fortunate from my point of
view, because I'm not sure whether my parents would have been
able to afford a private college education for me if I hadn't
had that. But that was the leg up on college education. In
subsequent summers, I worked during the summers in the oil
fields, where the pay was pretty good, and that plus the
subsistence from the college got me through without really being
an undue burden on my parents .

Did you live at home?

No, I lived in the dormitory at college. I would go home from
time to time on weekends, primarily when the laundry needed to
be done, I guess, [laughter]

That's something that never changes.

That's right, that's right.

Swent: Clearly, you were not disappointed in Whittier.

Randolph: No, I wasn't.

Swent: It met your expectations?

Randolph: Yes. I think that you never realize until later just what it is
you're getting, whether it's going to be good or whether it's
going to be bad. I focused on Whittier College because it had
what seemed to me an excellent science department. In
retrospect, I think that the greatest thing that I got from
Whittier College was the broad exposure of a liberal arts
education. As the years have gone by, the technical training in
importance has taken second place to the generalized training,
the exposure to ideas , the exposure to new things that really
were unknown to me before.

I suspect most young people that age- -your mind is just
like a sponge; you just absorb it as fast as they can feed it to
you. It was such a totally new experience. You know, high
school- -well , it's really aimed at a different intellectual
level than college. You have a lot of people that you have to
move through high school. In college, if they don't make it,
they go out. The level of scholarship at Whittier was very
high. I think that it was a tremendous influence in my life;
both the intellectual content of the college education and the
fact that Whittier at that time was still strongly a Quaker
college .

Swent: You entered in the fall of 1939?

Randolph: Yes, that's right.

My background to the extent that there was any religious
background at all was Presbyterian. My parents both belonged to
the Presbyterian church. Although we were not strong
churchgoers, my brother and I were pushed to Sunday school every
Sunday morning until it got to be more than my parents felt they
wanted to struggle with. But the Quaker influence at Whittier
was still very strong in those days. It's a nondenominational
school today, whereas at that time there was a requirement for a
majority of the board of trustees to be Quakers. The president
of the college was a Quaker; many of the faculty were Quakers.

Swent: Did you have required meetings?

Randolph: Yes, we had, three times a week, a convocation- -a few minutes of
silence, which is the way of a Quaker meeting, and then a
general inspirational message from the president or from

someone. The student body was not predominantly Quaker. I
think we always had quite a high Catholic population, strangely
enough. But the principles of the Quakers filtered through
almost every aspect of college life. I think that those
principles of self-examination, of independence of thought of
the establishment, of a series of rules of personal conduct and
so forth had a strong influence on all of us. I feel that it's
been a positive thing for me all through life. My wife [Jane
Taber Randolph] is a Quaker.

Swent: And you met her at Whittier?

Randolph: Yes, we were both in the class of 1943. We casually knew each
other, [chuckles] The student body at that time was around six
or seven hundred students, so you knew everyone. While I knew
her, it was only when we were seniors that we began to go
together. We were married two weeks after we graduated, on June
25, 1943, which is forty- seven years next month.

I felt that- -it must be apparent from what I said- -I got a
great deal from my education at Whittier. I felt an obligation
in later years to pay them back in terms of both service and
monetary donations for what I felt I got from them. As we'll
probably discuss subsequently, I served as a trustee and as
chairman of the trustees for a number of years. We, of course,
still support the college financially, although I retired from
the board about a year after I retired from the [U.S. Borax &
Chemical] company, simply because I didn't feel I had the time
to devote to it.

World War II: Serving in the Navy

Randolph: So that sort of life at college went on as though it would go on
forever until December 7, 1941- -again, one of those days where
you can remember exactly where you were, what you were doing,
just like the earthquake. I had been home that weekend, and I
was climbing the steps to the dormitory, Wardman Hall, and
someone came dashing out of the building saying that the --this
was Sunday morning- -the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor.

Everything from that point then took a different
perspective. Some of the men in the classes ahead of me went
down and volunteered almost immediately. The majority of men in
school at the time applied for some of the various officer
candidate programs, the V-12, the V-6, in the navy. I can't
remember that the army air corps was around recruiting for their

meteorological program at Whittier, but I know my brother was in
that. I didn't at that point in time try to get into any of
those programs, and I continued to be deferred until I
graduated. The student body shrank as the years progressed
between the beginning of 1942 to the time that we left in 1943.
It became almost a women's college there in the final few
months .

Swent :
Randolph:
Swent:
Randolph:

After graduation, I immediately started graduate school at
use [University of Southern California] , and continued to be
deferred. I chose USC partly because we were getting married,
we wanted to be somewhere in the southern California locale,
and, again, through my professors at Whittier I had contacts at
USC which lined me up with a teaching assistantship. So I
started there in the summer of 1943. Jane and I lived in the
central area of Los Angeles. As the year wore on, I became
increasingly restless with the idea of being deferred and just
going to school while all this world turmoil was going on. It
was a good war, it was a popular war; you know, a very different
attitude than in Vietnam and even Korea, I think. But about the
spring of 1944 I decided that I just wasn't prepared to continue
this way. I went down and volunteered for the navy.

Was your wife a pacifist?

Not at all.

This wasn't a problem?

This wasn't a problem at all. Her father had been a second
lieutenant in the army in World War I. There was this schism at
Whittier at the time between those who were pacifists and those
that weren't. I'd say that the pacifists, or the conscientious
objectors, were very, very definitely in the minority. When the
chips were down, I don't really think there were more than a
handful . Everyone else was ready to turn to in one way or
another.

I volunteered. I went down and just volunteered at the
navy enlisted recruiting office. The chief there said, "Fine,
we'd be happy to take you, but why don't you go over and apply
at the office of officer procurement?" I said, "Well, I had
heard that they had all they needed, they weren't taking any."

He said, "Well, why don't you go over and try anyway?" So
I walked over there, [chuckles] I had already signed the
enlistment papers with the chief and was interviewed by a
lieutenant commander. All of a sudden, his brow darkened, and
he said, "Why aren't you in uniform now?" I said, "Well, I

Swent :
Randolph:

Swent :
Randolph :

have just come from the recruiting station where I signed the
papers this morning." I sort of think that that was the kicker.
I'm not sure yet. I guess I did fairly well on the exams that
they gave . „ . . , ,

At any rate, I almost immediately went to enlisted boot
camp at Farragut, Idaho, [pause] It's culture shock, there's no
question about it. Of course, it's intended to be exactly that,
starting with shaving your head and running you around the
grinder and so forth. But about five or six weeks into boot
camp I was hauled out of line one day and told to go down to
headquarters and report. You know, as a boot, all you do is do
what you're told. I came back that evening ready to pick up my
gear. I had a new uniform and a cap with a gold chinstrap on
it, and I was a commissioned ensign in the United States Naval
Reserve. I was directly commissioned; I didn't go through one
of the midshipman programs .

I was immediately put on a train from Sand Point, Idaho, to
Plattsburg, New York, for the officer training school. We were
there about two months- -a lovely part of the upper New York
state. Plattsburg had had a cavalry barracks there, a
traditional, permanent army post with the brick buildings and
the green lawns .

Practically from revolutionary times, wasn't it?

The navy had taken
was the first time I
into September, saw

It was dramatic.

After graduation at
where I spent all of

Yes, right on the shores of Lake Champlain,
it over as an officer training school. It
had ever been in the East, and I was there
the fall colors change for the first time.
Southern California had nothing like that.
Plattsburg, I had orders to a fleet tanker
my seagoing career.

Out of the West Coast?

In the Pacific, yes, working in the area from about the equator
on up to Japan.

Where was Jane all this time?

Jane was at home. By this time, she was working at Whittier
College as secretary to the president of the college. She was
also expecting by this time. Our daughter was born while I was
at sea. In fact, she was nearly ten months old by the time I
saw her first.

The period in the navy was another time of major effect on
my life and how I approach both action and thought. I don't
think that there's any place like the military in wartime to
give a young person the opportunity for responsibility and the
ability to influence things in a positive way. My interest in
ships and boats and the sea was something of long standing. The
navy was a logical place for me to want to go. Being at sea was
really sort of the culmination of all this interest.

Swent: You had sailed as a youngster, then?

Randolph: To some extent, although we didn't have a boat, and we didn't

really live near the ocean. But I suppose one of the memorable
things that affected me was that when I was about seventeen
years old, C.S. Forester's Captain Horatio Hornblower was
published. I still reread that book from time to time. It was
captivating. Of course, it was for naval action. in a different
age, but much of it is of universal application.

I qualified as an officer of the deck, a watch officer, on
the tanker I was on very quickly. The officer of the deck has a
tremendous responsibility for the ship, for the people,
everyone. If you're on the midwatch at night, you're there by
yourself, you've got a whole shipful of people asleep whose
safety is dependent on your ability to safely take them through
your watch. It's a heavy responsibility. When you're twenty-
one years old, it has an influence on you that I think lasts
throughout your life, at least it has with me. You learn that
common sense is something to be prized. There are people that
are good at it, and there are people that are very poor at it.
I was fortunate to serve with the people that I respected and
from whom I learned a lot, in terms of just the application of
common sense .

Swent: How many people are on a tanker?

Randolph: Well, a tanker is a large ship, you know. Ours was 535 feet

long, a crew of about 120 and about fifteen officers of which,
when I came aboard, I was the most junior, [chuckles]

Swent: Where did you get on your ship- -from southern California?

Randolph: No, I rode as officer passenger on the battleship Colorado out
to an atoll in the central Pacific called Ulithi. Ulithi was a
forward base for the fleet at that stage of the war. It was a
group of atoll islands surrounded by a reef, and it was a very,
very large , secure anchorage . There was only one entrance

through the reef, and that was protected by submarine nets, so
it was relatively safe to bring the entire fleet of carriers,
battleships, supply vessels, and so forth in there as anchorage.

Swent: And this was 1944?

Randolph: Yes, 1944.

Swent: So they were island-hopping?

Randolph: Yes, we were involved in the actions at Iwo Jima and the

Philippines, and Okinawa, all of these moving from Ulithi. I
was cargo officer on the USS Sebec . which was A087. The cargo
officer's responsibility is to load the ship, to ballast the
ship, to manage the pumping of oil to the ships that we fuel.
Fueling was an evolution done underway at sea. The tanker and
the ship being fueled, a battleship or a carrier, .sail side by
side at about ten knots, and hoses are rigged from the tanker on
booms across to the receiving ship. The oil was pumped about
ten thousand barrels an hour, high-speed pumping for those days.

Swent: And you do this no matter what the weather, or in the dead of
night?

Randolph: Whatever the weather. Typhoons interfere; we went through the
eye of one typhoon.

But the fueling day usually begins at daybreak and
continues until darkness. It's a long, hard day. If you're
fortunate to have a couple of capital ships like a battleship or
a carrier, you can pump your whole cargo out in one day. With
smaller ships, it takes perhaps as long as a couple of weeks;
destroyers don't take very much.

Fueling day, for a lot of people that aren't involved in
the fueling, is sort of a holiday. On a battleship, they will
bring the band out. The band will play and both ships can hear
it. Ice cream will be passed across. The tankers carry movies
out to the fleet from Ulithi, so you pass the movies, and you
take the old ones back, [chuckles] I don't know how many times
the Roy Rogers movies were shown throughout the fleet, but there
were a few good ones and a lot of real dogs. Under those
circumstances, anything is entertainment.

Swent: Did you go back across to the States, then, to get the fuel?

Randolph: No, no! The fuel is brought by merchant tankers from the States
to the forward area and then pumped into the fleet tankers. So
the merchant tankers would come to Ulithi. We would come back

empty, take on a cargo from the merchantmen, and then either
wait until the next rendezvous was scheduled or turn around and
head right back out, depending on what the situation was. So it
was either periods of intense activity or periods of really
sheer boredom, but interspersed with moments of stark terror.
Air raids on tankers are something that you don't like to think
about. Fortunately, at that stage of the war, with the
exception of the Okinawa campaign, these were not usually major
threats. So I didn't get back to the States from the time that
I left until after the war was over.

Swent: It was a long time. i,

Randolph: Yes, it was from the fall of 1944 till early 1946, I guess.

Swent: You were up in Japan? ^

Randolph: Yes, we were in Japan in Yokosuka with the occupying forces
there .

Swent :

Randolph:

We finally came home; we decommissioned the ship in San
Francisco. My wife and ten-month-old daughter came up on the
Lark, and we lived in Richmond for about six months while we
decommissioned the ship.

Let's backtrack just a bit to Japan. What were you doing there?

Well, we were primarily dispensing fuel to small auxiliaries and
so forth.

Swent: Did you see any of the famous people or see the USS Missouri or
anything like that?

Randolph: I saw the Missouri : I wasn't invited to the signing ceremony! I
took the train into Tokyo. They were very closely controlling
movement of fleet people, because everyone wanted to go ashore
and see what it was like. We did get into Tokyo once, and it
was just devastated by the aerial f irebombings . The end of the
war, of course, came very suddenly with the dropping of the
[atomic] bombs.

Swent: Where were you then?

Randolph: We were at sea, and we heard about it on the radio. There were
no prior indications, no prior knowledge of what was about to
happen or anything of the sort. It was really startling to hear
that an atomic bomb had been developed and that it had had the
effect of bringing the Japanese to surrender.

I should say that there is much national flagellation today
over having dropped the bomb on the Japanese. I think that the
people that are the loudest voices in that group are people who
have no sense of the context of the time at which this occurred;
these are people living safely in the 1980s, 1990s. At the time
that the bomb was dropped, we were beginning to assemble a fleet
landing force. Each ship was to be deprived of between 10 and
20 percent of its crew to be sent as a landing force to
supplement the army and the marines who would be in the first
wave. Sailors would be in the succeeding waves. The estimate
was that it would cost at least a million American lives to take
the Japanese homeland. In the context of the times, the
dropping of the bomb was clearly and absolutely the thing to do.
I really don't think there are many people that were there, that
faced that prospect, that have any qualms about the decision
that President [Harry S.) Truman made.

Swent : It's hard now to remember what a terrible time that was.

Randolph: That's right. It is, and it's unfortunate that second-guessing
continues to go on, on something which was so clearly indicated
at the time.

So after the war, after coming home and after
decommissioning, it was a return to civilian life. I had
considered fairly seriously staying in the navy at the end of
the war and finally concluded that, with the obligations that I
had undertaken and where my basic interests lay, I really wanted
to come back and go back to graduate school, become a
professional chemist, and move forward.

Return to Civilian Life and Graduate School

Swent: Did you ever consider teaching?

Randolph: I did as I was coming toward the end of my Ph.D. Of course,

you're in the academic atmosphere. When colleges were looking
for staff members they would write to people they knew on
faculties, and my major professor would say, "Would you be
interested in something in Oregon or--" I can't remember where
the other one was in the Midwest. I said, "Well, I'm always
willing to hear about it." So I would get a letter from the
school. I went as far as getting a little idea of what they had
in mind, but I don't think I ever really considered it
seriously.

This, I think, was primarily as a result of the naval
experience. I came back from the navy to this academic
atmosphere, and I never fully entered it again in the way that
had before I had gone away. It was very easy to differentiate
the people in graduate school who had had military experience
and those who hadn't, because their outlook on life was very,
very different.

Swent : Can you be specific?

Randolph: Well, I'm trying to quantify it.

Swent: Of course, you were older. ^

Randolph: Yes, you're older by a few years,
were there. But I had the sense
their concerns were over minutiae
confronting them. I think I used
sense." That probably isn't a te
felt that the military experience
perspective. I suppose, in a way
with the detail of the moment and
ultimate outcome of something is.

but so were the people that
that they were pettifoggers;

rather than the major things

the word before, "common
rribly descriptive word, but I

in the navy created a new
you tend to be less concerned

more concerned with what the

I had no problems of adjustment in returning to graduate
school. In fact, looking back on it, I probably had an easier
time than a lot of people that were there. I whistled through
my prelims and final orals and so forth with a very friendly
faculty group. There were people that I felt were better
prepared, better chemists than I was that failed simply because
for some reason the faculty would determine not to pass them.

Swent: Were you specializing in something in your graduate work also?

Randolph: Yes. The thing that interested me most in chemistry- -of course,
all my degrees had a major in chemistry- -was inorganic
chemistry. I was working with a series of very exotic boron
compounds, called boranes.

Swent: Why did you happen to choose that?

Randolph: Well, it was really more that the professor that I chose to work
for- -this was his specific field of expertise. It required a
very complex glass apparatus operating under very high vacuum to
work with these compounds,, which are spontaneously flammable in
air. You're working with things in a vacuum system, and you
move them around by distilling from one point to another, all
within this system. I developed a lot of manual skill in

glassblowing. I became a very expert glassblower.
necessary tool of the trade, in a way.

It was a

Swent: What was the state of the science at that point? Had there been
a big gap because of the war or did things like the atomic bomb
give a big impetus?

Randolph: The atomic bomb, of course, gave an impetus to a whole new area
of inorganic chemistry, dealing with what are called the
transuranium elements.

Swent:

Randolph:

Swent :
Randolph:

I just remember from my high school chemistry this big chart
that had all these gaps in it which aren't there anymore.

That's right, and those gaps are all down in the bottom part.
Many of those elements were predicted but never found in nature.

This must have been an exciting time. r

Yes, but I wasn't deeply involved with any of that. Graduate
research is a highly compartmentalized thing. But new faculty
members were coming in who had, as it turned out, worked on
various aspects of the atomic bomb, and these were the men who
were bringing all this new knowledge on transuranium elements
and fission products. All this was brand new after the war.
There was none of it when I was there before. There was one
professor who was a real specialist in this sort of thing and
others who had had at least some brush with it during war work.

Had you been working on these boranes before you left?

No, no. I had been
different type, and
came back- -finished
rather quickly. The
until I finished it
fortunate . The man
of chemistry at USC,
significant basic di
publications in the
with him.

working on some phosphorus compounds of a
I had just picked that research up when I
that up for my master's degree, which I got
n the real push from the time I got back
in 1949 was the Ph.D. I was, I think,
I worked for was the head of the department

Professor Anton Burg. We made some very
scoveries and I have a number of
scientific journals as a result of that work

Swent: What were the discoveries?

Randolph: These were a whole new series of these borane compounds called
methylamino boranes. They gave the clue to a lot of the
questions of the geometric structure of these molecules.

Swent: You mentioned the glassblowing. Actually, there were new kinds
of glass being developed, too, weren't there?

Randolph: There were lots of new optical glasses, for example, but we were
using standard old Pyrex glass.

Swent: So it wasn't a technological breakthrough.

Randolph: No, no, but it was a development of skill. When you have a
blowtorch and a mass of molten glass [chuckles], you have to
know what you're doing or it becomes a real mess. It takes a
considerable amount of hand coordination. You generally are
using a blowpipe to blow the glass, and you have to anneal it.
It takes a lot of learning and a lot of doing.

Swent: You sound as if you enjoyed that.

Randolph: I did. It was part of something which has always been a

considerable part of relaxation for me, which is work with my
hands. Really, most of my hobbies today are manual things --
woodworking, darkroom work, work on the boat, and so forth. I
enjoy working with my hands. It's a relief from just sitting in
a chair all day.

Well, I guess the important thing about that period in
graduate school was that the research that I was doing was going
to lead me to a job. While so often the research project that
you do for your Ph.D. is something that after you write your
dissertation, it gets filed, and no one ever pays any attention
to it again- -what I was doing turned out to be right down the
alley of a lot of classified work that was going on in the
aerospace industry. It was sort of a natural that when I did
come to the point of getting my degree, I was actively sought by
the people at Aerojet General Corporation out in Azusa to join
their substantial program on exotic rocket fuels which were
based on these boranes . So that was an easy transition from
academic research on boranes to industrial research.

While I was at USC, after I came back, I was the first
recipient of an Office of Naval Research contract for research.
That and the G.I. bill supported us. This naval research
contract was the first government -sponsored research that USC
had taken on in peacetime. They had had projects going on
during the war, but there was a considerable question in the
academic community whether the government was getting its nose
under the academic tent. Subsequently, I think, it became the
way that the world was run. When those funds began to disappear
in later years, many schools were in very difficult shape. But

this was really the first infusion of government money for basic
research, and I was the first one to benefit from it at USC.

Swent: Did you seek it? **'>

Randolph: No, no, no. I think the Office of Naval Research sought out Dr.
Burg to see if he would be interested. He asked me how I would
feel about it, and I said, "It'll keep us fed." Yes, it worked
out very well, because those were slim days in graduate school.
We had both children by that time, living on the ninety dollars
of the G.I. Bill plus a hundred- and- some dollars from the ONR
project. There were months that our diet got fairly slim. And
there was one point in time I really was ready to chuck the
whole thing. There Just seemed to be so many conflicting
demands, economic and just the wearing pace of graduate school.
It's tough, you know. It's tough. But my wife wouldn't let me
quit. She said, "Look, you've spent all this time. You'd be a
fool to quit now. You're doing all right. Just soldier on."
So, in the final analysis, everything came right.

Swent: Where were you living?

Randolph: Let's see. By that time, we were living in the vicinity of Echo
Park in a ramshackle place. You talk about these slumlords
today. We had one of those in spades. The place was falling
down, and this man who could barely write his name owned a
number of these old, wretched buildings. We were living there
with two small children.

Swent: Was it a single- family house?

Randolph: It was on a fairly steep hill, and it was a quadruplex. There
were four families. Our next-door neighbor was an alcoholic
painter and his wife. Both of them were drunks. The people
downstairs- -I can't remember much about them, but it was a real
menagerie, [laughs] But, you know, you're constrained by what
you can pay for rent, and you have to be reasonably close to
school. I did have a car at the time so that I could get back
and forth. But it was great to be through and out.

Research Chemist for ^eTojetM

Swent: How did you happen to go to work for Aerojet, and what was your
job there?

Randolph: As I've said, Aerojet was working on exotic rocket fuels based

on boranes, and I was an expert in the field. Initially my work
was a continuation of the sort of the thing I had been doing.
Also, I had found at several points in time that the ability to
write clearly and succinctly had been a great help to me. At
Aerojet this really came to the fore, because what any
organization in the research phase of government work does is
produce reports. I'm sure you've heard the criticism there are
so few people who can write effectively. I think my first
promotion was primarily the result of my ability to take the
rather garbled stuff that other people on the project wrote and
bring it all together and write the report. Part of it was cut
and paste, part of it was rewrite. In addition to the
laboratory aspects of things, I ended up doing that. I very
shortly got promoted to group leader.

From then on, it was a steady progression. Aerojet was
very good about management training. They had a management
consultant who ran a class for supervisors. That plus the
background in the navy, I think, gave me my basic managerial
skills. I had continually broadening responsibilities for a
variety of different types of projects, most of them very far
removed from these boranes and the sort of thing that I had gone
there to start with. By 1957, I had a very large group of
people working on a lot of different projects. But I was
becoming personally dissatisfied with that type of endeavor.

Swent: Was this all classified, military contracts?

Randolph: It was all classified, yes. It was all related to some aspect
of military use. A lot of it had to do with exotic rocket
fuels. This was still in the early stages before they came to
the first --well, it was about the time of the Sputnik, prior to
and up to the time of the Sputnik.

Swent: Sputnik was 1957.
Randolph: I think it was, yes.

But I had become increasingly dissatisfied with the sense
of accomplishment. We, year after year, produced reports which
I came to realize people in the government were dutifully
filing, and that was the end of it. You never saw any concrete,
specific application of what you had done. You were always
complimented on the quality and so forth, but nothing ever
happened. I just became increasingly certain that I didn't want
to spend the rest of my life just managing a group of scientists
and engineers who never did anything but produce paper.

II U.S. BORAX, RESEARCH MANAGER TO VICE PRESIDENT. 1958-1969

A Company in Transition

Swent: What led you to U.S. Borax?

Randolph: Almost by chance, I heard that U.S. Borax was beginning to

create a research organization down in Anaheim- -that they had
built a new laboratory, and they were adding people and
expanding their whole research effort manyfold over what they
had ever had. I knew a little bit about the Borax company just
in a general way, because as part of this research into these
borane high energy fuels, we had talked at times with the people
at U.S. Borax about the availability of raw materials. It
always impressed me as a solid company, and, of course, I
remembered back to the radio program, "Death Valley Days." One
of my principal associates at Aerojet had come from what had
been originally Pacific Coast Borax Company and sometime in 1956
had left our group and gone back to work for them.

Swent: What was his name?

Randolph: His name was Tom Cromwell, and he retired from here a year

before I did as the senior vice president of manufacturing. I
hired him at Aerojet. He worked for me there- -a very, very fine
group leader for three or four years. He was wooed back to U.S.
Borax. This was before the beginning of the research expansion.

Swent: What was your title by this time at Aerojet?

Randolph: I was called principal chemist. There were two of us, and our
boss was the head of the chemicals department, which was a big
organization.

Swent: But you were, nevertheless, doing a lot of management work?

Randolph: Oh, yes, it was all technical management by that time. Any job
I was looking for, I wasn't prepared to go back to being a

chemist in the lab. I just heard they were looking for people

Swent: Let me just ask one thing. How were you hearing about things in
those days? Did you belong to organizations, social clubs, or
professional clubs?

Randolph: Of course, I belonged to the American Chemical Society.

Swent: Did you go to their meetings?

Randolph: Yes, I went to their meetings, but I heard this from a man that
was the coordinator for one of the government programs . He and
I were pretty good friends, and I said, "You know, I just
sometimes think that I would like to get out of this sort of
thing. "

He said, "You know, I hear that U.S. Borax is expanding.
Do you know Don Taylor?"

I said, "No, I don't know him."

He said, "Well, if you were interested, Dr. Donald Taylor
is the man you want to get in touch with."

Taylor was the vice president for research at the time. I
wrote a letter- -composed a letter very carefully and addressed
it to Taylor. The letter was clear that I wasn't looking for a
Job as a chemist; I was looking for a job as a research manager.
My pitch was that I thought with the expansion of their
laboratory that they would have a need for that sort of thing.
I learned subsequently, several years later, that when Don
Taylor got the letter, he saw that I worked at Aerojet. He knew
that Tom Cromwell, who was now in his organization, had worked
there, and he asked Tom, "Did you know anyone named Carl
Randolph?"

Tom's recommendation at least produced an interview. The
biggest stumbling block, on which we ultimately each gave a
little bit, was the question of pay. I was making considerably
more at Aerojet than the man to whom I would report at U.S.
Borax was making. Taylor said, "I just don't know how we can
manage this." So we parted from the interview without resolving
it.

He called a couple of weeks later, and he said, "I think we
should talk again." What they did was to increase the pay of
the man who would be my boss. I agreed to take a substantial
reduction in pay, but, to me , I was looking for the opportunity

to get out of what I knew I wasn't going to be happy with as a
lifetime career. I thought, "Hopefully, it's a short-term
sacrifice." As it turned out, of course, it was the smartest
thing I probably ever did. So that's tVie chronology of
everything from childhood up to then.

Swent: Before you went to U.S. Borax did you check into any of their
personnel or management situations?

Randolph: No. The company had a long and proud history in California and
my friend Tom Cromwell liked working there. I was looking for
an opportunity to get out of the defense industry and the
prospects in a new and growing research department looked good
to me .

When I came to U.S. Borax in the fall of 1957, I found that
it was a very different company than the one that I had left,
which was, of course, very much in the forefront of the
aerospace industry. I found that U.S. Borax was populated by
individuals of great resourcefulness and capability. There were
people here who had been the ones that almost singlehandedly
built the Furnace Creek Inn and the Furnace Creek Ranch in Death
Valley and who had been instrumental in the Death Valley
Railroad, in the early days when it was essentially a time of
entrepreneurship in the borax industry. These people were still
around.

Swent: Who were some of them? What are some of the names?

Randolph: Jim Gerstley, whose father was prominent in the English company,
of course headed Pacific Coast Borax Company through the trying
war years and into the 1960s. Harry Gower was probably the best
known of the real old-timers, in the sense that Harry was the
architect of the Furnace Creek Inn and spent many years in Death
Valley, working very assiduously in the company's interest.

Swent: His daughter married Horace Albright's son.

Randolph: Yes, that's right. And there was Nix Knight who spent many

years at Borosolvay at Searles Lake. Nix's son Bill worked with
me at Aerojet and is one of my close personal friends today.

Swent: The company was almost like a very close family.

Randolph: It was. The company was very closely knit. Fred Corkill , who

was the vice president of sales and marketing, was, as I recall,
third generation with the company. His father and grandfather
had been leaders in Death Valley in the establishment of the
mines there. So it was a unique company in that respect.

Nevertheless, it tended to be inward- looking and only beginning
to adapt itself to its new status as a major U.S. corporation.

Remember, I had come from a company that was both
scientifically and managerially sophisticated. The basis of
everything 1 knew about management came from my years at Aerojet
plus the navy. The delegation of authority, pros and cons of
the various forms of organization, and the utility of computer-
generated management information systems were all things that I
had a working knowledge of on a daily basis. I had also been
heavily involved in job classification systems, and the
establishment of employee appraisal systems.

My first exposure to an organization based solely in
private industry was a surprise, to say the least. None of the
things that I had come to take for granted seemed to apply here.
After a while it dawned on me that there was a lot that I could
do to educate the people that I worked for in this historic
company about the way the rest of the world did things.

Swent: It was also a tremendous opportunity for you.

Randolph: Yes, yes, it was. It was. [chuckles] I suppose if I had come
in six months earlier, I, in desperation, would have gone back
to Aerojet. As it was, the winds of change were underway.

[Interview 2: 9 July 1990]#y/

Swent: We're continuing our interview now on July ninth, and I had one
question I wanted to ask. Because the name Randolph always
brings Jefferson to mind, I wondered if there was a Jefferson
connection in your family.

Randolph: I think at the present time that question is sort of up in the

air. My wife has taken a great interest in genealogy within the
last year. She even has a computer program to assist her in
this endeavor. She's in the process of following the Randolph
line back, and I must admit, at the present time, I am really
uncertain as to which branch of the family we belong and whether
there is a direct tie to the early patriots in Virginia and
those associated with the founding of the republic. We do know,
of course, that our ancestors came from England in probably the
late seventeenth century, but there are several branches of the
family, and which one is ours I'm at the moment uncertain. It
would be nice, of course, to claim that relationship [chuckles],
but I'd be premature if I did that at the moment.

Swent: Well, I hope it turns out that way, because that would be a real
thrill.

2«

Randolph: Yes, it would. We could bask in past glories.

Swent: When we stopped last time, you had just begun to work at the

U.S. Borax research. I was wondering if you knew why they chose
Anaheim as the site.

Randolph: I think it was partly because of the then- current philosophy in
corporate America that research establishments were best
situated when they were remote with relation to the day-to-day
corporate operations. At that time, it was very much in vogue
to establish research parks or research centers where the day-
to-day pressures were not loaded onto the scientists and where
creative thought could take place outside the pressures of sales
and production problems. I think that that was the genesis of
relocation of research away from the corporate headquarters.

There were a number of other geographic areas that were
considered, but real estate at that time was relatively
inexpensive in Orange County, although Disneyland was either in
being or just about to come in. The Santa Ana Freeway was
constructed, and that land where the research center is along
the Santa Ana Freeway- -initially , we paid, I'm told, about $5000
an acre for it, which, you know, in today's world is
unbelievable. But they did build a very, very fine research
establishment there. The building today is still, I would
consider, a modern laboratory, even though it's now thirty-
five, thirty-six years old.

Swent: They were rather early in doing this, it seems to me . I

checked, because Sputnik, which was the impetus for much of this
research, was a year later. That was 1957, so Borax was in the
research mood quite early, weren't they?

Randolph: Yes. I can cover a little of the thinking behind that, in

addressing the questions of what the company was when I joined
it.

Swent: What was its status when you came with them, then?

Randolph: When I came with the company, it was a full-fledged U.S.

corporation, listed on the New York Stock Exchange and with a
board of directors that contained outside directors representing
primarily financial interests of the East: the Rockefellers and
Lee Higginson; the Lazard [Freres] people; Ferdinand Eberstadt,
who at that time was establishing mutual funds related to high
technology. The Chemical Fund was one that Eberstadt had
established.

Research was very much In vogue in the financial conununity
at this point in time. I think that to a large extent the
emphasis on expanding research in U.S. Borax was a result of
pressure from the outside directors with their Wall Street
backgrounds. The other thing, of course, pushing in this
direction was the developing interest on the part of the
military in what came to be known as the high- energy fuels
program.

The transition of U.S. Borax to what I would consider a
totally modern corporation required a maturing process that was
accelerated by the bringing of new blood into the organization,
not just the directors but into the working organization. In
the United Kingdom about this time, Norman Travis joined the
organization as the technical director and then as a director of
U.S. Borax.

Swent: He was named technical director in 1958.

Randolph: Yes, that's of Borax Holdings Limited; that's not of U.S. Borax.

Swent: Was he new in the firm at that time?

Randolph: Yes. He came into the British company shortly after I had

joined here. I remember meeting him at Anaheim on his first
trip to the United States- -first trip as a director of Borax
Holdings. So Norman Travis brought an outsider's technical and
managerial expertise to the British organization.

In approximately the same period, Hugo Riemer joined U.S.
Borax as executive vice president. Hugo came from Allied
Chemical where he had been the president of the Nitrogen
Division. So he brought to the U.S. company some broad outside
experience in the chemical industry. Hugo by background was a
lawyer, but he brought a considerable knowledge of general
marketing strategies in the highly competitive fertilizer
industry.

Swent: Were there any directors brought in at this time who were
technically oriented? Eberstadt, I guess, was interested.

Randolph: To the best of my knowledge, none of the directors of that early
period had technical backgrounds. Their backgrounds were more
related to finance. Within U.S. Borax, the technical staff grew
enormously in this period of the expansion of research. I can't
recall exactly how many people you could classify as doing
research prior to the opening of Anaheim, but it was a
relatively small number.

Swent: 1 noted that there were small laboratories, plural, in Los
Angeles. I don't know what they were.

Randolph: Yes. Well, there was one laboratory in the main office

building, and there was another one in a storefront on Twelfth
Street. There probably weren't more than a half dozen people in
each one .

Swent: Was there anything at Wilmington at that time?

Randolph: The plants, Wilmington particularly- -because Boron was really in
the construction phase as other than just a mining operation- -
tended to depend on engineers on the staff for in-house process
improvement. They had done a pretty good job over the years.

Swent: And they were doing some boron research in England, but that's a
long way away.

Randolph; That developed as we began to gear up here. By the time I

joined, the staff was approaching ninety or a hundred people,
something of the sort. Almost all of them were new people
recruited from the outside, with the exception of a nucleus of
people that had been here. So we had a great infusion of new
blood at all working levels.

Swent: Also money. Within a year, it went up over a million dollars.

Randolph: Yes, the expansion of the budget was, in terms of percentage,
very, very, very great.

Swent: So you must have had really good backing from the company.

Randolph: Yes. As I say, it was very much the thing to do, and because

the company was now listed on the New York Stock Exchange, in

order to attract investors one had to show that large amounts of
money were going into research.

Swent: In August of 1957, it was still just a research division of U.S.
Borax.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: Then it was changed.

Randolph: Yes. They simply changed the structure without changing

anything else. The reason for that was a hope of participating
in some of the classified government programs related to the
high-energy fuels. The company was having difficulty with the
question of security clearances as long as there was a direct

line of ownership from British interests to the research
organization, but, by creating a separate corporation
exclusively with directors who were U.S. citizens, they overcame
that problem and subsequently were able to get security
clearances for the facility and for key people.

Swent: So this was U.S. Borax Research Corporation that was totally
owned.

Randolph: Yes, totally owned by U.S. Borax.

Swent: And there were no English board members.

Randolph: No English board members on that.

Swent: I think it's remarkable that they were pouring that kind of
money into it at that time, really.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: They omitted the dividend for the first time ever.

Randolph: Yes. That, of course, had causes more serious than spending a
lot of money on research.

Swent: Yes, yes. It was because of the expansion at Boron.

Randolph: That's right. But the start-up of the new plant was really an

opportunity for the research organization to demonstrate that it
could come to the aid of the company when difficulties arose.

Swent: In what way?

Randolph: Primarily in the development of programs to solve the operating
problems that Boron was having. Those problems were much more
serious fundamental difficulties- -essentially chemical- -than
anyone had appreciated prior to the scale-up of the production
process .

Swent: It wasn't just normal start-up problems?

Randolph: It wasn't just normal start-up problems, and the Anaheim

laboratory really turned to, in the working out of the process
difficulties that were besetting the plant. It wasn't a quick,
easy solution. It took time, but the programs that were
developed at Anaheim to do that were eminently successful.

Swent :

This is the chemistry-

Randolph: Chemistry. It was chemistry- -the problems in crystallization,

the problems of the impurity levels and things like that, things
which simply weren't amenable to solution by sort of twisting a
valve or something on the scene. It took a much deeper
understanding of what was really going on in the process than I
think anyone at that point in time had.

You have to realize that the scale -up of the Boron
operation was enormous. The technology was all based on the
process being operated at Wilmington, which was relatively
modest in terms of its daily tonnage and was to a large extent
batch processing rather than a continuous process. The
unfortunate thing is that when you do a major scale -up you
inevitably find out that there are factors operating that you
just didn't suspect were there. That's exactly what was
happening.

Swent: Excuse me. We should put in here, because it hasn't been in
before, what we're talking about. Boron with a capital "B"--
this is a place, and there was this big changeover from an
underground mine to an open pit.

Randolph: Yes. This was against the background of what was seen as a

potential demand in the high-energy fuels program for enormous
quantities of borates. The realization that to produce those
tonnages by the underground methods that had been used up to
that point in time just weren't going to cut it. As a result,
the idea of stripping off the overburden and going to open-pit
mining was developed and shown to be a very feasible thing.

Swent: And they also moved from Wilmington to Boron.

Randolph: That's right, and the other half of that development was the
concept of building a large modern refinery right at the mine
site rather than transporting ore from Boron down to Wilmington.

Swent: This had all happened just as you were coming in, didn't it?

Randolph: Yes. The construction of the open pit had been going on prior
to the time I joined. It was about two or three weeks after I
joined the company that we all trekked up to Boron for the
opening of the pit.

Swent: November 15, 1957, was the opening, and O'Brien retired about
that time .

Randolph: Well, sometime later than that.

Swent: Because there were lots of problems that came in on that.

Randolph: That's right.

Svent: So you stepped In at a challenging time.

Randolph: Yes, it really was. Changes were going on at a major rate in
those succeeding months. We'll talk a bit about that. I just
wanted to say, and this is recapping in a way, perhaps, that
research was new to U.S. Borax. I came into the organization
first as a research manager and subsequently ended up as vice
president of the research corporation.

Swent: First you were manager of inorganic boron research, weren't you?

Randolph: That's right. Then, rather quickly, I became associate director
of research. And then, I've forgotten- -it was a year or so
later, I guess, I was a vice president down there. ■ I felt,
viewing the status of research in the company, that one of the
major jobs of research management was to demonstrate to the line
departments of the company- -that would be the marketing people
and the production people- -that research could solve many of
their problems. This, of course, we had the opportunity to
tackle in the case of the Boron start-up.

Initially, it was not as easy a task as one might suppose.
Before the establishment of the research corporation, both the
sales and the production departments had been accustomed to
getting what I would classify as mainly technical service. A
minor difficulty would occur; they would call up whoever seemed
to be the one that was knowledgeable on that subject, and
essentially say, "Look, this is what's happened. We need to
know this...." It was perhaps a day or two's activity of
analyzing something or testing something, a pretty
straightforward thing, which those departments felt they
controlled. In other words, they said, "We've got the problem;
here's how we want you to solve it." People were in the habit
of doing that.

Swent: You were reacting to their requests.

Randolph: That's right. What the new research- -and I say "new research"
in quotation marks- -proposed to do was to develop much more
probing investigations of the underlying problems. It took some
time to convince some of these people that this was going to be
the best longterm solution to their difficulties, because in a
way it seemed to be diluting their management of the situation.

Swent:

Who --do you want to say who?

Randolph: Well, I think it was just generally true. Plant managers, sales
managers, and so forth, had been accustomed to a way of dealing
with things. We were proposing to change it. After all, we had
a hundred people down there raring to go, wanting to prove their
worth. Ultimately, it did work out quite well. The work with
the people in production at Boron pretty well demonstrated that
we could help them and that the things that we proposed as
solutions worked well.

Swent: And rather quickly you turned it around, didn't you?

Randolph: Rather quickly, yes. That wasn't all because of research.
There was an enormous effort by everyone that had any
relationship to the production operation, but it was a massive
effort. Research certainly played its part in that.

Swent:

Did

Dr. Donald S. Taylor, Vice President
you want to say anything about Dr. Taylor?

Randolph: Yes, I would like to say a great deal about Dr. Donald S.

Taylor. I came to know him as the man whose judgment I valued
perhaps more than anyone else over the years, both at the time
that he was the technical vice president of U.S. Borax and the
time that he subsequently was the financial vice president.

Swent: That's an interesting combination of talents, isn't it?

Randolph: He was a man of very mature judgment and had the rare ability to
see clearly the nut of a problem. He was not put off by the
smokescreen that might be around it. I learned a great deal
from him in the period of time that he was my superior. At the
time that I moved into the presidency of the company and passed
him by, our relationship continued to be very close, and I
consulted with him probably on more far- ranging problems than
almost anyone else in the organization. He was a valued friend.

Swent: Why do you suppose you were elevated over him?

Randolph: Well, I don't know. I think that perhaps Don's personality was
more attuned to an advisory role than a leadership role. He was
an intellectual man, and perhaps his ability to argue both sides
of a question was a handicap. But as far as his analytical

capabilities were concerned, I think he was one of the most
capable people that ever worked for the company.

Swent: It's hard to put your finger on what makes leadership.

Randolph: Yes, it is. It's very difficult.

Swent: Decisiveness.

Randolph: Yes. Don was not a terribly decisive man. It doesn't mean that

he didn't have strong opinions. He did, but he was constantly

weighing right hand and left hand rather than at some point

saying, "Well, this looks as though it's the way we ought to go.

Let's go." But all people are that way. None of us have a

perfect balance of qualities. Sooner or later, we find our
level, I guess.

Swent: It's interesting that you could still be such good friends.

Randolph: Yes, we really were. Even after Don retired, I kept reasonably
close contact with him.

Randolph: I want to say a little more about the transition period in the
company's history. I was still observing a little bit from the
sidelines, in the sense that I was still down there in research
rather than in the head office. The period from the time I
joined the company until the early sixties was a period of
considerable change. As I mentioned, we had seen new people
come in, in leadership positions in both the British company and
in U.S. Borax .

Hugo Riemer, President

Randolph: We moved under Hugo Riemer 's leadership from a divisional to a

functional organization, which created a whole new reordering of
responsibilities within the company. Hugo brought in almost a
totally new second line in all departments. These were people
from the outside in production, in engineering, in marketing, in
finance. Of course, during this period into the early sixties,
Hugo became president when Jim Gerstley retired. So in a period
of just a few short years, things had changed radically from
what it was when I joined, and it clearly was a company in
transition.

I think this might be a point to just make a comment about
what I think Hugo Riemer did. I think Hugo clearly was the

architect of today's U.S. Borax. He brought new talent, new
degrees of sophistication to the company, new management tools.
He was the one that really brought computers and management
systems into the organization, new engineering capabilities, new
methods of deciding on major capital expenditures. He was the
one that was the architect of the functional organization that
we still have today. He did a great many things, most of which
I think were very positive in respect to the well-being of the
company.

Swent: This reorganization was in 1960, when you changed from divisions
to functional organization.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: And yet he didn't stay long.

Randolph: Well, he was here about ten years. I thought that at the proper
point I would deal with what I saw as the things that
contributed to his leaving.

I think, in speaking of the early developments, it's proper
to recognize that Hugo did a lot of very, very good things.
Some people tend to lose sight of that, I think. Not to say
that someone else couldn't have done the same thing, but Hugo
did accomplish it. It was not an easy task. Again, it was a
new man coming in from the outside to an organization where
people pretty well thought that things were cast as they would
be for the future. He began to shake it up and move it around,
and that creates resistance and uncertainty.

Swent: He was also the first American president, wasn't he?

Randolph: Well, no. Frank Jenifer was.

Swent: Oh, but very briefly, yes.

Randolph: I guess Jim Gerstley would consider himself an American, but his
origins, of course, were English.

Swent: Connected with the English company. Riemer was really an
outsider.

Randolph: Yes, he was the outsider who came in and probably did what only
an outsider could do, which was to tackle some pretty firmly
entrenched points of view in the company.

Swent :

Somebody mentioned to me problems with the ABA furnace.

Randolph: I saw that in your notes. That's a different story that I'll
comment on later. I was sort of dealing with this in a
chronological way. [looks through notes]

Assistant to the President

Randolph: I don't know why, in 1963, I was pulled out of the comfort of

the research establishment at Anaheim and made assistant to the
president, [chuckles] I wasn't sure that I was going to like it
when it first occurred.

Swent: Your office had been at Anaheim.

Randolph: At Anaheim, that's right.

Swent: As vice president of research.

Randolph: Yes, that's right. I suddenly was being thrust into the lion's
den by being moved into the Los Angeles office as assistant to
the president in this period of time when changes were going on.
I think it's fair to say that no one really understood why I was
there, what my role was, or what impact it was going to have on
them.

Swent: How well had you known Riemer up till then?

Randolph: Not really, except that the board would meet at Anaheim about

once a year. I was spending a fair amount of time here in town
selling the idea of research to the departments. But I really
had no close association with Hugo at all at that point in time.

It was clear to me that the assistant to the president
position was what you wanted to make of it. You could either be
a bag- carrier or you could become a major participant in the
management of the company.

Swent: This was partly up to him, wasn't it?

Randolph: Yes, I think largely up to him in the sense that if Hugo had

decided that he wanted a bag-carrier, that's what you would be.
Hugo was very good that way. He left people a great deal of
latitude. Everyone in the management structure had a great deal
of latitude. In fact, that gave the opportunity, really, for
one to essentially chart his own course. My approach to it was
one of playing it absolutely straight, to not insert myself into
the line, not be a bottleneck to anyone trying to get to the

president, not a funnel, not a screening or anything of the
sort, but being someone who was there to try to help the vice
presidents in any way possible with problems that they had that
they wanted to get to Hugo about. Sometimes, there were
difficulties between departments where it was possible for
someone who was not part of either one to sort of take an
ombudsman role. This sort of thing, as you can understand,
developed slowly, because people had to convince themselves that
your motives were the best, that you weren't trying to do
something disadvantageous to them. But having gotten over that
hurdle, I seemed to have accomplished what I set out to do. I
felt that I truly was part of the top management team, that I
was privy to the inner workings of the company and the board of
directors .

Swent : Did you sit in on board meetings?

Randolph: No, I did not.

So that sort of established the pattern or the situation in
the early years of the decade of the sixties.

Swent: How many vice presidents were there?

Randolph: Well, let's see. I think you had them down here.

Swent: I had a list of them somewhere here. There were quite a few.

Randolph; Yes. Each of the major departments, of course, had a vice
president.

Swent: And you were in addition to that. There was Coleman- -

Randolph; Yes. Ray Coleman was the general counsel.

Swent: Fred Corkill was the--

Randolph: The vice president of marketing.

Swent: Bob Edgar- -

Randolph: Edgar was vice president of production.

Swent: Dave Parker- -

Randolph: Parker was vice president of the Twenty Mule Team department.

Swent: Pearson--

Randolph:

Swent:
Randolph:
Swent :
Randolph :
Swent :

Randolph:

Swent :
Randolph:
Swent :
Randolph:

Norman Pearson was in the English company and was essentially an
advisor on overseas marketing policy. He really wasn't an
active vice president of the company.

Taylor- -

Don Taylor was technical vice president.

And Steel.

Dick Steel was financial vice president.

So these were the ones listed in 1964. Then you were assistant
to the president.

I was assistant to the president, that's right
made the group .

That sort of

What I have tried to do in relation to each decade is to
pinpoint one or more major things, that it seemed to me were
things that the company was preoccupied with during that decade
--either the company was or I was. [chuckles] If the company
was, I was, I guess. In the sixties, clearly, it was Canadian
potash. This was after we had gotten out from under the initial
problems of Boron, which we pretty well had by the early years
of the sixties.

And the navy high energy fuels?

We never really had a significant part in that.

Despite your hopes?

Well, realistically, the navy and the air force had two prime
contractors for the programs, which were parallel programs.
They had two prime contractors, and what they would have looked
to U.S. Borax for would really have been raw materials, boric
acid or borax. I don't think that in the thinking of the
military, there was ever any real consideration of U.S. Borax as
anything other than a supplier of raw materials.

What we did do, and this was one of the things that I
undertook after I joined the company, was to get some funding
for a major research project that the air force wanted to start
on high- temperature polymers. We worked on that program for a
number of years. These were materials based on a number of
exotic boron compounds. We had a substantial effort- -probably
twenty scientists involved in that program. But that was really

not related to high-energy fuels. It came after the high-
energy fuel program had collapsed.

In retrospect, the most fortunate thing from the company
standpoint was that the high energy fuel program did not go
forward, because it would have required such enormous quantities
of borates that the entire mine would have been gutted in a
matter of just a few years. I think anyone looking at the
project in retrospect realizes it was one of those things that
was theoretically feasible but technically would have been a
disaster, and not just for U.S. Borax. Can you imagine an
atmosphere filled with boric acid fog? That's about what would
have happened.

Swent : That would have been the--

Randolph: The combustion products of the boron fuels. The concept, of

course, had its origins in the attempt to improve performance of
jet engines. The program collapsed when the problem was solved
by other means, more traditional- -

Swent: Mid-air refuelings?

Randolph: Well, and engine design. Basically better engine design. This
achieved what they needed, and the program was just cut off like
that [gestures]. It didn't taper off. It was chopped.

Swent: It must have been a blow at the time.

Randolph: It was, it was. In point of fact, that major cut occurred
before I joined U.S. Borax, because I had to deal with the
problem of staff reductions and morale at Aerojet while I was
still there.

So, where did I leave it? I was about to talk about
potash, but you asked me a question.

The Canadian Potash Venture

Swent: You were saying that that had just started when you came in, the
interest in potash.

Randolph: Yes. Of course, the company had been in the potash business
since the early thirties.

Swent:

In New Mexico.

Randolph: Yes. In fact, the U.S. Potash Company mine was the first mine
in the United States for potash. It opened up in '31 or '32,
something of the sort.

Swent: In Carlsbad.

Randolph: The problem that really faced the company was that the mine was
nearing its productive end. Production costs were, as a
consequence, rising, and we were beginning to see competition
from producers in the province of Saskatchewan in Canada.
Underlying the entire province were these massive beds of potash
at great depth, around three thousand to five thousand feet, but
overlain by a high-pressure water zone which created major
problems in shaft sinking and prevention of water intrusion into
the mines.

Randolph: So in this period of time, the company was wrestling with the

question of should they really shut down the Carlsbad operations
and make a major capital investment in Canada, or should they
try to continue with lower-grade ores that were available to
them in Carlsbad by processing methods that were going to have
to be developed?

Swent: Did the labor situation have anything to do with the decision
also?

Randolph: I don't think so. I don't think so, because although initially
labor rates in Saskatchewan were probably going to be much
lower, that would change fairly quickly. No, I don't think
labor costs had much to do with it except insofar as operations
in one area would be more labor-intensive than another. From
that standpoint, it would. What we foresaw as an operable
process in Carlsbad would have been much more labor intensive
and higher cost than production in Canada.

Swent: I was thinking of the labor problems, strikes, and so on.

Randolph: Oh, I don't think that was a factor.

There was a good deal of vacillation on the question of
going to Canada.

Swent: They actually turned it down once, didn't they?

Randolph: Yes, but even before that, within the company, there were two

schools of thought. One was that the Carlsbad lower quality ore

body could be made the basis for a competitive process. The
other school of thought was that this was a pipe dream and that
the only real alternative was investment in Canada. In the
final analysis, the decision was made that the Canadian approach
was the only viable one. But, as you point out, there was an
initial decision to go, then a change of heart and, what was it,
a year or two later before this thing resurfaced.

Swent: I think so. Let's see. [checks notes] They announced that

there was a decision likely in 1962. They first started talking
about this in 1959. The 1961 report says that there's a
decision likely in 1962. They rejected it in 1962. Then, in
1964, went into it.

Randolph: Decided to go, yes.

The ultimate conclusion that investment in Canada was the
only viable way to go was the result of voluminous studies of
engineering economics that were carried on by a special task
force that Don Taylor was heading. One thing that was clear
from that was that in order to be competitive in the times
ahead, production capacity was going to have to be around at
least a million tons a year of potash. The capital investment
at that time was going to have to be on the order of sixty
million dollars, as I recall. Both the quantity of product to
be marketed and the money to be invested were, in the opinion of
the company, beyond its capabilities. In other words, the best
thing to do was to build a plant of that size and for that cost
but to find partners for the venture so that we had a
proportionate share of the investment and a proportionate share
of the production. It was a tricky problem from the standpoint
of the antitrust laws as they stood at that time.

Swent: Which you were nervous about. ^, ,

Randolph: Which we were nervous about in any event, because the company
operated under consent decrees, both in potash and in borax.
There was a considerable worry that the Department of Justice
was looking down our necks all the time.

The structure that Hugo evolved for this enterprise was
what he called a "co-tenancy," in which the co-tenants each
enjoyed an undivided interest in the properties and took product
in kind from the operation. This concept passed muster with the
attorneys that took it under study. I don't recall whether we
got an opinion from the Department of Justice. Hugo spent a
considerable period of time looking for partners, and I remember
going with him on a number of those trips. In the final
analysis, we developed as co-tenants Homestake Mining Company

and the agricultural people within Swift and Company, the big
Chicago diversified meatpacking and agricultural chemical
people .

Swent: They were Interested, of course, because of the fertilizer.

Randolph: Yes. Under the arrangement that was proposed, U.S. Borax would
act as the sales agent for both its own production and that of
Homestake Mining. We formed a separate marketing organization.
Can-Am Potash Producers was the selling organization, and then
in addition U.S. Borax was to act as the constructor and
operator of the properties. That entity was known as Allan
Potash Mines, the name Allan coming from the small rural town on
the prairies, adjacent to the mine site.

The relationship with Homestake got off to a bad start.
Ideally, in any close working arrangement such as this, the
chief executives should develop a rapport and a relationship
which helps to solve difficulties that arise and a mutual
understanding of each other's internal corporate problems.
Unfortunately, in this case, that didn't occur. Hugo Riemer and
John Gustafson, who was president of Homestake at the time,
never seemed to hit it off. They were different personality
types, and it was a situation which, if anything, deteriorated
as time went on.

The initial executive within U.S. Borax responsible for
overseeing the mine construction program as the executive
representative of the company as operator was Don Taylor, who at
that time was the technical vice president of U.S. Borax.

Swent: He had no mining experience, of course, did he?

Randolph: No, but he had a staff of experienced mining engineers. And Don
was one of those people that had no problem in moving on any
situation that came along. As I mentioned earlier, he listened
to everyone and, if anything, gave everyone more time than they
really deserved. Partway through the construction phase, Don
became ill and asked to be relieved of the responsibility for
the project, which was taking a major part of his time.

At this point and without warning, the project was unloaded
on me by Hugo Riemer, so that I, with no real forewarning, had
to step in and assume the position of executive in charge of the
function of the operator as well as owner's representative.

Swent: This was in 1964?

Randolph: It must have been about 1964, I think.

I found out very quickly that this was not going to be an
easy job. The difficulties between the presidents of the two
companies filtered downwards. I had the diplomatic problem of
keeping the several owners satisfied with the job that U.S.
Borax was doing as operator. ,.

Swent: Was Swift a problem also? ", ;, •, s

Randolph: Swift was a problem only in the sense that with a 40 percent

interest in Allan held by U.S. Borax, and a 40 percent interest
by Homestake, Swift became a swing vote. There was a
considerable lobbying of Swift by Homestake at times to the
detriment of U.S. Borax. It was a difficult situation. It
required a lot of patience, a lot of really going out of our way
to demonstrate that we were doing the best job that could be
done under the circumstances.

nt: What sorts of things were you seeing differently on?

Randolph: I think underlying it all was a suspicion, either real or
created as essentially harassment, that U.S. Borax was
feathering its own nest at the expense of the other partners.
It was untrue and yet it was something that we were constantly
having to cope with. Tempers got frayed, and at the quarterly
meetings of the participants, it was a real problem sometimes to
keep things on track.

Swent: And there were terrible technical problems.

Randolph: Yes. [chuckles] All these interrelationships between the two
companies were superimposed on the technical problems.

The major technical problem related to shaft sinking. In
sinking the shafts, there is a technique for going through the
waterbearing sands which involves freezing the formation very
much like a giant icicle and then shaft-sinking through the
center. The wall is then reinforced with cast iron sections
called tubbing. This is a technique developed by the Germans.
We were employing German mining companies to do the shaft -
sinking. At almost the completion of the sinking of one of the
two shafts through the water zone, which was called the
Blairmore sand, the ice wall broke, and the mine flooded. It
took about a year to recoup the mine, to refreeze the shaft,
first refreezing the shaft, then again going in to dig it out.
I suppose this was sort of the low point in all our lives. The
mine was flooded with water. We were delayed.

We were having one of our participants' meetings there at
Allan, and the engineers came in and said that a high wind had
suddenly come up and blown down the whole roof of the big
warehouse that was in the process of construction, [chuckles]
It Just seemed as though everything had gone wrong at once.

Of course, we pulled out of it, but it was a tough time.
Morale was pretty low for a period of time there, but, as
always, individuals respond to difficulties. I must say, the
Homestake people, in the time of adversity, stopped all this
silliness and became constructive participants. So we weathered
that, and we finally got things back on track. Ultimately, of
course, the mine turned out to be a very, very good one, really
among the best in Saskatchewan, in terms of its conception and
the execution. So I don't think any of us who had any part of
it from either U.S. Borax's point of view or any of the other
participants can feel anything but pride in what we ultimately
accomplished.

Swent : Do you still have it?

Randolph: No, and that's a subject for one of the other decades.

Swent: But you did come through the worst.

Randolph: Yes, we came through the worst of it. I think that was

certainly one of the most stressful periods in my career.

Swent: Was Homestake accusing you of spending too much money?

Randolph: Yes, you know, incompetence, wasting money. They had an owner's
rep on the scene, and I think he was told, "Keep an eye on them
and report to us everything that you see . " We would spend an
hour at one of these meetings over the question of whether the
bolts had been offset five inches too far in setting
foundations, for example. All you can do is sit and endure
while something like that goes on. It's nonproductive,
nonconstructive . But I think it all devolved from the lack of
rapport that developed between the two chief executives.

Swent: Interesting, isn't it? Those things trickle down. Did you have
any problems with stockholders over this? Did any of them get
upset?

Randolph: No. No, that wasn't a problem.

Swent: Did you have to deal with local politics up in Saskatchewan?

Randolph: Yes. At that period in time, the premier of the province was a
man named Ross Thatcher who billed his as the "free enterprise
government." So government was relatively easy to deal with in
terms of a private company's coming in to the province.

Swent: They didn't object to an American company?

Randolph: No. Many of the companies that were there were American. The
local political issues were very expertly handled by people on
our staff up there. In those early times, the relationships
with the government were very good. That was not true later on,
but during the time of the Thatcher government, it was a good
time for business to come into the province.

Swent: I guess we should say it was a boom. There were other
companies .

Randolph: That's right, it was. It was a boom time for Saskatchewan. And
Saskatchewan, prior to the potash, had been classified as one of
the have-not provinces of Canada. So it gave employment, it
brought capital investment, it produced service industries and
everything else.

Swent: Apart from the German shaft-sinking crew, you hired local
people?

Randolph: Yes. We took a cadre of our own people from Carlsbad, but
basically we tried to hire locally. We had Canadian mining
engineers. In fact, Chris Hesse, who just retired as vice
president of engineering, was hired there. He's a Canadian and
was hired as a mining engineer up there in Canada. He just
retired the end of this past month.

Swent: So you spent a good deal of time up there.

Randolph: Yes, I did. It was a fascinating time. As I said, it was

stressful and it was tough, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the
people I met up there. In retrospect, you forget a lot.
[chuckles] It's like old war stories, you know. You forget all
the unpleasantness, and you remember only the excitement, the
good times. But it was a maturing period, too, in terms of
personal development.

As that situation straightened out in the latter part of
the sixties, within U.S. Borax the problem then arose of
marketing all this potash. Because of the delays that we had
experienced, because of the shaft -sinking problems and other
factors, we were finding ourselves at a disadvantage in the
marketplace. Others had moved ahead where we had been standing

still waiting to get that shaft sunk. So the problems of
disposing of approximately 800,000 tons a year of potash began
to look pretty formidable.

Swent: A lot of other people were producing a lot of potash, too.

Randolph: Yes. That, of course, was it. Those mines were all churning it
out, and it had to find a home somewhere. The big markets, of
course, were the continental United States and the Japanese
market. Those were really considered to be the two big ones
that Canadian potash could reach. While there was a sizable
European market, it was pretty well dominated by the French and
German potash producers. Well, this problem of selling all of
that product was paramount in our minds, and I guess Hugo felt
that the efforts being made by the marketing department in
setting up to sell the potash weren't adequate, because after
the problems of selling all this material became paramount, Hugo
reshuffled things, and I also became vice president of
marketing.

Swent: That was in 1968.

Randolph: Yes, 1968, I guess.

Swent: In June of 1968, you became vice president of marketing, and

then in November 1968, just five months later, you were named a
director and executive vice president in addition to vice
president for marketing.

Randolph: Yes, right. I had continued to be vice president and assistant
to the president as well as vice president of marketing during
that interim period.

Swent: You accumulated a lot of titles.

Randolph: Yes [chuckles], I accumulated a lot of titles and a lot of extra
activity.

Swent: And BCL [Borax Consolidated Limited] merged with RTZ [Rio Tinto
Zinc ] ?

Randolph: Yes. That came just about the time that I got elected executive
vice president, I think.

Swent:

So marketing was your big challenge?

Randolph: I felt that we needed a reorganization of the marketing

structure. Originally, within the functional organization that
Hugo had created there had been two arms to marketing. One was
the Twenty Mule Team consumer products, of which David Parker
was vice president in charge. The other was called Industrial
Products, which was the industrial borates plus potash. That
had been Fred Corkill's responsibility. Corkill died suddenly
in 1965, and Hugo at that time consolidated those two marketing
departments into a single entity and put Parker in charge so
that Parker had responsibility for not only the Twenty Mule Team
products but what had been Corkill's area.

Swent: One was called bulk sales and one was called package sales.

Randolph; Yes. Well, that was back years ago. Bulk meaning the

industrial borates because they were sold by the carload rather
than in a box in a grocery store. It's sort of a funny
nomenclature but it persisted for quite a while.

Swent: So Parker took over both those.

Randolph: Parker took over both. The potash and the borax selling

organizations were consolidated under the concept that it didn't
matter what you sold. If you were a good salesman, you could
sell anything; a good salesman should be able to sell borates
and potash equally. I never really believed that was true. I
think that it isn't a question of just selling a faceless
product. A salesman in the sort of business we're in has to
have an understanding of the uses and the problems, the
opportunities for use, and so forth, for his products. I don't
think that someone who is selling borates to the glass industry
really can understand in depth the farmers' fertilizer problem,
and vice -versa.

Swent :

The first thing I did was to split these things apart again
and create a hard-driving potash sales force and a hard-driving
borax sales force and send them out to deal with their specific
areas of expertise. That began to turn things around. It
improved morale. I don't think the salesmen ever liked the
concept of doing everything. I undertook to tackle some of the
special problems of export sales. At the time I was elected
executive vice president, I was actually in Tahiti on the way
home from a trip to Australia and New Zealand to try to set up
distributorships in those two countries for potash, using our
contacts with Imperial Chemical Industries and the Rio Tinto
people in Australia.

You had already- - [checks notes] --BCL merged with Rio Tinto in
1968.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: Actually, you became vice president first in 1966, so you were
just a plain vice president for two years.

Randolph: Not exactly. I was vice president in charge of the Canadian
potash project and vice president and assistant to the
president.

Swent: And then given this special assignment for marketing.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: You must have shown your interest in marketing.

Randolph: Well, yes. I had pretty strong ideas on what needed to be done.
I had talked with Hugo about this as we pondered ways in which
to try to deal with this 800,000 tons a year of product. I
didn't solicit the job, but, you know, when you get an order you
have two choices: you either do or you don't, [chuckles]

Swent: And, also, if you offer suggestions- -

Randolph: Yes. Well, that's right- -although, as I say, I didn't solicit
it.

Swent: So then when Borax Consolidated merged with Rio Tinto, you had
access to some of their- -

Randolph: Yes. Then that gave us access to people in various parts of the
world that could be helpful to us . I should touch on what I saw
of the effect of the jSurchase . First it was the merger of the
Borax Holdings interest into RTZ that occurred.

Swent: Did this come as a surprise to you?

Randolph: Yes, it did. The negotiations were conducted in great secrecy
in London. It was a fait accompli before there was any
announcement outside of the British group. No one here knew
about it. I know Hugo didn't know anything about it.

Swent: It must have been quite a shock.

Randolph: Yes, it was. At first, people didn't really know what to make
of it, but I think that very quickly, fears were calmed.
Initially, of course, the merger gave RTZ a 75 percent interest
in U.S. Borax because there was a 25 percent public ownership.

Swent :

Randolph:

Swent :

Randolph:

In succeeding years- -1971- -they tendered for and picked up the
other 25 percent.

Yes. In 1971, then, they became 100 percent owners. I
think it was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to
the company to have been merged into an organization of the size
and quality of RTZ. It's provided stability. With all the
corporate raiders that have destroyed U.S. corporations over the
past couple of decades, the fact that the company has been
really under the umbrella of this huge multinational mining
company has been a godsend. Otherwise, we would have been
swooped up and dismembered, and who knows what would have
happened? It worked very, very well for us. In terms of
management relations, I think that it has been almost ideal.
It's hard to think how anything could be much better.

Of course, it was a great advantage to them to have U.S. Borax,
too .

That's right. One of their directors said to me one time in
London- -he said, "We had no idea when we acquired the Borax
interest what a real jewel we were getting. We just didn't
understand what resources we were buying." I suppose if they
had felt that they had overpaid or it had been misrepresented or
something that their attitudes to us might have been different,
but as it was, everything worked out well.

They thought they got a bargain?

Yes, I think they did, and I think they know they did.

Attempts at Diversif icationtftf
[Interview 3: 10 July 1990]

Swent: What else was going on at U.S. Borax at this time?

Randolph: During the latter part of the sixties and, really, throughout

the next decade, the company moved in a small way into a number
of different activities- -with joint ventures with others or
working on its own in both the industrial maintenance field, in
which there was some prior experience, and also agricultural
chemicals, in which the association was a little more tenuous
but nonetheless there was a fit with capabilities of personnel.

In industrial maintenance, for a period of time, the
company owned a small and successful local operation called
Columbia Wax Company. This was being managed by the Twenty Mule
Team department people. To expand that particular type of
activity, we also bought a small industrial maintenance supply
company in Cleveland called the Gerson Stewart Company. These
were not major activities, but it was an attempt to expand our
Boraxo and Luron hand soap business into a broader field of
industrial and janitorial maintenance supplies. These
businesses ultimately were sold, and I think that we learned a
considerable lesson from them during the period that we had
them, lessons that I think were successfully applied in later
years when we became involved with silica sand.

Swent : What was the lesson?

Randolph: Well, essentially, the lesson was that when you acquire a small
entrepreneurial organization which has had a considerable record
of success for being fast on its feet and able to maintain its
position by a number of inventive moves, you should not try to
impose a heavy corporate load of direction on it. The way I saw
it at the time, and the way I felt about it ever since, is that
those companies could have flourished under the U.S. Borax
banner had we not smothered them with headquarters attention.
As I say, I think that it was a lesson that we learned from and
did not repeat when we subsequently acquired the Ottawa Silica
Company and Pennsylvania Glass Sand Company in the middle
eighties .

In agricultural chemicals, we had a number of sorties into
the field, none of which really turned out to be things that
were going to do well for us in the long run, and, I think with
some wisdom, we retreated from those.

Swent: You got out of the joint venture with Dow, didn't you?

Randolph: That came to a logical conclusion. That was the boron

trichloride? [Swent murmurs assent] Yes. That was really at
the time of the big interest in boron fuels. We completed the
intent there, and I think nothing developed from that primarily
because the need for the material tended to evaporate.

Swent: You just said it was successfully completed.

Randolph: Yes, it was really a technical venture.

Swent: And the cooperation with Olin-Mathieson didn't really go
anywhere?

Randolph: That really never went anywhere. So the major things before our
expansion into silica sand were ag chemicals and the industrial
maintenance supplies.

Swent: I'm sort of intrigued by this venture with Merck. What it said
in the report was that it was a research venture [reading] , "a
product called 'MAINTAIN CF 125' manufactured by Merck, West
Germany, and developed by U.S. Borax under exclusive agreement."

Randolph: That came from contacts with our people in the herbicide area

with people from Merck, in Germany. We did a field test program
on this particular material, and we gave it the name "MAINTAIN."
It was a growth inhibitor. In other words, spray it on the
leaves of a bush or a tree and it would inhibit further growth.
We thought that there might be some considerable market for it
in freeway maintenance, where it would save the cost of trimming
trees. As it turned out, there were many factors affecting the
growth pattern. If it rained shortly after application, the
material was all washed off and it didn't do any good. Climatic
conditions had a major effect on its efficacy. In the long run,
nothing really came of it.

I think that's characteristic of a lot of things that
companies get into, that you try your feet in a lot of ponds,
and the success rate tends to be rather low. That was certainly
our experience with a lot of these things. In the beginning,
they looked promising, but as one came down to the realities of
marketing and production, and the expense of fielding the
promotional programs, they tended to fade away.

Sort of back to the chronology of events, I think we had
about reached the point that Hugo Riemer resigned as president.

*-■«•

■>\-3^*

■- 1 -.^ <

•:»^;

■ i>>* I'

• V

^ ;» -^ ■'.,;- -1

Dr. Carl Randolph receives the congratulations of Pete
Schabarum of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on
the 100th anniversary of the company and its predecessors,
1983.

Photograph courtesy of U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation

III PRESIDENT, U.S. BORAX & CHEMICAL CORPORATION, 1969-1988

A Challenging Management Situation

Swent: Yes. We had not yet mentioned when you became president. That
was 1969, wasn't it?

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: We had talked about the problems of oversupply of potash and had
not finished the potash venture completely, but that came later.
You succeeded Travis as president in 1969.

Randolph: I thought perhaps we should make a comment about the situation
that I saw coming to a head in the latter part of the sixties
with respect to the relationship between Hugo Riemer, the
president, and the Borax Holdings people who represented the
major stockholder. I was in a position as assistant to the
president to see something of the interchanges that went on
between Hugo Riemer and Messrs. Lesser and Travis of Borax
Holdings, both of whom, of course, were directors of U.S. Borax
and successively the chairman. The relationship between Hugo
and the British tended to deteriorate over the last few years of
his tenure largely, I think, because Hugo advocated several
major capital investments that the stockholder did not feel were
warranted at the time. One of these was the ABA (anhydrous
boric acid) production furnace, but it was only one of several
on which there was sharp disagreement. Hugo could be a very
stubborn man.

Swent: How old a man was he?

Randolph: He must have been at that time, I suppose, around sixty. But

his personality was such that once he had decided on a course of
action, he was very hard to dissuade. As a consequence of this,
the relationship deteriorated, and Hugo ultimately came to the
point that it was an untenable situation as far as his ability
to get along with the major stockholder was concerned. As a

consequence, there was an agreement under which Hugo was allowed
to retire early. I think it was an unfortunate ending, because
Hugo contributed many good things to the company in the years
that he was here. It was one of those situations that I could
clearly see coming, but there really was nothing that one could
do to ameliorate the situation.

Swent: It causes uneasiness all the way down, I'm sure.

Randolph: Yes, that's right. It does, and it creates difficulties between
parts of the organization as a result. With Hugo's retirement,
for an interim period, Norman Travis, who was board chairman,
stepped in as president of U.S. Borax.

Swent : He came over from England?

Randolph: Yes. He was in residence here about half time. He would stay
here, and then he would go back to England and then return- -
probably a month here and a month there, as I recall.

Swent: So that was clearly just an interim- -

Randolph: That was an interim thing. I think everyone understood that.
It was really to provide leadership in a period when there was
no apparent successor to Hugo.

Swent: It must have been kind of a bad time. I noticed that you were
having the potash problems and four-day strikes at Boron.

Randolph: Yes, we had a lot of problems at the time. I think that a lot
of the internal difficulties could be traced to the
uncertainties that surrounded the relationship between the
president and the major stockholder. The situation began to
change in terms of organization and responsibility later in 1968
when I became executive vice president. That, in essence, left
me in charge here in Los Angeles. At that point in time, Norman
Travis began to curtail the time that he was spending here.
Then, I guess, in sort of a natural progression, I was elected
president in the early part of 1969.

Swent: July, I think, is when you took over.

Randolph: Yes, I think it was in either the May or July board meeting,
I've forgotten which.

Swent: There was suddenly, that year, a very different annual report.
It was very small.

Randolph: I don't think there's any particular significance to that except
that this would have been after the acquisition of the Borax
interest by Rio Tinto and, I think, the feeling that we now had
really less need to put out an elaborate report.

Swent: It had been getting much bigger and glossier.

Randolph: Yes. They were becoming relatively expensive to produce, and
the audience at which they were targeted was not big enough to
warrant that.

Taking the Reins as President

Randolph: When I became executive vice president, it was clear to me that
there were a number of actions that had to be taken relatively
quickly. In the deteriorating management situation during the
last years of Hugo Riemer's tenure, infighting between
functional departments had become severe. Imaginary walls had
been built between departments, and there was deep suspicion
about motives as departments jockeyed for presidential favor.
To me, this was sapping the strength of the company, directing
its efforts inward rather than outward, where the problems with
sales and production were. One of the major problems that I saw
that needed to be attacked was infighting between departments.
This we managed to solve by some reorganizations, and by calling
people together to explain to them what I saw as the seriousness
of the situation and to point out to them that this sort of
thing was not going to be tolerated.

Swent: Were these vice presidents? •

Randolph: These were vice presidents and second- line people, the major
departmental managers.

Swent: Did you retain the functional setup? '

Randolph: Yes, we retained the functional setup, because a number of

physical and geographical things made it difficult to consider
anything else very seriously. And, when it works, a functional
organization works very well. This one had simply gotten a
little out of gear and needed to be, to use an old term, shaped
up. People seemed to take heart, and I think that basically
everyone realized that it was a situation that needed to be
remedied. When there was an assurance from the top that this
had to come to an end, I think everyone rather willingly got
with it.

Swent: Did you have to make personnel changes, too?

Randolph: Some. We had a few exemplary changes that people could see were
aimed at reducing internal conflicts. We were able, I think, to
reestablish confidence in leadership within the organization.
As I say, we retired a few people. We moved a few around, but
by and large it was a question of just settling down the ones
that were here and getting people to return to productive
activity. And, having accomplished that in a relatively short
period of time, I think most of the problems that were affecting
the company from the outside seemed to take care of themselves.

In 1969, as we came to the end of the sixties, the Allan
Potash Mine situation tended to change somewhat in that
Homestake sold its interest in the operation to Texas Gulf
Sulphur, and we entered into a new period of joint ownership.
That went quite well. The relationship with Texas Gulf was an
easier one than with Homestake. Until the ultimate disposition
of the potash mine, that moved along in pretty good shape.

Establishing the Environmental Affairs Department

Randolph: In the early seventies we began to encounter the first of a
continuing series of pressures on environmental problems ,
basically at Boron, although subsequently we had similar
problems at Wilmington (Los Angeles harbor) . Foreseeing that
this was not something that was going to go away, I established
early on a Department of Environmental Affairs- -1 think well
before this became a popular thing in the chemical and mining
industry. Our relationship with the Kern County air pollution
authorities and the water quality people in Kern County has
always been very good, because I think that from the beginning
they saw that we intended to do what we said we would do, and
that when we asked for a variance for a period of time to bring
dust or water pollution under control, we fully intended to
develop the best technical solution to the problem and then
implement it.

Swent: Actually, you operated under a variance for about four years.

Randolph: Yes. Well, prior to the emergence of public concern over air

pollution, there was really very little done at Boron or in any
of those desert locations- -the cement plants, for example --to
control dust.

Swent: Nobody cared.

Randolph: Nobody cared, and the countryside around Boron was covered with
a white mantle of borax dust all the time. Today, of course,
that's totally gone. The effluent from the stacks is nothing
but steam from the scrubbers, and we are in full compliance- -
have been, really, for many, many years- -with the air quality
standards .

Swent: You met the deadline in 1974, did you?

Randolph: We either met the deadlines or we got additional variances. As
I say, our relationship with those people was very good- -not
that they were lax, but I think that they were realistic in what
could be accomplished. The investment over the years has been
very large. I don't have a figure for the total, but as a
percentage of total invested capital, the investment in
pollution control has been a very, very significant factor. So
we were onto that early on, and I think we have always been in
the forefront of seeing that we responded to the requirements of
the law.

Labor Relations and the Strike of \91UM

Swent: I see that there was a strike at Boron in 1968, fifty- four days,
a long strike, [checks notes] Settlement was a two-year
contract, and the terms, according to your annual report, were
"substantially identical with those offered by the company
before the strike began." So that was settled in 1968, and then
that contract would have gone for two years.

Randolph: That was a two-year contract.

Swent: So there must have been something in 1970. Then there were
contract negotiations in 1972 but no strike.

Randolph: That's correct.

Swent: That was your big centennial celebration.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: I think it's significant; this is a figure that just came out
somewhere. The average American worker has 2.6 years with one
company, but the U.S. Borax average is fifteen years.

Randolph: Yes, I think that that it's an unusual characteristic of the
company, that service is unusually long. We have a lot of
people that retire with forty years of service, even forty- five
years of service.

Swent: And a good number of second-generation people also.

Randolph: That's right. In fact, we have an organization within the

company called the Twenty Mule Club which consists of the twenty
employees with the longest service. At the time I retired, the
minimum service for the twentieth mule was thirty-seven years,
and the service of the most senior mule was, I think, forty-
five years, which is an unusual thing in today's world. So,
despite problems that have surfaced at Boron from time to time,
people do stay with the company, which I guess leads us to
probably talk a little bit about the major strike in 1974, which
involved both Boron and Wilmington.

Swent: It began on June fifteenth.

Randolph: Yes. It lasted 132 days, the longest strike, certainly, that
we've ever had. It attracted national attention, both on the
part of labor and on the part of management, because during this
period, the company continued to operate the plant at greater
than design capacity and to ship on schedule and in general to
conduct its production operations with employees drawn from all
other elements of the company.

Swent: Where did you bring them from?

Randolph: We brought salesmen from the East Coast. We brought accountants
from Los Angeles. We brought engineers and scientists from the
research laboratory at Anaheim. It was, essentially, an armed
camp at Boron. We housed people within the plant, we fed them
with a kitchen internal to the plant.

Swent: It began with violence on day one.

Randolph: It began with extreme violence.

Swent: The very first night.

Randolph: We had a policy of having our contracts expire at midnight. We
have since changed that, because what happened on that night was
that the bargaining continued between the union committee and
management right up to the deadline, but it was pretty apparent
that there wasn't going to be an agreement. There were a lot of
people outside the plant gate that, as the evening went on, got
pretty well carried away with the excitement. When midnight

came, a gang stormed the gates, broke into the plant, did
serious damage setting fire to the little store that we
maintained there, where employees could buy company products at
cost. It was just savagery.

Swent: The newspaper said they burned down the personnel office.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: Which must have destroyed a lot of records.

Randolph: Yes, I guess that we lost some, but we didn't lose them all.

For some reason, the personnel office seemed to be the focus of
the rage of this gang.

Swent: There were also gunshots.

Randolph: Yes. It was a terrifying time for the people that were in the
plant, serious enough that the following morning I called
Governor [Ronald] Reagan to see if the situation warranted
calling out the National Guard to restore order. We were very
concerned that the local sheriff's deputies, the Kern County
sheriff's deputies, would [not] be able to control the violence.
I talked to the governor. He felt offhand that it wasn't enough
to call the National Guard, but he volunteered to call the
sheriff and the chairman of the board of supervisors in Kern
County to urge them to give us all the support they could. He
called me back after he had talked to them, and said that he had
been assured by both that we would get whatever was needed to
control the situation. And, in fact, that did occur. The board
of supervisors essentially lifted the lid on the sheriff's
budget, and the sheriff's department did a first-rate job of
controlling outbursts of violence that occurred during that 132-
day period.

Swent: At the same time, they struck your operations in the Los Angeles
harbor. ,

Randolph: Yes. Both Wilmington and Boron are locals within the ILWU, the
International Longshore Workers Union.

Swent: How long had you been dealing with them?

Randolph: Well, this had gone on for a number of years. It seems strange
that the longshore workers would represent people on the desert,
but the move really came through the Port of Los Angeles, where
our Wilmington plant is located. The employees seemed
dissatisfied with the chemical workers union that had been
representing them, and a drive by the longshore union got them

into Wilmington and then subsequently to Boron. So we've had
them since, 1 guess, sometime in the sixties. ' -><

Swent: Is it a craft union?

Randolph: No, it's a general union. All of the crafts are represented by
the negotiating committee for the longshoremen, so we don't have
the problem of separate craft union negotiations.

Swent: What were the problems?

Randolph: There were a number of problems which triggered the strike, I
think. Economics were not a serious consideration. The
question of pay increase and benefits increase seemed to have
been reasonably settled fairly early on. The problems that
seemed incapable of resolution at the bargaining table really
related to management rights, the ability of the cpmpany to
manage its plant in what we saw as the most economic fashion.

Swent: One was a classification of millwrights.

Randolph: Yes. One of the issues --we had a number of craft designations
in the plant. We had mechanics, we had welders, we had
millwrights, and we had, of course, electricians. The situation
had gotten to the point that in order for a mechanic to replace
a motor, for example, on a piece of equipment, he had to first
call a rigger to move the motor; he had to call an electrician
to disconnect and, if there was any welding to be done, had to
call a welder. It got to be one of these situations where three
people were standing around while one man was working. We
thought that it would be a more effective use of manpower, and
would give the employee an opportunity to learn other trades, to
consolidate most or all of these functions into one job
classification called millwright, and to undertake to train
mechanics to be riggers and to be welders, for example. We
didn't try to make electricians out of these people. The union,
of course, saw it as a job elimination program and, as such, as
anathema to their movement. But this was really only one of a
series of things that the company proposed.

Swent: Something about contracting out work.

Randolph: Yes. Contracting out work was probably the biggest issue of
all. This related to the overhaul and rebuild of diesel
engines, as one example. Traditionally, we had done rebuild of
our big diesel engines for the heavy equipment in the shop at
Boron, which is a terrible place to try to overhaul precision
machinery, because the desert winds pick up dust and dirt, and
it's impossible to make buildings truly dustproof. If you

rebuild an engine there you get dust and grit in the bearings,
and its life is relatively short, so it becomes a very expensive
thing. What we planned to do was to contract out the overhaul
of diesel engines- -send them out to a facility better equipped
geographically to deal with it, and then bring them back and
drop them into the trucks. Contracting out, again, was seen as
a job elimination program and, again, strongly fought by the
union.

Swent: You also said- -this is from the newspaper, the Los Angeles
Times- -you wanted to contract out work for a proposed $60-
million expansion during the next five years?

Randolph: Yes, that's right. I chose the truck shop as a specific

example, but we had plans for a major expansion. To us, the
proper way to do that was to hire outside contractors to do
construction, and not to build up in-plant forces to essentially
have our own construction department. Our problem was one of
controlling costs and efficient use of manpower. All of these
things contributed to this standoff between the two sides. I
think one has to also recognize that the leadership of the Boron
union, of the Boron local, at that time was in the hands of a
radical group. They were not representative of what I would
consider our mature middle-of-the-road employee. The president
of the union was determined to break the company, if necessary,
to triumph in the strike.

Swent: Did they have outside support?

Randolph: No, they really didn't, and that was a thing that ultimately led
to their defeat. We were able to bring in, on contract, workers
from the construction industry in Kern County to do heavy
maintenance and the things that our own people, our foremen and
the engineers that came in from Los Angeles and elsewhere
couldn't do. It was a time of unemployment for construction
workers in Kern County, so from that standpoint it was favorable
to our position in terms of operating the plant.

There were continued acts of violence. Dynamite was found
under house trailers, and we had security patrols patrolling the
area where families of managers and people working in the plant
lived.

Swent: One trailer was actually exploded,
there .

It just happened nobody was

Randolph: No one was there. We were bringing people in and out by

aircraft. People were shooting rifles at the aircraft. It
became very tough, and I think that the unfortunate thing was

€2

that the employees on strike deluded themselves that the company
was unable to operate the plant. One story came back to us that
they had people out watching the rail cars going out, and they
could tell from the fact that the springs weren't compressed
that there was nothing in the cars; the company was simply
moving empty cars around. This delusion persisted for that
period of time.

Swent: Did you go out there at all?

Randolph: Yes, I was in and out.

Swent: That took a little courage.

Randolph: Yes, we usually went in by air. Well, did it all the time, went
in by air.

Swent: By helicopter?

Randolph: No. We used one of the roads within the perimeter of the plant.
They graded it and used it as a landing strip. We had, I think,
four airplanes, a couple of helicopters- -essentially an air
force.

Every morning we had a meeting in my office to discuss
short-term strategy, depending on what we saw as what the ILWU
International headquarters might be amenable to in terms of
discussion. So we really took it one day at a time as we went
all the way through.

I went to San Francisco to talk to Harry Bridges, to see if
there was some way that the International could step in and to
bring some sense of reality to the Boron union leadership. It
was clear to us that we were going to be able to carry on for a
considerable period of time. Harry Bridges at that time was
quite an elderly man. He was still very much a major factor in
the union, and I suppose the best I can say about the meeting
was that it didn't produce much.

Swent: He was willing to talk to you, though.

Randolph: Oh, yes. I was hopeful that we could work something out,

because he carried a lot of weight with people in his union. If
he had been willing to talk to the people, I'm sure he could
have moved things toward a resolution of the dispute.

Swent :

Was he still the head of it?

Randolph: My recollection was that he was not still the chief executive,
but he was still very much a factor. Ultimately, as we came up
to that 132 days, the International executives did step in. The
International saw that this was taking their union down the
tubes and that, in effect, it was going to break the union,
because some people were beginning to come back to work. The
International called up and capitulated. They said, "Tell us
under what conditions you'll settle, and we will sell it to the
Boron union." So we spent more than a few days- -I think a week,
probably- -really drawing up the terms. On the management rights
issues in contention, we simply restated our initial position.
We also set a lot of conditions about taking employees back- -
conditions under which we would take them back- -and those that
had been involved in violence were going to be fired. We pretty
well made those things stick.

Lessons Learned from the Strike

Swent: You got a three-year contract.

Randolph: Yes. Now, it all sounds very tough, and it was tough both on

our part and on their part, but I think that from our standpoint
we learned a great deal out of that strike. In my mind, it's
significant that we've never had a strike since, and we've never
had better employee relations than we've had since. What we
found is that we had been doing a lot of things wrong, and this
came from our own people working inside and seeing the way we
did things.

After the strike ended, we instituted several things that I
think have had a major impact on labor relations there at Boron.
We began a long training program for foremen. Traditionally,
our foremen are promoted from the union ranks, and they really
had not received a lot of training in how to deal with people.
We brought in outside trainers, professionals, to train the
foremen, so we had a foreman training program.

Then, under this millwright program, we did what we had
proposed to do, which was to set up skill training programs for
our employees . Our training department out there is one of our
showplaces. I don't know whether they took you through it or
not .

Swent :

Yes, they did. It was impressive,

Randolph: We take unskilled people from the labor pool and train them as
mechanics, as welders, as riggers; we can train our own
electricians, our own instrument mechanics, everything right
there on scene. It's had a profound effect on the employee's
sense of the company's interest in his well-being.

The union local after the strike threw out the radical
leadership and has elected, in succeeding years, people of some
stability and maturity. They're not patsies, but at least the
Boron management can sit down and talk over problems with them
and get things settled without it becoming a major issue. We
still get problems that have to be settled by arbitration, but
it isn't like it used to be. Nothing like it used to be . I
think that our response to the strike was based on what we saw
that we had been doing wrong for a long period of time. So it
was a traumatic experience for both sides, but I think that at
least we laid the groundwork to prevent it from happening again.

Randolph: There were a few comic incidents related to the strike. We went
out the front door of the office building here in Los Angeles
one day at noon and found a television crew out front. The crew
obviously was waiting for something, and as we came through the
door, a bus rolled up and a group of women from Boron got off
the bus with their placards and union signs and proceeded to
picket the front door of the building for the benefit of the
television crew. The crew was there about ten minutes. The
pickets were there about eleven minutes, climbed back on the
bus, and, as far as I know, went back to Boron, [chuckles]
There was a little of that- -a little theater- -as well as the
dead serious aspects.

It hopefully is something that we will never see again.
But that really was one of the major affairs of the company in
the 1970s.

Quartz Hill. Alaska: Learning to Lobby

Randolph: I think the other thing that began to occupy our interests in
that period of time was the discovery of the Quartz Hill
molybdenum deposit.

Swent: This was something a little new, for you to be going out
exploring, wasn't it?

Randolph: Well, we had had a substantial exploration program within the
company since the early sixties. We had a broad-based program
in metals and in industrial minerals and, of course, a
substantial program in borate exploration.

The Quartz Hill discovery of a massive deposit of
molybdenum sulfide occurred as a result of an exploratory
program in southeast Alaska that had been carried on for two or
three years. It was a summer program. We employed student
geologists, primarily from the University of Washington, under
the supervision of our own geological team. They had a
houseboat hired for the summer each year with a helicopter pad
on the top of the houseboat. Each morning, the routine was to
take groups of student geologists up to the tops of the mountain
ranges along the panhandle of southeast Alaska.

Swent : Where was the boat?

Randolph: The boat would be in the fjords or along the shore. The

helicopter would take the young people up, and they would then
work their way down the mountain streams to tidewater,
collecting stream sediment samples as they came down. I think
it was probably as inventive a way of doing a general
exploration as one could devise, because it took advantage of
the fact that the stream sediments would probably contain at
least traces of any metallic elements that were in that terrain.

Swent: I would think that you could almost get people to pay you to let
them work for you.

Randolph: Yes, they really enjoyed it- -the young people. It was a great
summer for them. They were all young, active people. As you
know, geologists love to get outside. They don't like to be
inside.

In the course of the second summer of this exploration,
they began to turn up these very significant amounts of
molybdenum sulfide in the stream sediments in this area east of
Ketchikan in an area which we subsequently called Quartz Hill.

Swent: Could you go wherever you wanted to go in this area to explore?

Randolph: Yes. At that point in time, this was all in the National

Forest, and there were no restrictions on exploration or, with
the necessary permits, on mining or other extractive industries,

Swent: And you had reasons to suppose that you could go in?

Randolph: Yes. We had no reason at that time to think that there were

going to be any restraints on the ability to commercialize our
claims. , -

Swent: This must have been very expensive exploration.

Randolph: Well, in this initial phase, it wasn't. We were finding out a
lot for not very much money, but when we had located the
deposit, which in itself was something of a detective story once
the general area had been found, then we got into the
exploration phase which really began to cost money; that was
core drilling.

Swent: Was there any particular demand for molybdenum sulfide?

Randolph: Yes. Molybdenum is a major metallic mineral- -as molybdenum
oxide, primarily for use in specialty steel production. The
primary producer of molybdenum in the United States is AMAX.
We, of course, saw from the first that if this project went
ahead as we anticipated that we would be entering a market which
was pretty heavily dominated by an established producer, but the
market price of molybdenum was quite high. That really was the
economic impetus for continuing.

Swent: This was early in the seventies?

Randolph: Yes. This was really beginning sometime in 1974.

Swent: The exploration expanded in 1973; the deposit was announced as
located in 1974.

Randolph: Yes, but we really had had a pretty good-sized, as I said,
exploration program for at least ten years.

Swent: And you were looking for molybdenum?

Randolph: No, we very seldom started out with a preconceived notion of
what we were looking for in that sort of a program. In other
cases, we would be trying to find, within an area where the
probability was high, specific elements like gold or tin or
whatever. In this sort of survey exploration that we were doing
up there, I'd say we were surprised to find molybdenum.

As it turned out, it is a deposit of enormous size, the
largest known deposit in the world, although low-grade. And,
certainly, from our standpoint, it looked at that time as though
it was worth pursuing very, very seriously.

The roadblocks in our way began to emerge in the years
following our initial discovery. This came largely from the
increased emphasis within the United States on the environment
and the preservation of forest lands and wilderness. We found
soon after we began to seriously go into the molybdenuan
exploration that we were going to be restrained, if the
legislation passed, by some very, very restrictive laws
governing wilderness areas in the--

Swent: This is [Morris] Udall's H.R. 39?

Randolph: Yes, the Udall bill.

Swent: I don't know exactly when it was proposed. Your first major
brochure that you published to educate people about it was in
1977. I don't know when the bill was first proposed.

Randolph: It was in the middle seventies.

Swent: Basically, it's a bill to prevent any mining in Alaska.

Randolph: Yes. What became known as H.R. 39, which was a bill introduced
in the Congress by Congressman Morris Udall and called the
Alaska Lands Act, in sort of shorthand parlance, would have
virtually eliminated our opportunity to develop the deposit. We
spent a considerable period of time lobbying the Congress, the
House of Representatives and the Senate, on our position in
respect to H.R. 39 and, as we saw it, the consequences of
denying us the opportunity to proceed with the Quartz Hill
project .

Swent: How did you go about that? Did you do it directly?

Randolph: Yes, we did it directly, and we did it in a slightly unusual way
in the sense that we marshalled a force of roughly half a dozen
of our own people. I was the leader of it, our chief geologist,
a number of people from the geology department, our
environmental affairs officer, and others who could speak well
and knowledgeably about the subject volunteered, and we went to
Washington. We spent two or three solid weeks just pounding the
halls of Congress, going from office to office, just talking and
going right down the list of- -

Swent: Alaska legislators?

Randolph: No, these were the members of Congress that would be called upon
to vote and whose vote was either uncertain or we thought would
be opposed to the special treatment that we thought we should
have .

Swent :
Randolph:

Swent:
Randolph:

Swent :
Randolph:

Did the Alaska people agree with you?

Yes. Very fortunately, the two senators and the lone
congressman from Alaska saw the advantage to the state in the
development of the mineral industry and the Quartz Hill project.

Who were they?

Well, the two senators were Senator Ted Stevens, the senior
senator and at the time the whip for the Republican party in the
Senate, and the junior senator was Senator Frank Murkowski . The
congressman was Congressman Don Young.

What other states were you talking to?
states?

Mining states? Western

By and large, the mining state people were going to be favorable
to our position. The ones that were the most difficult were the
people from the East and Midwest. I always had the feeling that
the people in the eastern United States visualized Alaska as
being about the size of Central Park in New York and that our
attempt to carve out an enclave of some acreage there was going
to practically cover the state. I was never sure that we really
got across to those people the enormous size of the state of
Alaska.

Oh, it's awfully hard to realize.

It is, but I think that the Eastern states — representatives and
senators from the Eastern states- -were the most difficult to
deal with.

So you just went in on your own?

Yes. We were fortunate to have a Washington representative that
we had hired at the beginning of this who had had close
associations with the Alaska congressional delegation.

Can you name him?

Yes, Jack Ferguson. Jack did a great job for us- -well, he still
does. He helped us organize our campaign. He set up the
appointments for us, although we told our own story. We told
our own story, but Jack was very, very helpful.

Was he was a registered lobbyist?

Well, I'm sure he must be, because that's--

Swent: Does he still work for you?

Randolph: Yes, he still works for us.

Swent: Did you do work with the [American] Mining Congress?

Randolph: We kept touch with the Mining Congress, but the Mining Congress,
my feeling was, was forced to carry water on both shoulders. I
think the Mining Congress was anxious to keep good relations
with Congressman Udall, so we didn't get what I would consider
the full support of the Mining Congress that otherwise I would
have depended on to help us. So, essentially, what we did was
to do our own lobbying, and, from time to time, I would go in
and brief Allen Overton [executive secretary, AMC] on what was
going on. But we didn't get an awful lot of direct support from
them .

Swent: How successful were you?

Randolph: Well, I think, in the final analysis, looking back on it, that
we were extremely successful, because the law as it was finally
passed by both houses makes a specific provision for U.S. Borax
to have an enclave for the development of the Quartz Hill
molybdenum project.

Swent: It took quite a while.

Randolph: It did. I've skipped over a lot of the convoluted history of

that. The Congress adjourned before considering it in total the
first time. It was reintroduced the following session. Those
things really didn't seem to me pertinent to the overall story.

Swent: There was a time when actually this area was set aside as a
national monument. You had to get around that.

Randolph: That's right. We had a long and--

Swent: That was done by the Secretary of Agriculture. Establishing
Misty Fjords National Monument was a presidential action.

Randolph: Yes, it was President [Jimmy] Carter, who created the Misty
Fjords National Monument.

Swent: Did you have to lobby him?

Randolph: I don't remember going to see the secretary. I think we figured
we weren't going to make many points by doing it. I did talk to

people very close to the administration, really without any
tangible result that I could see.

Swent: Did you ever take anybody up there to show them? *

Randolph: We tried several summers to get members of Congress to go to
Alaska. Senator Stevens was the one that kept doing this,
because he was trying to get people to see the problems that
Alaska faced and the immense size of it and the need for a
mineral base. For several summers, he would take as many people
as he could get to go up there, but it was a relatively small
number when you consider the total number of members of the
House and the Senate. We didn't really get that many to go. It
was an exhausting trip, because he really took them almost from
one end of the state to the other. It was airplanes, and on the
ground, and back in airplanes, and fly on- -day after day after
day .

Swent: It wasn't as much fun as the Virgin Islands.

Randolph: No , no . I think it was a wearing experience for all of them,
[laughter)

When the bill came to the Senate for consideration of the
Senate version, the principal proponent of the environmental
position was Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. I always
had a great deal of admiration for Senator Tsongas. He was a
very, very bright man. I think despite his liberal character he
was anxious to see that justice was done and that things were
fairly treated. He clearly had the majority of votes within the
committee to foreclose us from any position in the national
monument, but he withheld that and left it to us to negotiate a
compromise with the Sierra Club. I always respected him for
that. I think that the experience of dealing with the Sierra
Club was one of those traumatic experiences that I hope we never
have to go through again.

Swent: They were the organized opposition?

Randolph: Organized opposition. I think they may have represented a
number of other environmental groups, but, as the visible
figure, the people from the Sierra Club were the ones that
negotiated with us. ■ ■"

Swent: Who were you dealing with then?

Randolph: Well, I can't remember the guy's name. These were people who
were- -I'd say they're legislative advocates probably.

Swent :
Randolph:

Swent:
Randolph:

Swent :
Randolph:

People from Washington?

Yes. I think they were from Washington,
remember their names.

Worse than Bridges?

I'm sorry I can't

Oh, much worse than Bridges, because age had mellowed Bridges a
little bit. These people still had fire in their eye, and it
was one of those situations where if you tentatively make a
concession in what you expect to be the give-and-take of
negotiation- -they immediately jump on that as the beginning
point for the next round. Very, very, very difficult people to
deal with- -from my standpoint, unethical and untrustworthy. You
would think that you had finally concluded an agreement, and the
next day they've changed their minds. We finally did convince
Senator Tsongas that we had something that seemed workable, and
the legislation, as I say, that finally came out gives us a
right to an enclave within the national monument.

But only you.

But only us, specific by nfune . Our visibility, as you can
imagine, was very, very high at that point to be named by name
in legislation. It really was as a result of tireless hours in
the halls, in the passageways, just buttonholing one after
another of these people.

Did you enjoy that?

Yes, 1 did. You know, it really keeps you on your toes, because
you generally can feel you have about three minutes to five
minutes to state a very complex issue. You really have to have
it boiled down to the essentials and then leave for follow-up by
someone with the staff later on, basically. And, of course, you
learn to be able to tell when the "thousand-yard stare" sets in,
and you might just as well take thirty seconds to wind up and
get out, because you're either not going to change any minds or
the guy's thinking about his next appointment or something. But
it's an instructive lesson in real civics as opposed to
classroom discussions of how the government works.

I found that, by and large, I have a good deal of respect
for members of the Senate. I think that they are, in the main,
men who give serious consideration to the problems that come
before them. There is, of course, the political aspect of
everything, but I think the quality of the elected senator is
pretty high. I don't really feel that way about members of the
House of Representatives. I think we've got some men of very

questionable capability in a lot of those offices, but I suspect
that when you have five hundred people they can't all be men of
great wisdom. But it was one of the great educational
experiences of life, let's say.

Swent: It was a very long one, too. '" »■

Randolph: Yes, it was long and exhausting. Yes, I would say in toto from
the time things began until, well, really until the time I
retired, more than ten years.

Swent: Your first brochure that you put out for public relations on
this was 1977, and the fifth one was 1987.

Randolph: Yes, okay. So there's ten years. ' '

Swent: That was a full ten years that you were actively doing a public
relations campaign on that.

Randolph: Of course, during the later years, I was spending a great deal
of time in Alaska because we then had the environmental battle
shifting from Washington to on- scene in Alaska. We would have,
in Ketchikan- -Ketchikan was our base of operation- -strong
supporters for what we wanted to do, and, at the other extreme,
an element of lunatic fringe really trying to destroy the whole
thing.

Swent: It was 1984 when you got it started, wasn't it?

Randolph: We didn't go beyond the final phases of engineering. We did not
come to the construction phase. We did the preliminary
engineering surveys , the economic surveys , and the environmental
impact statement.

Swent: You spent a billion dollars?

Randolph: No, we had spent $100 million. We saw the need for a capital

investment of about a billion. The thing that caused us to put
the whole project on hold was really the fact that in the
intervening years the price of molybdenum had dropped, although
at the time that we made the initial survey of means of
financing, the price was still up and things looked as though we
wouldn't have too much difficulty in putting together a
consortium of banks on a global basis to finance it. By the
time we came to the preliminary cost estimates, the price of
molybdenum had come down to a point that we couldn't see that it
was going to fly at that point.

Swent: What was the ribbon- cutting ceremony?

Randolph: That was on completion of the construction of the access road.
In order for us to do the bulk sampling and to do a lot of the
metallurgical work, we had to have a way to get the material
out. This was one of the real ploys of the environmental
obstructionists, to prevent any road construction or any way to
let us continue with our experimental work.

We managed to get all the permits, and under Forest Service
supervision, put in this road which really was the opening up of
the area to the point that we could get trucks and equipment
moving. That in itself was a fantastic Job, because we had to
heavy- lift in machinery, scrapers, and bulldozers, and trucks,
by what they call a "skycrane," which is a huge helicopter. We
dismantled the trucks and the tractors and airlifted them in to
begin to do the road from the upper end and also from the lower
end. It was an engineering feat in itself. But we finally came
up to the point of decisionmaking on construction and had to
postpone it and really put everything together in a package that
we would feel could be reactivated whenever things look up.

Swent: So it's still just on the back burner?

Randolph: It's on the back burner. I can't argue with that. You wouldn't
incur the financial burden of a billion dollars if you couldn't
see that it was going to pay off handsomely. While I'm certain
in my own mind that at some time this is going to be a major
viable project, right now I would have to agree that it's best
just held.

Swent: But you put a lot into it.

Randolph: Well, we did. Of course, there's that emotional content to this
sort of thing. You hate to put it down because you invested not
only money but an enormous amount of personal agony in it.

Swent: And here you're projecting a fifty- five -year life.

Randolph: Yes, it really has everything going for it.

Swent: Lots of new employees.

Randolph: Yes, a huge enterprise.

Swent: Thirty-seven million dollar annual payroll.

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: Twelve million dollars annual Alaska taxes. !■

Randolph: Yes. Most of the people In Alaska that had anything to do with
government or local economies saw this as something that was
going to be a great benefit. The people, of course, by and
large, that were opposed were Johnny-come -latelys from the lower
forty-eight that had gone to Alaska looking for a primitive
life. The people that were there who were living the primitive
life weren't quite that concerned with continuing it.

Swent: But the ultimate vote locally was in your favor? ;

Randolph: Oh, yes, yes. All the city council, the borough council, the
newspaper. Citizens in general all looked to it as something
that was going to help Ketchikan. Ketchikan has a pulp mill
that teeters on the brink of extinction and it depends on
fishing as its other major industry. Those two things often have
cyclically bad times. That pulp mill sooner or later, I think,
is doomed simply because they can't meet the increasingly
stringent EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] standards on
effluents. They've been given a new lease on life time after
time, but sooner or later that's going to run out. I think
everyone recognizes that.

Swent: You might mention your honorary degree. - r- ;.

Randolph: Oh, yes. I gave the commencement address one year at the
University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and was given an honorary
doctoral degree in return. We had very close relations with a
lot of the people in Alaska, with the University in Fairbanks
and in Anchorage; with the people, the owners, of the Anchorage
Times : and with a number of the banking interests in Anchorage.
In Fairbanks, we had many friends there, including Senator
Murkowski and his wife. >

Swent: Were you looking for financing in Alaska?

Randolph: No. Our financing would have been largely with eastern U.S.
investment bankers and Europeans. We did consider Japanese
investment, but we didn't talk to anyone. It was just sort of a
peripheral thought. We did talk in London to the people there
in the various banks. We did hire as a consultant one of the
investment banking houses in New York to advise us, and they put
together the outline of the financing package that they thought
was feasible. So had the price of molybdenum held up, I think
we would have had no difficulty- -will have no difficulty when
it goes up again.

Cutting the ribbon for the road to Quartz Hill, Alaska, 1984. Left to
right: Frank Sandor, Regional Forester, US Forest Service; Senator Frank
Murkowski; Carl Randolph; Governor Sheffield; Senator Ted Stevens;
Congressman Don Young.

Photograph courtesy U.S. Borax & Chemical Corp.

Swent; Which it will eventually?

Randolph: Yes. Minerals, like copper and others, have periods of feast

and famine. Gene [Smith], I'm sure, will have a great deal more
to say about this, because Gene was really in the trenches all
the way through this.

Swent: A couple of perhaps peripheral questions. Did the Union

Carbide, Bhopal , disaster seem to give you any problems? It
happened in 1984, and I just thought any company with "chemical"
in its title might sort of get the shivers at that point.

Randolph: Outside of the fact that it struck me as incongruous that the
Union Carbide people could be held responsible for what
happened, it was not a problem as far as we were concerned.

Expansion into Glass Sand

Randolph: I think the last big project or activity in the eighties before
I retired was the expansion of our activities into glass sand,
silica .

Swent: Is this also called silica sand?

Randolph: Yes. Silica sand, I think, is probably a redundant term,

because all sand is silica. It's basically glass sand. The
rationale for an interest in glass sand is, of course, that the
glass industry is the largest user of borates, both the heat-
resistant glasses like Pyrex and, an even larger market,
fiberglas- -textile fiberglas and insulation fiberglas. So it
seemed to us a very logical thing to be able to deal with these
companies not only for their borates but also for the sand which
is an essential in glassmaking.

Swent: Corning was already one of your customers.

Randolph: Corning was one of our big customers. Owens -Corning Fiberglas,
Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Owens Illinois- -all these were major
customers. We knew the glass industry in considerable detail,
and I would say that for some time we had thought that glass
sand was an interesting opportunity. Our exploration people had
been looking for deposits at various strategic locations.

^Eugene Smith, oral history. Regional Oral History Office, University
of California, Berkeley, in process 1991.

Swent: How does an idea like this begin?

Randolph: Well, we have had for a number of years a small staff of people
who are our economic development department. What they do is to
keep an ear to the ground and to think in terms of industry
groups that might be compatible with our background. I think
that these things that we talked about earlier- -Columbia Wax for
example- -while they had some fit, it wasn't such a close fit,
that despite the way that we tended to smother them, it really
was going to click. But sand really seemed to be.

Swent: Boraxo was less and less a big thing.

Randolph: Yes. Both the consumer products- -the things you see in the

grocery store- -and these industrial janitorial supplies really
are a pretty small part of the overall company revenues.

Swent: Whereas they had been a big thing.

Randolph: At one point in time, they were proportionately large, but our
other lines of business have grown at a much faster rate in
recent years .

Well, your question was, is there any planning to this sort
of thing or does it sort of occur to you in the middle of the
night? I'd say it was well thought out, trying to align
capabilities and interests and size and so forth all the time.
It's easy to see things that would fit but you're constantly
faced with the problem should you try to develop something like
that from the ground up or should you try to find someone who's
already in the business that may, for one reason or another, be
for sale. We were very fortunate that, at the time that we were
really ready to look, the possibility that both Pennsylvania
Glass Sand and Ottawa Silica Company might be for sale, came up.

Swent: Where were they?

Randolph: Ottawa, Illinois, and Pennsylvania- -well , they aren't in
Pennsylvania. Their headquarters were in West Virginia,
[chuckles] ,

Swent: You said they "came up." Somebody must have known.

Randolph: Well, yes. I think here, again, the people in economic

development have a lot of contact with people in the investment
banking business. Both of these came to us through investment
bankers who knew that we were looking.

Swent: At about the same time?

Randolph: In succession. It was Pennsylvania Glass Sand first and then

Ottawa Silica Company after that. We put the two organizations
together. We made economies in the staffing and production and
sales and the overall administrative functions- -we renamed the
combined companies U.S. Silica, a companion to U.S. Borax.

Swent: That would be a subsidiary?

Randolph: It isn't really a subsidiary. We had a holding company that we
established above U.S. Borax, and we established U.S. Borax and
U.S. Silica as companion companies under that. As far as I
know, the structural arrangement is still the same. In other
words, U.S. Borax and U.S. Silica are still parallel companies
under the holding company. But the diversification has worked
out very well. It is a good example of a fit of organizations,
product lines, and outlets, the things that we can understand.
Even the processing technology is not very different from some
of the simpler parts of borax processing.

Swent: Could you do all this without any relation to RTZ [Rio Tinto
Zinc]?

Randolph: Oh, no. This is all with their concurrence. Yes, we do it
here. They don't do it for us.

Swent: After you left, I understand Boraxo and your consumer product
operations were sold.

Randolph: Not really sold; the trademarks were licensed to Dial, which is
a strong marketer in the grocery stores. U.S. Borax still owns
the trademarks. Essentially, the franchise was sold.

Swent: You still supply the borax.

Randolph: We still supply the borax. I suppose that it was one of those
events whose time had come. I hated to see it go.

Swent: It seems a shame.

Randolph: It seemed a shame to me. From my point of view, although it was
not a large part of the company's operations, it was our window
on the world. It was the only thing that people recognized
about the company. We're not listed as such on the New York
Stock Exchange, and yet everyone knows the Twenty Mule Team. It
seemed to me that it carried its own weight pretty well, and it
was our identifier. I really hated to see it go, but I think
that- -as I say, perhaps its time had come.

It's a complex problem, marketing things in the grocery
store. You have to constantly be in promotions and so forth to
keep what they call "shelf space." If there's no incentive to
the store, sooner or later you find that you don't have any
space on the shelf. And, of course, that's death, because if
there's no space on the shelf no one buys. For years, it had
been a tough row to hoe , but we had people that were pretty
adept at it. As I say, it sort of carried itself. I did hate
to see it go.

Swent: Are you still on the board?

Randolph: No. I stayed on the board for a little over a year after I

retired. I really have no present connection with the company
except one that comes from having been around for thirty years.
It's been a marvelous career, and no one could have asked for
any more varied experiences than the things that we've talked
about .

Thoughts on the Collepial Style of Management

Swent: We want to talk about the other things you've done, but you
specifically used the word "collegial."

Randolph: Yes, I did want to spend a little time on that. Early on, I
mentioned a problem to you that I felt had beset the company
prior to my taking over as president. That was that there was i
great deal of infighting and interdepartmental rivalry and the
construction of artificial barriers between departments. I
believed that until we had knocked down those barriers and had
developed a spirit of good will within the company and a mutual
trust between departments that we were not really going to be
able to effectively manage our way in an increasingly
competitive world. So I was fortunate, I think, in that the
majority of the people who were in the senior positions- -either
vice presidents or the next level down- -were people who
understood this and who were as anxious as I was to direct our
attention to the real problems of the company.

Randolph: I think as the message went out- -and I made it pretty plain and
kept reemphasizing it that this nonproductive infighting was
going to stop- -we found that the people that were largely the
disruptive forces, over a period of time, left the company. We

had a couple of early retirements, and when the organization
finally settled down, a visitor once characterized the
management style as "collegial." I hadn't heard it described as
that before, but in thinking about it, clearly, it was true.
While we didn't make decisions by committee, everyone at almost
every level had the opportunity to have a say in things, and
there was an understanding that when the time came to make a
decision that what was decided was final --that there had been
lots of opportunity for discussion and argument, but the time
for that was past, and we would move on. The executive
committee which we've set up in more recent years functioned
this way, I think, amicably. I don't think that it was a system
that was anything but very good for the company and the times in
which we were operating.

Swent : It sounds good.

Randolph: It really was. We had cooperation between departments that had
been unheard of in years past. I think there was a time that
many of us wondered if the functional organization really was
going to work within U.S. Borax, because, for a functional
organization to really be productive, people have to be
cooperative department to department. You can't have one
department trying to dominate all activities. With free
discussion at all levels, there were no longer dominant
departments, and so old rivalries disappeared.

Swent: What were your functions?

Randolph: Let's see. We had marketing, technical, operations, finance,
and legal .

Swent: And the alternative would be to have--

Randolph: Would be to have divisions. At one time, we had the Pacific

Coast Borax Company division, which was borax; we had the U.S.
Potash Company division, and we had the Twenty Mule Team
department. These were product-oriented. They had their own
production facilities, their own production staffs.

Swent: Each one did its own marketing?

Randolph: Yes, that's right. That was a system of organization that Hugo
changed fairly early on. It had its own problems. The
functional organization, as I said, persists today, and I think
it would be very difficult to- -well, it could be changed now
that the Twenty Mule Team department has gone, but I don't know
if there's any overpowering need to, because I think things work
pretty well as they certainly were working when I was here.

Swent: You might mention selection of board members and your relations
with the board.

Randolph: The board consisted of some of the officers of U.S. Borax, some
of the English people, and two or perhaps three outsiders.
There was always a majority of U.S. directors.

Swent : No women?

Randolph: No women at the present time. The U.S. directors were largely
chosen by the chairman. He would consult with me about it, but
basically the chairman chose the outsiders. Because of the
ownership of the company and the makeup of the board, relations
with the board were not difficult for me. It was a very
different situation, I think, than a publicly held company where
you have largely outside directors. Most of these- people knew
pretty well what was going on all the time. Of course, we kept
the two or three outside directors briefed on what was going on.

Swent: Were your board major stockholders?

Randolph: The English were representing the stockholders, RTZ.

Swent: So there was no conflict there.

Randolph: No, no. I can't remember any time that we had any substantial
dissent within the board.

Swent: There was one stockholder suit.

Randolph: Oh, yes, that was way back; that was over the bulk shipping.

Swent: It was over the German bulk shipping.

Randolph: At that period in time, we had a 25 percent public holding, and
I can't even remember their disposition of the suit.

Swent: The court decided it had no merit.

Randolph: I think that was it, because it certainly didn't have any
lasting impact.

I think we had one other suit which was dropped, or perhaps
it didn't even become a full-blown suit, which questioned
whether the tender offer for the minority shares was adequate.
I think that that one foundered on the first round, because the
tender offer was somewhere around thirty dollars a share, and
the stock on the stock exchange at about that time and

Swent :

subsequently was around eighteen, as I recall, so it was pretty
hard for them to feel they weren't getting better than full
value. I don't even recall that that one ever got into court.

You didn't go into your relations with the IRS [Internal Revenue
Service] .

Randolph:

Swent:
Randolph:

Swent :
Randolph:

It's sort of an ongoing adversarial relationship- -probably
every mining company has the same situations with the Internal
Revenue Service.

You had to have a statement in your annual report every year.

Yes, that we had unresolved problems with the IRS. These all,
of course, related to depletion allowance on the ore body at
Boron. Periodically, we would have new examining agents from
the IRS who would see the depletion allowance in the financial
reports as a plum to be picked off by the tax collector. Each
time, we would go through a series of negotiations with the
agent and usually go to an appeal in order to preserve the
depletion allowance as provided for in the tax regulations.
It's just a fact of life that this was going to come up every
once in a while, and we simply dealt with it and, in general,
prevailed in our position. We have an office downstairs which
is reserved just for the IRS examiners.

Do you ever need to cope with this on the state level?

I don't recall that it has been a problem. I think the state
tended to follow the lead of the IRS.

Swent: Did the state ever press for ore taxes or severance taxes?

Randolph: Well, I don't remember anything untoward in that regard. I

don't know what the status is today. There was a controversy
that seemed to be continuing within California on unitary tax,
but that never was fully resolved while I was here.

Swent: What about relationships with your counterpart in other

companies? I notice very early you were elected to the board of
Los Angeles Association of Merchants and Manufacturers
Association. There may be other similar groups that you have
been involved in.

Randolph: Well, of course, the company tries to keep active in

associations of other organizations with the same sort of
problems. We belong to the California Mining Association, the
California Manufacturers Association.

Swent: Have you personally done this?

Randolph: I haven't gotten involved in either one of those. Most of my
involvement in more recent years has been on the federal level,
primarily with relation to congressional activities.

Swent: With whom?

Randolph: Primarily the American Mining Congress [AMC] , and I was

alternate director of the Chemical Manufacturers Association for
a while. Those are two. We also were active in the various
potash industry associations, both of Canada and here in the
United States at the time that we were in that. I was chairman
of the Canadian Potash Producers Association at a very difficult
time for the industry. That's one thing we didn't talk about.
We didn't talk about the sale of Allan Potash Mines.

The Sale of Allan Potash

Swent: No. Would you like to talk about that?

Randolph: In the sixties, when we constructed the mine at Allan, the

government of Saskatchewan was very clearly a free enterprise
government. They advertised themselves as such. Saskatchewan
was a so-called "have-not" province, and the coming of the
potash mines meant a great deal in terms of employment and a tax
base. The very happy situation with that government came to an
end with the untimely and sudden death of the premier, Ross
Thatcher.

In the succeeding government, the Socialist party- -the NDP
--came to power. From that point on, we were faced with a
government interceding in the operations of the industry, in
terms of establishing pricing policies, production quotas, and
ultimately announcing that it was their intention to acquire
ownership of at least 50 percent of the mines, which they
proceeded to do. They selectively approached the owners of the
various mines.

Swent: That is, 50 percent of each mine?

Randolph: No, 50 percent of the total number of mines. I think they--

[ chuckles] - -they used a certain judgment in doing it, because it
seemed to follow a pattern of choosing what they thought were
the better mines from the standpoint of ore deposits, mine
conditions, and so forth. They came to us saying that they

would like to enter into negotiations to buy Allan Potash Mines.
I think all the owners of Allan had been aghast, initially, at
the thought that the government was about to nationalize the
mining industry.

Swent: The co-owners were still Texas Gulf Sulphur and Swift?

Randolph: And us. Yet, when the government came to us, we concluded that
we were at about the point in the list that it probably was the
better part of valor to enter into discussions with them about
their purchase of the operation, because we could visualize that
if we declined, and they went to others and we were left in the
50 percent of private ownership, it might be a very, very tough
situation in future years. So we and Swift entered a long and
protracted negotiation for the sale of our interests. Texas
Gulf at this point opted to retain its share of the operation,
recognizing that it would be in partnership with the provincial
government.

Swent: Who were you actually dealing with?

Randolph: We were dealing with the bureaucracy of the Saskatchewan

government. Personnel had been drawn from the Department of
Mineral Resources and had been posted to a newly formed crown
corporation, which was to be the government's operating entity.
I think that we handled that negotiation skillfully. I managed
to establish a good personal rapport with David Dombowski , the
president of this new crown corporation, and managed to break a
number of deadlocks on terms and conditions by informal
discussions with him. In the end, we sold the enterprise for
the highest price that anyone got for a comparable mine in
Saskatchewan.

Swent: Did you have any trouble selling this to your board?

Randolph: No. When you get the highest price, it's difficult to argue
with success. Although we made a profit on our original
investment, I think we all hated to see Allan Potash go, but it
was one of those circumstances in which it didn't look as though
we were going to have much opportunity to control our own fate
if the government proceeded to get into the industry in a major
way.

Swent: How have they done with it since then?

Randolph: Well, I think it's had its ups and downs, and more downs than

ups. I should say before we leave this, that I found the people
in Saskatchewan to be about the nicest and most genuine of any
that I have met. We had a lot of problems there, during

construction and involving the sale, but it was always a
pleasure dealing with the Canadians as people.

Swent: Someone said one of Riemer's problems was in dealing with the
English.

Randolph: Well, it was a little bit of the same difficulty that he had
with John Gustafson. I think that personalities just didn't
lend themselves to an easy association.

Swent: It might not necessarily be nationality, though?

Randolph: I don't think nationality really had anything to do with it.

I think that perhaps one of Hugo's problems was that he
failed to recognize that he didn't really hold all the aces. He
would take positions on issues that were opposed to those of the
chairman of the board. I don't think there are many companies
where a president can do that time after time and not sooner or
later have some real difficulties, and that is sort of what
happened to Hugo. 1 could see it happening, but Hugo was a very
stubborn man. It was impossible to counsel him on something
like that. He somehow had the feeling that he was going to
prevail, and, in actuality, all of us could see that he really
wasn't. It just became an untenable situation and his leaving
was the only way to solve it.

Swent: In the present organization are there U.S.
English board?

Borax people on the

Randolph: No. Hugo was the last one to be on any of those British boards.
There are a number of reasons for the change. We had some
antitrust concerns, and there was a period of time when we were
trying to make sure that the corporate veil between U.S. Borax
and RTZ was rigorously maintained.

Swent: Are they on this board?

Randolph: Yes, they are on this board. But, of course, they are sole
stockholders .

Sailing. Woodworking. Photography

Swent: We wanted to touch on your other activities. Are we ready for
that?

»s

Randolph: Yes, I think probably so. I guess ever since childhood I've had
a romance with the sea. It goes on from the time of adolescence
through my naval career to pleasure boats. Really, now that I'm
retired, I have the time to spend with boats and the ocean that
I've always wanted. This is a continuing and consuming
interest- -not just boats but all the things that relate to the
ocean.

This luncheon I went to today at USC [University of
Southern California] was as a director of the Oceanographic
Associates of USC, which is a support group for their
oceanographic laboratory and their research vessel. It's sort
of an ancillary interest to boats and the sea.

I am also very active in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. I
was operations officer for the Eleventh Coast Guard District
Auxiliary this past year. That's a very professional
organization that demands your constant study and an updating of
skills in all aspects of boat handling and navigation- -all of
those things I like.

The other things in way of avocations are things where I
use my hands. I enjoy woodworking. I've got a magnificent
woodshop and almost all the tools that one could ever hope to
have. When I retired, the board of directors gave me a heavy-
duty shaper, which is a major shop tool for cutting special
moldings and forms. It's the sort of thing that very few
amateur woodworkers have and a lot of cabinet shops don't. It
really augments all the other equipment that I have, so I enjoy
that.

Swent :
Randolph :

The other big hobby is photography. I suppose that I
initially got into that more with an interest in the technical
aspects of photography than the artistic aspects, but I think
that as time has gone on I've sort of developed a balance
between the two. I have prints hung in a number of competitions
and juried shows, and I've won "Best of Show" a couple of times.
The prizes don't really matter to me as much as just the ability
to express myself.

And the professionalism.

And the professionalism. Yes. My prints are good prints, and
when I'm satisfied with them, I know they're good, because I
tend to be a perfectionist. I'm never totally happy with the
result, but if I can see them objectively, why, they are pretty
good.

The other hobby which Is different than any of those is
music. For a number of years, I played in the Fullerton College
Concert Band. I played tuba in that, and I still play
occasionally, but not as much. That's primarily because I've
become involved in other things, and I can't always do
everything at once.

I tend to go through cycles. Some of these things will be
the predominant activity for a period of time, and then they'll
recede and something else takes over; then I'll come back. So
sometimes it's cyclical. But the boat is always there; it never
is far away. And it's fortunate: where we live, it's right
outside the house.

Swent: Can you mention where you live?

Randolph: We live in Huntington Beach in an area called Huntington

Harbour, which is a community developed around waterways which
were dredged from old sloughs. Those of us that are fortunate
enough to live on the water have floating docks and our boats
right outside of the house. It's an ideal situation.

Whittier College Trustee. 1970 to Present

Swent: Would you like to speak of your work for Whittier College.

Randolph: Yes. I think one of the very satisfying things that I was

involved with over the years was Whittier College. I served as
a trustee for many, many years. In fact, I'm a trustee emeritus
now. I served as chairman of the board of trustees in the
seventies.

Swent: Jane, your wife, went to Whittier also.

Randolph: Yes, Jane has very close connections with the college. Her

parents were both Whittier College graduates. We both graduated
from there, and she's worked there a couple of times, the last
time for a number of years as placement director. That was back
in the late fifties. That's when she knew Willa [Baum, director
of the Regional Oral History Office], when she was working at
the college.

I was chairman of the trustees at the time that the college
was in the course of looking for a new president. That was a
very instructive and, I think, a good time to be chairman
because it gave me a chance to exert some direction to the

search committee, so that I believe that we found a president
who very much typified the spirit of Whittier as the liberal
arts college that it is.

Swent: Is it still a [Society of] Friends college?

Randolph: No, it's non- denominational , as most of those in southern

California are. Most started with a church orientation, but
most are now essentially non- denominational . There was, at one
time --in fact, I think it's still on the bylaws --that there be a
specified number of Friends on the board of trustees, but I'm
not sure that there are. Certainly, the tenets of the Friends
still have an impact on the college.

Chairman of the Independent Colleges of Southern California.

1982-Present

Randolph: I was very pleased after I had stepped down as chairman of
Whittier to be asked to join the board of the Independent
Colleges of Southern California. I subsequently became chairman
of that organization and served two terms as chairman. I think
the ICSC, as we call it for short, is sort of a United Way for
independent colleges in southern California. It does a very,
very fine job of raising money, primarily from the business
community- -almost exclusively from the business community- -and
distributing it to the member colleges on a formula basis.

During the time that I was chairman, we were very fortunate
to employ a new executive director. We upgraded the title to
president. She was Andrea Van de Kamp , the wife of the attorney
general [John Van de Kamp] --a very, very dynamic woman who, by
tireless effort, increased our income from donations by a very
substantial amount. Andrea did a great job for us.

Swent: It's a constant job, I'm sure.

Randolph: It is. It's a constant job made more difficult by the

consolidations which continue to occur in various industry
groups. Where there may have been two companies, each donating,
in a merger there's one company left and you don't any longer
get the two donations. You get one donation.

Swent: Especially if they have a foreign owner.

Randolph: In that regard, U.S. Borax has always been a very good supporter
of the independent colleges. Jim Gerstley, I think, was

instrumental in starting the donations to the independent
colleges .

Swent: I was just thinking it's interesting that he was so strong in

his statement that his work with Pomona [College] meant so much
to him. It gave him such good training and--

Randolph: Yes.

Swent: He really enjoyed that.

Randolph: Yes. I used to watch him here. We let him have an office after
he retired. When he would come down from the north there would
be a constant parade of people in to see Jim and these were all
prospects for donations to Pomona. He did, apparently, a bang-
up job of raising money for them. I used to kid him; I would
say, "Jim, let's trade prospect lists." [laughter]. I was, of
course, trying to raise money for Whittier at the same time that
he was raising it for Pomona. But, yes, I know he did enjoy it.

Swent: It must be very satisfying.

Randolph: Well, it is. I enjoyed the challenge of it at Whittier and the
challenge of it at the Independent Colleges [of Southern
California] . I think that the fact that one puts in that amount
of time and effort in these organizations speaks for itself- -
you don't do that unless you believe pretty firmly in what it is
they do .

To me, the preservation of the liberal arts college is one
of our major tasks. As concerned people, we have to try to make
sure it happens, because the sole alternative of an enormous
impersonal state-run system of higher education is not going to
produce the sort of people of a broad understanding and vision
that we need. Of course, that's the thing that the liberal arts
college does, to challenge the mind in a great variety of fields
and ways. You may not come out as a great expert in any one
field, but you do come out with an understanding of the world
around you that is not necessarily obtained in the average state
university.

Swent: Are there any other organizations that you're a member of, that
you want to mention?

Randolph: I found that when I retired that my day or my life wasn't

changing very much, because I was still involved with many of
the civic and cultural organizations that I had been in when I
was working. When you're normally in Los Angeles during the
workday, it's no great problem to run downtown at noon for a

working lunch on one of these committees, but when you're living
in Orange County, a noontime meeting really takes the heart out
of the day, because you have to come into town. That means at
least leaving midmorning, and you don't get home until mid-
afternoon. It shoots the center of the day. So I was spending
a lot of time in ways other than what I thought retirement was
all about. It occurred to me one day that the root of my
dissatisfaction with retirement was that I wasn't setting my own
priorities; other people were setting all of them for me.

So I sat down, and I wrote letters of res
every organization- -really everything but the
Colleges and the Oceanographic Associates. I
the Independent Colleges because I had made th
a second term, and the Oceanographic Associate
that didn't take much time. But I resigned fr
County Philharmonic Society board and I retire
Whittier College board and half a dozen other
sort of cleaned the decks.

i gnat ion to almost
Independent
didn't resign from
em a commitment to
s was something
ora the Orange
d from the
things that just

Then life began to be a little more of what I had expected.
It's taken three years, I think, to really understand what
retirement should be, which is largely setting your own
priorities as to activities and interests.

Swent: The things that are most important.

Randolph: The things that are most important. I sometimes think it must
be very difficult for people without a broad range of interests
to retire, because I don't know what they do. I don't see how
you can play golf everyday.

Swent: They do.

Randolph: I guess they do, but I find I'm so busy with the various things
that I do that I- -well, I suppose I still don't get around to
everything that I would like to. There's always a challenge of
something yet to be tackled.

The last few weeks at home we have been cleaning out old
files and getting rid of a lot of things that seem to just be
taking up space.

When I look at all the memorabilia that I've collected I
realize how much we accomplished over the years that I was
president. After all, I was president of U.S. Borax for
seventeen years, longer than the time that I wasn't president.
None of my predecessors served anywhere near that long, and I
think it unlikely that it will ever be equalled again.

When I think about it, I realize the magnitude of the
changes in the company that took place during those years. How
small and old-fashioned it looked when I think of 1957 when I
joined and how big and dynamic and attuned to the world around
it, it seems now.

But despite all the changes that took place, basic values
of integrity and honesty and an almost paternal concern for the
employees at all levels continued to define the personality of
the company. Somehow I always felt that the spirit of the Old
West- -the "true grit' of the early Death Valley pioneers- -was
always with us, and gave a special sense of pride to all of us.
Maybe that's why we have such an unusually large number of
employees with very long service- -twenty-five , thirty, forty
years .

1 was blessed with the best associates in the company that
one could wish for. I was thinking just today that I don't
believe that there was anyone in the company that I did not
think of as a friend. In thirty years, that's saying a lot
about the quality of the people.

I realize that in all of the talking that I have done I
have avoided talking about any of the individuals that were my
associates, with the exception, I guess, of Don Taylor. The
reason is simple. I think highly of all of them, and to single
out a few for recognition would be unfair to the others. All of
the corporate officers rose to their positions through
excellence and their ability to work with one another. This
combination of smarts and their sense of corporate needs made my
success possible.

I know I was a good leader. Leadership styles have to be
in harmony with the organization. If they aren't, the conflict
eventually sinks one or the other. I talked earlier about
"collegial" management, which I think was responsible for
getting our functional organization working in a spirit of
mutual respect and goodwill. Leadership's role in that
framework is to challenge the individuals and the group, and to
give all a sense of participation in the solution of problems.
Sometimes it's necessary to become arbitrary, but even then
people must be given the reasons for being that way.

I owe a lot to the understanding and help of my English
chairmen, Norman Travis and Ralph Assheton (now Lord Clitheroe) .
I think they would both agree that the many years that we worked
together were harmonious and despite what Shaw characterized as
the barrier of a common language , we had no problems that

discussion did not readily resolve. The fact that the chairman
and the president got along so well was duly noted by the
organization, and over the years very close relationships
developed between the U.S. and the U.K. people at all levels.

So I guess we've come to the end of the story. I've
enjoyed this autumnal visit to the past, a momentary reliving of
youth, and nostalgic flashes of trials and triumphs of years
long gone .

Now, as my wife says, "On with the world's work!"

Transcriber: Noreen Yamada
Final Typist: Elizabeth Kim

TAPE GUIDE -- Carl Randolph

Interview 1: 11 May 1990 1

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Interview 2: 9 July 1990 27

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Interview

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APPENDICES --Carl L. Randolph

A. "How the Tender feet Toughened Up U.S. Borax," Fortune 94

Magazine . December 1974

B. Commencement Address, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 98

8 May 1983

C. Biographical Profile

108

A mine in the Mojave Desert
might seem an unlikely place for
a band of white-collar scabs
to take a stand against a militant
union. But managers, salesmen,
and office workers, doing jobs
they'd never done before, gave
some refreshing lessons
to top management— and a hard
lesson to an old mining town.

Over the past few months, an extraordinary drama of
labor-management conflict has been playing itself out in
the California desert. A company got shoved a little too
hard and shoved back. As a result, its white-collar em-
ployees found themselves toiling away in a singularly
hellish mine and i-efinery in the middle of the Mojave.

The mine in question produces about 60 percent of the
free world's bora.x and is owned by U.S. Bora.x & Chem-
ical Corp., a subsidiary of the giant British mining com-
pany, Rio Tinto Zinc. While just about everybody as.soci-
ates the company's product with old-fashioned cleansing
agents. Death Valley Days, and twenty-mule teams, it
turns out that borax — otherwise known as sodium borate
— is one of those all-around whizzer chemicals of the new
industrial age. A lot of borax still goes into soap, but it
also finds its way into everything from agriculture to
atomic energy (where it controls the rate of nuclear re-
actions). The biggest use of all, though, is in making
certain kinds of glass, including glass fiber.

Well before its contract with the International Long-
shoremen's and Warehousemen's Union expired last June,
U.S. Borax was in an odd kind of trouble: largely because
of the huge increase in demand for glass-fiber insulation,
the world wanted more borax than Borax could provide.
At the same time, the company was discovering that its
automated plant, two miles north of the tiny town of Bor-
on, was apparently incapable of producing as much borax
as it was designed to. When demand surged last year, the
managers of the plant tried to go to full production but
were seldom able to exceed about 80 percent of the nom-
inal capacity. Instead of increasing, in fact, plant output
had been dropping for the last year. So customers were
put on allocation, shipments were delayed, and by last
June, the borax stockpiles had dwindled to nothing.

Appendix A
"How the Tenderfeet
Toughened Up U.S.
Borax," Fortune,
December 1974

You dare not let it cool

The company's president, Carl Randolph, now says that
because of the inventory bind. Borax entered the negotia-
tions all prepared to buy a costly settlement from the
I.L.W.U. locals that represent the hourly workers at
Boron and at a smaller plant in Wilmington, California.
Initially, the union demands included an immediate 25
percent boost in hourly pay — which then averaged S5.02.
The company countered by offering a 10 percent immedi-
ate increase and 7 percent rises in each of the two subse-
quent years. But what put management's back up were
union demands that would infringe upon management
prerogatives: for example, the Boron local wanted to
review new construction projects with an eye to doing the
work themselves. U.S. Borax was planning a $60-million
refinery-expansion program, aimed at increasing output
by a third. The company wanted the new construction
done by outside contractors and decided that it would
take a strike rather than give in to this and other union
demands. Management resolved, however, to try to keep
the two plants operating with supervisory personnel plus
salaried employees brought in from elsewhere.

The problem with that idea was that Borax is not really
all that big a company. While an annual sales figure of
more than $130 million is scarcely trivial, the company
has only about 2,000 employees. Nearly 1,200 of these
were members of the striking I.L.W.U. locals. The rest
are mainly white-collar people — managers, secretaries,
clerks, salesmen, computer specialists, engineers, and
scientific researchers — hardly the kind of people that one
would judge to possess the requisite skills and toughness
to operate a borax mine and a technically complex refining
plant in a mid-Mojave summer.

Furthermore, once you get a borax refinery in opera-
tion, you have to keep it going twenty-four hours a day.
The basic refining process consists mainly of dumping
crushed ore into hot water, which extracts the soluble
borax from the insoluble clay. Then the concentrated solu-
tion is piped to various parts of the plant to be turned into
various kinds of borax products. Once the solution is in
the pipelines, you dare not let it cool, or else the borax
will crystallize and solidify inside the pipes.

After looking over its roster, the company concluded
that at l)est it could muster only about 450 able-bodied
people to run the two plants that normally employ over
1,400. The 450 included the plant supervisors, virtually
the entire sales and research staffs, together with clerks,
managers, and so forth, all the way up to vice presidents.

A week or two prior to the expiration of the union con-
tract, the prospecti%e strikebreakers were given a chance
to volunteer for the duty, although few were under much
illusion that there was an.nhing particularly voluntary
about it. Aside from the obvious fact that unless the plants
kept going, the salesmen would have nothing to sell and
the managers nothing to manage, the only inducements
were peer pressure and unverified rumors that the com-
pany would pay its salaried scabs $60 a day as a bonus.
Ultimately such a bonus was declared, but only after the
strike was already under way.

In view of the company's intentions, management
seems to have been oddly surprised by the violence that
ensued. Within minutes after the walkout on midnight
of June 14, several hundred I.L.W.U. men massed outside
the Boron plant gates. A group of strikers broke through
the gates, roughing up several plant guards. Railroad
cars, an automobile, and a small building were burned.

The white-collar "volunteers" assembled early the next
day in U.S. Bora.x's Los Angeles parking garage to be
bused to Fox Field Airport. From there they were flown
in company planes to the plant's airstrip where they con-
fronted— many of them for the first time — the vast white-
ness of an operating borax mine.

It must have been a sobering sight Automated the re-
finery may be, but it is scarcely any paragon of industrial
efficiency or cleanliness. It's an eighty-acre complex of
furnaces, calciners, centrifuges, vibrators, scrubbers, and
baggers, all interconnected by an overhead network of
what must be some of the leakiest conveyors ever built.
Day and night, the plant — and the sagebrush for miles
downwind — are dusted with a warm, unremitting outfall
of borax, white as snow, fine as flour, and grittj' as sand.

In the presence of moisture, the stuff dissolves and re- ;
crystallizes in solid lumps. Without constant application
of brooms, shovels, sledgehammers, and sometimes even
dynamite, the machines and furnaces clog up and stop
working. All the more delicate pieces of machinery are
labeled "Do Not Beat."

Baggies in the gas tanks

The drifts of borax were symptomatic of the complex
troubles at Boron. Some company men say that one of the
problems was that the plant was ill-designed in the first
place. But foremen and managers contend that a major
source of trouble was worker intransigence, slowdowns,
and a lot of outright sabotage, including the plastic Bag-
gies that someone dropped into the fuel tanks of trucks
and earth-moving machines. In any case, everybody
agrees that labor relations had been deteriorating for a
number of years. In its effort to get production up, the
company had kept hiring more men. But the newcomers, !
no matter how eager, soon came under pressure from
older hands to slow down.

Over the years, the powdery fallout had accumulated
waist-deep throughout many portions of the mine and
plant, with drifts running much higher. Plant workers
were confined to narrow paths shoveled through the
Lower Slobbovian whiteness. Foremen, under pressure to
increase production, neglected day-to-day cleanup chores,
and in any case could usually count on foot-dragging when
they ordered workers to .shovel borax. The foremen felt
all but powerless in the face of this resistance because of
the many regulations and guarantees of job security that
had crept into the union contracts over the years.

It's little wonder, then, that the foremen's eye? gleamed
when the white-collar men stepped off the planes. The job
assignments were made by refinery manager Ken Barn-
hill without much attention to normal company rank or
occupation. "We used the Army system." .said Barnhill.
"and tried not to let a man's background influence his
placement." Inevitably, however, the new men's inexpe-
rience meant that they wound up with most of the grubby
laboring jobs — the toting, oiling, refueling, and the eter-
nal shoveling and cleaning. The more skilled and technical
tasks were done by the foremen and resident supervisors.
Once the makeshift crew had mastered the routine of
keeping the plant running, the foremen seized the oppor-
tunity to .set the newcomers to digging the plant out from
under all that borax. Shovels were handed out and when
the men asked where they should start digging, the fore-
men replied, "Anywhere."

At the same time, though, the presence of all those
great big vehicles and other machines standing idle
aroused small-boy instincts in the shovelers. They dis-
covered that if they wanted to jump into some mechanical
monster and try to run it, why, there was no one to dis-
courage them. Soon, the plant and the mine were aswarm
with bucket loaders and Lectra Haul dump trucks careen-
ing around with dangerous enthusiasm.

For the first two and a half months of the strike, most
of the out-of-towners worked eighteen days straight and
then got four days off' to return home. Aside from their
"R. and R.," they virtually never left the heavily guarded
plant compound — no one had any enthusiasm for crossing
the sporadically violent line of picketers. The company
had scattered cots throughout the plant — in rented trail-
ers, offices, conference rooms, even the ladies' rest rooms.
A cafeteria was set up in a large storeroom, manned by
one of the catering services that specialize in feeding on-
location motion-picture crews. The strikebreakers ate
well : steak and lobster appeared regularly on the menu.
Twice a week — on Wednesdays and Saturdays — each man
was issued precisely two cans of beer. Work clothes and
boots, snacks, and other items were handed out free in a
"goody room," as it was called. It bore a sign : "Through

these doors pass the best damn scabs in the world."
They worked twelve-hour shifts, ate, and tumbled
into bed. Throughout the night, helicopters with spot-
lights flew round and round the plant perimeter.

Gloom in the Sonic Boom Capital

Beyond that perimeter was a grimmer world, without
steaks and lobsters and $60 bonuses. Since the mine
opened in 1926, it has existed in a tight but frequently
abrasive symbiosis with the small town that was swept
together on the desert floor for the miners to live in.
Boron, as it is now called, is a tough town in a tough place.
More than a thousand of its inhabitants work — used to
work, that is — at the mine and refinery. In a quest for
other distinction, the Boron Chamber of Commerce has
claimed for the town the title "Sonic Boom Capital of the
World," but even that comes courtesy of the test pilots of
Edwards Air Force Base, thirty miles away, who try out
experimental aircraft overhead.

The town's average wage earner has been working at
the Borax mine for about fifteen years, and some families
have three generations employed there. Many of the fam-
ilies came there years ago from the coal fields in Kentucky,
West Virginia, and Oklahoma, bringing with them the
coal miners' traditional refractoriness.

For the first thirty years, the borax deposits were
worked through conventional underground mining tech-
niques, calling upon the special skills and psychological
immunities of the coal miners. The raw ore was shipped
by rail to the refining plant in Wilmington. In 1957, how-
ever, the company elected to convert the underground
mine to an open pit. Among other economies, this would
permit utilization of the 40 to 50 percent of ore that is
normally wasted in the form of pillars to hold up the roof
of an underground mine. The borax emerges from open-
pit operations mixed with a lot of contaminating clay, so
Borax built the rerining plant near the rim of the pit.

The change in mining techniques and the coming of the
refinery specialists from outside naturally disturbed the
restive, captive population of Boron. Miners and their
descendants saw their skills rendered beside the point as
the machines stripped away the hundred-foot-thick over-
burden to expose the gleaming borax lode riddled with
the ants'-nest handiwork of old shafts and chambers.
Many of the higher-paid men proved less adept vnth the
new machines than younger men and outsiders : they often
wound up in lowlier jobs and worried for their future.

Isolated together with their troubled work force and
under little competitive pressure, the plant managers
made some attempts to placate their men over the years.
They established special pay categories for the displaced
workers, paying them at their old rate even when they
worked in lower categories. Such special treatment, of
course, only antagonized other workers. In addition, the
company accumulated all kinds of overmanned shop prac-
tices and featherbedding. Skilled laborers, plumbers, and
electricians admit to sitting idly for hours, waiting for a
laborer to finish preparatory* work under union rules.

Over the years, the insecurities, jealousies, and mili-
tance fermented. In 1964 the plant workers voted to

switch from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. International Chemical
Workers Union to the more radical I.L.W.U. Four years
later, the union's tough negotiations plus a violent strike
ended with the company's buckling under and the work-
ers getting pretty much what they demanded.

The success in 1968 and subsequent gains in 1970 en-
couraged the I.L.W.U. locals at Boron and Wilmington
to ask for more this year. Since the company had a big
backlog of orders, and virtually no reserves of refined
borax, the timing seemed highly favorable.

Once the strike was under way, however, confidence
began to evaporate. The locals had accumulated nothing
in the way of strike funds, and as the payless weeks went
by, workers' savings disappeared. Some got part-time
jobs, some had working wives, some got food stamps.
Other I.L.W.U. locals contributed a little. Banks and
finance companies extended loan contracts on cars and
furniture, but unpaid bills accumulated, and utilities
shut ofl' services.

The social fabric of the close-knit little town began un-
raveling. Plant managers and foremen crossed the picket
lines each morning and evening, setting neighbor against
neighbor, and in some cases, foreman father against union
son. The foremen's cars were regularly stoned and occa-
sionally shot at, families received threatening phone calls,
windows were broken, one or two houses were bombed.
A few union men broke ranks and returned to work. The
house trailer of one was firebombed when no one was
home. A bundle of dynamite was thrown under another
returnee's house when the family was at home, but the
fuse went out and the family was spared.

'They can't be producing much"

In mid-August, the Wilmington local voted to accept the
company's terms and go back to work, but the Boron local
held on. Local 30's leaders told the members that if only
they stuck it out, they could bring U.S. Borax to its knees.
The leaders claimed they were being kept informed about
what was going on in the plant by people who were cross-
ing the picket lines. The leaders told the workers that the
plant, which could be seen belching its familiar clouds of
dust and sending out its .strings of railroad cars, was
really producing only 15 percent of normal output. This
estimate was backed up, it is said, by one union member
who was allowed into the plant to collect his tools. When
he emerged, he told his fellow strikers, "They can't be
producing much borax in there. The place is dean."

In fact, however, the plant had rarely ever done so well.
The skimpy, undertrained work force of 325 scabs (not
counting about fifty hired guards and helicopter pilots)
was regularly shipping out more borax than the normal
work force of more than a thousand. Prior to the strike,
the plant had averaged aboufS.lOO tons of borax a day;
during the strike months of July and September, output
averaged around 3,600 tons a day, and on a few days
reached an all-time record of 4,000 tons. Production
dropped off a little in August because several days of
heavy rain hobbled operations in the pit and a storm
knocked out the electric power. All told, the plants' man-
agers calculated that output per man-hour averaged be-
tween two and three times that of the pre-strike force.

As the implications of this began to sink in, U.S. Borax
management gained a new perspective on their old labor
practices. Company President Randolph traces many of
the problems to the company's posture in the 1968 strike.
"It was easy to make concessions that seemed small at the
time, but they grew into major problems. We only realized
the magnitude of it after we began operating with the
temporary people — and began producing more than we
had before."

Plant managers ascribed the high output to the strong
motivation of the salaried men. "They didn't need any
supervision," mar\'eled mine superintendent Lowell
Page. "They would just run the mine until they knew
they had enough to keep the refinery going, and then
they'd look around for additional jobs to do." Randolph
traces the high motivation to anger over union violence.
"It created a cause for them to rally around."

A stiffening stand

One of the implications, of course, was that the Boron
facility should be able to get along with a lot fewer people
— 750 to 800 instead of more than a thousand. After
they had learned the ropes, many members of the tiny
force of scabs wondered how the regular workers had
occupied their time. One of those who wondered was Al
Ertel, who left his regular job as a computer-systems
designer in Los Anjreles and served as an oiler at the
Boron plant. "I'd like to be here when there were eight
or nine hundred hourly workers in this place," he said.
"They'd be crawling all over each other."

U.S. Borax began taking a stiffer stand in its labor
negotiations. In August the company offered to up the pay
boost from 10 to 11 percent. In return, however, it de-
manded a number of major concessions. They included
reserving to the company the right to contract out not only
new capital construction, but also a lot of major repairs
and other work. The company also demanded that new
job categories be created, consolidating several old ones.
For example, a new "millwright" category would include
former mechanics, welders, and pipefitters. The union
negotiating committee predictably refused the offer,
though it did reduce its wage-increase demand from 25
to 20 percent.

A month later. Borax addressed a letter to the strikers,
warning them that it would begin hiring permanent re-
placements to fill the jobs of employees who were not back
at work by September 23. Twenty-four employees re-
turned by the deadline, despite a lot of intimidation and
some violence by militant union members. The frustration
of those who stayed out manifested itself in a major
escalation of violence. On the morning of September 23,
strikers lined the roads to the plant, stoning every car
going in or out, and injuring several people.

Desert caravans

But two developments put the seal on the strike's
outcome. The first was the refusal of various A.F.L.-
C.I.O. craft unions that were slated to perform the con-
tract work at Boron to agree to observe the I.L.W.U.
picket lines. The second was the unexpectedly large re-

sponse to the company's prominent help-wanted ads in
several California cities. Unemployment in the state was
then averaging around 7.5 percent, and within days after
the ads appeared in late September, hundreds of eager
applicants showed up, despite the traditional reluctance
of many people to cross a union's picket line. The com-
pany claimed that the newly hired workers often turned
out to be far more willing hands than the old ones. It sud-
denly saw that it had within its grasp not only the chance
to reduce its plant manpower but, if it chose, to rid itself of
all its ingrained Boron labor troubles and start afresh.

The newcomers commuted in from such towns as Mo-
jave, Barstow, and Lancaster, thirty to fifty miles away.
Every morning and evening, they gathered into hundred-
car convoys. Guarded by police cars, led by a helicopter,
the caravans made their way across the hostile desert.

By then, the union had begun to cave in. It had reduced
its wage-increase demand to a face-saving 13 percent.
Among the remaining sticking points was the issue of
amnesty. The company had made clear its intention of
firing or suspending about ten individuals who had been
identified in acts of violence. The union wanted the com-
pany to drop all charges and disciplinary action.

U.S. Borax refused to make even this concession. In its
final offer, possibly made to convince the National Labor
Relations Board that it was still bargaining in good faith,
the company said it would take back all strikers except
those under discipline. Most of the supervisors and the
now-toughened tenderfeet in the Boron plant hoped that
the union would turn down the offer.

A sigh heard all over

The union met on the night of October 7. After a quick
show of hands, the leaders ruled that no formal vote would
be taken, the eflFect of this being that the company offer
was rejected. When the news reached the plant the next
morning, "the sigh of relief," as one man put it, "could
be heard all over the place." The company immediately
began large-scale hiring from cities as far away as San
Diego and Tucson.

On October 24, the union finally voted 332 to 86 to go
back to work, accepting all the company's terms. By that
time, though, 250 people had already been hired. And
since the company was by then contemplating a work-
force reduction of another 200 to 300, a substantial pro-
portion of Boron's breadwinners would be looking for
work in a bad and worsening job market. Many owned
houses that they would have a hard time selling if they
decided to move ; for a long time to come, no doubt, most
of the newly hired plant workers would rather commute
a lonjr way than move to a resentful community where life
would be uncomfortable at best and possibly dangerous.
So, it appeared that the dusty plant and the little town
would continue in uneasy coexistence side by side — one in
improved health, the other sorely ailing, both wiser than
they were before. end

Appendix B

COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

C. L. RANDOLPH

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA - FAIRBANKS

MAY 8. .T983

ALASKA - YOUR CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY

CHANCELLOR O'ROURKE. DISTINGUISHED FACULTY. GRADUATING STUDENTS.
AND GUESTS. IT GIVES ME GREAT PLEASURE TO BE AT THE UNIVERSITY
OF ALASKA - FAIRBANKS AND TO PARTICIPATE IN YOUR 1983
COMMENCEMENT DAY EXERCISES.

AS PRESIDENT OF A COMPANY MAINLY INVOLVED IN MINING ACTIVITIES.
I NOTE WITH MORE THAN PASSING INTEREST THAT WHEN THIS UNIVERSITY
WAS FOUNDED IN 1917 ITS ORIGINAL NAME WAS THE ALASKA AGRICULTURAL
COLLEGE AND SCHOOL OF MINES. THE FOUNDERS KNEW THAT ALASKA'S
FUTURE WAS TIED TO ITS NATURAL RESOURCES.

YOU PERHAPS MAY THINK IT IS AN ACADBHC QUIRK. OR A PARADOX
OF LANGUAGE. THAT THIS PARTICULAR DAY THAT MARKS THE FINISH
OF YOUR STUDIES AND THE END OF YOUR COLLEGE TRAINING. IS
REFERRED TO AS "C0MMENCB1ENT DAY."

BUT. IN A STRICT SENSE. TODAY DOES f^RK A COMMENCEMENT. IT
TRULY REPRESENTS A BEGINNING OF LIVING THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
IN THE SO-CALLED "REAL WORLD." AND HOW THIS WORLD HAS CHANGED!

IN 1903. 80 YEARS AGO. WITH FAIRBANKS IN THE MIDST OF ITS
GOLD RUSH. THE FIRST AIRPLANE WAS FLOWN BY THE WRIGHT BROTHERS.
TEN YEARS LATER. IN 1913. THE FIRST AIRPLANE WAS FLOWN INTO
ALASKA. HERE IN FAIRBANKS. AND TODAY. WITHIN A MATTER OF
ONLY A FEW HOURS. AND WITH GREAT COMFORT. I CAN FLY THE MORE

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THAN 3.5000 MILES FROM LOS ANGELES TO FAIRBANKS TO SPEAK TO
YOU ON COMMENCEMENT DAY.

THE WORLD OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY IS AN EXCITING
PLACE OF ANTIBIOTICS. ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTERS. GENETIC
ENGINEERING. JET AIRPLANE TRAVEL. LASER BEAMS. SEMICONDUCTORS.
AND GEOSTATIONARY COMMUNICATION SATELLITES. THE LATTER HAVE
CONVERTED OUR PLANET INTO A GLOBAL ELECTRONIC VILLAGE. AND
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA HAS PIONEERED THE USE OF MODERN COM-
MUNICATION HARDWARE AND TECHNIQUES TO BRING EDUCATIONAL
PRC'"^MS TO EVEN THE MOST REMOTE ALASKAN VILLAGE. IT IS A
RE^;. CHALLENGE TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE INSTRUCTION FOR A
GEOGRAPHIC "CLASSROOM" THAT COVERS 585 THOUSAND SQUARE MILES
AND EXTENDS OVER FOUR TIME ZONES.

I WOULD BE REMISS. HOWEVER. IF ALONG WITH THESE MIND-BOGGLING
EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS I DID NOT MENTION THAT WE ALSO LIVE
IN A TIME OF MULTIPLE CRISES. EACH MORNING. ONE NEED ONLY
LISTEN TO THE RADIO. OR WATCH THE TELEVISION. OR SCAN THE
FRONT PAGE OF ANY MAJOR NEWSPAPER. TO BE CONFRONTED BY AN
ENERGY CRISIS. A MISSILF r.RIST5;. A PFNTRAI /IMFRTr.AN rRT<;T<;,
AN ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS. AN EDUCATIONAL CRISIS. A CRIME CRISIS.
OR A MONETARY CRISIS. NAME ALMOST ANY HUMAN ENDEAVOR AND
•EWS MEDIA ARE CERTAIN TO COME WITH A REAL OR IMAGINED
...S TO MATCH.

BUT. IT IS OF INTEREST THAT IN THE WRITTEN CHINESE LANGUAGE.
THE IDEOGRAPH OR PICTURE-WORD FOR THE TERM "CRISIS" IS MADE

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101

UP OF TWO WRITTEN CHARACTERS: ONE SYMBOL MEANS DANGER. AND
THE OTHER STANDS FOR OPPORTUNITY. A CRISIS. THEREFORE. IS
A TIME OF DANGEROUS OPPORTUNITY.

SO. THE FIRST ADVICE THAT I GIVE YOU ON THIS COMMENCEMENT
DAY IS TO GO OUT INTO THE "REAL" WORLD WITH WATCHFUL EYES
ON THE DANGERS AND EAGERNESS FOR THE TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITIES
THAT AWAIT YOU. YOU ARE DOUBLY FORTUNATE NOT ONLY TO BE .
GRADUATING AT PROBABLY THE MOST EXCITING AND INTERESTING OF
TIMES IN WORLD HISTORY. BUT ALSO TO BE LOCATB IN A GEOGRAPHICAL
REGION OF BOUNDLESS POSSIBILITIES. ALASKA. WITH ITS STATE
Mono OF "NORTH TO THE FUTURE" TRULY IS A LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.
AND THOSE OPPORTUNITIES MOST CERTAINLY MUST RELATE TO THE
ENORMOUS RESOURCES OF ALL SORTS THAT ARE HERE.

OUR WORLD TODAY IS BEMUSED BY HIGH TECHNOLOGY - "HI-TECH"
AS THE NEWSPAPERS. THE STOCK MARKET ANALYSTS AND THE COINERS
OF BUZZ WORDS CALL IT. HI-TECH IMPLIES A WORLD OF COMPUTERS.
OF SOPHISTICATION IN ELECTRONICS THAT RANGE FROM VIDEO GAMES.
TO INTEGRATED CIRCUITS. TO NEXT-GENERATION MAIN FRA.ME COMPUTERS.
THE IMPLICATION IS THAT ALL OTHER GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS AND
OPPORTUNITIES WILL FALL PREY TO THE NEW AND VAGUELY CHARTERS
AREA OF HIGH-TECH.

EVENHUE" INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL & ECONOMIC RESEARCH REPORT TO
GOVERNOR SHEFFIELD IMPLIES THAT SMALL HIGH TECH AND SERVICE .
BUSINESSES ARE THE FUTURE FOR ALASKA'S GROl^H.

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102

BUT AS ONE TRAINED IN SCIENCE. AND PRESUMABLY ABLE TO MAKE
INFORMED JUDGEMENTS ON SUCH MATTERS. I SAY QUITE SIMPLY: I
DON'T BELIEVE IT! THIS IS NOT A RETREAT TO FUNDAMENTALISM
CAUSED BY FEAR OF NEW AND PERPLEXING THINGS. BUT SIMPLY THE
APPLICATION OF COMMON SENSE TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE WORLD
IN WHICH WE LIVE.

IT IS TRUE THAT TECHNOLOGY SWEEPS US FORWARD INTO A WORLD
IN WHICH RAPIDLY SHIFTING PATTERNS OF JOB SKILL REQUIREMENTS
CREATE DEEP CONCERNS AMONG THOSE IN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY.
BUT. FUNDAMENTAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT. THE APPLICATION. AND
THE ENJOYMENT OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY IS THE CONTINUING NEED FOR
BASIC RESOURCES - MATERIAL RESOURCES. AND THE RESOURCES OF
EDUCATED MINDS—BOTH ELEMENTS ARE CRUCIAL.

IT HAS BEEN SAID. AND I THINK IT IS UNDOUBTEDLY TRUE. THAT
THE TOTAL DECLINE OF A CIVILIZATION WILL OCCUR WHEN THAT
CIVILIZATION LOOSES THE ABILITY TO CREATE THE TOOLS NECESSARY
TO BUILD OTHER TOOLS. I THINK WE MUST NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THIS.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMAZINGLY SMALL AND COMPLEX ELECTRONIC
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS WILL ALLOW US TO DO MANY THINGS THAT SAVE
LABOR AND INCREASE MAN'S CAPACITY TO CONTROL HIS ENVIRONMENT.
BUT THE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT OF ITSELF CANNOT PRODUCE STEEL.
CANNOT FORGE CASTINGS. CANNOT GROW TREES OR CATCH FISH. CANNOT
PRODUCE THE MACHINERY NECESSARY TO PROVIDE EVEN THE HARDWARE
IN WHICH IT WILL BE EMPLOYED. IT CAN CONTROL BUT IT CANNOT

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103

PRODUCE. SO WE MUST NOT NEGLECT THOSE RESOURCES THAT ARE
THE FUNDAMENTAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE.
DESPITE THE ENTHUSIASMS OF THE MOMENT. ..

*' ''' - ~' i'"" ,-^' ■'

NATURAL RESOURCES— BOTH RENEWABLE AND NON-RENEWABLE— ARE THE
THINGS THAT PROVIDE THE BASIS FOR OUR SOCIETY: FOOD. SHELTER.
CLOTHING. AND THE AMENITIES OF MODERN LIFE. NATURAL RESOURCES
ARE CRUCIAL TO THE SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF OUR NATION. AND TO
THE FUTURE AND WELL BEING OF ALASKA. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THESE
RESOURCES. AND PARTICULARLY THOSE THAT LIE WITHIN THE EARTH
PROVIDES THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ALASKA TO ACHIEVE ITS FULL
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POTENTIAL.

I CAN THINK OF NO OTHER AREA OF THE WORLD IN WHICH THE POS-
SIBILITIES OF MAJOR MINERAL DISCOVERIES AND THE OPPORTUNITIES
FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT EXIST TO THE DEGREE THAT THEY DO IN
THIS STATE. ALASKA'S COLORFUL MODERN HISTORY HAS FROM THE
BEGINNING BEEN TIED TO THINGS FROM THE GROUND. GOLD FEVER
BROUGHT THOUSANDS TO ALASKA AND THE YUKON. BUILT THE CITIES.
OF FAIRBANKS AND JUNEAU. AND PRODUCED A RAW AND WILD NEW
FRONTIER. PRESERVED TODAY IN THE POEMS OF ROBERT W. SERVICE
AND THE STORIES OF JACK LONDON. WE WILL-THANKFULLY-NEVER
AGAIN SEE THE EXCESSES AND TRAGEDIES OF THE GOLD RUSH DAYS.
BUT CERTAINLY THE EXCITEMENT THAT ACCOMPANIES NEW DISCOVERIES
WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US.

DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MINERAL POTENTIAL IS THE
OPPORTUNITY THAT CAN BENEFIT ALL ALASKA. THE CHALLENGE IS

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TO BE ABLE TO DEVELOP THESE RESOURCES IN A MANNER CONSISTENT
WITH THE PRESERVATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES SO ABUNDANTLY
PLACED BY NATURE ABOUT US. THE "GREAT DEBATE" THAT HAS RAGED
FOR OVER A DECADE HAS BEEN CONCERNED WITH THE QUESTION OF
WHETHER RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT WAS COMPATIBLE WITH THE PRESERVATION
OF THE NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS. THE GRADUAL ACCUMULATION OF SCIENTIFIC
DATA. AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS FOR MEASUREMENT OF MINUTE
CHANGES IN SUCH THINGS AS AIR AND WATER QUALITY HAVE GIVEN
US THE TOOLS WITH WHICH TO DEFINE AREAS OF POSSIBLE CONCERN.
AND CONVERSELY. TO DEVELOP CONFIDENCE THAT MANY PERCEIVED
PROBLEMS ARE CAPABLE OF SOLUTION. METHODOLOGIES THAT HAVE
BEEN DEVELOPED FOR EXAMINATION OF ALL FACTORS THAT COULD
IMPACT THE ENVIRONMENT AS A RESULT OF MINERAL EXTRACTION HAVE
ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO A BEHER UNDERSTANDING OF POTENTIAL RISKS
THAT MAY BE INVOLVED IN ANY PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT. SO. I THINK
WE SHOULD HAVE CONFIDENCE THAT THE TWO OBJECTIVES CAN BE
COMPATIBLE. AND THAT WITH DILIGENCE AND COOPERATION. THE
CHALLENGE WILL BE MET. AND THE OPPORTUNITY FULFILLED.

FEW QUESTIONS OF GREATER MOMENT FACE ALASKA TODAY THAN THE
ONE OF HOW AND WHEN TO PROCEED TO DEVELOP THE RESOURCE POTENTIAL
OF THE STATE; FOR. INACTION MEANS THAT NOTHING WILL BE DONE
TO REALIZE THE ULTIMATE BENEFITS THAT CAN COME TO ALL FROM
THE WEALTH THAT LIES BELOW THE GROUND.

THE DAYS OF RECKLESS EXPLOITATION ARE LONG PAST. CURRENT

LAWS AND REGULATIONS. AS WELL AS PUBLIC OPINION AND ENLIGHTENED

MANAGEMENT IN THE MAJOR MINING COMPANIES PROVIDE SAFEGUARDS

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105

AGAINST THE IRRESPONSIBLE SPECTRE OF RAPE. RUIN AND RUN RAISED
BY CECIL ANDRUS. OUR LAST SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

VISIONS OF THE COAL MINES OF APPALACHIA AT THE TURN OF THE
CENTURY DO NOT REPRESENT REALITY IN TODAY'S MINING WORLD ANY
MORE THAN CHILD LABOR AND THE WORKHOUSE REPRESENT PRESENT
DAY INDUSTRIAL WORK CONDITIONS. SO. I BELIEVE THAT THE TIME
IS RIGHT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SPIRIT OF COOPERATION BETWEEN
AGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT. THE MINING INDUSTRY AND THE PEOPLE
OF ALASKA WITH A COMMON AIM OF MOVING FORWARD WITH RESOURCE
DEVELOPMENT IN THE INTERESTS OF ALL.

I CANNOT SAY THAT THE DEVELOPMENT OF ALASKA'S RICHES WILL
NOT PRODUCE CHANGE. BUT PERHAPS AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAVE
THE RESOURCES OF SCIENCE AND OF GOVERNMENT BEEN ABLE TO CONTROL
AND SHAPE CHANGE IN A BEHER MANNER. CHANGE WILL COME IN
THE IMPROVEi-lENT OF THE STABILITY OF REGIONS OF THE STATE NOW
DEPENDENT ON A FRAGILE ECONOMIC LIFELINE; CHANGE WILL BRING
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR UPGRADED SKILLS AND STANDARDS OF LIVING
WITHIN LARGE SEGMENTS OF THE POPULATION. AND FOR THOSE OF
YOU GRADUATING TODAY. CHANGE WILL BRING THE OPPORTUNITIES
FOR BROADER USE OF YOUR EDUCATION IN A MULTITUDE OF FIELDS
NOW EITHER UNKNOWN OR ONLY SPARSELY AVAILABLE TO YOU.

BUT. CHANGE WILL ALSO COME TO OUR SURROUNDINGS AND IT WOULD
BE NAIVE TO BELIEVE THAT THERE WILL NOT BE IMPACT ON THE
ENVIRONMENT AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. BUT. AS I HAVE POINTED OUT.
CAREFUL AND THOUGHTFUL PLANNING SHOULD MINIMIZE THESE IMPACTS.

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106

WE OFTEN HEAR THE WORDS "WE ARE CONCERNED THAT." ALTHOUGH
IN MANY CASES. THIS IS A GENUINE DOUBT. IT IS ALSO A BROAD-
BRUSH EXCUSE FOR INACTION AND POSTPONEMENT OF DECISIONS. IT
IS A SAD THING TO SEE THOSE WHO. SEEKING A NO-RISK WORLD.
WOULD MAKE TIME STAND STILL. THE HANDS OF THE CLOCK CANNOT
BE HELD BACK JUST AS THE SUN CANNOT BE STOPPED IN THE SKY.
MYTHOLOGY TELLS US THAT THOSE WHO WOULD DO SO ARE DOOMED TO
PERISH. YOU CANNOT LIVE IN A STATE OF SUSPENDED ANIMATION
DIVORCED FROM THE WORLD FOR LONG. THOSE WHO ARGUE AGAINST
DECISION AND COUNSEL INDEFINITE WAIT FOR FEAR OF UNKNOWN
CONSEQUENCES ARE IN FACT MAKING A DECISION. FOR NO ACTION
IS A DECISION TO DO NOTHING. AND TO DO NOTHING IN THE DYNAMIC
WORLD OF TODAY IS TO PREJUDICE THE WELL-BEING AND FUTURE OF
ALL CITIZENS.

THE RESPONSIBILITY WILL FALL PARTICULARLY ON YOUR GENERATION.
AS TYPIFIED BY YOUR GRADUATING CLASS TODAY. TO RESOLVE THE
QUESTIONS OF RISK VERSUS REWARD AS THEY APPLY TO THE FUTURE
DEVELOPMENT OF ALASKA FOR IT IS CERTAIN THAT WE MUST USE OUR
ENVIRONMENT.

WHILE WE HAVE TALKED OF NATURAL RESOURCES. THE GREATEST
RESOURCE THAT THIS STATE HAS ARE THE MINDS OF THE STUDENTS
IN ITS UNIVERSITY. BECAUSE THIS IS THE RESOURCE THAT WILL
MAKE THE OTHER RESOURCES REALIZABLE. THE MIND IS THE TOOL
THAT ALLOWS SOCIETY TO PRODUCE THE OTHER TOOLS FOR ITS BENEFIT.

YOU ARE THE EDUCATED CITIZENS. THOSE ABLE TO SEPARATE FACT
FROM FANCY AND TO LEAD WHERE OTHERS STUMBLE.

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107

I SPOKE IN THE BEGINNING OF COMMENCEMENT AS THE BEGINNING
OF LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD AND OF CRISIS AS A TIME OF DANGEROUS
OPPORTUNITY. THE OOPORTUNITIES OF THE WORLD IN GENERAL AND
ALASKA IN PARTICULAR LIE BEFORE YOU ON THIS COmENCEMENT DAY.
IN YOUR OWN WAY. SIEZE THE OPPORTUNITY. AND ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE
TO DO WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS RIGHT FOR ALASKA. HOW FORTUNATE
YOU ARE TO BE LIVING IN A NATION THAT ENDOWS YOU WITH THIS
PRIVILEGE.

AND IN DOING SO. I AM CERTAIN YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE TO A BEHER
ALASKAN FUTURE FOR YOURSELVES AND YOUR CHILDREN. GOOD LUCK
AND GODSPEED IN YOUR CHOSEN CAREERS.

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109

Dr. Carl L. Randolph (Page 2)

Memberships Chairman, Board of Trustees 1977-1981,

Whittier College; Chairman, Southern
California Chapter of the Multiple
Sclerosis Society 1970 and 1971; member of
Governing Board of Hollywood Presbyterian
Medical Center; Vice Chairman and Director,
Independent Colleges of Southern California;
member, American Heart Association Inc.
National Corporate Cabinet; member. College of
Fellows, University of Alaska Foundation;
member, Scientific Advisory Commission of the
Alaska Research Development Project; member.
Advisory Board, Hawaiian Educational Council;
Business Advisory Council of the Friends of
California Libraries; member of the Western
Board of Governors, American Mining Congress;
member of the American Chemical Society;
member of the Newcomen Society; Phi Beta
Kappa; Division Captain, U.S. Coast Guard
Auxiliary; member of the Board of Directors
of the Oceanographic Associates, University
of Southern California Institute for Marine
and Coastal Studies.

Family Wife, Jane, and two children (married).

1/86

108

Appendix C

BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE

issued by the public relations department
3075 Wilshire Boulevard. Los Angeles. California 90010- 381-5311

USBDRAX

DR. CARL L. RANDOLPH - Vice Chairman 5 President
United States Borax § Chemical Corporation

Date of Birth

May 30, 1922
Southern California

Education

Whittier College - AB (Chemistry) - 1943
University of Southern California -

MS, PhD (Chemistry) - 1949
Whittier College - LL.D. (honorary) - 1982
University of Alaska - Doctor of Public

Service (honorary) - 1983

Military

Lieutenant, USNR (ret.)

Business History

Aerojet General Corporation
Principal Chemist, 1949-1957

U.S. Borax Research Corporation
Anaheim, California (a wholly owned
subsidiary of United States Borax
5 Chemical Corporation) - Manager of
Inorganic Boron Research, 1957; Associate
Director of Chemical Research, 1958;
Vice President, 1959; Chairman of Board,
November, 1969.

United States Bor
Los Angeles. Ass
April 1963; elect
March 1966; named
Department, June
and also designat
President, in add
responsibilities,
President in July
additional office
Board in May, 198

ax § Chemical Corporation,
istant to the President,
ed a Vice President,

Vice President, Marketing
1968; elected a Director,
ed Executive Vice
ition to his marketing
in November 1968; elected
1969; elected to the
of Vice Chairman of the
3.

Ill

Quaker influence at Whittier

College, 11-12
Quartz Hill, Alaska, molybdenum

mine, 64-75

Randolph, Carl

childhood and education, 1-22

reasearch chemist for Aerojet,
22-23

U.S. Borax, president, 53-83

U.S. Borax, research manager to
vice president, 24-52

volunteer work, personal
interests, 84-91
Randolph, Jane Taber (Mrs. Carl),

7, 12, 14, 17, 22. 27, 86
Randolph, Russell, 8-9
research division, U.S. Borax,

24-34
Riemer, Hugo, 29, 35-38, 42-43,

47, 49, 53-54, 84
Rio Tinto Zinc, 49-50

Sebec. U.S.S. oil tanker, 15-17

Sierra Club, 70-71

Stevens, Ted, 68, 70

strikes at U.S. Borax, 54, 57,

58-64
Swift and Company, 41-44

Taylor, Donald, 25, 34-35, 43
Travis, Norman, 29, 54, 90
Tsongas , Paul, 70-71
Twenty Mule Club, 57

U.S. Borax & Chemical Corporation,
24-84

diversification, 50-52, 75-77
environmental affairs

department, 56-57
environmentalist opposition in

Alaska, 67-73
labor relations, 57-64
lobbying, 67-72
molybdenum mine project, 64-

potash mining and marketing,

40-48, 82-84
research division, 24-34

U.S. Borax Research Corporation,

30-34
U.S. Silica Company, 77
Ulithi, 15-16

Van de Kamp, Andrea, 87

Whittier College, 10-13, 86-88
White -Thomson, Ian, ix-xii
Wilson, Walter, 4
Wittier, Mary, 4
World War II, 12-18

Young, Don, 68

INDEX- -Carl Randolph

110

Aerojet General Corporation 21,

22-24
air pollution mitigation, U.S.

Borax, 56-57
Alaska, molybdenum mine, 64-74
Allan Potash Mines, 43-47, 56,

82-84
American Mining Congress, 69, 82
Assheton, Ralph (Lord Clitheroe) ,

90
atomic bombs, 1945, 17-18

Homestake Mining Company, 42-45

Independent Colleges of Southern

California, 87-88
industrial maintenance supplies,

U.S. Borax, 50-51
International Longshore Workers

Union, 59-64

Knight, Bill, 26
Knight, Nix, 26

borane research at University of
Southern California, 19-21

boron high-energy fuel research,
30-31, 39-40

Bridges, Harry, 62

Burg, Anton, 20

Clitheroe, Lord, 90
Columbia Wax Company, 51
Corkill, Fred, 26
Cromwell, Tom, 24, 25

Depression, the, 6-7
Dow Chemical Company, 51

earthquake. Long Beach,

California, in 1933, 8-9

environmentalist opposition to
mining in Alaska, 67-73

Ferguson, Jack, 68

Gerson Stewart Company, 51
Gerstley, James M. , 26, 87-88
glass sand, 75-77
Gower, Harry, 26
Gustafson, John K. , 43

Hesse, Chris, 46

labor relations, U.S. Borax, 57-

64
lobbying, U.S. Borax, 67-72

Merck and Company, 52
molybdenum prospect, Quartz Hill,

Alaska, 64-67
Murkowski , Frank, 68

Navy, service in World War II,
15-17

influence on later life, 19
U.S.S. Sebec. 16-17

Office of Naval Research, 21-22
Ottawa Silica Company, 76-77
Ostrom, Gustav, 10
Overton, Allen, 69

Parker, David, 48

Pennsylvannia Glass Sand Company,

76-77
Pomona College, 88
potash marketing, 47-48
potash mining, U.S. Borax

in Canada, Allan Potash Mines,
43-47

in Carlsbad, New Mexico, 40-42

Eleanor Herz Swent

Born in Lead, South Dakota, where her father became chief
metallurgist for the Homestake Mining Company. Her
mother was a high school geology teacher before marriage.

Attended schools in Lead, South Dakota, Dana Hall School,
and Wellesley College, Massachusetts. Phi Beta Kappa.
M.A. in English, University of Denver. Assistant to the
President, Elmira College, New York. Married to Langan
Waterman Swent, mining engineer.

Since marriage has lived in Tayoltita, Durango, Mexico;
Lead, South Dakota; Grants, New Mexico; Piedmont,
California.

Teacher of English as a Second Language to adults in the
Oakland, California public schools. Author of an
independent oral history project. Newcomers to the East
Bay, interviews with Asian refugees and immigrants. Oral
historian for the Oakland Neighborhood History Project.

Interviewer, Regional Oral History Office since 1985,
specializing in mining history.

X 167 99

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