George R. Bolin's father was born in Galveston [Annotator's Note: Galveston, Texas]. His name was Lodwick Timothy Bolin but went by "LT". At Brown Shipyard [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas], he was called "Mr. B". He was born in 1899 and was nine months old when the 1900 storm hit Galveston [Annotator's Note: the Great Galveston Hurricane, also called the 1900 Storm, 8 September 1900]. He and his family were rescued from their home. Bolin's grandfather never looked back and moved to Houston. Bolin's father went to Texas A&M University [Annotator's Note: in College Station, Texas] and studied engineering. He joined the Army for World War 1. He got out when the war ended and continued his education as a professional engineer. He went to work with Gulf Bitulithic [Annotator's Note: Gulf Bitulithic Company in Houston, Texas] in 1919. In 1926, Brown and Root [Annotator's Note: now KBR, Inc. in Houston, Texas] hired him as the head of their paving department. In 1939, his father and four others were offered to buy three percent of the company. His father was the only one who took the offer. Halliburton [Annotator's Note: Halliburton Company in Houston, Texas] bought Brown and Root in 1962 and did not buy his father's interest. Haliburton offered him the presidency of Brown and Root, but his father declined since he was 62 years old, and Haliburton had a mandatory retirement at age 65. They named Herbert Frensley [Annotator's Note: Herbert J. Frensley] president instead. When his father reached 65, Halliburton extended his retirement to 1970.

Starting about 1940, Brown Shipyard [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas] began as a result of a small Navy contract. Platzer Shipbuilding [Annotator's Note: Platzer Boat Works, also called Platzer Shipyard Houston] in Houston had a contract to build several subchasers [Annotator's Note: submarine chasers], or PC, patrol craft. They were to patrol the coasts of the United States with depth charges [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum]. Platzer could not fulfill their contract with the Navy. Congressman Albert Thomas [Annotator's Note: Albert Richard Thomas] was in Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.] and put in a request to the Navy to consider Brown and Root [Annotator's Note: now KBR, Inc. in Houston, Texas] that had just completed the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi [Annotator's Note: Corpus Christi, Texas]. Platzer went into a joint venture with Brown and Root. Brown Shipyard was formed outside of Brown and Root. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks to back up a moment to talk about the building of the Naval Station in Corpus Christi.] Bolin knows very little about it. Bolin's father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] had very little to do with it. When Brown and Root got into the shipbuilding business, they had no one with experience with building ships. Bolin's father was a manager and engineer and was very detail minded. His father borrowed a boat and went up and down the Houston ship channel. He located some property on Greens Bayou and contacted the owner who was willing to sell. Brown bought Platzer out of the deal to build the subchasers. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what Bolin remembers of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Bolin was a month short of being 7 years old. Brown Shipbuilding had started before this and had bought the property in March 1940. Bolin went with his father to the property when they bought it. It was a pine forest. He took him back in July 1940 and it was a sea of mud with bulldozers and tree stumps then. They started work in late 1940 on the first ship. They had to shore up the frontage and had to dredge Greens Bayou. They bought a sawmill and cut the trees to use as a bulkhead on the bayou. There was only one dirt road and they had to pave a highway into the property. There were issues with everything. The Browns bought an interurban railroad in Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas] and built a railroad to connect to Houston. They had to pave the road into it. This was probably the catalyst that caused Galena Park, Texas to develop. Pasadena [Annotator's Note: Pasadena, Texas] was on the south side of the ship channel and a big number of employees lived there. Many employees lived in Houston, so they ran a private bus system for them. At their maximum, they had between 25,000 and 30,000 employees. They had to train all of the people. None of them had previous experience in shipbuilding so they built schools to train in the sub-industries they had to create for this. In about a five-year period, they built and launched 350 warships. Bolin thinks that the attitude of Brown and Root throughout the years was a "can-do" attitude. They felt there was no job too big or too small for them to undertake. They would pave your driveway as well as build the NASA [Annotator's Note: National Aeronautics and Space Administration] Manned Space Center [Annotator's Note: Manned Spacecraft Center, now Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas]. They built the Mansfield Dam [Annotator's Note: in Austin, Texas] as one of their first major government jobs. They rapidly expanded. They were willing to answer any challenge. It was a fascinating company to grow up with.

George R. Bolin knew of the Browns [Annotator's Note: the founders of Brown and Root, now KBR, Incorporated, in Houston, Texas] from the 1950s. Herman Brown [Annotator's Note: Herman Brown, Texas entrepreneur] was quiet gentleman. Both were courteous and old school. Mr. Herman Brown and his wife were both in the background from Bolin's standpoint. He saw more of Mr. George Brown [Annotator's Note: George Rufus Brown, Texas entrepreneur] who had three daughters who were ahead of Bolin in school. Herman Brown had two children that Bolin went to school with. He got to know Mike [Annotator's Note: Mike Brown] when he worked with him on a ranch in the summer of 1952. Louisa [Annotator's Note: Louisa Brown] was two years younger than Bolin. The whole family was quiet and reserved. Mr. George Brown was very outgoing and personable. He was a great salesman, kind, and generous. Bolin met him on several occasions. Bolin did not know Mrs. George Brown or the daughters well. Bolin's father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] expressed to him that if George Brown had not joined Herman Brown, they more than likely would have stayed as paving contractors. George Brown had the engineering background and was the salesman out in front of selling Brown and Root to the Navy. He was also more of a risk taker. When Bolin's father retired, there were seven different divisions of Brown and Root. His father had grown up in each of the divisions, so he was in on the ground floor. He explained to Bolin that after he retired, there would be seven senior vice presidents over each division. The Browns were wonderful to work for. When Bolin worked in west Texas, there was a guy who lost his right arm on the ranch. After he recovered, he went back to the ranch and said he was ready to go back to work. The ranch foreman fired him instead. Ralph [Annotator's Note: no surname given; unable to identify] had four children and was devastated. He drove to see Mr. Herman Brown. A separate ranching division was set up and Ralph was put in charge of that. That is the type of people that they were. They were cognizant of safety.

George R. Bolin could only go out to the shipyard [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas] on a Saturday. Either his mother [Annotator's Note: Madelene Elba Dell Goforth Bolin] or father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] would take him if they had a launch on that day. Bolin particularly remembers the destroyer escort launches because they were large. They were launched sideways into Greens Bayou. That created a huge wave on the opposite side of the bayou. He usually went with his mother. She played a role in the shipyard as the hostess of the sponsors of the ships. A destroyer escort would be named after a serviceman who had lost his life in the line of duty in the war. A relative would be brought to Houston to the Rice Hotel [Annotator's Note: now The Rice]. His mother would be the overseer to ensure they were comfortable. Brown Shipbuilding had a limousine with a driver named Sergeant Gallagher [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] who was retired military. They would take the family members to christen the ship as it was blessed and launched. Occasionally, if there was a small contingency, Bolin's mother would take him along. Once, Jack Dempsey [Annotator's Note: William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey, American professional boxer] came and Bolin had pictures taken with him. Bolin never got into the ships, but he would be on the platform. Red Skelton [Annotator's Note: Richard Red Skelton, American entertainer] came once, and Bolin met him in his father's office. The morale of the workers and people at the events was spectacular. Everybody was totally into the war effort. On one incident, there was some minor sabotage. His father went out to investigate and told Bolin it was really minor. Bolin did not see much of his father during the war due his father's working hours. Everybody bought war bonds [Annotator's Note: debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war] in record numbers. The workmen would commit to buying them. Bolin does not remember much about the drives and read the publication, the "Victory Dispatch" to learn more about it.

At the launch of PC-567 [Annotator's Note: USS PC-567, launched 11 April 1942], George R. Bolin's father, Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin said that the men who built the ship worked hard and would enjoy some time off, however, the fall of Bataan [Annotator's Note: Battle of Bataan, 7 January to 9 April 1942; Bataan, Luzon, Philippines] made it so their efforts could not equal the men who fell. Every bit of effort was directed to supporting the war. Bolin's father was awarded the Army-Navy "E" [Annotator's Note: Army-Navy "E" Award, presented to companies who achieved "Excellence in Production" of war equipment; also called the Army-Navy Production Award] at the shipyard [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas]. During the celebration, they launched seven ships. There was a brief break and that is when his father spoke of Bataan. His father was very quiet and very reserved and did not like talking to groups of people. Bolin was surprised that he had spoken when he later learned of it. Bolin never heard his father comment on the private enterprise aspect of the business. Bolin does not recall encountering women in the shipbuilding. There were many in the administrative side, but he does not recall any welders, painters, or other jobs being done by women. In the 1940s, there were no African-Americans there. They were all Americans with no differentiation. He doubts if anybody knows how many Black Americans worked there, because they were not categorized. If you were a welder, you were a welder and were hired. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Bolin to clarify that Brown Shipbuilding was an integrated company.] He does not think of it as one way or another. It was never an issue. He distinctly remembers a fine Black man that his father helped get out of the Army on a hardship discharge. He brought Willy [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; no last name given; unable to identify] to the shipyard. He was a superb cook. Each ship would be taken into the Gulf [Annotator's Note: Gulf of Mexico] on trials and needed a cook. Willy oversaw all of that. On his weekends off, Willy would come to their house and occasionally would cook for Bolin. They were best buddies and Willy cooked the best fried chicken. Willy was a lay preacher and he and his wife were wonderful people. Willy is the only Black person that Bolin distinctly recalls being at the shipyard. When Bolin went out there, he was on the launching platform and everybody below at hardhats on, so it was hard to see who they were or what their skin color was. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer notes that Brown Shipbuilding received four "E for Excellence" awards and that is an extraordinary achievement.] Bolin did not attend any of those ceremonies. In his research, he learned that the E flag was in his attic at home. After his parents passed away, their house was sold, and Bolin took all of the artifacts out to a warehouse. His wife asked him if he had looked at everything they had out there. His mother [Annotator's Note: Madelene Elba Dell Goforth Bolin] had kept a scrapbook on every launch. Bolin called Brown and Root Marine Division [Annotator's Note: now KBR, Inc. in Houston, Texas] and they came out to the warehouse and loaded the artifacts his mother had saved, including the flag. Most of it was turned over to Rice [Annotator's Note: William Marsh Rice University in Houston, Texas]. When Bolin was doing his research, he located the flag. Rice did not want to let go of the flag without a promise of a return. The flag had only five stars on it, but they earned six "E"s. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer tells Bolin that Rice agreed to permanently loan the flag to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] Bolin offers his congratulations and is glad his wife spotted the stuff. He was not present on 21 December 1942, when various dignitaries came to present the award. Bolin has seen pictures of that day as they launched seven new ships. Secretary Knox said what they did that day had never been done before. There are several pictures of Bolin's father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] with the flag [Annotator's Note: the "E" Award] but he has never known how his father ended up with it.

George R. Bolin does not recall hearing of Brown [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas] employees losing family members in the war. He had three older cousins in the service who were brothers. One was in the Navy, one in the tank corps, and one was a pilot. They all returned safely home. Familywise, they did not experience a loss. He did not know anyone who did. [Annotator's Note: Bolin looks at a list of questions and the interviewer takes a break. The tape resumes with Bolin in midsentence.] Bolin knew both Mike [Annotator's Note: Mike Brown, son of Texas entrepreneur Herman Brown] and Louisa [Annotator's Note: Louisa Brown, daughter of Herman Brown] for a long time and they were both very quiet and reserved. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Bolin if he ever read the Brown Victory Dispatch, a publication of Brown Shipbuilding.] He took a look at it later on but did not pay attention to it as a child. He read it while doing research for the museum [Annotator's Note: Houston Maritime Education Center and Museum in Houston, Texas] where he lives. [Annotator's Note: Bolin questions the interviewer and an offscreen person if they know of a Lucia at the Maritime Museum.] Lucia Serranos [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was a student at Rice [Annotator's Note: William Marsh Rice University in Houston, Texas] in her senior year when Bolin started his research. She was doing an internship and took Bolin, his wife, and the then head of the museum, Diane Lipton, by the hand through the archives. She was invaluable to them. She graduated and went to work full time at the Maritime Museum. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Bolin if he knows any stories about the USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413).] The stories he knows all have to do with his research and not from when he was a child. He knows it sunk the Chōkai [Annotator's Note: Imperial Japanese Navy Takao-class heavy cruiser Chōkai], heavily damaged a second [Annotator's Note: the Chikuma, an Imperial Japanese Navy Tone-class heavy cruiser], and then sunk [Annotator's Note: 25 October 1944, during the Battle off Samar, part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf; 23 to 26 October 1944; Samar Island, Leyte Gulf, Philippines]. There is a plaque at the Naval Academy [Annotator's Note: United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland] honoring the ship and the battle. Two of the destroyer escorts are still around. One [Annotator's Note: the USS Stewart (DE-238)] is in Galveston in Seawolf Park. That was the first one launched at Brown. There is another that is in the Mexican Navy [Annotator's Note: the USS Hurst (DE-250)]. It had been decommissioned and mothballed and then given or sold to Mexico. It is used as a training ship. He thinks there is a third somewhere [Annotator's Note: the USS McAnn (DE-179) in the Brazilian Navy].

George R. Bolin did not understand what war was when it started. A lot of things were restricted during the war. His father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] had a sticker on his car that allowed him to get gasoline because he was in an essential industry. His mother [Annotator's Note: Madelene Elba Dell Goforth Bolin] could not and had to be careful where she drove. There was exhilaration that part of the suffering came to an end. He does not remember much about it. Bolin participated in scrap drives at school. His mother did a number of things, like sewing uniforms. He was in elementary school, and they had stamp drives. They could earn war bonds [Annotator's Note: debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war]. All of the kids took part of their allowance and bought stamps to go towards war bonds. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer describes the mission of The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana and states that the war generation went on to build the United States into one of the most prosperous countries in the world. He asks Bolin for his thoughts on this.] Bolin's opinion is that the war caused a lot of people to have a disciplined life that does not exist today. His granddaughters are totally undisciplined. His mother had to plan out her driving due to having a limited amount of gasoline. His father's work ethic was disciplined, and he put in 18 hours a day at Brown shipping [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas]. That carried over into the 1950s and 1960s and then started breaking down. He marvels at how naive his granddaughters are and they range from ages 12 to 28. None of them have a clue as to what went on in the 1940s and 1950s. He eats lunch every Monday at his church with a group of men and they were discussing the subject. He is not sure the world is a better one and he feels sorry for his kids, particularly his grandkids. [Annotator's Note: Bolin asks the interviewer where he is from.] Bolin attended Vanderbilt [Annotator's Note: Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee].

When the war ended, George R. Bolin's father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] moved his office to Clinton Drive [Annotator's Note: in Houston, Texas]. Brown Shipbuilding [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas] built some drydocks under contract with the Navy. They drydocked a number of Navy ships and reconditioned them right after the war. An industry started with offshore drilling, and they started building offshore drilling platforms. At one point in time, his father received a plaque from Kerr-McGee [Annotator's Note: Kerr-McGee Corporation] for being involved in the first platform drilled out of sight of land. They did that for a number of years. When Halliburton [Annotator's Note: Halliburton Company in Houston, Texas] came along, the platforms became more of a floating rig. Halliburton sold the property off then. Brown got out of building the platforms and got involved in Mohole [Annotator's Note: Project Mohole]. This was a project to drill through the crust of the earth to find out what was in the mantle. They were hired by the National Science Foundation. It was a pet project of Mr. Herman Brown [Annotator's Note: Herman Brown, Texas entrepreneur]. He died in 1962, so Bolin's father inherited Mohole, which was in Phase 2, which would be a floating barge with jet engines on all sides. They were going to set up towers to triangulate the barge over the drill site. Bolin's father was fascinated with it. They would not make money on it, but when they finished, they would know more about deep drilling than anyone in the world. That is where the demand would come in. A Congressman got very upset that the National Science Foundation had not taken competitive bids and just chosen Brown and Root [Annotator's Note: now KBR, Inc. in Houston, Texas]. He killed the project, and it has never been done. Brown and Root were project managers for NASA [Annotator's Note: National Aeronautics and Space Administration] at the Johnson Manned Spacecraft Center's [Annotator's Note: Manned Spacecraft Center, now Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas] construction. They were a huge engineering company as well as the largest construction company in the world for some time. Brown and Root serviced the offshore rigs too. After his father retired, the federal government sued Brown and Root for price fixing. There were two companies that built the platforms. Tenneco [Annotator's Note: Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, now Tenneco, in Lake Forest, Illinois] was a major driller and oil producer. The Browns and the Symonds [Annotator's Note: Henry Gardiner Symonds], who were the heads of Tenneco, never got along. Brown and Root never bid on anything for Tenneco. The government based their case on that. Bolin's father truly retired and did not bring anything home but his car. He was subpoenaed and got on the witness stand. He said he did not have any records because he turned all of them over to his secretary, Ruth Evans, when he retired. That was the end of it. His father never brought a briefcase home at night. His time at home was for his wife and son.

George R. Bolin does not think Brown and Root [Annotator's Note: now KBR, Inc. in Houston, Texas] was in the pipeline business at the time that the Big and Little Inch Pipelines [Annotator's Note: Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines] were built due to submarine activity in the Gulf of Mexico in the 1940s. After the war, they decided to convert the oil pipelines to natural gas. Brown and Root was hired by Texas Eastern [Annotator's Note: Texas Eastern Transmission, LP] to oversee the conversion. They had compressor stations all along the line. Bolin's father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] oversaw the industry to build those. That is how Bolin got to Vanderbilt [Annotator's Note: Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee]. He got to go with his father there in 1950. Bolin graduated from high school in June 1952. The Browns were involved in the formation of Texas Eastern. Bolin's mother [Annotator's Note: Madelene Elba Dell Goforth Bolin] had a hysterectomy [Annotator's Note: surgical removal of the uterus] and was in the hospital. Bolin went to visit her, and his father was there. He was going to Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.], and he showed Bolin a check made out to the government. He was going to buy the pipeline from the government. Brown and Root was noted for coming in under budget. They were always non-union and that had some effect on that. They worked five and a half days week; nine hours on weekdays and five hours on weekends. They paid overtime as compared to the union workers. The Brown and Root employees made more money per week than the union workers. When they were building the stadium at Rice University [Annotator's Note: William Marsh Rice University in Houston, Texas], they got a permanent injunction against the unions picketing. They were building the stadium at cost. The State has a right to work law and they never unionized. That is why they did not work in the Beaumont [Annotator's Note: Beaumont, Texas] area, which was heavily unionized.

George R. Bolin's father [Annotator's Note: Lodwick Timothy "LT" Bolin] never got involved in politics. He managed the company [Annotator's Note: Brown and Root, now KBR, Inc. in Houston, Texas]. That was a strong suit of Mr. George Brown [Annotator's Note: George Rufus Brown, Texas entrepreneur]. Mr. Herman Brown [Annotator's Note: Herman Brown, Texas entrepreneur] and Mr. Frensley [Annotator's Note: Herbert J. Frensley] were also more politically involved. His father looked at it as a distraction from running the company. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Bolin what he would say to future generations regarding the home front civilian war efforts of men like his father.] Bolin would advise them to get more disciplined and to pay attention to what is going on in the world. Having a positive attitude is extremely important. He was very fortunate to grow up during that period of time and was disciplined by his mother [Annotator's Note: Madelene Elba Dell Goforth Bolin]. That carried over into his work ethic which many young people today do not have. He wishes he could express it better to his granddaughters. He is afraid of what is coming down the pike. He is 82 years old and is not going to see it. He does not know that anybody knows. What would Stephen Hawking [Annotator's Note: Stephen William Hawking CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA; English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author] tell young people today? In one sense, it is scary. He feels the people today are smarter but do not use it. Bolin's father went to A&M [Annotator's Note: Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas] and that is all Bolin knew all his life. His mother went to Rice [Annotator's Note: William Marsh Rice University in Houston, Texas], but Bolin was not smart enough to go there. In his teenage years, he loved A&M. His father sat him down to talk to him about it. He said Bolin would not like it. It was all military and Bolin was a totally undisciplined juvenile. There were also no girls and Bolin had not thought about that. His father asked him to go look at Vanderbilt [Annotator's Note: Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee]. He went and loved it. He wishes he could answer the question about how to tell somebody today about the war. You have to honor the country and he hopes his kids do. He is not sure about his seven granddaughters. One told him she is a big supporter of Bernie Sanders [Annotator's Note: Bernard Sanders, American politician and activist] and he asked her why. She said because everything would be free. He told her she has gotten everything for free all of her life. [Annotator's Note: Bolin and the interviewer wrap up by discussing papers and copies of the interview.]