Interviewer(s): D. Austin. Amelia, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I was referred to Richard Carline by Dewey Wilson. Dewey had worked with Richard when he took a job with Tidewater, and the two of them did many overseas deliveries together. They also were very involved in Tidewater's training program. When I called Richard, he was busy trying to get a vessel ready to go overseas, so we agreed to wait until the following week. I reached him at his office on Monday morning, and he told me to come on over. When I told him what I wanted, he told me that he had spent his entire career with Tidewater and had lots to say. He told his secretary to hold his calls and closed the door so we could talk. At the end of the interview, Richard mentioned that he had a nearly complete set of Tidewater's company magazine, the News Tide, going back to the 1960s. He agreed to bring them in so I could borrow them.

Richard was raised on a houseboat in the Louisiana swamps. His family moved to town when he was 10 or 11 years old, and he later moved with his mother to Houston. After finishing high school, he spent three years in the Army and then returned to Morgan City and started working on the Rip Tide, servicing Texaco rigs off the coast of Louisiana. He learned how to navigate and became a deckhand. Then he worked his way up to earn his 100 Ton then 300 Ton and then 1600 Ton licenses. He has worked in and out of the office since 1968, returning to the boats whenever he tired of being in the office. Among his responsibilities, Richard delivered vessels around the world, helped develop training courses, served as operations manager, and oversaw new construction. He worked in the Gulf of Mexico, Nigeria, Angola, and the North Sea.