Interviewer(s): A. Gardner. Morgan City, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I met Parker Conrad at his office at the Conrad yards. Although he's well over 80, he still goes into the office every day. He's a very kind and intelligent man, as others had correctly noted to me, and he was perfectly willing to take an hour out of his day to meet with me and talk. He is a wealth of knowledge concerning the history of the region, the history of industry, and the entrepreneurship necessary to succeed in the oilpatch. Most of our discussion revolved around his business, but in places we talked about the community and people upon which his business depended. He has good things to say about the people of Morgan City and the surrounding areas - they're hard workers. The community has changed a lot. He describes how poor the community was when he got started, and how much things have changed since then. We also looked at some photographs from WWII - the German Uboats sunk 35 ships just off Morgan City.

Parker was born up near Jefferson Island but moved down to Morgan City as a boy. His father came from a wealthy family, but Conrad struck out on his own in the Great Depression. He rode a train across the country as a hobo and tried numerous ventures before he finally got into boatbuilding. While he started out building shrimpboats, the oil companies began to lease boats for their seismographic work, and eventually he made the transition to building in steel. He built crewboats and barges for the most part. Conrad Industries is a large business, and a successful one. The company recently went public and bought a shipyard in Texas, and Parker technically has less control over the business than he did in the past.