Interviewer(s): S. Wiltz. Lafayette, LA

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Jim Florstedt was born in 1944 and his father was in the State Department; the family moved frequently, never staying in a location for more than four years. He received a bachelor's degree from Eastern New Mexico University in geology and zoology in 1967. After graduating Texas Tech in 1969 with a master's degree, he went to work for Humble Oil Company in New Orleans. After spending four years in New Orleans, he quit Humble and moved to Denver where he worked for Tenneco Oil Company. In 1977 he asked for a transfer to Lafayette and has been there ever since. In 1989 Chevron bought out Tenneco; he retired from Chevron in April of 1999. He describes changes in technology and communications over the years and the impacts of regular layoffs in the 1980s and 1990s. Because of poor audio quality, verbatim transcription is not possible on the last 30 minutes of the interview; 10 minutes have been "transcribed" as best as possible.