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

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Joseph LeBlanc was born in 1939 and raised in Abbeville, Louisiana; his father was a salesman and died when he was 13 years old. After graduating from high school in 1957, he went to college at Northeastern where he studied pharmacy, then transferred to USL and studied chemistry. He tired of school after two years and enlisted in the Army. In 1962 he went to work for Cardinal Wireline Company in New Iberia; over the next nine years he worked his way up from helper to senior operator. At the request of Union Oil of California (Unocal), he went to work for them in 1970. He retired in 1997. He provides details of his first job offshore, accidents, the relationship between offshore operations and the MMS, and he reflects on working in the industry, his choice to retire, and the impact offshore work has on workers' families.