Interviewer(s): D. DiTucci. Lafayette, LA

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Russell Robin was born in 1931 in Breaux Bridge. At 17 he got a job on a dredging crew with McWilliams Company and five years later served in the Korean War for 2 years. He was discharged in 1954, came back home, got married, and resumed his work dredging. Less than half a year later, he got a job as a deckhand with Phillips Petroleum Company on a drilling rig off of Eugene Island (35 miles offshore) where he worked until he was laid off. In 1961, he went to work for Tidewater and over the course of a year was promoted from deckhand to engineer, from engineer to captain. He left Tidewater in 1971 to go to work for McDermott as a boat captain; he retired from McDermott in 1990. He also discusses unionization, the cultural impacts of the oil industry, and how he earned his pilot's license.