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

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Norman Salter was born in 1912 in Many, Louisiana; he was raised in northern Louisiana. He left college (where he was studying to be a school teacher) when he was about 20 to go work in the oilfield first in north Louisiana and then in south Texas. A friend helped him to get a job as a derrick for Nicholas Drilling Company; they worked in the Tepetate Field near Basile, Louisiana, and a field near Ville Platte. He moved with his family to Lafayette from Eunice in 1956 so that his daughters could go to college at Southwestern Louisianan Institute (SLI); at that time he had an independent drilling company with a few partners. Not long after moving to Lafayette, he sold out his share in the company and went to work as a superintendent for MichPSC, as gas pipeline company. They were unsuccessful in the area and moved out; he then got into consulting.