Scope and Contents From the Collection: When UH’s Center for Public History and the University Libraries collaborated to create the Houston History Archives (UH-HHA), part of their mission included a repository for oral histories that tell stories of the growth and development of the Gulf Coast region from multiple points of view. To that end, the Houston Oral History Project in the Center for Public History trains history graduate students to research and interview Houstonians with recollections of the city’s civil rights,...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonJohn Carter’s father worked for a quarter of a century as a production manager for Burma Oil, and his son followed him into the oil business. Living in Glasgow, Scotland, Carter studied mechanical engineering and graduated in 1964, then promptly joined Shell. He soon went to work in the North Sea, and then served in various positions in the United States, Asia, and beyond. He worked on the landmark...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonGlenn G. Chance was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1930, and enlisted in the Marines when he came of age during the Korean War. He returned in 1951 to work for the Lee C. Moore corporation, manufacturing drilling tools. A few years later, Chance started his own firm, Chance Sales & Service. He was soon after scooped up by Drilco, and Chance relocated to Morgan City to oversee a manufacturing shop. Chance,...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Jason TheriotAffiliation: University of HoustonDepp Cheramie went to work for Texaco in his native Louisiana in 1971, when he was 19 years old. After a decade with the firm, Cheramie moved on to Shell Oil in 1982, working as a senior operator on an offshore platform located in Eugene Island. After focusing on training in electronics, Cheramie was tapped to work on the landmark Auger tension-leg platform (TLP) project in 1992. In 1999, he was...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Jason TheriotAffiliation: University of HoustonRob Christ attended Louisiana Tech University and emerged with dual degrees in aviation and accounting. After a stint as a CPA, Christ joined up with the work of his father, C.J. Christ, in the subsea diving and remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) industry along the Gulf Coast. Hired by Oceaneering as an ROV technician, Rob Christ was also able to assist with his father’s historical work in the Gulf of Mexico,...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonMarshall Cloyd studied engineering at both Berkeley and Southern Methodist University before finishing a master’s at Stanford and Harvard Business School. In 1959, Cloyd began working in Mississippi for Brown & Root. Before long he followed the firm into the early platform design efforts in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, engineering parts of the heavy drilling barges needed in the Arctic environment. Cloyd later...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Jason TheriotAffiliation: University of HoustonWindell Curole served as the General Manager of the South Lafourche Levee District for over thirty years, overseeing hurricane and flood protection projects. Previously, Curole worked as the Assistant Director for the Lafourche Parish Emergency Preparedness. Curole’s involvement in coastal activities has led him to serve on various committees and organizations including the Governor’s Coastal Restoration...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Jason TheriotAffiliation: University of HoustonLawrence B. “Buck” Curtis graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1949 and promptly went to work for Conoco in its Wyoming oil fields. Curtis soon wound up leading a burgeoning engineering group for the company in its New York City office, overseeing international efforts. At the Fetah area in Dubai, Curtis helped to pioneer the use of underwater oil storage domes in the 1960s. In 1972, Curtis was...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonElmer “Bud” Danenberger III has a long and distinguished career as an offshore oil and gas expert in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Trained as an engineer at Pennsylvania State University, Danenberger took a job in 1971 with the now-defunct Conservation Division of the United States Geological Service. Danenberger played a key role during a busy period in which the Outer Continental Shelf program was...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Jason TheriotAffiliation: University of HoustonCharles “Chuck” Enze grew up in South Dakota, where he attended South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, graduating in 1975 as a civil engineer. Enze took on with Shell Oil at the start of 1976, eager to work on offshore platform designs for the Gulf of Mexico. In 1977 he was tapped to assist the design and construction team for the Cognac deepwater platform. After stints with Shell in Houston;...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonFrank Frankhouser attended Lehigh University, where he earned a degree in civil engineering before serving as a company officer in the U.S. Army in the Korean War. Come peacetime, Frankhouser signed on with the Dravo Corporation, doing heavy civil construction and engineering. When Dravo expanded into the offshore business in 1969, Frankhouser was tapped to be the vice president and general manager of Dravo...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonWagner Freire was born and raised in Brazil, where he completed five years of civil and nuclear engineering education in 1957. After graduation, Freire quickly joined up with Petrobras, the country’s national oil company, starting out by progressing through a two-year course in the nascent field of petroleum geology. From that point, in 1960, Freire served in roles pertaining to both surface geology and...

Scope and Contents Interviewer:Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonDick Frisbie was born in California but grew up in South Africa. He attended Virginia Tech, gaining a degree in mechanical engineering before working for Pratt & Whitney for three years. After several years in the U.S. Army, including time spent in-country during the Vietnam War, Frisbee returned stateside. At Old Dominion University, he earned a master’s degree in physical oceanography. He took on with...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler Priest and Jason TheriotAffiliation: University of HoustonDan Godfrey moved to New Orleans in 1968 after completing a master’s degree in structural engineering at Washington State University. Godfrey soon signed on with Shell Oil. Some of his early engineering work focused on introducing saltwater disposal methods, newly required by federal environmental laws passed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Other stints included work from The Hague on...

Scope and Contents Interviewer: Tyler PriestAffiliation: University of HoustonJohn Gregory attended college at Stevens Institute before joining the U.S. Navy. Gregory’s career then took him to Boeing, to work on gas turbines, before working for the Naval Research Lab starting in 1958. By 1977, Dick Krahl recruited Gregory to join the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to help make sure that offshore operations were done in accordance with the requirement that they use the "best available...