This book chronicles the struggles and successes of a boy of the 1940s from a lower-middle class family in central Ohio in becoming a prominent professional geologist well known in the U.S. and around the world. His memoirs are a testament of his commitment to moving forward, to learning more, while confronting serious impediments. Pure luck, combined with support and encouragement provided by his mother and father, by his grade-school principal, by his high-school friends and teachers, by some of his college professors, by many of his employers, and by his first wife's assistance, his second wife's unerring support and assistance, his son's invaluable capabilities in the field and in computers, and with the moral support of his daughters and his sister and brother, allowed him to go after his dreams of traveling the world in worthwhile pursuits.
His story should provide incentives to those coming from the lower economic levels of American society, where commitment builds confidence, which fosters success, the principal thread throughout the story is of a little boy growing into manhood and professional maturity illustrated by anecdotes of mistakes and successes along the way that impacted and reinforced his personal development, critical thinking and behavior throughout his life as a professional geologist, husband, father and grandfather.
His professional experiences after leaving Ohio in the decades that followed, combined with his earlier experiences as a Boy Scout and at summer camp, allowed him to overcome the potentially deadly environments in the Outback of Australia, the language issues while in many countries in Europe, and the potential political issues prevalent in Africa, and even in Vietnam many years after the Vietnam War ended. As a result, he became a well-known leader in geology and hydrogeology in the mining industry and in the environmental engineering industry, finishing with the leadership position in the DuPont environmental group in Houston. During those years he had to deal with ethical and criminal issues in the mining industry, involving the ACLU at one time and the Mafia at another time, and ethical and managerial issues in the environmental industry at later times. He soon focused on geological research because it seeks to establish the physical characteristics and conditions of the Earth's natural resources and reveals the impact on the environment created by nature and/or by some industries.
Earlier in his career