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Page eleven... Memoirs continues...
McNammara asked me if I had ever sold bonds. I told him "no." He said, "Well, do you want to try?" I said, "I'll try anything." He then said, "I'll give you a trial beginning your salary at $100 per month and expenses. Arrange to take the train for Buffalo, NY, tonight. Draw your expenses at cashier's desk and my assistant will give you a list of people to call upon. Your territory will be New York State, outside of New York City." I drew $75 expense money, received my calling list, and made a bee line for home to tell Lucia the good news. The $75 expense money was the first large amount of money I had had in my pocket for a long time.
The first thing I thought of was how could I take Lucia with me. The next thing was an overcoat and some new shoes, and I was badly in need of both. Well, Lucia was delighted to learn the good news, and after discussing matters we managed to hit upon a plan. Which was to take Lucia to Fort Plain where she could stay with her brother until I returned from my trip to Buffalo. I bought a cheap overcoat and a pair of shoes for myself and some wearing apparel for Lucia, and we left New York that night.
I had about as bad luck as anyone could have. Trying to sell bonds was about the hardest thing one could tackle and especially at this period. Everyone seemed to own bonds and no one wanted to buy any more.
In Rochester, New York, there was a flood, and I was marooned there for several days. In Utica, New York, I waited at the door of a cashier of a trust company for over an hour, and at last I obtained an interview. Will I ever forget the incident! I talked about the bonds I had for sale and when I had finished the cashier said, "I have heard your story. You tell a good story, but you are the fourteenth bond salesman whom I have interviewed today. We have no funds to invest, so I cannot help you that way, but I can help you in another way, if you want to." I told him that I certainly did want him to do so. He said, "You tell so good a story, I can see you have real salesmanship, but you are trying to sell something that cannot be sold now. I advise you to switch into something which you can sell, and I'm sure you will succeed. You will find it easy after trying to sell bonds."
I do not know who this man was. I have forgotten the name of the trust company and his name also, but I acted upon his advice, and this was the turning point in my life to better things.
I took the train back to New York and told the bond department head that I could not sell anything. He said, "I did not expect you to; I wanted you to get the experience. You can stay here in the office and try your hand around the city."
One day when I was alone in the office, at noontime, an elderly gentleman entered and asked to see the head of the firm. I told him he was out, and he then said he was the inventor of a carburetor oil burner and he wanted backing financially to introduce this burner to the oil refining companies. He showed me this burner. I was instantly interested. I told him to leave it with me and I would take it up with the head of the firm. Later on I interviewed Mr. Govin, one of the partners of the firm. He told me to take it up with Mr. Ewing, their engineer.
My entering the Engineering Department and introducing myself to Mr. Frederic Ewing marked another important event in my life. Mr. Ewing, who was a mining engineer, wanted to get into the petroleum field instead. He, therefore, also became interested in this oil burner. Mr. Govin then said, "You two boys take this burner over to the Interboro Ferry Company, Greenpoint, Long Island, and install it in one of their boilers and report to me the result." I went with Mr. Ewing as his helper, knowing nothing about petroleum and knowing nothing about steam boilers. Mr. Ewing and I worked at this power plant for about nine months. During this period, Ewing was most kind and considerate; he taught me how to fit pipe, how to install fuel oil tanks, how to burn oil, how to estimate capacities of tanks, and how to operate a steam boiler. Upon his advice I took a course in a correspondence school in engineering and boiler practice, chemistry and petroleum technology, studying nights and working with him in the daytime. We installed complete fuel oil burning equipment at this plant, ran boiler tests with oil vs. coal, and invented a new type of oil burner and tested this out in a practical way. And altogether this was a most fortunate experience for me, both on the account of the basis of a petroleum education it gave me, but also the advantage of the intimate association of a brilliant engineer, who was Yale graduate and as fine a gentleman as it has ever been my good fortune to meet. I knew him well enough to call him Fritz; and never will forget Fritz, my pal at the Greenpoint Ferry power house.
When the oil burning experiments were completed in the winter of 1914, Mr. Ewing, who up until this time had been employed by H.B. Hollins Co. as a mining engineer, decided to try his fortunes with an oil company and specialize in petroleum engineering exclusively, as there was at this time a movement by the oil companies into the fuel oil business on a somewhat broader scale. He finally made a connection with the Inter-Ocean Oil Co. of 90 West(?) St., New York. This company was one of the pioneer companies to develop and market Mexican crude petroleum and was at this period beginning to push Mexican Panuco crude into use as a heavy fuel.
It was with this extremely heavy, thick oil we had been experimenting at the Interboro Ferry Co.'s Greenpoint plant, and had in this work developed a special type of oil burner to handle this product, and had learned how to efficiently burn heavy fuel oil under steam boiler tests both on coal and on oil to get comparative results and obtained data showing a decided advantage in overall efficiency with the oil as fuel over the different grades of steam coal then used in and around New York in large power plants.
Mr. Ewing, who was a most methodical, painstaking engineer, kept carefully prepared records of our work, including oil burning data, equipment costs, installation requirements such as proper storage, reserve capacities in tanks, duplicate oil feed lines and pumps, pre-heating equipment and other intimate details that were valuable for any oil company to have. As at this time, these facts, together with the comparative data of oil fuel verses coal, were rather unknown factors and could be used to great advantage by oil companies to induce power plants to change from coal to fuel oil. Mr. Ewing was generous enough to coach me in this work, showed me how boiler tests were conducted, taught me pipe fitting tank installation and how to estimate capacities of tanks, and for the first time I learned from him Py R. Square and it's meaning. I also learned the facts about oil burning efficiencies and fuel oil requirements, and obtained an education during this period that altered the whole course of my life. I became intensely interested in not only this work but in chemical engineering more(?) generally, and began to study chemistry along with engineering, and the more I studied this science, the more interested I became as I had a vision of a wonderful future opening up in this branch of work in connection with development in all refining methods which was sure to come and this vision has proven true to the letter as since that time entirely new methods of refining petroleum have generally been adopted.
One morning, Mr. Ewing told me he had resigned from H.B. Hollins Co., and had taken a position with the Inter Ocean Oil Co. as sales engineer. This information came as a shock to me as it meant my work was also finished and I must return to the office and again try to sell bonds and I knew I couldn't ever succeed in this line of work. He read the disappointment in my face and said, "I'll try to get you a job also with the oil company. I think I've taught you enough so you can go ahead alone. At least you can try, put up a big bluff and do your best and if you get into any trouble I'll help you out."
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