This goes back to the 1958-59 school year when I was a senior in Agricultural Engineering at the University of Illinois. The path to my first job and subsequent career at Caterpillar was not so simple and direct. I should mention that in those days the practice of employers offering summer employment to prospective hires had not yet evolved. I returned to work on the family farm each summer, not to an internship somewhere.
Job offers for engineers seemed plentiful to me in the late 50’s. I interviewed with several small companies that offered me jobs, but my main interest was in John Deere, Allis-Chalmers, International Harvester and Case – the main agricultural tractor and machinery companies at that time. I also interviewed with Caterpillar but declined their offer to visit their facilities in Peoria – not that interested. I never interviewed with Case. I had good credentials in terms of grade point average and membership in Sigma Tau, Tau Beta Phi and Alpha Epsilon engineering honorary fraternities. My roles as president of the Student Branch of the Agricultural Engineering Society on campus and as house president at my residence added to their interest in me. It was a “seller’s market” for me.
I visited John Deere in Moline IL – very impressive people but nothing about the work they were doing caught my interest. The next was Allis-Chalmers in Springfield. Not very impressive personnel… their main R&D (Research and Development) facility was in Milwaukee WI and I never did visit there. The one that caught my interest was International Harvester (IH) in Hinsdale IL. The people seemed very sharp and the work I would likely be doing attracted me more than work at Allis-Chalmers or John Deere… I sent IH an acceptance letter the spring of 1959; I never visited Case or Caterpillar before making up my mind.
My good friend John McMunn who shared a Grad Student office in the Agricultural Engineering building with me was on a similar interview circuit. John had accepted an invitation to visit Caterpillar, and when he returned, he was very excited about what he had seen and also the personnel – he insisted that I accept their invitation and at least go ahead and visit since the facility in Peoria was less than 2 hours away. So I called Caterpillar and arranged a visit to placate John who had already accepted their job offer.
I was really impressed by the way I was treated and the kind of work that they showed me on my tour of their R&D facilities in East Peoria. The people were the sharpest that I had met and the facilities seemed to be by far the most advanced technically, in terms of test equipment and test cells on display. I talked to all the people who would be in charge of my first year in a training program that would give me a wide range of assignments before I had to choose an “end point”. I loved the prospects of working there, and it was the closest to home in terms of locating in Peoria. John was right!
When I returned home, I had to write an “apology – change of plans” letter to IH which they graciously accepted and then I wrote my acceptance letter to Caterpillar. My date of employment was the following summer because they were presently in the midst of a downturn financially as a company but that was OK with me – that delay would give me time to complete my work on a master’s degree (I assumed) so starting to work in the summer of 1960 was perfect. The irony in all this was that when John McMunn reported to work at Caterpillar that summer, he failed their physical! Bad eyes; he had no depth perception and that disqualified him from working in the moving machinery environment of Caterpillar’s Research and Development facilities. John did not appeal; he instead took a job in the airline industry on the west coast.
I began my job at Caterpillar in July of 1960 with the idea that I might return to academia as a college professor because from my observations the best teachers were those with some “working in the real world” credentials. However I loved the work enough that I never gave the prospect of returning to the University and leaving Caterpillar serious consideration. That first year in their training program – a series of 6-to-8-week assignments in a variety of departments – was very beneficial. I had assumed that I would choose placement in the department that worked on the strength and durability of the structural elements and frames of machines. Instead, I chose a department called Vehicle Components, working on control systems and hydraulics that I found challenging and fascinating! From there I began my career that lasted 41 years!
Unlike most people today I had a single employer – Caterpillar. But the assignments and experiences over the years were so varied that I feel like I had about five different careers over the span of 41 years. I worked in Hydraulics and Control Systems, Transmission Development in the Lab as a Supervisor, Full Product Development of various machine lines at our Proving Ground, and Transmission Design supervision. Then I took an overseas assignment near Tokyo Japan in charge of a Design Department for 4 years, returning to an assignment associated with Standards Development, and then manager of a Standards and Engineering Services Department. Enough variety and challenges to make 41 years go by all too quickly, retiring in 2001 – 20 years ago this summer!
Photographs from Don’s Story
