Marcy, William M. 2005-07-14
William Marcy’s personal experience growing up in the countryside and the benefit he attained from early life experiences. He talks about his duties and work experiences overseas in the CIA. Lastly he discusses his experience as a businessman as well as an administrator at Texas Tech University.
General Interview Information
Interviewee Name: William M. Marcy
Additional Parties Recorded:
Date: July 14, 2005
Location: Lubbock, Texas
Interviewer: David Marshall
Length: 03:08:13
Abstract
Background information; William Michael Marcy; Born March 28, 1942; Born at West Texas Hospital in Lubbock; Parents were farmers; Went to school in Lubbock; Father’s name and mother’s name; Parents got married in 1941; Water on the farm; Function of the windmill; Maternal grandfather’s information; First impression of the Plains when grandparents arrived; Moved from East Texas; Tools of Transportation; Location to purchase lumber; Parents’ information; Father’s choice of occupation; Started working as a truck driver; Learned to drive 18 wheelers from father; Mother’s occupation in the supermarket; Invited other school friends to a truck ride; Working experience as a child; Helped grandfather on the farm; Learned how to read blueprints; Rebuilt an engine; Advantages of former experience with machines; Work-ethic gained from farm experience; Memories of Ropesville, Texas; Light bulb; Sunset; Batteries for the light; Battery-powered radio; Barns and farm houses; His home; Structure of house; Water system and heating system; Construction of the house; Butane heater; Houses in town compared to houses in the country; Extra facilities of a house in town; Different living standards; Varying structures of the houses; Indoor plumbing; Lubbock; First house in Lubbock; Nice neighborhood; Reason why Lubbock didn’t expand to canyon area; Industrialization of the canyon area; Railroad went through Slaton; Material transported by the railroad; All-brick houses; George R. Bean Elementary School; The previous campus; Talked to the students as an alumni; Decoration of the building; Types of lunch; Rural school lunches were abundant; Science teacher; Books read in the library; Bug collection; Solar system; Building models; Different mentalities of figuring things out; Impacts of the childhood experiences on career; Different mindsets of different generation; Idea of fixing things on your own is long gone; Our throw-away society; Design mentality’s difference; Intuition of design; Elementary school and Junior High; Did not remember many people from elementary school; Faculty developed interests of the student; Junior High teacher; Laboratory of the junior high school; Cleaned the laboratory and got to use microscope; Maturing experience; Other interests developed in junior high school; High school and college; Went to Monterey high school; Chemistry teacher; Made living through photography; The start of the photography business; Build up of business by reputation; Sold photography business due to overload of work; Photography company’s information; Process of building up the photography business; Impact of experience in photography in later stage of life; Ranching landscape photography; Natural beauty; Options at college; Had to live at home and make living through photography; Reasons to stay in Texas Tech; Intended to join the army; ROTC and engineering background; Work experience connected to hands-on skills; Benefited from special skills gained from childhood; Overseas experience; Places stationed; Broad experiences dispelled old biases; Cold war; Went to places all over the world; Unsettling because of the work shift; Jumps between different positions; Got married in 1968; Duties at CIA; Counter-intelligence work; Security communications; Could not talk about specific details; U.S. consulate in Saint Petersburg; Russia’s concern; Games played in Moscow; Trips for training mission; Trained others to use equipment; Taught indigenous people communication systems; Ways to instruct people with no education background; Analyzed Soviet technology; Found Texas Instruments logos on Soviet equipment; Soviet technology of their own; Soviet compressor equipment for oil pipeline; Special operations; Marine Corps instructor; Guns and explosions; Collected unused ammunition; Exploded 300 pounds of TNT; Went back to Texas Tech to get PhD; Had difficulty coming back to school; Topics of thesis; Got PhD in 1972; Became deputy director of training center in CIA; Served as associate professor at Texas Tech; Reason for choosing Electric Engineering; Career was not strictly planned; Assignment of taking pictures while traveling; A research project; 1975 energy crisis; Developed a new type of solar cell; Technical success but economic failure; Short-sightedness in engineering; Business mentality and technical mentality; Expectations of the gas price; Solar thermal facility; Interests as an associate professor; Auto-robotics research; Gratification of teaching; Teaching for different levels of students; Switched to industry; Got paid twice as much as working as professor; Marine Corps age dispute; Went to Dallas to start a company in 1981; Financial Software Company; Transition from academic world to business world; Predicted the crash of oil business; Cost price analysis; Oil equipment price drop; Decision making in ARMCO; Different model for predicting oil price; Computer science department at Texas Tech; Reason for Texas Tech to start the department; Became the director of computer science; Worked on the position for 5 years; Became the Dean of Engineering; Familiarity with College of Engineering; Skills of being a Dean; People skills; Money and budget; Ability to deal with outside world other than academia; Management style; The way to pick a departmental chair; Another example of starting a research center; Kept even-temper when managing personnel; Skills to correct people’s mistakes; Autonomy in management; Challenges as a Dean; Personnel decision making; Only a few caused most problems; Greatest challenges as Provost; Money and budget problem; Building up diversity of the faculty members; Different administrations of Texas Tech; Recognized Grover Murray as the greatest administrator; Contribution of Bob Lawless to financial aspect of Texas Tech; Bob Lawless’ duty in Southwest Airline; People skills of Donald Haragan; David Schmidly’s spending; Jon Whitmore’s fund balancing ability; Strength of Grover Murray; Excellence in research; Insight on legacy of Grover Murray; Downturn in the history of Texas Tech; Transformation due to only one person; Things Texas Tech is learning; Open attitude; Trust building.
Access Information
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Recording Format Notes:
Transcript: No transcript available
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