As I neared graduation from Stanford, I was approached, through the Student Placement Center, by General Petroleum Corporation. Their representative seemed anxious to hire me, though my grades were not exceptional. I had two or three different meetings with him. Their program was to hire me and let me work in the oil fields in different capacities to find out where I would most likely fit in best. There were about nine categories, and I would have to spend about three months in each for a total of twenty-seven months. I would receive the pay equivalent for whatever job I worked on in the different categories, which would average out to be about $140.00 per month. The work would have been in Taft, California. I decided I didn't want to live out in the boondocks of Taft, especially with a wife and child. Who knows what my career might have been if I had accepted the job? General Petroleum Corporation no longer exists. It was taken over by another oil company some years ago. I had taken several Mining Engineering courses with the thought that I might like to go into mining. After graduation, I took a short trip to Auburn, California, which is in the heart of the mining area of Northern California. Dad knew a man in the area who was in the mining business and he thought I should talk to him. I parked in the middle of town, and as I got out of the car, I heard a loud "bang" — that was my spare tire exploding. I didn’t take time to have it repaired. I found out that the best I could do to start would be "mucking" in a mine for very low wages, and it didn’t appeal to me. Mucking amounts to removing muck or dirt from mine excavations, which meant spending all the time underground. I returned to Stanford, picked up DeVonne and Dicky, and we headed back to Colton where I took a steady job at the Cement Plant, working for Carl Struckman in the Engineering Office. The pay was $140.00 a month. After some months, Dad encouraged me to look for a job somewhere else as there didn’t appear to be much of a future at the plant for me. I set about to prepare a résumé of my education and work experience. I sent it to all the oil companies with offices in the Los Angeles area, as well as Firestone, Goodrich, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Companies. I received polite responses from just about all the companies, commending me on my fine résumé, but only Firestone responded in a positive way. I was invited to an interview and ended up taking a job with them at their plant in Southgate, California. The personnel manager took me around the local area to help me find a home for my family and we settled on living in Huntington Park.