--------------------------- 10/18/87 From the desk of Roger L. Henson, P.E. Norris: I found this history of Z&V and the air conditioning industry fascinating. I know you will enjoy it. If you haven't already, it would be nice to write your history as a continuation of the engineering legacy. Please accept this copy with my compliments. Roger ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1996 From the desk of Norris L. Fanning: I did enjoy reading it. This story was transcribed faithfully by Gloria Aguilar, our talented word processor. Her instructions were to change not a word of it. I did insert [comments enclosed in brackets] and initialed in a few of places where I couldn't resist the temptation. Percy Nelson Vinther was a man I admired greatly. He neglected to mention in the story that he served as president of the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers. That was so typical of this modest man of legendary ability. Some day I may pick up the story where he left off. Norris ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION On September 20, 1982, Purdy-McGuire, Inc. acquired the business of Zumwalt & Vinther, Inc. PMI is proud to present this history of Zumwalt & Vinther written by P.N. Vinther in 1979. We feel this history represents an accurate picture of the dawning of professional engineering in this area, and will be of interest to not only the engineering community, but also to the manufacturing, contractual, and architectural community. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- HISTORY OF SORTS "At what point does the history become the biography of the author?" -Unknown- I. PREFACE This account was requested of me both by some of the present staff as a personal matter and by the current ownership for its historical interest. It will be written where it concerns the writer in the first person for the very good reason (to me) that this is the easiest way. It will not be copyrighted and anyone interested has my permission to reproduce, condense, and/or excerpt; and even to change the format provided the facts remain undisturbed. Just as a person during his lifetime appears to the world in many guises, so also has that which is today called Zumwalt and Vinther, Inc. The business actually began in 1937 as a two man partnership, modified to three, back to two; was run by me alone for a time; two again, followed by five, then six; and finally became in 1964 the corporation which is now owned by Science Applications, Inc. The people involved in ownership during each of these stages and the approximate dates each of the transitions are as follows: ZUMWALT AND DARRAH, a partnership formed in 1937 of the late Ross Zumwalt and M.D. Darrah, long since deceased. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER, a three way partnership entered into in February of 1938 which incorporated P.N. Vinther and which existed until June 1, 1938. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER, a fifty-fifty partnership of the two remaining after the withdrawal of Darrah in the June of 1938 and continuing until dissolution June 24, 1943. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER, The war years - Ross Zumwalt volunteered his services to the Navy, was commissioned Lieutenant J.G. and assigned to Bureau of Ships, Washington, D.C. We formally dissolved partnership prior to his departure to duty with the oral understanding that I would keep the home fires burning as best I could as sole proprietor and that when he returned we would pick up right where we had left off. We executed a new agreement on April 4, 1945, retroactive to Jan. 1, 1946. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER (Postwar), again a two way which partnership which existed from Jan. 1, 1946 until Jan. 1, 1953. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER after January 1, 1953 (which came to be referred to unofficially amongst ourselves as Z&V-5) consisting of the original two plus R.E. Miller, F.L. McFadden and J.T. Worley, a combination which continued until January 1, 1964. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER, INC., after January 1, 1964, a continuing partnership of five persons after the withdrawal from ownership and responsibility of Vinther and the addition of C.F. Gilmore. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER, INC., a corporation which became effective July 7, 1964 of which the principal stockholders were the partners enumerated above, plus in subsequent years W.F. Wright, R.G. Lyford, W.C. Walcutt, J.F. Roberts, B.H. Hanssen, E.T. Benson, J.L. Radford, M. Hughes, Z. Burley, N. Fanning. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER, INC., the same corporation but as of March 7, 1975 the sole property of Zumwalt through purchase of all other stock; which ownership he subsequently shared with Bruce H. Hanssen and Tommy J. Lawrence, Jr. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER, INC., June 1, 1979, on which date it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Science Applications, Inc. an engineering conglomerate with kindred interests, based at La Jolla, California. The history of any firm is a fabric woven of the lives and accomplishments of the individuals who gave it substance and it is these threads which this chronicle will attempt to follow and illuminate. It will not be surprising if, since they are the ones I knew most intimately, my own threads get more attention than they deserve; if such proves to be the case, I beg your indulgence. All who knew him mourn the passing on March 10, 1980 of Ross Zumwalt, the man who started it all. A great many of those with whom he had been associated through the years - mechanics, materials people, contractors and architects, had preceded him but a gratifying fact was the large attendance at the memorial service of the younger element - one's who had not known him personally well at all. This, in my opinion, is attributable to the high professional respect in which he was held. II. BEGINNINGS - ZUMWALT & DARRAH ZUMWALT DARRAH & VINTHER Ross Zumwalt's antecedents were in Missouri where Zumwalts are said to be almost as thick as Smiths. In his later years, Ross' father was employed in the Dallas City Hall; but in his middle years, the years during which Ross did most of his growing up, Mr. Zumwalt, Sr. operated the lobby concession in the old Southern Hotel. His mother distinguished herself by service through many years as a member of the Board of the Dallas Independent School District. It is in her honor that the Sarah Zumwalt Elementary School in Oak Cliff (it does not appear in today's telephone directory) was named. As to other family, I was acquainted with one uncle and two aunts. Ross himself sired a daughter and a son. Home was on Reagan Avenue in Oak Lawn. Turtle Creek was his frontier and his swimming hole. Cops were his pet hate. For a kid with limited means and mathematical turn of mind, the Co-op School of Engineering at SMU was a natural and there he received his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1933. Though I never heard any indication of outstanding scholastic brilliance while he was in school, the school nevertheless came to be proud of him; for in 1966, as part of its 50th anniversary, he was accorded recognition by being designated, along with four others, as Distinguished Engineering Alumnus. It is the way of life in the co-op school to alternate periods of work in industry with periods in the classroom. Ross found the work he liked best and that which would engross him for the balance of his life in the office of R.F. Taylor, Consulting Engineer. Mr. Taylor, a native of an educated in South Africa, an immigrant by way of Canada and a veteran of WW-I was THE pioneer in mechanical and electrical consulting engineering in this part of the world. He maintained an office first in Dallas, then in both Dallas and Houston and finally in Houston alone; and in one or the other or both of these two offices Ross (and I) and half the other good engineers of the state of his day were at one time or another employed. Mr. Taylor was an accomplished engineer in his time and field and great teacher. Ross' grounding in the fundamentals of building construction, general as well as mechanical, his draftsmanship, all are owed to Mr. Taylor's tutelage and to some outstanding fellow employees. And so, after his graduation, Ross became a fixture in Mr. Taylor's office, mostly in Dallas, until the completion of the Texas Centennial construction in 1936, when Mr. Taylor closed his Dallas operation and returned permanently to Houston. It was during the course of the Centennial work that Ross became acquainted with M.D. Darrah and out of this acquaintance grew their determination to hang out a shingle in partnership. M.D. (Doc) Darrah was an electrical type, an immigrant to these parts from the midwest. He was well trained for the work, having both technical expertise from school and manual skills learned as a journeyman electrician; and subsequently proved himself an able administrator through many years as Chief Electrical Inspector for the City of Dallas. It must be almost impossible for those of today's younger generation to conceive the primitive simplicity, comparatively, of the mechanical and electrical construction of the thirties. It's backbone from the standpoint of volume, was educational followed a poor second by commercial. Professional people seldom had any connection with construction for manufacturing purposes. Prior to the arrival of R.F. Taylor, there was no such thing in Dallas as a professional mechanical engineer. Professional registration was many years in the future. That which appeared on plans and in specifications was prepared in the architect's office either by his own personnel, who in any case did the drawing, or by a contractor or a materials salesman. In the electrical field, wiring was not a major factor; there were few motors of consequence except on elevators. Lighting, especially in schools, consisted of little more than showing one or more outlets in the ceilings of each room; school classrooms got one base outlet on the front wall. With the advent of the movie projector, they began to get two. In the mechanical field, air conditioning was in its infancy; had not yet, with rare exceptions, been applied outside of theaters and restaurants; and expertise was largely limited to refrigeration and fan manufacturers. Plumbing planning as applied to construction drawings consisted of little more than a showing by the architect of the types and locations of fixtures; piping was devised by the installation agency, his only control being the applicable Plumbing Code. Central heating systems were nearly all steam (nobody in this part of the world then recognized the virtue of hot water except Dr. F.E. Giesecke). Design of a multi-room building such as a school consisted of locating a cast iron radiator under each window, sized as recommended by ASHVE, and connecting them to the boiler in accordance with the C.A. Dunham Co. Handbook. In places of assembly, duct heating was sometimes used employing cast iron heat exchange surface. Steam unit heaters and gas fired furnaces were just coming into being. Many of Z&V's early designs showed what were called gasteam radiators; and even open flame unvented gas fired space heaters. Automatic temperature regulation (pneumatic) was the ultimate in sophistication. Expertise in all these fields was in the hands of the manufacturers, and their agents and contractors and could be learned by the pioneer engineers from no other sources. Reg Taylor himself was a product of the C.A. Dunham training school. Heating and related products were handled in the twenties just as today by manufacturers' agents and Dallas was dominated by two individuals and the two firms bearing their names: John H. Van Zant and Company and W.E. Lewis and Company. Mr. Van Zant's principal items were Kewanee boilers and C.A. Dunham specialties; Bill Lewis represented Heggie-Simplex and Warren-Webster. By the time Mr. Taylor arrived on the scene, the growing volume of business and the increasing magnitude and complexity of construction were placing such demands on them and the contractors, that they were happy to share the burden of design. There was a gradual transfer, then, beginning with Mr. Taylor, from their "free" services to professional, with very little friction or acrimony. Mr. Taylor, being Dunham trained, was naturally in Mr. Zant's corner (or vice versa). Charles L. Kribs who about that time became a competitor of Taylor's, fell into Mr. Lewis' camp (again or vice versa) by default. And so that is how and why professional engineering in Dallas, at least, got its start. In the early twenties one Mark Lemmon, a young architect with an institutional background gained in St. Louis with one of the outstanding school architects in the country, immigrated to Dallas and shortly became a major factor with local Boards of Education. Taylor began early on to do his work at a fee of 2.5% across the board. It was largely on this work that Ross cut his eye teeth while co-oping and subsequently in 1937, when Taylor had left Dallas and Zumwalt and Darrah opened for business, it was not with empty boards and no prospects, but with solid entree to all the clients Taylor was abandoning, including Lemmon. And Ross made it stick. Few of those early days clients ever used any other engineering office till the day they retired or died. In the fledgling firm it was as natural as it was necessary that Zumwalt be responsible for its mechanical commitments and Darrah for its electrical. As time passed they, not being dummies, each learned from each other. In addition to his technical work, Darrah assumed responsibility for its business aspects and devised the bookkeeping system. It is difficult to conceive nowadays the background against which this simple step was taken. There was no income tax; no social security; no errors and omissions insurance; no OSHA; no equal employment; it was indeed the day of free enterprise. The books consisted primarily of the checkbook, an accounts receivable ledger and time sheets. Each job as it came in was given a number, beginning with No. 1. Job numbers with their names were listed consecutively in the ledger and listed again on their respective clients' pages. As pertinent figures became known, they were entered both places. On the consecutive-number list were three columns listed "fee", "paid", and "balance". All you had to do at any given time to find out how you were doing was to add the three columns and examine the three totals. If you then added the "balance" figure to what you had in the bank and subtracted your debts, if any, you had net worth. This system continued basically unchanged until 1964. Each time a ledger was filled, a new one was added; by 1964 there were a total of five. Only two persons in the history of Z&V firm drew more poorly and wrote more illegibly than Doc; yours truly, and Hank Miers. Ledger No. 1 contains evidence in support of Doc's claim and mine, and the drawing archives are full of Mier's. And so Z&D rented a sixteen foot square room in the Thomas building and, in the fall of 1937, set up shop. Between then and the time Darrah exited toward greener pastures in the fall of 1938, Doc had entered into what eventually became Volume No. 1 of the accounts receivable ledger, a total of 60 separate jobs for a total of 21 separate clients. Of these 60 jobs, those which were shared between Ross and Doc totaled 21 and accounted for $6,205.75 in fees. The remaining 39 in which I was to share as a member of ZD&V totaled $8,955.10. The star client from the standpoint of number of commissions was Green, La Roche and Dahl. The star client from the standpoint of dollar volume was Mark Lemmon. The leading class of work from the standpoint of average fee was schools. The highest fee was $1,744.00, Woodrow Wilson High School, Port Arthur, for Mark Lemmon. The lowest fee, $9.00 was for work in connection with Paul's Shoe Store, Dallas, Green, La Roche and Dahl. Enters here Percy Nelson (P.N. for "Peanut") Vinther, BS in Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University Class of 1921, of a background as rural as Ross' was urban. And at this point, anyone who wishes may skip the next few paragraphs without missing a thing. But for those whose curiosity cannot be contained, I will continue. I was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on, they tell me, May 19, 1901. (Ross and I could always keep up with ages since he was born in 1910.) When my father and mother married, she was widow with one child, a daughter. The most distinguished name amongst all my connections is George A. Dupuy, my mother's brother, a lawyer, who was for a couple of terms Judge of the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois and for twenty years subsequently Special Counsel for the Illinois Central Railroad. Dad moved us to Dallas when I was six. I attended first grade here at Gaston Avenue Elementary, a school which then stood at the corner of Hall and Gaston and which was destroyed to make way for Baylor School of Dentistry. My mother died at the end of my first school year when I was eight years old. I was taken in by my grandmother Vinther, a German immigrant, who along with four of her children then at home, operated a farm in Johnson County near Cleburne. (My grandfather Vinther, a Danish immigrant had died perhaps two years before.) I attended Eureka School that first year, a one room, one teacher institution for about 25 students of all ages and which operated six months of the year. My Uncle George Dupuy, the father of our daughters, yearned for a son to the extent that he methodically went through his sisters' children, including me, in search of a worthy candidate for foster status, trying out each one in turn in his home. When my number came up, I entered the Chicago school system (he was then in his second term as Judge) for my third school year at fourth grade level - by what trickery or alchemy I know not. However, being found wanting in Uncle George's eyes, I was returned to Johnson County and Eureka School for my fourth school year, which is why I am now an engineer and not a lawyer. During the course of this year my father married a lovely lady, a native of Georgetown, Texas, and there I was entered for my fifth year of school in, again by sorcery I guess, the seventh grade. On the 18th of May, 1917, at the official age of 15 (notice that I was still 15 by only a short few hours) I was graduated. A highlight of my school career in Georgetown was that for each of its 45 months I received a grade of 100 in "deportment"; in consequence of which the superintendent gave me upon graduation, a Bible. That fall I entered A&M with result already stated, and thus terminated my formal education. My father was the oldest of eight children born and brought up on that farm in Johnson County near Cleburne but was the only one who received any formal education beyond high school. How he became fitted at Eureka school to enter Texas A&M College (as it was then called) or how he even learned of the existence of the place and who provided the motivation I do not know; but he was graduated BS in Mechanical Engineering in June 1897. His contemporary students have told me that as a freshman he was known as Country Vinther; they say he was so uninformed that upon retiring his first night in the dormitory he put the light globe in his shoe and covered it with his hat. I guess I was ordained at birth that I also would be an Aggie; at any rate I never heard of an alternate after I was in High School. The choice of course was more or less accidental and came about during high school as a result of the interest of some of us in "wireless telegraphy". A neighbor boy, the son of the mayor of Georgetown, owned a Marconi vacuum tube that had cost $5.50, a fact which prompted both of us to register as EE's and to room together; he early on returned to his Alma Mater to teach; he never held any other job. I also managed to finish my four years without expulsion at a total cost of $1,650 plus what I was able to earn during the years, both in school and out. During the spring on 1921, I was hired by the General Electric Company recruiter to enter that training at Schenectady which was then called the "test course". But as history records, in the fall of 1921 we were in a recession, with the result that GE never exercised the option on my services. As a consequence and with nothing better at that juncture to do, I came to Dallas to attend the football game on January 2, 1922, between A&M College and Center College, the game that was the forerunner of the Cotton Bowl events (A&M won), and never except for a few brief periods of exile, left. On January 3rd, I entered the employ of Dallas Power and Light Company as a trainee. I enumerate the jobs that I held during the next few years not because they were of themselves interesting or novel or conformed to any plan but simply to demonstrate how each, with out conscious design on my part, contributed its bit toward competency in the profession that I was to follow for forty years and more. That first DP&L year gave me an overall view of utility organization and operation, a close up of generation, distribution, engineering, and friendship with personnel that have been a pleasure and a benefit ever since. At the beginning of 1923 another DP&L youngster and I each bought for a thousand dollars 10% of a very small one hoss electrical contracting organization which occupied me for most of five years; interrupted for six months by the sort of thing at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh that I had signed up for with GE in the spring of 1921. About the time of my return from Pittsburgh, the electrical genius in the employ of R.F. Taylor, Consulting Mechanical Engineer, Dallas, died and when Mr. Taylor hired me to take his place, I abandoned the contracting business. This led me to Houston where Mr. Taylor's principal activity was, an introduction to the practice of professional engineering and to an interest in that new field - air conditioning. Early in 1930, DP&L approached me to represent the Owner's interest in the mechanical and electrical aspects of the new 18-story corporate home to be erected at the corner of Jackson and Browder Streets in Dallas. There I gained some small insight into the sequences and logistics of building construction, a considerable advancement in the fundamentals of air conditioning, and most valuable of all the acquaintance of one J.F. Moss, Branch Manager of York Ice Machinery Corp. (Its successor York Corp. now being a Division of Borg-Warner.) Then came THE Depression. For the next two years, as all my age know, building construction came to a screeching halt. We (my family) survived better than most on $127.50 per month on a federal government job dealing with farms and farmers and their credit; and as a bonus actually learned most about getting along with people. But in 1934 things were improving, industry was hiring and Mr. Moss took me on as a sales engineer for York, in which my main responsibility was air conditioning; and in this job I received my last training at the hands of others in the arts and sciences bearing on human comfort. In 1936, a group of three Dallas men who had watched the meteoric success of Conrad Hilton in the hotel business conceived the idea of duplicating it, and as a starter bought the Youngblood Hotel in Enid, Oklahoma. I, as salesman for York, sold them the equipment necessary to its air conditioning. In addition, I as salesman for myself, sold me as the ideal engineering agent to design and see to the installation of the plant as whole; and further to act for them in the same capacity in connection with any future properties in which they might become interested. It was a good arrangement as long as it lasted. Their next move after the Youngblood was to put down $500,000 earnest the purchase of the Biltmore Hotel in Oklahoma City. When they were never able to arrange the financing to complete the purchase, they almost lost their collective shirt. That cured them and in the late summer of 1937 put me back on the street, a wiser man but none-the-less-hungry. For the next few months I worked around wherever I could find employment in Dallas and Fort Worth, one stint being in the office of R.K. Werner on the air conditioning of a library building for the City of Fort Worth. Soon after Christmas of 1937, Zumwalt and Darrah had hired me on account of my refrigeration and air conditioning "expertise" and my years of change and drifting were at an end; but in the light of the destination at which I had finally arrived, how important was every stop enroute! Because it was so meager, I mention my expertise in refrigeration and air conditioning sort of tongue in cheek; but I say in all modesty that in 1938 I knew more than the subjects collectively than anyone else in this part of the work not employed by either York or Carrier, little though that was; certainly more than anyone else who was available at that time for Z&D to hire. In fact as of that date, knowledge of the arts and sciences of summer air conditioning were still somewhat rudimentary throughout the industry. The gaps were not in matters of air circulation and distribution nor in temperature regulation, these having already reach a state of some sophistication through heating and ventilating; but rather in refrigeration and its application to comfort cooling. Though mechanical refrigeration of the reciprocating variety had originated in the last century; and though centrifugal refrigeration as developed in Switzerland was being imported by Carrier, it was the application of these to comfort cooling that was new. In Dallas, the earliest example of the former was the Federal Reserve Bank, dating from 1918; and of the latter the Majestic Theatre, 1921. By 1930 the three major factors in the field were Carrier with the centrifugal; York and Frick, the principal sources of reciprocating machines using ammonia; and Vilter and Henry Vogt offering reciprocating compressors using carbon dioxide. Of the three, only ammonia was useful in small increments; and for large applications only the centrifugal has survived the test of time. It was not until the early thirties when Dupont began the introduction of the Freon family of refrigerants that the universal application of comfort cooling became possible. My introduction to the subject came in 1929 and/or 1930. I was then in R.F. Taylor's Houston office which was at the time in association with Alfred C. Finn, Architect, helping Jessee Jones rebuild the downtown area. It fell to my lot to do plans for the Kirby Theatre and for the banking rooms of the National Bank of Commerce in the Gulf Building. The decision in both cases was to avoid centrifugal refrigeration by going reciprocating and to avoid the real and psychological hazards of ammonia by going carbon dioxide. Load calculations at that time, though inclusive of more safety factors and of more zeros in the expression of quantities, were essentially the same as now; and so you got your tonnage. It had already been learned that temperature differences of the order of twenty degrees between entering air and room made sense and that an air change in somewhere between six and ten minutes felt good; and so you got your total air quantity. Transfer had, in any case, to be effected in an air washer (there were no finned tube coils) and in the case of carbon dioxide the washer was filled with 1-1/4" black steel pipe arranged eight or so inches on centers in transverse stands, allowing 35 lineal feet per ton; stands contained a maximum of 200 lineal feet of pipe each and were spaced 8" or so on centers; and so you had your washer area. You sprayed water downstream at the rate of 5 GPM per square foot; if you were pushed hard to get capacity by space limitations, it helped to spray upstream as well. That's all you had to know, if it worked, you were an expert. By 1938 both the industry and I had made some long strides. Freon had been introduced and the manufacturers had developed machines to use it, thus making comfort cooling safe, and practical in small capacities as well as large; while I, having under my belt design experience (with Taylor in Houston), construction experience (DP&L Building), York training and the Youngblood Hotel bit, was presumed to have gained some small degree of competence. Beside all that, I know a lot of generous guys who in their respective specialties were a lot smarter than I. In any case, during the Z&D and the ZD&V days, the books show fees for work including air conditioning in the Federal Reserve Bank of El Paso, Hilton Hotel, El Paso, and Love Field Airport Administration Building, Dallas (the original one which used to face Lemmon Avenue about the end of University Blvd.) III. ZUMWALT & VINTHER - COMING OF AGE June 1938 to June 1943 Ross early in my period of employment invited me to join the partnership. I dragged my feet for a time, holding that the field did not offer enough reward to support three, but in the end, I succumbed. It did not have to support three for long, however. Darrah shortly passed on to other endeavors as previously recorded; leaving us two alone to flourish and grow for the next years (though interrupted by the war period). The date of Darrah's withdrawal appears plainly in the bookkeeping records, marked indelibly by the changes in entries from his hand to mine; I got fired from the income and cash accounting part of the bookkeeping in 1954, but retained the customers ledger for another ten years. If the division of labor and responsibility between Zumwalt and Darrah appeared natural, then certainly the division between Ross and me was no less so. I had been hired in the first place to handle air conditioning. My forte with Mr. Taylor had been electrical design. On the other hand Ross' education from Mr. Taylor was plumbing and heating. And there the lines were drawn. But by a process of osmosis, each of us absorbed constantly from the specialties of the other to the end that this pattern emerged. In small jobs each of us handled the whole, including specifications; in large jobs, each of us looked after his own specialties; and this pattern continued for as long as we were partners, except as the source of particular work might tend to modify it. In the beginning I had no clientele in being, whereas Ross had all his contacts inherited from his former connection as well as a favorable reputation already established. It was not long, however, until my stable of clients began to compete with his and one of the earliest examples is the original Love Field Airport Administration Building, built in 1938-39, Flint and Broad, Architects. My entree with Flint and Broad was by virtue of the work I had done for them while an employee of York on the fish tanks for the Aquarium at Fair Park erected in preparation for the Texas Centennial. From that job onward Flint and Broad and then Broad and Nelson and finally Don Nelson alone were my exclusive property as long as they and I were in business, just as Mark Lemmon and Bob Goodwin, for example, were Ross'. But in the matter of fees or portions of fees earned by each of us there was from the outset practically no difference between us as shown by an informal running record which I kept for my own information for the years 1939 to 1941, 1942 and the first half of 1943 (before Ross withdrew to pursue his naval career). We always reckoned that 1940 was the year we truly became of age. In my own family the timing of all events came to be expressed as BFRB (before Federal Reserve Bank) and AFRB. For that was the year that Gill and Bennett out of the clear sky retained us in connection with the renovation and expansion of the Federal Reserve Bank Building, Dallas, a project which dwarfed in magnitude, complexity and fee anything we had undertaken to date. This building was, as mentioned before, the earliest example in this part of the world of summer air conditioning. The carbon dioxide refrigeration with which it had been equipped initially had been replaced in 1936 by a Carrier centrifugal water chillier according to design prepared by R.F. Taylor and -- guess who -- Ross Zumwalt. The problems in 1940 were to add refrigeration, renovate the existing air distribution and other mechanical facilities and construct an addition. Mr. Gill quite naturally had to secure the approval of the Bank of his choice of mechanical engineers. Since air conditioning was the big noise, I, at the approval conference was the guy on the griddle. From what I have been told from time to time through the years by directors and others who were there about my conduct at the conference, it is a wonder they did not throw me out. Luckily, they did not; we were hired on at least three subsequent occasions to look after remodelings and expansions, each of greater extent and cost than the first; which is the best possible recommendation. Incidentally, I represented York in the competition for the Order for Refrigeration which Carrier won in 1936. It is a blessing that I lost. You can imagine that fledglings like ourselves would have not the financial muscle to sustain ourselves through the weeks of plan preparation of a project of this magnitude without help from somewhere and we very frankly told Mr. Gill our problem. He, bless his heart (not many people know that Architects have such, maybe only a few do) agreed to advance us $150 per week until we could qualify for a major advance. On that we and our one employee subsisted for six weeks. This did not require any reduction, however, in the scale of living we were already observing, for we had agreed in the beginning to a withdrawal rate of $50 per week when and if the bank balance could stand it. Incidentally, an outgrowth of our relationship with the Federal Reserve Bank was a substantial upgrading of Zumwalt & Vinther's furniture and fixtures. Their refurbishing brought about a surplus of desks, tables, chairs, and glory be, an adding machine, and so for the likes of $2.50 and $10.00 per item we accumulated an adequate quota of the tools of business - tools which we used for many years and some of which the present organization is still using as of this date of writing. I sit in one of them now as I write. It was no doubt our success in dealing with FRB and its personnel that caused the next plum to fall in our laps. Mr. R.L. Thornton, city builder and president of the Mercantile National Bank, conceived the idea of buying the site of the old Post Office at Main, Ervay and Commerce and erecting thereon a 35 story home for the banking operation. The Bank hired a Chicago architect and influenced him to hire Zumwalt and Vinther for plumbing and electrical design and to draw but not design the air conditioning installation; this latter was had from Carrier as a part of the air conditioning equipment order (a return to the custom which died in the thirties). With this job Z&V outgrew the sixteen foot square office in the Thomas Building, though we retained it for a while longer to house everything else than the MNB. We also ran out of personnel. For solution it was agreed that Zumwalt would produce the plumbing, I the electrical, and two employees we were able to recruit working under Carrier's direction would draw up the air handling systems. All this was to happen under my supervision in space occupied jointly with the architectural crew. Meanwhile, Ross would in his spare time keep the home fires burning in the Thomas Building. The initial design work was completed at mid year of 1941. All this in the face of the fact that the nation was frantically preparing for the war that was to become a reality following December 7, 1941. Building materials were already scarce and many were available only through a system of priorities which grew more extensive daily. Notwithstanding the circumstances, contracts were let and construction was begun. The Bank offered spaces to the government when and if it could be made ready, a fact that helped in the procurement of material priorities without which completion would have been impossible. Many interesting obstacles were overcome during the course of construction. Specifications called for the use of copper water pipe and copper water pipe obtained by hook or crook was installed up to the fourth floor; there the supply failed and the job was completed with steel pipe. New refrigerating machinery became unobtainable; but we (and by "we" I mean the design and construction team) located a pair of 500 HP horizontal Uniflo steam engine driven ammonia compressors in Milwaukee which we bought, moved and used successfully until after the war. Factory fabricated cooling towers were unobtainable; we bought fabrication drawings from a manufacturer, fabricated parts from redwood bought on the open market, bought used and/or obsolete metal parts from the manufacturers and erected our own product. Used pumps came from every point of the compass, salvaged bare copper cable bought from the electric utility in St. Louis and supported in slate troughs manufactured locally were used as service entrance conductors. Four different standard lighting fixture types dressed and installed in different fashions were used to fill every need. Most of these makeshifts have by now, forty years later, been replaced, but they served successfully and without substantial interruption throughout the critical period. By way of summary of the period between Darrah's withdrawal and Zumwalt's departure for Washington in June of 1943, the job list grew from No. 60 to No. 190. Although school construction continued to be a major element of the business, its dominance was being increasingly eroded by commercial work with emphasis on air conditioning. And in the last half year military construction came to the fore. Fees earned and collected for work done between the respective departures of Darrah and Zumwalt are tabulated as follows: 1939 $ 22,867 1940 14,299 1941 17,611 1942 18,948 1943 (6 mo) 5,495 Total $ 79,220 and oddly enough the split of this total sum between the work that Ross had been responsible for and that which I had handled was almost exactly fifty-fifty: forty thousand to thirty-nine thousand respectively. All this with never more than five of us at any one time - ourselves and three employees. Two of these latter, by the way, were J.T. Worley and R.E. Miller, the same J.T. Worley and R.E. Miller who became partners in 1954; Worley was following in Ross' footsteps at the time as a co-op student in SMU; Miller was a graduate Electrical Engineer. Ross went to war as Ensign, USN, in June 1943 and was stationed in Washington D.C. Bureau of Ships, for the duration. I moved our office into the Mercantile Bank Building which had by that time progressed to the point of having some occupiable space; and this ended the first segment of the many happy and productive years we were to spend in each others pocket. IV. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER - THE WAR YEARS The dissolution agreement between Ross and me is dated June 24, 1943 and the new partnership entered into following his return was signed April 4, 1946, but was by its terms made retroactive to January 1, 1946. The two and half years intervening between these two dates were hectic; he had won the war while I had remained a home nursing my past 40 exemptions. It happened that our principal prewar competition had been a firm called Kribs and Laundauer, both now dead, which likewise dissolved at the onset of hostilities. Kribs, likewise ancient, followed all over the country the construction of manufacturing plants for the military and never returned to Dallas; Laundauer, being Ross' age, was likewise commissioned by the Navy and did return to Dallas and did reestablished the original K&L practice under his own name - and very successfully to, though mostly with clients outside the Dallas area. My wife reports having overhead him at a social gathering to say that while he fought a bloody war, Peanut stayed home and sewed all the local business. But more on that subject later. The fact is that the job lists show an increase between mid- 1943 and January 1, 1946 of some 140 project which earned fees as follows: 1943 (6 mo) $4,152.41 10 projects 1944 10,324.38 40 projects 1945 63,669.20 100 projects There may be a grain of truth in what Mr. Laundauer said. This tabulation plus the names of the projects (also the entry in the preceding tabulation for the other six months of 1943) reflect simply that during 1943 civilian construction, unless war related, was virtually non-existent; that in 1944 with the war running down, normal affairs were picking up and that in 1945, civilian construction was busting out all over and military work was at a halt. Nor is the tabulation itself a measure of the total amount of military work I looked after in 1943 and 1944. The fact is that I did very little of it directly for the government in my own name, simply because I was too little and did not choose to grow big. Those major design contracts were sought by the existing big firms and by entrepreneurs who wished to become big and of whom nothing was required but a glib and convincing sales pitch, often predicated on the availability of such as I to get their job done for them. One or another of those latter had a recruiting office on almost every street corner and for a number of them I work (Ross, to in the first half of '43) always by the hour, with a kicker for acting as ramrod. Since this hourly work paid for weekly with income and social security taxes withheld, I did not enter such income in the fee books and do not now have any idea how much it totaled. But it was substantial sum. Obviously, with the demand for 4F warm bodies being what it was, no full time competent engineering talent was available at any price; all those were already employed, trying to recruit and produce for their employers exactly as I was for mine. As a result, I accumulated the damnedest array of moonlighters ever collected. Anybody who could sit on a stool and hold a pencil could hire on for any hours he desired to sell, according to any schedule that suited him; all provided that one responsible for his work could stay awake long enough to plan it for him and correct it for him. As I said previously, those were hectic times. The schedule which applied within my household expected daddy to be home for dinner on Wednesdays, and Saturdays, and to rest half the day on Sunday. Then during 1945 when materials began to be available for civilian use the pent-up demand for schools and churches and business buildings, and for additions of air conditioning to existing buildings - all these things kept the pressure on. The saving grace was that during 1945 good people began to be released from their war related job and to be available to such as I, thus enabling staff expansion (beginning with nothing) to keep pace with the growing volume. This latter, plus the demands on me for continuous supervision of Mercantile Bank Building construction caused abandonment of the Thomas Building and a move to the Mercantile Bank Building; which (or another of the Mercantile Center) has been home ever since. V. ZUMWALT AND VINTHER - POST WAR Z&V, Jan. 1, 1946 to Jan. 1, 1953. The seventeen years of the post war partnership, which ended Jan. 1, 1964, is the longest period of uninterrupted partnership association in our history, though there were a number of changes in format enroute. The seven years (Jan. '46 til Jan. '53), during which Ross and I were in sole possession, in the span which subsequently, in order to distinguish between it and the expanded partnership, became known as Z&V-2. If the prewar years could be characterized as the time of coming of age, certainly these seven post-war years are deserving of being called the time of maturing. We set up in business with $8000 paid up capital, custom was knocking on our doors, and we had a nuclei often or so people gathered together during 1945 and early 1946 with whom to execute it. There was not yet any federal dictation in the matter of working hours and overtime pay; every employee was urged to work as many hours as he wished (or could) and most responded. The volume of results was astounding. The list of job numbers grew from 350 to 900, a total of 560 on an average of 80 per year for the entire period. The staff rose to a peak in 1946 of about 20 people and continued more or less at that level for many years. F.W. Dodge and Co. published in Dallas in those days, a weekly news magazine which carried in short descriptive paragraphs accounts of most of the construction jobs in and around the Dallas area - type of building, architect (sometimes engineers as well), location and approximate value. It became a weekly game to determine whether Z&V had more or less than 50% of the local plums described. And the count usually underscored Laundauer's comment. He, on the other hand, excelled us out of town. Fees earned in these seven years; tabulated as follows, reflect a steady growth: 1946 $136,748 1947 $157,812 1948 $293,927 1949 $222,339 1950 $186,444 1951 $276,987 1952 $332,534 It should be pointed out that minor year-to-year fluctuations have non importance. For our books were always kept on a cash basis so that though the words used are "fees earned" it would be more accurate to say "fees collected". It is actually the rate of collection which varied from year to year more than the rate of production. To start off in a big way, Ross snared from C.H. Page and Son, Architects of Austin - maybe he laid the ground work while he was in Washington, I don't know - a commission to do our thing in connection with a naval hospital to be built in Austin (or maybe San Antonio; since it never got built neither its proposed site, nor its proposed name has much significance now). To house even the pertinent Navy standards and directive required more space than we then occupied, let alone the nonexistent personnel that would be required. The solution was to rent the second floor of a two story frame constructed building on Elm Street near Lamar (about 3000 sq.ft.) over a wearing apparel store on the first floor. We furnished it with plywood boards on horses bought from one of the aforementioned entrepreneurs who had by now folded his tent. We bought all insurance on "work-in-progress" that we could and then hoped a lot that the store owner would not find it necessary to prepare for a fire sale. Staff was now not too difficult to come by. The armed forces and the military construction people were discharging and terminating with both hands. Ross assembled in short order some ten people of assorted talents and experience from assorted prewar walks of life - engineers such as ourselves, electrical and mechanical material salesman, draftsmen skilled and unskilled. With this crew plus what known quantities I could spare out of my ten, Ross produced the job on time and at a profit; and without a fire loss. Out of what we culled from this Hospital group and out of what I had accumulated previously, plus what became available in the years following, we put together what I am confident was for its purpose and size, the most talented and productive group ever assembled. Ones whose names will recur in the following pages were the three who would later joint us as partners to constitute what came to be called within the family Z&V-5: R.W. Miller, F.W. McFadden, J.T. Worley; and three others who were later in one way or another to share in ownership: Eric T. Benson, Bruce H. Hanssen and Clarence F. Gilmore. Still others who were notable for their contributions and loyalty were Jim Radford, Jerry Powell, Bob Campbell, Joe Campbell, W.S. Miers, Jim Rankin, Fred B. Deere, Jack Roberts, W.C. Walcutt, most of whom were with us for twenty or more years; not to overlook Mrs. Ruth Reynolds, our faithful secretary and front office manager. Throughout all the Z&V-2 period, Ross and I had his stable of clients whom we served in the same manner we had invented prewar and it worked. In the Z&V-5 time, the administrative work was spread about to some extent and the production work much more widely. Because it was for so many golden years unnecessary to actively sell our services in the market place, such latent sales talents as we had never were cultivated - and this was true of all of the principals, all through the years. It was not until the time well into the Z&V-5 period, when all of the clients who had had the Z&V for so long had either died, or retired, and one of the younger element had the will or the skill to cultivate those who were taking the old timers' places, that methods changed. It is interesting to remember these old timers and to comment on the way business was done in those days... In the very beginning, practically all our work was done for architects and paid four out of their fees, the standard for which was 5%. all architectural offices superintended construction including mechanical and electrical, either by the principal, if small, or by a professional superintendent, if large enough to support one; and many of the principals themselves and/or their professional superintendents were quite competent to look after the mechanical and electrical work, given the lack of sophistication of systems at that time. Therefore almost never was the engineer's presence on the sites required, unless to defend himself in case of trouble. The usual fee for such service, be the job large or small, sweet or bitter, was in any given case somewhat about one-half the fee the architect was getting; thus on his 5% work we got 2-1/2%. A few clients, mostly new ones, wanted written contracts but mostly not. Once a firm was in the stable it usually worked out that when he had a job, we had a job that unless something else was specifically negotiated, the fee would be 2- 1/2% of the sums that the owner paid to the mechanical and electrical contractors. Much mechanical and electrical work was bid to the general contractor and handled by him all the way. But most work, especially where large and more especially where being done by owners who built frequently by (school districts, for example), was awarded by the Owner as a result of competitive bids directly to him; though often the sub-contracts were subsequently handed to the general contractor for administration. Thus the amount of money we would eventually collect became known immediately; publicly known, in fact, for the Texas Contractor kept up with all lettings both public and private and often listed in their descriptive paragraphs the awardees and the amounts of their contracts. And collect we did; the percentage of total fees earned that was uncollectable was over the years minuscule. Clients of a conservative type paid in full as soon as the amount of their obligation was known to them; which was fair because all the investment we would ever have in the job was already sunk in it and we had no further obligation to it. Some, thinking they could thus keep our attention, withhold 15% until they received final payment. Some paid to suit their own convenience rather than ours. But the most worrisome were those who had not the money to pay the mechanical fee due on this job until they had collected the architectural fee on their next job. We had one time (he was our client by direction of his client) who never did pay any consultant until made to do so; he owed some of our colleagues money when he died but not us. And then there were those who could not or would not pay us because their clients did not for whatever reason pay them. But as I say, our bad debt losses were negligible. This idyllic situation began to fray around the edges as air conditioning began to be applied to existing buildings. When there was no major architectural overhaul involved, we felt free to be commissioned as the principal design agent and we did a number of buildings on that basis in Dallas including Kirby, (now demolished), Dallas National Bank and Lone Star Gas; and in Wichita Falls, Texarkana, Waco, and Fort Worth, amongst other cities. Where there was major refurbishing involved along with air conditioning, we usually worked under the architect, retaining supervision of construction, and at an enhanced fee. Then there were times when an architectural firm appointed itself sole agent for our services, solicited and secured work that was purely or mostly mechanical and electrical merely because he could; established the total fee without consultation and then undertook to negotiate with us for the execution; he usually could because he usually had something else that we wanted but it left a bad taste in our mouths. Other factors that were to disrupt the traditional engineer- architect relationship were the growing diversity of the architectural field - it began to lap over onto industrial construction; the increasing complexity of construction not only mechanical and electrical, but general as well; and the increasing sophistication of the electrical field. In this latter area it is a far cry from the level of sophistication represented by the four ceiling fixtures plus one wall outlet of the 1940 class room to the elaborate illumination, extensive communication facilities, acoustical provisions, and environmental factors which had become standard practice by the mid-fifties. So the mechanical fees had to rise from 2-1/2% to 2-3/4% to 3% as standard with variations more prevalent all the time. Finally the traditional climate of engineer-architect relationship was completely destroyed by two entirely new factors: (a) the proliferation of both architectural firms and of agencies offering to do mechanical consulting; and (b) the promulgation by both architects and engineers of minimum fee schedules which suggested to both what not to charge less than. These latter taught the unethical consultant when in competition with the ethical, what figure he would have to under bid; and to the selfish architect gave a mark to shoot at in case he were inclined to chisel. As previously said, Ross and I had our respective clients whom we handled almost autonomously, almost as though we were two separate entities with common bank account and production crew. In the earlier days, both pre- and post-war, there was an element of mild but seldom expressed and completely unrecorded competition between him and me in the matter of size of individual fees collected from our respective endeavors. When with the passing of the years the institutions with which we were associated had us back and back, whether under the same architect, a different architect or independently, we grew to base our competition on groups of projects from the same source, whether institutional owner or architect. For example, SMU was his property as Southwestern Bell was mine. Baylor Hospital and its associated medical and dental schools were his; the Mercantile Center was my candidate in opposition. Arthur Thomas was his architect though I did a lot of work on his jobs. Mark Lemmon was his friend who for many years would not deal with me. Grayson Gill was mine but he did not like Ross. This competition, if it can be called such, offers a convenient framework on which to hang the relation of events and the people involved in the Z&V-2 period. I have already implied strongly that we never lost a client after we had him except by death or retirement. This is not strictly true. There was one notable exception who was a part of Ross' stable, but I lost him. George Leighton Dahl a native of the midwest (like Minnesota) arrived in Dallas in the middle thirties to work for Herbert M. Greene, one of the most respected Architects of the day. The firm became Green and La Roche, then Greene, La Roche and Dahl, then (about 1937) La Roche Dahl and finally, (maybe 1940) George L. Dahl. And Dahl left his mark in Dallas and the Southwest about as indelibly as any man. Ross inherited Greene, La Roche and Dahl from R.F. Taylor and Jobs Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in Ledger No. 1 were for Greene, La Roche and Dahl. The association continued through Z&D, ZD&V and Z&V until a day in 1945 when V was all by himself. Mr. Dahl had a pretty sizable piece of work to be done and, as was the custom in those days, he notified me and invited me over. I, because I was up to my eyes, stalled. Just about the time his patience was wearing thin, there reappeared in Dallas, he having been in wartime construction somewhat, one Joaquin (Eugene) Guerrero, who had previously worked for Kribs and Laundauer and whom I knew to be completely competent. He called me and I hired him on the spot. I called Mr. Dahl and told him my manpower situation had improved and we would see him Monday. On Saturday Gene phoned me to say that the would not be working with me, that he had taken employment with George L. Dahl, Architect. Thus I loss him for Ross!! But our loss was no competing engineer's gain. Ever thereafter Mr. Dahl maintained his own in-house engineering staff, a staff which eventually numbered more people than Z&V could ever muster. Zumwalt and Vinther became associated with the Mercantile National Bank in 1938 when the Bank became a market for an air conditioning installation in its own quarters in the Magnolia Building; we got the design commission, largely as an outgrowth of the Federal Reserve Bank job. It was at about the same time that Mr. Thornton began to realize his dream of the building on the old Post Office property which presently houses the Bank. In the ensuing years Z&V was employed by the Bank itself or by an architect in connection with each of the structures that constitute the Mercantile Center today: Mercantile Bank Building W.W. Alschlager, Architect Mercantile Securities Building W.D. Reed, Architect (build as Thornton Building and purchased by Bank) *Mercantile Continental Building Lower (3) Floors & basements W.W. Alschlager, Architect Upper Floors Broad and Nelson, Architects Mercantile Dallas Building Broad and Nelson, Architect (built as LMS Building and purchased by Bank) Mercantile Bank Addition Donald Nelson, Architect Mercantile Jackson Building Donald Nelson, Architect *Mercantile Commerce Building Purchased *To keep the record clear, let it be understood that the original Mercantile Commerce Building later had its name changed to Mercantile Continental Building, and that the present Mercantile Commerce Building was when purchased known as the Vaughn Building. It was at the time of purchase some 25 years old. Z&V only assisted in the birth of all of these Center increments except Mercantile Commerce, but has over the years been involved in countless expansions, additions, lease arrangements, remodeling, renovations, face liftings, repairs and replacements. Being a member of the family, Z&V was always expendable and so when Z&V's office space got in the way of the expansion of some better paying tenant, Z&V had to go. So, we have officed in each one as it was finished or acquired. If anybody ever bothered to total the fees generated by all this work it would be found to be sizable. The Zumwalt entry in this my-job-is-bigger-than-your-job derby was the Baylor University Hospital and its appendages and ramifications. Like most of the good things that befell us, it came more or less unsolicited. Arthur E. Thomas was already practicing architecture in Dallas and was an early Z&V client, beginning with Job No. 65, Winnetka Junior High School, built during 1938; and he either was an individual or later on as a member of the firm Thomas, Jameson and Merrill, appears on the Z&V-2 books in every subsequent year except 1941, 1942 and 1943; accounting during that period for a total of 90 separate commissions of which 17 were on the Baylor campus. Other followed in the Z&V-5 years and even in the Z&V, Inc. period. Since we are focusing on Baylor work and not on Thomas as a client that which was done after the dissolution of Thomas, Jameson and Merrill, both for other architects and directly for the Hospital, that must all be included. And so, though no total was ever run on dollar volume for either Mercantile Center or Baylor, I concede Zumwalt the laurel crown. I shall always recall how gently the Baylor work slipped up on us. Our first inkling that anything was brewing came on a spring day in 1947 when in strolling back from lunch we encountered Mr. Thomas on the street. "Would you fellers be able to take on a piece of work at Baylor Hospital sometime soon?" he asked. "Well, is the pope a Catholic?" we answered. The piece of work he referred to, being the first of the string that is still growing, is what is now called the Truett Building the total fee for which, collected over the new four years, totaled $64,558.25. * * * * * The central chilling of water and its distribution for comfort cooling, an idea born in the late forties and early fifties, found ideal application on college and university campuses. As usual in air conditioning innovations. The Southwest was in the vanguard and Z&V was a pioneer. Our earliest effort, dating from 1948, was Southern Methodist University. Next came Texas University, begun in 1950 and materially expanded in 1958; at the time of its completion this was probably the largest installation anywhere. Most such institutions already had central heating plants with an underground tunnel system housing steam and return piping and these two were no exceptions. In such cases the initial thought was always to run chilled water pipes through existing tunnels. Sometimes it worked and sometimes not. It was our experience that in such situations it was not the mechanical design itself which gave us the greatest pain but those existing tunnels - the pain of frustrations as well as the physical pain of blisters from contact with hot pipes, both incurred in the search for routes, clearances and possibilities for pipe support. Remember that all this was in the era of cheap energy; it mattered little to the institutions that valve steams, expansion joints, flanges and screwed joints leaked steam, nor that when the magnesia insulation fell off it was cheaper to pay for the thermal loss than for repairs. And so tunnel temperatures were sometimes as high as 150 degrees. OSHA and DOE would have been horrified. Our third effort, at Texas Tech, grew through many stages during the late fifties and early sixties. It began in a small way utilizing existing physical facilities as did both the others. It culminated in 1962 with a complete new power plant including steam generation as well as refrigeration; accompanied by, due to the campus construction which established the demand for these expanded facilities, a massive extension of the tunnel system. Be assured that the new tunnels constructed were big enough to contain the piping they were designed to contain, plus adequate access for maintenance and inspection. [The drawings for the central heating and cooling plant were done in the Dallas office, but all the tunnel design was a product of the Lubbock office. Some will remember that the bids for the central plant were out of the money, and taking the job somewhat on faith, Bill Anthony trusted us to cut the design to fit his budget, which we did, in Lubbock. NLF] It was the experience gained in these three that gave us confidence in designing the central mechanical facilities for the D-FW Airport. * * * * * The development of central water chilling and distribution was only one of a number of first's of which we can be proud. It is a matter of record that the original building for the Dallas Gas Co., Harwood at Jackson, erected in 1930 and air conditioned in 1949, includes the first use of high velocity single duct sound attenuation boxes in combination with ceiling diffusers and automatic volume control supplied by vertical risers. That was the granddaddy of all the VAV schemes that have since been developed from vertical risers. It was employed as a member of thermostatically controlling the small interior areas; and the devices for the purpose and manufactured by Anemostat, a first for them as well. The Data Reduction Building (so called at the time) at White Sands, New Mexico, part of the Army Resource Center erected in 1952, is so far as we could determine the first application of the high velocity double duct system as a method of local temperature control. The Trinidad Hilton in Port of Spain, Trinidad and the Outpatients Clinic at Sandia Base Hospital, Albuquerque, New Mexico introduced a refinement to the double duct system in which the capacity of the sum of the two ducts is equal to the maximum required air quantity and both are utilized for the delivery of cooled air at peak demands. Incidentally, the Trinidad Hilton is the first (not our first but the Architects') of the so called "upside down" Hotels which, built into the side of a hill, have their lobby facilities on the top floor and their guest room floors below single loaded corridor, of course. The Mercantile National Bank Building already discussed at some length, while not of our actual design, was the eighth installation, historically, using high velocity inductor units and with its nearly 900 units was by all odds the largest of its time. The Malone Hogan Clinic in Big Spring (1944) and John Sealy Hospital in Galveston (1948) were among the first hospitals to which inductor units were applied. When the office building for Dallas Power & Light Co., was designed in 1929, Charles L. Kribs, then in the employ of its architect, was its mechanical engineer and perhaps on that account maintained close affinity for DP&L forever thereafter. And perhaps it was on that account that the other utility, the Gas House and Z&V gravitated together. At any rate the Dallas Gas Co. sold us on the economy producing refrigeration directly from energy delivered by Lone Star Gas rather than from the same gas delivered by Lone Star to DP&L and then, after conversion, to the consumer; and together we and Lone Star convinced a number of buyers. Early on, the apparatus was steam turbines driving centrifugal compressors an the applications included Federal Reserve Bank, Mercantile National Bank, Medical Arts Building, Southwestern Life Building (the old one which stood at Main and Akard), Sears Roebuck on Lamar St., and Sanger Bros. Department Store; of these the three units in the Mercantile Bank Building are still in operation. Then, and for once it was not the Southwest which created the demand, but the areas where district steam was a fact of life, absorption refrigeration cam back into use in the modern form. The Southwest did score, however, with the Dallas Gas Co. Building - the Gas House Gang again - with three 150 ton units, the largest such plant of its time. And because these were of the "closed" type with a self-contained heat exchanger we were able to locate them on top of the building above the load, a first for absorption machines; and in parallel, another first. Following the war, Herculean efforts were made to adapt the gas turbines developed to drive airplanes to stationary applications, largely the generation in small quantities of electrical energy. Economy demanded, however, that for such application to be practical at all, use would have to be made of the heat of the exhaust gases. Out the two grew up what came to be called grandiosity "the total energy concept". In 1965, the Mayflower Investment Company in connection with Fidelity Union Insurance Co., in both of which Mr. Carr Collins was the power elected to build such a plant and elected Z&V to help and although the event occurred after the time with this chapter is primarily concerned, the story needs telling and this seems like the proper time. We never knew what caused Mr. Collins to embrace the idea, certainly not economics; we told him at the outset that in his case it would not pay off. It was something else; a squabble within his corporate structure or his participation in some intrigue opposing one utility against the other, a rate fight with DP&L, or something else equally unrelated to the making of a profit on the plant investment. Whatever the reason, the plant was built and technically it performed; for about a year and a half, that is. Then it was shut down, for whatever reason, the energy load was transferred back to DP&L (Texas Power and Light had been a tenant during the whole time) and DP&L bought the three generating units for installation in their substations as local emergency generating sources. As long as churches had no more occupancy than Sunday mid-day and prayer meetings on Wednesday, and as long as commercial ice could be bought at $2.50 per ton, delivered, their use of ice as a heat sink for comfort cooling made economic sense. This was the case in the early forties and Z&V became quite an authority on the subject and stood high with the Ice Manufacturers Association. The list of institutions contributing to this situation included the Third Church of Christ Scientist, the Oak Lawn Methodist and the Highland Park Presbyterian. But alas, as time passed the administrative personnel came to demand comfort throughout the week, the use of sanctuaries grew and youth activities entered the picture so that the demand for ice became substantial on a daily basis, the price of ice sky rocketed and the idea died. Now re-enters the engineer like the realtor who sells the same piece of property over and over; in all three of the above named we discontinued ice, installed ice accumulating evaporators in the melting tanks accompanied by refrigerating effect sized for long hours of operations; and collected another fee. The heat pump has long been recognized as being technically an efficient tools for air conditioning, but did not in the era of cheap energy find much public favor. The electric utilities however, never overlooked it as a valuable source of winter revenue. And by way of setting the example, the Lower Colorado River Authority in planning its own office building to be located on the share of the lake near Austin, employed us to design for it a heat pump system (then we called it "reverse cycle refrigeration") using the lake water as a source of heat. We did and it worked but never in all the subsequent years did we find another such client. Although this is not a first historically, it is a first in the sense of preeminence: For a long time Z&V had the highest buildings in the Dallas skyline: first the Mercantile National Bank (1940) at 35 stories; next Southland Center (1956) - by association with a foreign architect - engineer and not as principals - at 40 stories; and finally by Republic Bank Tower (1961) at 50 stories. We maintained a tie when First National was built at 50 stories but that only by a fluke because First National had ambitions to go higher. They were prevented by Civil Aviation Authority which ruled that by reason of being in the Love field approach the height of the building could not encroach upon the glide pattern. This was identical to the ruling governing the Republic Tower and the topmost extensions of the two are at the same sea level elevation. And although the site at First is lower than at Republic, the difference did not permit an extra level, Republic's designers having already cut story heights to an irreducible minimum. * * * * * If the entity that is Zumwalt and Vinther is likened to a tree grown from a seed to maturity during the partnership years, its professional achievements are the trunk which gave it its professional achievements are the trunk which gave it strength and direction, and its clients are the leaves which give it nourishment. Most of these clients, especially in the early days, were architectural firms but many were institutional. In all cases the people involved were our friends, ranging from casual to close. Foremost amongst these latter was H. Edward Smith, a young man out of Michigan by way of Oklahoma City who was invited by Mercantile Bank to join the design team, His formal training was in architecture and his business experience had been in building management. With the completion of the building he became its manager and continued in that role throughout all the subsequent growth of the property to two full city blocks plus half of a third. He was a complete building manager being responsible for leasing, cleaning, operation, and maintenance as might be expected. but in addition he was a leader. He foresaw trends and opportunities with uncanny skill. He was at the same time one third of the L-M-S Corporation (along with two directors of the Bank) and as its executive head he assembled property for, planned, and administered construction of, and upon completion managed two of the structures which later incorporated into the Mercantile Center - Securities Building and Dallas Building. He was humble in the sense that he had confidence; and once having placed his confidence; he was loyal. And so, though we were never intimate personally, I count him a true friend. Already named are a number of architects and architectural firms with whom we associated with through the years. Amongst them there were certain ones whose contributions to our growth and development were such that the record would not be complete without detailed comment with reference to each. These were Arthur Thomas, Grayson Gill, Mark Lemmon, Warner Burns Toan and Lunde and Toro-Ferrer. Mark Lemmon was an inheritance to Zumwalt and Darrah from R.F. Taylor. Till the day he retired he would not talk business with any other mechanical engineer than Ross Zumwalt, even including me. During a number of years when all public schools were undergoing intensive and extensive development to accommodate the post-WW2 baby boom, he was coordinating architect for Dallas Independent School District - a position that did not hurt Z&V a bit. He was subsequently in the same position with respect to University of Texas at Austin with equally pleasing side effects. After his retirement and at age 80 or so his attitude toward me softened and I was even invited into his home. With all, Mark Lemmon was a skilled professional, a crackerjack salesman, and a polished and courtly gentleman. He is now deceased. Grayson Gill, educated in the midwest like Michigan or Illinois was always more engineer than architect. In fact his first berth in Dallas as a young man was in the office of Herbert M. Greene as structural designer. Eventually he hung out his own shingle as architect-engineer and from the time of the Federal Reserve Bank till his son Douglas became a factor in the office, he never used another mechanical engineer than me; he had the same sort of aversion to Ross that Lemmon had for Peanut. This association carried on through the various names his organization took, he always recognizing his need for architectural design talent: Gill and Bennet at the Federal Reserve Bank time, Gill and Harrell at Republic Bank time and just plain Gill between and since. Mr. Gill is now in a rest home. Arthur Thomas when we first began to know him and at the inception of the Baylor work had no associates. He was not long on aesthetic design but was superb on planning. To enable a better service and a broadening of field he eventually effected a partnership called Thomas Jameson and Merrill. Merrill was primarily an artist and designer, being quite weak in the areas where Thomas was strong. Jameson, crusty and plain spoken Jamie, occupying about the same position in his field that R.F. Taylor did in the mechanical. Thomas, on the work for which he was the responsible partner, would deal equally with either me or Ross depending on the exigencies of the moment. Merrill, on the other hand, would have none or either of us but employed Leo Laundauer. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Jameson are now gone and it is my best guess that the two of them are at this moment engaged in the renovation of heaven. Friendship varying from casual to warm was part of our relationships with these and others of our architectural clients, but with two exceptions was always rather impersonal, never extending to intimate social contact. These two exceptions are Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde of New York and Toro-Ferrer of San Juan and both affected me rather than Ross. I met the San Juan group (which at that time included Torregrosa) and also Charles Warner in 1945; and in this history the two firms are inseparable. But the story of our association with these two firms begins well before that at the time in 1936 when I was involved with the building hotel scheme that died after the Youngblood Hotel project. One of the triumvirate of entrepreneurs in that scheme was a young man who at the time was somehow associated with Conrad Hilton. Since he officed in the Hilton Hotel (now called the Plaza) it was natural that he should install me there with him. This unit of Mr. Hilton's predepression empire was what he had been able to salvage from the 1929 debacle and was where he had his office. Treasurer of the Hilton Corporation was one J.B. Herndon whose office was there also. As a result, I got to know both Hilton and Herndon as well in the six months of my prosperity as any peon ever gets to know the bosses, and withal, pleasantly. Of course the clincher was that the Youngblood job worked. Time moved on and so did the Hilton people, to Chicago where Mr. Hilton became a king and Mr. Herndon president of what was eventually called Hilton International, the story of which can be read in Mr. Hilton's biography to be found in every one of his thousands and thousands of hotel rooms throughout the world. The scene now shifts to a day in late 1945 or early 1946 (at any rate before Ross was back in harness) when out of a clear sky I received a letter from Mr. Herndon saying that Hilton was about to build in San Juan, Puerto Rico, using local native architects and that if Z&V had any interest in doing the mechanical work, a representative of the Architects would like to interview us in Dallas. Needless to say, Z&V, after collecting our busted buttons, acquiesced; and in due time the representative arrived - but not before I had learned by boning up in Britannica where Puerto Rico is. The agent was Sr. Luis Arturo Torregrosa, a partner of the firm Toro, Ferrer y Torregrosa, Architects. It was by well conceived plan that Luis, being the engineering (structural) member of the firm was sent to pass on the prospective engineering (mechanical) talent. Their good plan was our good luck, for it turned out that he and I spoke the same language and pretty much shared the same opinions of the foibles and pretensions of architects. Z&V passed inspection and we signed a contract to do what came to be called the Caribe Hilton; and that contract marked our first venture outside continental United States. It led to a number of business commitments which in subsequent years were to take me to many places outside of Texas and the United States and sparked my desire to see a lot of others. The background for that contract is simply told. Hilton desired to enter the international field. Puerto Rico, then under a government of quality never since equaled, and being in the midst of what they called "Operation Bootstraps", needed a modern hotel. The government agency at issue held a design competition which Toro Ferrer and Torregrosa won. In construction design they were able to do for themselves everything that was needful except the hotel interiors and its mechanical and electrical engineering and for this latter did not know where to run. They were suspicious of the engineering Colossi of New York and of their condescension toward "natives" and felt that they would be more comfortable with someone more their size. Mr. Herndon suggested Z&V of Dallas. May this name be forever blessed. For the interiors work, TF & T associated with themselves another small firm of youngish people called Warner-Leeds, based in New York, with the Warner of whom they were already acquainted from college days; and thereby hangs another part of my story. Warner soon became the moving spirit of an architectural firm in New York called Warner Burns Toan and Lunde. Partly, at least, as a result of contracts with the Hilton organization in the course of the Caribe Hilton project, WBTL has subsequently done Hilton work all over the world, with some small part of which Z&V became connected. Between these firms, either separately or in association with first one and then the other taking lead, Z&V did work in Puerto Rico (three other hotels besides the Hilton), Trinidad and Aruba in the Caribbean; and further abroad, the Hiltons in Athens and Tel Aviv. In the United States we did for WBTL four very fine University libraries: Cornell, Brown, Emory and Oberlin. And between the two I was privileged to see the Caribbean islands from one end to the other; to touch each of the four other continents; and to visit Berlin and cities of the Mediterranean including Cairo, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Istanbul and Athens. Of the Puerto Rico people it was Toro who was the leader in all our negotiations and my construction adversary in all our battles, with Ferrer standing by to moderate. Both, with their families, are well loved by my wife and me, with many intimate ties. They have visited in our home and we in theirs and we met and caroused together in New York. My oldest grandson was conceived in the Caribe Hilton Hotel and Toro's youngest son in the course of a vacation trip to the states which included a stop with us. WBTL conducts its intra office business much like Z&V did; that is to say, each principal more or less independently of the others as long as he could swing it alone, though Warner is always the Public-Relations Officer-in-Chief. On the work we did for them, Burns always was the executive architect and between him and me a friendship was born which spread to include his family and mine and which ripened through the years into love. Again, we have visited in their home and they in ours. We have together sampled the best wine and broken the best bread in New York. During the summer of 1973 when we were living in France, they were amongst our house guests. And in 1980 we traveled together in Portugal for a week. One reason for the rapport between the two of us could be that he, like Grayson Gill, is more engineer than architect; his family background was mechanical contracting and he taught for many years a course in air conditioning at Columbia University. But the real point of the story from a business standpoint is to call attention to the rewards for being in the right place at the right time. * * * * * And as the calendar turned toward Jan. 1 1953, the pace at Z&V was still as furious as it had been ever since the war years and I was tired. Though the fruits of that mad pace were rich, they had ceased to seem commensurate with their cost. The taste of travel gained in association with T-F in the Caribbean and with WBT&L in Europe was still strong in my mouth. There was no way to satisfy it and at the same time maintain production equal to Zumwalt's so long as he and the office persisted in the 50 to 60 hour per week. I therefore conceived and proposed this plan: Of my 50% two-way partnership I would relinquish a fifth to each of our three top employees, being Miller, McFadden and Worley, thus creating Z&V-5 of which I would own 20%. Each of us would receive a drawing account which in Zumwalt's case would be $12,000 per year and in the case of each of the other four, $6,000 per year. The four of them excluding me would continue to work at whatever pace circumstances required, whether the same rate as our existing habit or less or more; and for my contribution, I would commit myself to put in half as much productive time as each of them did. They agreed, and new articles of partnership were entered into spelling out these terms, effective Jan 1, 1953. I, in order to build up time-off credit, continued at the same old pace till the end of 1953; and in February of 1954 Mrs. Vinther and I began a six month visit to Europe; which was to be the first of many. V. ZUMWALT & VINTHER - POSTWAR (continued) Z&V Jan. 1953 to Jan. 1964 Except for my protracted absences and my decreased contribution, the change in distribution of ownership as the Jan. 1, 1953 made scarcely a ripple in the stream of affairs within the office. We each continued to do the same things we had always done with their direction still vested in the two Seniors. Though new commissions were not added at quite such a rapid rate, the job numbers grew during the ten year period from about 950 to the 1550 level - the level of business judged by any other standard continually rose. The number of clients served during the ten years stood at about 70, mostly architects. Fees earned, reflecting continuing growth, are as follows: 1953 $298,707 1954 269,166 1955 329,337 1956 369,070 1957 395,748 1958 358,070 1959 345,339 1960 421,444 1961 474,549 1962 423,332 1963 424,196 In the reassignment of responsibilities following the departure of Darrah in 1938, I, as already related, fell heir to the bookkeeping; that which, what with the simplicity of taxes and governmental regulations of all kinds, was an elementary matter. As time passed and transactions grew more voluminous, the system which evolved remained simple. There was a course the accounts receivable ledger which together with bank deposits served to identify income. On the outgo side, I used a series of 8-1/2x11 tablet sheets, grouped by months,, on which there were recorded employee payroll records (we paid bi-weekly), and a transcript of checks and deposits leading to distribution of disbursements as between salaries, rent, office supplies, etc. and to reconciliation with the bank - or banks. Then there was for each year an annual summary sheet which told the whole story on one page. All those sheets for a year were stapled together and preserved. I have them now and it is from them that a great many of the details in this history are drawn. In considering the proposed partnership expansion, the lawyers told us that to avoid a ruinous levy with the IRS it would be necessary to proceed with extreme caution. This introduced accountants into the picture. This dialogue then ensued: Accountant: OK, where are your books? Vinther: (tendering his stack of stapled together 8-1/2x11 sheets) Here they are. Accountant: I see those, but they are only memoranda; where are your books? Vinther: Well, those plus the canceled checks plus the accounts receivable ledger are all we have. If you can't find what you want, ask me and I will point it out to you. Paucity of overhead personnel and procedures of which the above is an example was feature of the Z&V-2 days. We always had a receptionist who in addition to what that implies, carried the specification writing as far as she could. In addition, we had on the string one Charles F. Poe, a clerical employee of Magnolia Petroleum, who moonlighted with us and others. He it was, after the volume and complications got beyond me, who made up the payroll, wrote the checks and reconciled our cash with the Banks; and he picked up the slack on typing, (specifications in those days were all done mimeograph) and ran all the reproductions. And that was it in the overhead department. Well, that kind of bookkeeping was much too unorthodox for a double entry CPA (and probably for the IRS too). And so when I got back from Europe in mid-1954, I would that a real set of books had been installed and Poe and I had both lost our jobs. I nevertheless continued until the end of 1964 to keep on an informal basis the accustomed accounts receivable ledger and although it had no official standing it served to keep me informed on who was doing what for whom and for how much; and who owed. And the continuation of this minimal overhead through the Z&V-5 period was in large measure brought about by our hiring of Mrs. Ruth Reynolds in the spring of 1953. She had grown up in Milwaukee, had married an Allis Chalmers guy and had followed him to Dallas. Some years and a divorce intervened between then and the time she joined us. I cannot sing her praises too highly. She was a consummate typist, could spell and punctuate, could write letters herself when the subject was routine and had an inexhaustible appetite for work. It was she who in addition to her normal secretarial duties absorbed the payroll and bookkeeping work Poe and I had been doing. It was in the post-war time that the electric typewriter became popular and it was somewhat about 1950 that the memory-tape feature was introduced. All this made possible the use of standardized specifications in the format devised by Specifications Institute. Z&V acquired such an outfit and she recognized its possibilities and conquered its intricacies immediately. We always told each other, she and I, that when one of us dropped out for any reason the other would follow and we nearly did. I became an employee in 1964 and she ceased to be one in about 1966 or 1968. * * * * * The thing which made my partial withdrawal from the partnership feasible was, of course, the staff we had accumulated, including the three who were to become partners. Why, whenever we came to enumerate them, it became customary to name them in fixed order - Miller, McFadden and Worley - I do not know. It had nothing to do with seniority, age or expertise either at their time of employment or later; or to do anything else logical. But as I review whatever records exist - payroll, signatures on documents or whatever, they are: Miller, McFadden and Worley, always in that sequence. They were as different to each other as daylight to dark, having as a common denominator only two things: brilliant innovative minds, and an aversion to anything approaching sales effort. But, as to the latter, so had both Ross and I. It was largely the fact that we "got there fustist with the mostist" that gave us success. It now seems appropriate to introduce them individually and more particularly. Robert E. Miller first appears on the payroll in July, 1946, having spent the war years as a sonar officer aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Prior to the war, he had co-op at SMU where he graduated BS in Electrical Engineering in 1938. After graduation he was for three years with Kribs and Laundauer, fifteen months in government war work, and six months with Z&V. He came back to us at wars end. With us he fell naturally into the electrical field and though he grew to be competent in all areas of our practice, his preeminence was in the electrical. He was with all a student; he could use calculus and logarithms in a practical manner, and did. Monuments to his capacity are the outdoor illumination installations on Dallas Public Schools, in numbers approaching 150 separate campuses; the field lighting at D/FW Airport; and responsibility for all aspects of the Medical School Laboratory Building at Texas Tech University. But his primary responsibility and interest lay in electrical matters; he either knew all the answers or knew where to find them. One exercise to prove his versatility was that he once successfully designed for one of the local aircraft manufacturers an 8" stainless steel pipe line to carry some gas or other at 1800 deg. F. a distance of a thousand feet or more. None of the rest of us knew where to start. Miller developed a bad heart in 1974 which while not he immediate cause of his resignation as of March 19, 1975, was nevertheless a factor. He was never again gainfully employed. Fred L. McFadden, a graduate of Centenary College in 1930 as BS in Physics, with postgraduate work at California Institute of Technology, joined us in Sept. 1945. His working experience before the war had been in air conditioning contractor organizations, first in Shreveport and then with Dallas Air Conditioning Co. During the war he worked in the defense industry in and around Dallas. His early air conditioning work established the pattern that he followed with Z&V and the innovations in air conditioning listed in the foregoing were mostly his brain children. But like all the rest of us, he did not permit his expertise to rest on air conditioning alone but developed and expanded with the years to a fair degree of competence in other areas. I think his outstanding contribution to the welfare of Z&V was his handling of the work of Ma Bell. We must have done fifty changes in and around Dallas, including cooling of the then existing administration building and crowned by the mammoth concentration of facilities in the Bryan St.-Haskell Ave. area devoted to long distance communication. In this latter project he became skilled as any of us in the generation of direct current agency for emergency purposes. When automatic specification writing was introduced to the office, McFadden assumed the authorship of the Master Specification Book and together with Mrs. Reynolds the preparation of the tape library; and continued it until the time of his withdrawal as of March 7, 1975. Mac found he could not tolerate complete retirement and so took up whatever part-time form employment that offered itself. James Thomas Worley was co-oping out of SMU cum Zumwalt & Darrah when I came on the scene in 1938. At the outset of the war he entered the Air Force and from there got back to us in July of 1946. In the years before the war he, being junior, caught all the nasty assignments - and I mean nasty; when he would come out of that first floor attic of the Baker Hotel or the vertical shafts of the Federal Reserve Bank he would be as black as the ace of spades. In 1948, he became involved with Ross in the SMU water chilling plant and in that kind of heavy central station work he found his niche. In the course of the Texas University work he became our representative on the campus in all other respects. And from the inception of the Texas Tech water chilling system till the completion of the new power house and tunnel expansions he was a big man on the campus. Jimmie was the most lovable of us all. It was a real bereavement to all of us when, after a session of handball at the YMCA one noon, he stretched out on a bench for a nap and failed to wake up. This was on May 31, 1975. He had withdrawn from the firm just prior (March 7, 1975) and had been in the interval self employed. * * * * * It seems strange that no one of the five of us had sired a successor. I had only one child, a daughter; had she been a boy, and judging by her success in her own chose field, I might have had a winner. Ross had one child, Perry, but Perry never became interested in school. Miller has one son out of five tries, David. David followed the engineering route all right but not in a way that any of us old time EE's will consider gutsy; he followed the siren call of electronics and now helps run Texas Instruments. McFadden has a son and a daughter but Lee is a wordsmith; he dwells now in a literary world. Neither of Worley's two sons pursued college education. The score of employees is equally blank. Not one of them ever produced a candidate. In fact no child of either partner or employee ever work in the office even part time. What an attractive career have we followed! * * * * * Amongst those recruited in 1948 following their military service was Jack F. Roberts, a graduate of Texas University (BS in Mechanical Engineering, 1947) who prewar had been employed by Montgomery Ward and Company in the real estate department. By 1956 when he had developed into a competent and well rounded engineer he concluded it was time for him to move on and found himself attracted to Lubbock. That was about the time that the Texas Tech work was going strong and Lubbock itself was booming. Z&V conceived the idea that a resident on the ground, if he could aid in keeping the Texas Tech work flowing and at the same time support himself on the balance of the area market, a branch office would be a good idea. We persuaded Roberts to become its manager on a profit sharing basis. This office continued in being under his direction for more than fifteen years and while never a howling success from a profit standpoint it accomplished its purpose as a strong and continuing tie to Texas Tech and it did do a lot of work (some $367,866) from more than 300 jobs (in the first eight years) It was finally sold in 1974 to a group of employees whom Jack had accumulated and trained over his years and who are still prospering. In December of 1945 we welcomed back from the Navy Billy Walcutt, an old friend of mine from York Ice Machinery days of 1936. He had continued with York (until the military got him) as a sales engineer concentrating on air conditioning; except that by some freak Z&V had him for a few months in 1940 during which he did some design work on the Mercantile Bank Building. So in 1946 he was our most accomplished air conditioning type except McFadden. His major independent accomplishment for us was the air conditioning of what was then the Kirby Building. In 1951 he left us for greener pastures, finally arriving in Austin at the representative of Yandell, Cowan and Love, Consulting Mechanical Engineers of Fort Worth. We, meanwhile had got ourselves into exactly the same position in Austin with University of Texas as we had in Lubbock with Texas Tech, so in 1959 we tempted Walcutt to follow Jack Roberts in opening our second branch office. But neither was this effort to succeed in reaching its primary target which was U of T; nor, despite in his first five years a total of more than 150 commissions for some $125,000 from almost 50 clients, did Billy succeed in tapping the big time local market. His stewardship was terminated by his untimely death of cancer in April 1972. Maury Hughes was established as his successor in 1973 and operated the establishment for Z&V until he himself bought it in January 1975. Thus ended our experiment with branch offices. It is my belief that they could have contributed as planned and that their failure to do stemmed from inattention and indifference in Dallas, of which I myself am as guilty as anyone. * * * * * Clarence F. Gilmore, though no longer on the Z&V scene, deserves special comment; and because of their association with Gilmore, two others must be mentioned in the same context. Gilmore was my special charge from the outset since now there were to Aggies arrayed against all that SMU talent. He graduated BS in Mechanical Engineering, A&M 1944, worked for Dallas Air Conditioning Co. (as did McFadden, remember?), was the "new blood" that I thought would be the infusion we needed. When I released my last interest in the Z&V partnership in 1964, by which time he had become a leading force, it was in the hope that he would be taken into the ownership. And he was. But there was friction between himself and the senior partners and later between himself and the new officers who appeared after the incorporation which led to his resignation as of July 1, 1968. He almost immediately displayed a shingle in his own name, continued through almost as many configurations as Z&V has done, and finally emerged in 1969 as Clarence Gilmore and Associates. Joe Campbell, an extremely competent journeyman electrical designer joined Z&V in 1957, departed for greener pastures in 1964 and in 1969 became one of Clarence Gilmore's "associates" in charge of electrical matters. Eric Benson co-oped with us a while attending SMU where he graduated BS in ME, 1957. In our office he became such a factor that he was invited in 1971 to become a stockholder in the Corporation and was made an Assistant Vice President. It was not permanent, however. After drifting about for a few years in the course of which he acquired a new life and a child, he returned to Dallas and joined Gilmore. These three plus one other today constitute the ownership of Clarence Gilmore and Associates. * * * * * Bruce H. Hanssen with two "s's" and an "e" co-oped out of SMU during the same time Eric T. Benson with an "o" and only one "s" and they graduated almost together. Bruce also fell into the mechanical area and became competent in air conditioning. But unlike Benson, Hanssen is still there (he celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary in July of 1981) and is as will presently seen, one of the two main wheels. Which speaks for itself. In addition to the above who became partners and/or stockholders, there were the yeoman of equal tenure without whom neither Z&V-2 nor Z&V-5 would have made it; and to these I pay tribute for they are as integrally a part of history as any of us: Jim Radford, BS in Electrical Engineering, A&M 1941, joined us in early 1950 as electrical designer and did everything in that area well until he resigned in the early seventies to assume charge of electrical construction and maintenance for Baylor University Hospital; to deal with facilities which were in large measure his handiwork. Fred B. Deere, (Freddie Dear) 4-F from the war effort who was with us Oct. 1945 till about 1970 when he resigned to retire. Jim Rankin (Pablo), a sergeant out of the Army, with us Nov. 1945 till about 1970 when he resigned to retire. Carl Edwards, 4-F in the war effort, with us July 1946 till about 1960. R.J. (Bob) Campbell joined us Oct. 1946 and eventually went to Austin with Walcutt. He was still there when the Austin office was sold, but has since passed on. Wesley S. Miers, BS in Electrical Engineering, A&M 1922, fugitive from TP&L and with us Feb. 1948 till about 1970 when he resigned to retire. Jerry Powell, BS in EE, A&M 1930, came with us during the war and a short time afterward; now an electrical contractor here. I can't recall that we ever had a stinker; for long, that is. * * * * * It began to be evident in the latter half of 1963 that by year's end the bulk of the work in progress in the office would have been finished and delivered and that the work which would succeed it would have barely been started. Thus, it would be that the fruits of work done prior to 1964 were quite accurately determinable and that only a very little of the expense accrued in 1963 would be chargeable to work completed in 1964 and thereafter; and therefore that if a change in partnership relations were to be made at all, it could be made as of Jan. 1, 1954 with a minimum of compromise. I had been thinking for quite some time that: a) If the firm were to continue and prosper it was time to involve in its management some younger blood; and b) I personally would be happier bereft of the burdens of management; and c) In view of the increasing inanity and prodigality of the jury awards in litigation involving engineers; and of the fact that through dumb luck outside of Z&V I had reached a network such that I was more vulnerable than my partners, a partnership was no longer a comfortable berth for me. I approached my partners on this basis proposing that I be permitted to withdraw and that I be replaced by Clarence Gilmore. An agreement of separation was worked out and signed, effective Jan. 1, 1964. On Dec. 31, 1963 I submitted to Zumwalt and Vinther an application for employment; it was accepted and I was given the impressive title Consultant. I continued in the employ of Zumwalt and Vinther in all is succeeding guises until the end of 1978 when I resigned my impressive title and after forty happy and productive years found myself without a key to Z&V's management circle. VI. ZUMWALT & VINTHER, INC. July 7, 1964 to June 1, 1979 If the point where history becomes autobiography is subject to question there can be no doubt that this history became pure history, devoid of any element of biography, on Jan. 1, 1964, the date on which I ceased to be a partner. Thereafter I was simply an employee, consulted in technical maters but having no access to company records other than technical, having no hand in the establishment of policy or in decision making and no responsibility for management. The facts recorded from this point onward are gleaned from those more privy to these matters than I, both those still within the organization and those who left it much later than I; as well as those who joined in 1979; and for this reason, if no other, is quite brief. It had long been apparent, for all the very reasons given for my own withdrawal from ownership, that a change from partnership to corporate form of organization was a must. but be had continued to drift along, mostly I expect as a result of my own inertia; with me out of the way, those remaining lost no time in making the change, a change which became effective as of July 7, 1964, with the five current partners as stockholders and with Ross Zumwalt as president. Neither the change in ownership (my withdrawal and Gilmore's inclusion nor the change to corporate format brought about any serious changes in the immediate course of events or in internal management. During the next four years the job list grew from about #1550 to about #1850, which was about the same annual rate as had obtained during the previous years. And though these three hundred jobs contained a number of landmark projects, as for instance: The Mayflower Building gas turbine electric plant already referred to; Addition to the Puerto Rico International Airport; Emory College Library; Exterior illumination for 144 schools; Court House and Federal Office Building-Dallas; SMU Law Library Air conditioning of all existing schools in Richardson Independent School District Seeley G. Mudd Learning Center, Oberlin College; A review of the job list shows a high proportion of studies, reports, remodelings, and such piddling stuff. This cannot but reflect that chronic affliction of Z&V already referred to, the lack of merchandising interest, skill and effort; and suggests the real reason for the corporate and personnel changes with the hiring in 1968 of W. Frank Wright, Jr. The seniors of Z&V had known of Frank Wright all his adult life and had in fact known his father, a very fine gentlemen, before him; Mr. Wesley F. Wright Sr. had been Treasurer of Dallas Gas Co. at the time Z&V did the air conditioning work in the Lone Star Gas Co. office building at Harwood and Jackson. As his maturity approached we had come to know Junior quite well. One of the steps in achieving this maturity was two years (1956-58) spent with Z&V as design engineer. Frank was a freshman at SMU, then transferred to Texas University at Austin for the next two years. At this point the war caught him up and he served three years as Engineering Officer, Destroyer and Minesweepers, Pacific Fleet, U.S. Navy. Upon release from the Service, he returned to UT where he received his BS in Mechanical Engineering in June 1947. His professional career began upon graduation with Servel Incorporated, an air conditioning division, a connection which continued until 1956, by which time he was zone Manager with headquarters in Dallas. At this point he, wishing to broaden his horizons, did his short stint with Z&V. In 1958 he entered the employ of Southern Union Gas Co., Dallas and became Manager of its Industrial Department where he achieved marked success. This is the man destined to direct the affairs of Zumwalt and Vinther, Inc. through the next eight years (1968-1975). This destiny became manifest in the most incidental, accidental, unanticipated manner imaginable. Wright, Zumwalt and Worley had occasion one day early in 1968 to discuss separate and entirely unrelated matters over lunch. In the course of the meal, Wright mentioned conversationally that he thought he had gone with Southern Union about as far as he could go, and that it was in his opinion about time for him to make a change. Worley, the opportunist, immediately asked how he would like to join Z&V, Inc. This led to negotiations culminating in the employment of Wright as of June 28, 1969 and his election as Executive Vice President, charged with all the duties and authority the title implies. The corporate structure underwent many changes within these eight years. The first of these, a blow to the technical muscle of the corporation, was the resignation and departure coincident of Wright's election, of Clarence F. Gilmore. Gilmore had been a contender within the corporate circle for the duties which Wright was to assume; and he had all the qualifications for the job except proven ability in sales. That this ability was there all the time, if latent, has been amply demonstrated by subsequent events. [The really tough sale is to look a client in the eye and get him to spend a wad of his hard earned dollars to build your design. No place for faint heart or doubt here, you have to lay it on the line. You are selling a product the customer cannot yet see, but who will be its critical judge after it is done. Glib talk is no substitute for reputation and ability in this arena. Peanuts knew this, and I never understood why he kept coming back to the subject with with this odd contradiction of admiration and contempt. NLF] In almost his first managerial move, Wright appointed R.G. Lyford as director of office administration and fiscal affairs with the title Controller and with instructions to do whatever was necessary in these areas. Lyford had been retired for a short time from Regional Manager for Powers Regulator Co. [You can imagine those of us in the trenches felt about this move. We felt like we were part of Zumwalt and Vinther, not hirelings who had to report to a team of officious bean counters and justify everything we did. The titles they gave us were a poor substitute for the isolation from our beloved mentors. NLF] In 1971 Eric T. Benson, J.L. Radford and Bruce H. Hanssen became stockholders and on March 8, 1971 were appointed Assistant Vice Presidents. At the same time Norris Fanning, a long time employee in Lubbock was made Assistant Vice President in charge of the Lubbock office. In September 1971, Fanning was promoted to Vice President. In 1974 decision was reached to discontinue the Lubbock operation and its assets were sold to Mr. Fanning who, with his younger brother, continued the business under another name. [Jack Roberts had returned to the Dallas office in 1970, ostensibly to head up a department to design refrigerated warehouses. That fell through and Jack tried the agency business for a few months. Morris Backer, who managed the Austin office of Bovay Engineers, called me up one day and asked if I knew anyone qualified to supervise the construction of the DFW Airport central plant; they had been hired for the job. I recommended Jack Roberts, and told him if Z&V had assigned Jack to the project in the first place, they would still have the job. Jack spent about 3 years bringing the construction of the 24000 ton central plant to fruition. He then became the "R" in GMR, Clarence Gilmore being the "G". NLF] In April 1972, W.C. Walcutt, who had managed the Austin operation since its inception, died. This was a severe personal blow to all who knew him for he was a well loved gentleman. In July 1973 Maury Hughes who had for many years been a mainstay of Leo Laundauer's office was elected Vice President in charge of Austin. In January 1975, decision was reached to discontinue the Austin operation and on January 29, 1975, it assets were sold to Mr. Hughes who continued the business under another name. In the seven years under Mr. Wright's leadership the business did continue to grow as hoped. The job list increased by some 400 projects. Notable amongst these and all accruing largely to the efforts of Wright himself are these three: 1. Not noted for size of fee but rather for its exoticness was the design of a 17000 ton water chilling plant for an office building complex in Caracas, Venezuela. 2. Texas Tech University School of Medicine was a immense project, tremendously varied and complex, the commission for which was secured by Wright, powerfully assisted by Worley and backed by the long record of successful performance on the TTU campus. [Ross Zumwalt himself had done the first master plan for the campus heating and cooling distribution. Jim Worley and Jack Roberts masterminded the fast track construction that built CHACP1. I was working with the administration on a daily basis to get the doctors into suitable interim facilities. Frank explained to me that an old fraternity brother tie in the architect's office was what got the med school job for Z&V. Yeah, right :-) . NLF] 3. The crowning achievement of Z&V as a business entity from the standpoint of both magnitude and revenue was its part in the planning of Dallas/Ft. Wroth Regional Airport. This facility for the future on an 18,000 acre site was said to be at the time of its construction the largest airport in the world, and has certainly become one of the busiest. The master scheme called for a total of ten terminal buildings distributed along either side of a five mile long spine road and the first phase of construction included four of the buildings, plus either all of the facilities required by a terminal such size or the means of adding them. Z&V's work included principally the central cooling and heating plant, the distribution utilities and the field lighting. The aggregate of the fees collected was in excess of $1,000,000. As observed on an earlier page, nobody ever accomplishes unaided and here is no exception. Zumwalt and Vinther, Inc. owes credit and thanks to Mr. J. Darrell Frances, then President of Mercantile National Bank; and to Mr. George M. Underwood, Jr., then Chairman of the Construction Committee, Dallas Aviation Board; whose assistance in securing the commission was conclusive. Total annual revenue increased at a gratifying pace. For the year 1963 it stood at some $500,000 the level at which it had been hovering for some years. The next year it climbed to $800,000, the next it passed $1,000,000 and it never thereafter fell below that mark. In 1974 it was $1,200,000. And, incredible as it was to the stockholders, of $1,200,000 gross revenues for 1974 only $875 remained as net profit on the year available for distribution as dividends. It seemed that though the ability to secure business was still present and the ability to produce continued unchanged, the ability to do so at an acceptable cost level had disappeared. [What was really incredible was that the stockholders never realized that management, not economic factors, bad luck, or poor performance was at fault. So, what they did next really took the cake! NLF] At a meeting of the Board on January 17, 1975 called to consider this sad plight, W.F. Wright was elected President and a plan was advised and agreed upon whereby the profit picture might be improved. In the weeks following it became apparent that no plan sufficiently drastic to achieve results would in its execution receive unanimous cooperation. As a result, at a meeting of the Board of March 7, 1975 Wright, Miller, McFadden and Worley resigned and agreed to relinquish their interests in accordance with the stock repurchase plan which was a condition of ownership in the first place. Thus Zumwalt became principal owner and again President, and T.J. Lawrence, Jr. (a newcomer not heretofore mentioned) and Bruce Hanssen became Vice Presidents. And thus ended that era. [Tommy Lawrence was an intern in the Lubbock office while attending Texas Tech. I was glad I had the opportunity to prep Tom, and pay back a little for Ross's investment of time in John Fanning during that period - NLF] Either following that fateful March 7, 1975 or shortly therefore, three of these old employees (Deere, Rankin and Miers) went into retirement and the fourth, Radford, went to Baylor Hospital to help run the stuff he had for year been designing for them. Thus eight skilled and experienced cogs in the Z&V wheel were withdrawn within a period of a couple of years with no volume of competent blood in replacement in either category. No wonder that the old ship foundered. This left Zumwalt, Lawrence and Hanssen, with much of the new people as remained plus some new blood, to carry on. And they made a living at it. But with Zumwalt's health growing more wretched day by day, it became apparent that without an infusion of new capital from some source the firm would upon his death collapse. This saving infusion came about through the acquisition of Zumwalt and Vinther, Inc. by Science Applications, Inc. (SAI) effective June 1, 1979. Death overtook Zumwalt on Mach 10, 1980 putting an end to a useful and honorable life. Ross was never more professionally productive than when, with the midnight oil burning, he would hump over this drawing and sing: "It was done in Old Joe's bar room Corner of the square The drinks went round as usual A goodly crowd was there. Etc. ad infinitums" [ I flew to Dallas for Ross Zumwalt's funeral. Mostly attended by old hands and people from the industry. The preacher's words somehow did not measure up to the occasion; we were there to bury a legend. I read of Peanut's passing in the ASHRAE Journal, months after the fact. NLF] With Z&V now as a subsidiary of Science Applications, it was decided in the beginning to make no changes in management and business continued to be a vital one within the local and other areas of business with SAI. After a period of a little more than 3 years the business opportunities that appeared to SAI to form a synergism with their business had evaporated with the changes in the Department of Energy and other opportunities with more intense engineering design and potential design/build. Further, the testing of functional relations between the other architectural subsidiaries of SAI had not proven to be viable due to the distances between Z&V and their offices. Based on these changes in business climate, SAI felt it would be better for Z&V to no longer be a part of their business repertoire and upon this prospect sold the business to the firm of Purdy- McGuire, Inc. on September 20, 1982. Following acquisition of the business, the name "Zumwalt & Vinther, Inc." was retired. However, the legacy of the firm lives on within the many people throughout today's engineering community who at one time had been a part of the image of quality and engineering excellence for which Zumwalt & Vinther was noted. FINIS ------------------------------------------------------------------- EPILOG These were magnificent people. They shared their lives and their company with John and me. They taught us the science and art of design. They gave me a job that fed my family while I got an education. They gave me the freedom to exercise my own judgement, in design, in staffing, and in business development while I managed the Lubbock office. The Lubbock office did turn in a profit during the 1970 - 1974 era. They sold us the office at a fair price and carried the note for the full amount. The operating profit plus the purchase price certainly justified their investment in the Lubbock office. Our retirement fund distribution provided the capital we needed for operating expenses and our clients stood by us to a man (and one woman). We were able to pay off the note within a year and have been debt free (except for the mortgage and financed equipment purchases) ever since. The debt we owe to them cannot be measured in dollars and cents; and it is the kind of debt that cannot be repaid. May I never be guilty of ingratitude for all the blessings we received from their hands. We have absolutely no right to invoke the corporate name of Z&V; that privilege was bought by others. Still, a quarter of a century later, I occasionally answer the phone "Good morning, Zum... uh... Fanning, Fanning and Associates." Norris L. Fanning, PE June 1, 1996