George Raymond Schmidt (myself) was born on January 14, 1938 in Spokane, Washington to Benjamin Gustav Schmidt and Alma Bertha Schmidt. The delivery took place in the front bedroom of Grandmother Bertha Rich's home on 12th Avenue in Spokane. Home birth was not uncommon in that time frame, and the doctor came to the house both to save expense, and to ensure that someone would be present to help in case the delivery came when Ben was away at work.
I started grade school at the Veradale Grade School in the Spokane Valley. I was most anxious to start school since when Bob and Helen went off to school, I was home alone. I watched them walk down the railway tracks next to our home, wishing to join them. Instead, I sometimes got to talk to the railway workers that came by on a hand pumped work car. My parents found out about a kindergarten school that had started up in the church basement next to the grade school. I was able to attend for one day, before it was determined that it would be too expensive for the family budget.
By the time I graduated from the sixth grade, there was a new junior high school that opened up in Opportunity. I joined the first seventh grade class in the school, and was in the first class to complete the full three years there. When it came time to transfer my school records I was asked if I wanted to change my last name from Smith to Schmidt. I quickly agreed to the change, because I knew that was my real name. I had been originally enrolled as George Smith, since that was during World War II, and there was concern that the German name would cause me problems.
At Central Valley Junior High School, I became involved in the agriculture class, that was part of the Future Farmers of America. Since our family had the farming background, this seemed like a natural thing to do. I started with a ewe that had already been bred. (Columbia-Ramboulet breed). She later had twins that were very entertaining watching the lambs bouncing around, and climbing on top of her to get a better view of their surroundings. I later added a steer that Ben bought at the stock yards in Spokane. That was the first of two that I raised, along with fitting and showing at the County Fair. Eventually I was loaned two Sears Roebuck Foundation ewes, that had also been previously bred. One bore twins, the other had a still born lamb. One of the twins I "castrated" and raised for the County Fair. It earned the Reserve Champion of Breed (second place), and a Blue Ribbon for fitting and showing.
I graduated from Central Valley High School in 1956 as the Salutatorian, not quite matching my goal of Valedictorian. I played football in Junior High School and High School and earned letters each year. I also played basketball until Sophomore year when the coach suggested that I go out for track and field instead. I started out with the "broad jump", low and high hurdles, and the 440 and 880 yard dash. The best year involved our team winning the 440 yard low hurdles in first, second, and third place at the District Meet, advancing to the Tri-District. (I was third after the winning Senior, and a classmate that was clearly the best athlete in our class.) At the Tri-District meet I suffered from the effects of a Tetanus shot, and was running a fever--I could not get over even the first hurdle.
I had been given the Tetanus shot in preparation for attending the All State Boys State convention. Noone suggested that the shot would have that kind of effect. Needless to say, the track coach was very upset, as I was.
When it came time for college, Helen was already at the University of Washington, so it seemed natural that I would also go there. My high school classmates split between Washington State College (referred to derogatorially as the "cow-college", now Washington State University). Since I had done well in math and science classes, engineering was my first choice, but I also considered Pharmacy, since that had at least some potential of owning my own business eventually. I visited the Pharmacy Department, and told the interviewer that I was also considering Engineering. He suggested that I go ahead and visit the Engineering Department. So, I went over there, and in the end enrolled at the College of Engineering in Chemical Engineering.
In my freshman year, I stayed in the college dormitory, but got the opportunity to stay as a "house boy" at the Baptist-Disciple Student Center earning my keep by doing cleaning and yard work, and setting up and clearing up afterwards for meetings at the center. I was responsible for my own meals, but had access to the kitchen. That helped considerably with costs, since I was on a very limited budget. My parents had contributed $1,000 toward my college education, and I almost stretched that out for the four years, by being frugal, and finding what work I could during the summers in Spokane. Unfortunately, that was a period of recession in Spokane that lasted for several years, and few summer jobs were available.
During high school, I had a job with the Water District as a "ditch walker", scheduling irrigation for Spokane Valley farmers, and routing the water to their farms by starting up the pumps and opening and closing valves to get the water into the right lines. This meant being on the job 24 hours a day while the weekly run was in progress. Some neighboring farmers made the valve switches to take over water from their neighbors, but major switches always involved going out to the fields at all hours to make the line changes.
Unfortunately for my income situation, the irrigation schedule started before the school year ended, and they would not keep the job open for me. So I took whatever jobs I could find, including jobs with the railroad that Ben lined up for me. Some of that involved cleaning railroad cars, between shipments shoveling and sweeping out the debris, and rotten fruit in the refrigerator cars, then washing them down with a hose. Other jobs involved work at the ice plant, taking 100 pound ice blocks out of the freezer, and moving them into storage. Later, we would take the blocks out of storage and put them on a conveyer to the loading rack, and put the ice into the ice area at the ends of the cars. For me this was back-breaking work for several house followed by short breaks when I would rest in my car before the next train came in.
There were more even more menial jobs as a "red-cap" cleaning spitoons (since I was the lowest on the totem pole), and helping get luggage to the trains. That job didn't pan out very well, since the railroad decided I was too young, and I didn't even get paid for my work. I also worked as a mail handler, loading and unloading mail and freight as trains came in. For a while I also worked as an ice inspector, checking the refrigerator cars for ice, and making sure the drains were not plugged or frozen.
One summer, I spent more time looking for work that actually working. I wound up taking a job for about a month driving a wheat truck for $1 and hour. I was only paid for the time after we got to the field, not including travel time in the farmer's truck, and then the farmer did not even want to pay his part of the social security, and I had to fight to get that paid.
One summer, I was hired to work for the electrician my dad used, as an assistant electrician. During that time I wound up installing the wall switch boxes in brother Bob's house that he was building. After about a month of this, I was layed off, since business was poor, and the electrician didn't think he could afford to keep me on.
Eventually, graduation approached, and the interview process started with potential employers. I did multiple interviews, including Standard Oil Company of California (now Chevron Oil), Texaco, DuPont, and Proctor and Gamble. The process included a trip to DuPont in Delaware. That was my first flight on a commercial air-liner. Proctor and Gamble in the San Diego area offered a month working in their soap manufacturing plant, which I took advantage of. All made offers, and I decided on Standard Oil in San Francisco for $515 per month.
Starting work with Standard Oil involved an understanding that I would need to put in my three years in the Air Force to fulfill my obligation from Reserve Officers Training (ROTC). So, I went down to San Francisco in June 1960 and worked for two to three weeks before taking off to Sacramento, California at McClellan Air Force Base. I was there for one year working as a Nuclear Research Officer, before being transferred to Yokota Air Force Base in Japan, just north of Tokyo. While there I had short assignments in Alaska, and Tripoli in Libya.
I kept in touch with Standard Oil and let them know that I was sticking with my plans to come back to Chevron, and letting them know what my schedule was. I eventually asked for an increase in pay since I had three years of "experience". I was given a raise to $600 per month. I returned to Standard Oil in mid-year 1963 credited with three years of service with Standard Oil. I found an apartment in Oakland, California and commuted by bus to San Francisco. I started out as an Instrument Engineer, then worked on Piping and Instrument Diagrams, and piping design.
In 1966 after three years, I was transferred to El Paso, Texas at the 25,000 barrel per day refinery that Standard Oil operated as Standard Oil Company of Texas. I was a refinery engineer, working on small design and construction projects in the refinery.
Before the transfer to El Paso, I had been dating Sandra Susan Pearson, who had the apartment next door to me in Oakland. We were married in June, 1966 before the move, and completed our Spokane and Canada honeymoon by moving to El Paso. Our son Dave was born there.
After the first move to El Paso, we returned to San Francisco, and bought our first home in Pleasant Hill on Maureen Lane. That lasted until our second move to El Paso for a one year assignment for a design and construction project. That was followed by a return to San Francisco.
The next move was to Pascagoula, Mississippi for a refinery expansion project for about another three years. We lived in Mobile, Alabama, and I commuted daily to Pascagoula. Our daughter Christine Marie was born there. Then another move back to San Francisco, moving back into our Pleasant Hill home.
A short assignment followed in Burnaby, British Columbia in Canada, without the family.
Next move: Feluy, Belgium for a refinery expansion. We lived in Waterloo, and I commuted daily to Feluy. Dave started elementary school there. Sandy took classes at the American School of Brussels, and became fluid in French. We managed to do a fair bit of travelling around Europe while there, including a Greece land tour plus Greek Island cruise. After about 2-1/2 years, we came back to San Francisco.
These "foreign" assignments were mixed in with assignments at the Richmond Refinery, including a project to reconstruct the TKC-TKN facility (Heavy Crude Oil Processing Plants) that had been destroyed by fire. I also an assignment without family to construct the Gaviota Crude Processing Plant near Santa Barbara.
While on the Gaviota project our marriage fell apart after Sandra became involved with our pastor. I had been living in Santa Barbara or Gaviota, and returning every other weekend for about 1-1/2 years. Divorce followed without my knowing what the issue was, since she refused to discuss it.
After a few years, I bought four apartment buildings in Santa Cruz, a fourplex, two triplexes and a duplex for a total of twelve apartments. I held that property for about ten years and then sold the property.
After the divorce, Chevron wanted me to take an assignment in Port Arthur, Texas for refinery design and construction work. I declined since I needed to be available to manage the apartment buildings, plus I didn't want to move out of the area so soon after the divorce and be unable to keep in contact with Dave and Christy. Later, they again asked me to go to the same project and I again declined. With threats of how this was going to affect my career, I elected to take retirement and left Chevron.
I later was employment with Jacobs Engineering on projects at the Exxon Refinery in Benicia, California, and after that with Chemical Design Company in the Richmond Refinery, plus work on an offshore former Chevron platform. The last two jobs were as a Contracts Engineer with Pipeline Systems Incorporated (PSI), a pipeline company specializing in slurry pipelines for mining projects, and then Golder Associates doing work on natural gas pipelines for PG&E.
I met Jane Eller Gauthier and we were married on November 27, 1999. I had purchased our home in Concord, California previously. We have now been happily married for 20 years. In recent years we have taken several European land trips, and cruises. Our favorite has been Viking River Cruises, which we took on three tours. Others were with Holland America, and a Hawaii cruise with Princess Cruise Line.
