Joseph Olafson

Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised on a farm, Joe won a national General Motors Scholarship and became an Engineer. He started with Roebling right after World War II in the Cold Rolled Products Division where he worked for 28 years designing machines.

On designing machinery: I would go out into the mills and get acquainted with the machinery that was in there and really get to understand it well. Then I'd talk with the foreman and the machine operators; they might say we could do better this way or that way. As I was designing equipment, I would go back to the drawings and see how it was put together and how improvements could be made, which could include advice from these people or maybe I could think of a few myself.

Yes I really loved my job. I put all my efforts into it to try and make things work right. There would always be bugs to get out of the equipment. So, I would be in touch with the machine shop even while the equipment was being built. If something didn't seem right, I'd have to see what could be done to change it. I always got good cooperation from the machine shop and could go back to the machinists and say, " Well, I'd like to have this changed a little bit."

On the Roebling family: Everybody thought well of the Roebling family. We had the urge to produce what they were expecting of us. There was a good feeling towards the whole Roebling family. We liked Charlie Tyson (Roebling President). He knew practically everybody in the plants and was cheerful and pleasant and always said hello.

On the closing of the factory: I feel it's very depressing. There are so many people who were hurt or lost their living when a secure job like we were used to for so many years suddenly vanished. It was a sad day. There was so much life in the thing and now it's so dead.