VT Stories Oral History with Todd Barnes, October 2, 2015 (Ms2016-015)

David Cline: This is David Cline for the Virginia Tech

Stories Oral History Project. Today is October 2nd and we are at the Alumni

Center. The year is 2015 and if you could introduce yourself for the recording.

Start with 'my name is' so we get a nice complete sentence, and tell us your

name and where and when you were born.

Todd Barnes: My name is Todd Barnes. I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, born the 26th of February in 1953.

David C: What I would like to do Todd is to start by talking about where you were raised and

your family, and sort of years before Tech. We're obviously going to be talking

about Tech today and the rest of your life after Tech, but Tech has what has

drawn us to this table. But if you could tell me a little bit about your

upbringing and your family. I would love to hear 00:01:00about where you're from.

Todd B: Sure. I grew up in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. My dad was from Luisa County

Virginia and is the Virginia Tech connection. My mom grew up and was born and

raised in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, so when we grew up in the family my sister

and I we had to choose occasionally between being a rebel or a Yankee, depending

on what was going on in the family. Lived in the same house as far as I know,

pretty much from a young kid all the way up through graduation from Tech. I went

to high school in Pittsburgh.

David C: You 00:02:00said your father was a Virginia Tech connection?

Todd B: My dad graduated from Tech in 1938.

David C: Were you raised on stories of Tech?

Todd B: No. Actually he was fairly quiet about it. He wasn't a big storyteller, but in high school we made a road trip to come down and see his brother and wife and my cousins in Blackstone, Virginia, and then came through Blacksburg. Part of the connection there, of course he wanted to show off where he went to school and take a look at it. And part of the connection

which was a real odd connection, our next door neighbor their son married the

daughter of James Boone and Martha Boone, who James Boone was the treasurer of 00:03:00Virginia Tech at the time, and Martha Boone ran the front desk at the Donaldson

Brown Continuing Education Center, the hotel portion of it. So we

stopped in to see them as well and made the connection, just hello at that time.

And I hadn't really decided, so this was probably the summer of my junior year

in high school. In an attempt to try and limit the financial constraints on my

dad I was applying and checking in to the possibilities of 00:04:00an appointment at the

military academies and found out that since I'm color blind I wasn't going to

get to fly, so the Air Force Academy was out. Since my dad had been in the Army

after Virginia Tech there was always this deep rivalry with West Point Cadets,

so my heart really wasn't in that. So I also applied for an ROTC scholarship,

and out of my laziness I applied to Virginia Tech early decision, and that's the

only application I filled out for college. Got accepted and that was good enough

for me. And quite frankly that's all the research that I did at that time, which

part of the story later on, I'll tell you about one of my roommates who did deep

research into engineering schools. And so I 00:05:00just by luck ended up at one of the

best engineering schools in the nation, so I was kind of happy about the results

of that.

David C: Did you know as a youngster that that was going to be an

interest of yours?

Todd B: Engineering?

David C: Yeah.

Todd B: My dad was a metallurgical engineer and worked for a steel company in Pittsburgh at the time of my growing up. And so I loved math and science so it just kind of seemed a

natural, although I really love the outdoors, so I toyed with forestry, looked

at Syracuse University for example as well as Virginia Tech, but decided on

civil 00:06:00engineering because I get to be outdoors building things, so it just kind

of fell in place.

David C: So you made that decision and got in early decision

so that's all she wrote?

Todd B: That was it. Before Christmas my senior year I was accepted and that was decision made.

David C: Was your father pleased about you following his footsteps?

Todd B: Yeah, I'm sure he was. He was not real huggy kissy kind of guy and not extremely demonstrative. That was my mom's side of the house, but yeah, I know he was very proud from that respect, yeah.

David C: Did they drive you down when you came to school? Do you remember

coming to campus when school started?

Todd B: Yeah. In fact, we did another trip through my cousin's place in Blackstone, Virginia 00:07:00Kenbridge, and my oldest first cousin had graduated from here as a mechanical engineer. He was already gone from campus at that time, and his younger brother was here as a, I don't know if he was a junior or senior. I think he might have been a senior my freshman year,

so we went through their place first before we drove here and dropped me off at

campus. Which was nice having my cousin here. Not a whole lot of social

connection. Your rat year you're not allowed to really be a social animal

anyhow, but I got to leave with him and go to his place for Thanksgiving and my

family came down, so that was a nice added benefit.

David C: So you had seen the campus 00:08:00before because you had come through with your father, but do you remember what it was like sort of stepping on to the campus knowing that this was going to be your home for a while?

Todd B: You know, I don't have a whole lot of deep memories of it because the day I arrived it was a week prior to school starting. The freshman rats, we had to report. I had to sign the scholarship paperwork, and I think it was finally hitting me at that point that I was signing up for

four years of college, four years on active duty, and two years in Reserve, and

so in one fell swoop ten years of my life was dictated. [Chuckles] And then the

next thing you know you... I must have been introduced to my dorm room, my

barracks room, and then you're getting a haircut and getting your uniform, and 00:09:00I'm sure I got to say goodbye to my dad the next day, but after that it's just a

whirlwind.

David C: I've heard stories of the beginnings of being a

rat. Do you remember any of that, that first week of being introduced to your

new status?

Todd B: Yeah, sure. You had to learn how to stand at attention and

they start putting you through physical fitness, push-ups and sit-ups and all of

that. The first week was just you and select upper classmen, so a few sophomores

who did most of the yelling, and then some juniors who did most of the

mentoring, so it was kind of a neat introduction to them and just getting to

know some of the rudimentary aspects of 00:10:00discipline. The real tough part is I

recall really started maybe toward the end of that week and certainly when the

upper classmen starting arriving and then it became extremely strict. Just to

walk from your dorm room to the bathroom you would have to square off every

corner. So if you walked from this corner of this room and you have a column in

the way you have to square every corner just to get to the bathroom. You had to

look straight ahead. In the dining hall you had to square your meals where you

take a bite you're looking straight ahead. You had to raise your fork straight

up then into your mouth, same way going back 00:11:00down. A lot of things like that

really meant I think to break you down in a way as an individual and then start

to bring you together as a group. So your fellow rats they did a lot of things

with us to torment us that actually were meant to bring us together as a strong

class group. And then ultimately I went in the military and ultimately retired

from the military, but that discipline is very important for the effectiveness

of the military quite frankly, so it worked. It worked.

David C: As you look back on it, especially those kinds of things that you're describing do you look back at that fondly or why did they put me through that?

Todd B: Um, quite honestly I hated my rat year. I 00:12:00was terribly distressed. And probably I

guess maybe it would be late winter I was ready to quit. I remember going down

to the Donaldson Brown Center to Ms. Boone, I will refer to her as 'mom' because

I called Mr. Boone 'dad' and her 'mom', went to her at the front desk, went

behind the front desk into her office and just bawled and cried and she just let

me. And I told my mom I wanted to leave. Growing up in Pittsburgh a lot of my

friends went to Penn State, so I want to quit, I want to go to Penn State. She

said, "Think about it. 00:13:00Don't worry." And I knew my dad would have been terribly

disappointed. I honestly to this day don't know if he ever knew that I was at

that point. Ms. Boone just let me come over to their house. It was within

walking distance of the campus, so I would go over there on a Friday night on a

pass and they just let me chill out and think about it. I think maybe about that

time there were a couple of success stories that occurred that may have had

something to do with my just sticking it out. I was on the swim team and in

February of my rat year the state championships were at VMI. I was on the final

relay that we 00:14:00won. In fact, I was the anchor on it and we beat them, so for a

while I could do no harm with the upper classmen you know, so they totally let

me go. I think they may have known that I was thinking about quitting too when I

think back on it, and so I think they lightened up and just kind of let me do my

thing and study and swim. So I stuck it out and sophomore year through my senior

year with what was really good about the Corps was the structure. Quiet hours,

ability to study, very few distractions. There was no major horseplay

in the dorms. 00:15:00And once you got to know the rules - making your bed, inspections,

having your closet a certain way it just became kind of natural, and I think

that was real good for me. That was really the first time being away from home

anyhow, and so having that as a structure was kind of like a substitute for mom

and dad telling me to make my bed and wash the dishes.

David C: What year was your first year here?

Todd B: I got here in the fall of 1971. I graduated in '75.

David 00:16:00C: I was thinking about that this morning when you were here...you

live in interesting times. Those were certainly interesting times, especially in

terms of our military involvement and then to be headed into a military career.

What was going on on campus? What was going on in your mind in terms of that?

Todd B: Vietnam was a big deal at that time and news reports all the time about

casualties and the number of counts of deaths and so forth. Again, I think

oblivious to politics and the world around me more than I really should have

been. I didn't worry about it. 00:17:00Whatever will be will be type of attitude. 1972,

so this would have been in my rat year, there were some protests on the Mall at

campus. I think it was on the Mall as opposed to on the drill field. I'm not

sure, because our dorms were right close to both and we didn't participate in

it. I stayed away. I wouldn't have been allowed out of the dorm anyhow as a rat.

So here you are, walking around campus. We were down to only about 400 of us in

the Corps. You're a rat. You're wearing a white belt which distinguishes you

from everybody else. Your hair in an inch or less long when the civilian

students, the guys would all have relatively long hair, and you knew the girls

were staring at you and it wasn't because you were handsome, or at least you

felt that way. In 00:18:00reality, I think one of the strong points of Tech is

the connection of a lot of students to alums, their parents, and they were

actually much much more conservative than I would have given them credit for at

that time. And a lot of them had a lot of military ties through their parents,

and certainly with their being an alum there would have been connections to the

Corps of Cadets anyhow. So you make these things up in your own mind that I feel

miserable because I'm a rat. I feel miserable because I've got no social life. I

feel miserable because my hair is short and everybody else's is long and I stick

out like a sore thumb, all that garbage, but after that 00:19:00it was okay. And then of

course when I graduated, 1975 was when the mass exodus out of Saigon, and all of

a sudden I wasn't faced with having to go to war. In fact, my whole career in

the military I never went to war anywhere. Because Desert Storm/Desert Shield

occurred and I was in Hawaii stationed there and I think we sent one captain

from our unit there, but none of us in a major way had to go there, so I don't

know, just went with the flow.

David C: But say in '73 or '74 you couldn't necessarily have anticipated what was going to happen.

Todd B: No, no.

David C: Was it something you all talked about it in the Corps or in ROTC?

Todd B: Yeah, we did. But you've got to understand, I had signed the paper for that

scholarship my freshman year. Part of the provisions of that 00:20:00were if you resign

from this you are going to pay back as an enlisted, so do I stick it out and

become an officer or do I quit my scholarship and have to go in as a Spec 4 or a

Private, Private First Class, Spec 4, even a Sergeant. I would have much rather

gone in as an officer. At that point the decision had already been made and I

was just going to do the best I could in my college studies and hopefully get

better choices then as an officer.

David C: How about your studies, can 00:21:00you tell me a little bit about finding your path into what kind of engineering you wanted to do?

Todd B: Sure. Pre-engineering.

David C: Particular professors.

Todd B: You gave me the list of possible subjects before and I honestly can't

remember a single professor's name. I can visualize a few of them and freshman

year you take a lot of pre-engineering, introductory engineering courses and

there were some there that I thought were real good. But they sit you down right

away and take a look to your left, take a look to your right. 00:22:00At the end of your

four years only one of you will be left, so they scare you off right away. In

fact, my college roommate, my freshman and my senior year roommate changed his

major five times from pre-engineering and finally ended up as an accounting

major at the end of all of it.

David C: Our dirty secret in history by the way is that we get all the engineers. [Laughs]

Todd B: Yeah. Well, yeah. We used to refer to it as pre-business instead of engineering.

David C: Yeah. So you survived that.

Todd B: Yeah. In fact, my freshman year studying was easier than

it was for a lot of others. I had already taken calculus in high school, and I

didn't take the exams you take these days to be able to opt out of taking

classes, so I took calculus over again. 00:23:00What I didn't realize until I got into

it was my whole senior year in high school was crammed into the first ten weeks,

here we were on the quarter system at the time, but I got an A because of that.

So that also endeared me in some ways to the upper classmen, because okay, well

this kid can put up with this crap that we're firing at him, and he can swim and

he gets good grades. So that got me through the toughest times, because a lot of

the math and the science part I had already had. It was a repeat just kind of

reinforcing the foundation.

David C: Let me ask you more about the Boones, because they sounded like they played an important role.

Todd B: Yeah.

David C: You met them just as you got here or you knew them before? 00:24:00You mentioned a

little bit about reaching out to them for some support. What kind of role did

they play for you?

Todd B: When my dad brought me down to drop me off we got here and went by their house just to say hello and make the reaquaintance with them. And I think their daughter was here who had married our next door neighbor too as I recall. So we made that connection and then I get dumped off at the barracks and dad leaves. Going through - I don't remember, it was

probably one or two weeks into classes and Friday night we were allowed to go to

Squires, the student center. I think we could drink 3.2 beer at the time 00:25:00and I

didn't really care to participate in that and I wanted to distance myself from

the Corps of Cadets upper classmen, whatever. So I walked probably a quarter of

a mile to a half mile to their house. And then their daughter was going to

Blacksburg High School and I think I went to a football game, and I didn't know

until later that I was in violation of my pass privileges. So I never told

anybody. I never told the upper classmen as far as I know because nobody saw me

to my knowledge. And so I never turned myself 00:26:00in for the demerits that I would

have gotten, although I heard later I think a couple of the juniors had actually

gone to the game too and I just kept quiet. But every chance I got then, every

Friday night or Saturday night I would walk this short distance off campus, go

to their house. And they were avid Tech fans so they would go to the game and

Saturday after the game I would go there and we would have dinner. I would fall

asleep on their couch and Mr. Boone would wake me up in enough time, because he

had been in the Corps of Cadets, he would wake me up and drive me back to campus

so that I could sign back in the barracks before I was AWOL and would get

demerits. And so it was just very comfortable, a no-risk environment and I 00:27:00 just

became closer and closer with them as years went. He was a very quiet

stoic man and Mom Boone was more the demonstrative, you know, hug you and make

you feel comfortable.

David C: A little bit similar to your own parents it sounds like.

Todd B: Yeah, yeah. Maybe that was the way of the times. There was

always at least one or two other "adopted" sons at their house that had gone to

Virginia Tech. In fact, I can't remember his last name, but Buster was a

Blacksburg friend of their son and he is pictured in the 1973 photo of the NIT

Champions basketball team down in the museum downstairs in the Alumni Center. He

was a trainer on a 00:28:00team. But he would be there and another guy named Doug, and

so they were older of course and it was just fun. It was fun to be around. The

house was always full of people. Anybody, family friends or relatives who would

come to town would ultimately either stay at the Boones' house for the games or

end up there afterwards. It was really the epitome of tailgating in the house.

David C: That just sounds like such an incredible treasure to have found to get

you through in some ways.

Todd B: Yeah, yeah. I would come back 00:29:00to Tech frequently. I got stationed at Fort Belvoir Virginia and Fort Meade Maryland, so it was a relatively easy drive to come down here and stay with them every time. That was more than the draw to come to Blacksburg than the football was, just to come back to see them.

David C: What was your commission when you got out of Tech?

Todd B: I was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers,

the U.S. Army and went to Engineer Officer Basic Course at Fort Belvoir, and

then got stationed at Fort Meade Maryland, halfway between Washington, DC and

Baltimore.

David C: Can you sort of sketch out for us your professional career

or your military career?

Todd B: Sure. As 2nd Lieutenant, platoon leader...excuse 00:30:00me. I spent four years at Fort Meade, so a couple of years as a platoon leader and then executive officer in a company, and then as a

company commander. So you move up in responsibility, first a platoon leader of

about 45 soldiers. They were just starting to introduce females into the

engineers because it's considered a combat arms and they didn't let females in

the combat side of things until just recently quite frankly, so mostly male

soldiers. And then one short one platoon leader who got moved to another slot. I

ended up with two platoons at the same time 00:31:00putting in 150% effort. You divide

that by 2 you still are only giving each unit 75% of what they deserve, so that

was kind of rough for a while and then we got a new batch of 2nd Lieutenants and

so I handed one of them off, handed the other platoon off and then moved to

executive officer position. I left Fort Meade and I had earned an army

fellowship while here at Tech, so I actually could have gone to graduate school

right away, chose to go on active duty first. So after four years I went to

University of Colorado Boulder, got a master's in civil engineering, primary

emphasis in construction management. Found my passion in my first four years as

a lieutenant 00:32:00doing construction work with soldiers. Graduated in December of '80

from Boulder and went back to Fort Belvoir for my Office Advance Course. That

was an interesting transition, because in grad school I wore cut-offs,

flip-flops, rode my bike, grew my hair long, grew a beard, enjoyed graduate

school immensely rubbing elbows with civilian engineers who were coming back to

get their degrees and had worked in the industry and it was like wow, there's a

big world out there besides the Army. So I came back to the Advance Course with

an attitude. 00:33:00I cut my hair but didn't cut it real close, kind of sloppy in my

uniform. I was with a class in Advance Course that was two years my

junior, so there was one of my close friends from my company here at Virginia

Tech, and also from German Club. His wife pulled me aside one day and told me I

needed to get my stuff together and get my act together. Those weren't the words

she used of course, and buckle down. That was a good awakening realizing I'm

still on active duty. I went to grad school. I owe them another four years for

them paying my way through grad school and I better buckle 00:34:00down. And I ended up

graduating from the Advance Course as the top graduate after that, thank

goodness. I left Fort Belvoir after six months there and went to Airborne School

at Fort Benning. I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane five times and that

was the end of that.

David C: That's it? [Laughs]

Todd B: Yeah. You're supposed to land on your... There's a five count - your feet, the side of your legs, your thigh, the side of your back or your shoulder, and I would hit feet, butt, head

every time. So I drove from Fort Benning back to Pittsburgh I think on one side

of 00:35:00my behind because the other side was badly bruised. [Chuckles] Left that and

had a payback assignment, so I got assigned to the civilian side of the Army

Corps of Engineers in Honolulu. Beautiful place. They call it Paradise for a

reason. I love the outdoors, love sports. You can be on a softball team

year-around. You can run with no shirt year- around, and so it was marvelous, a

marvelous time. Let me jump back a piece. My junior year in college I went home

at Christmas 00:36:00time and fell in love with a high school classmate. We got

engaged Christmas of my senior year in college and got married. She was living

in Pittsburgh. She came down for Ring Dance for example. Got married one week

after graduation, so June 6th of 1975 I get commissioned. I raised my right

hand. I graduate the same day. I get commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, go home

to Pittsburgh, get married a week later and had to take advanced leave from the

Army in order to get married and go on 00:37:00my honeymoon. And so my first day of

active duty I start 14 days in the hole on leave. That was an uncomfortable

feeling, which has made me hoard my leave time ever since for emergencies or

whatever. She became a flight attendant when we were at Fort Meade so after

about 21/2 years of marriage she gets stationed in St. Louis and I'm in Fort

Meade. Then I go to graduate school and she's in St. Louis, I'm in Colorado. I

go back to Fort Belvoir, she's in St. Louis. I go to Hawaii, she's in St. Louis.

So for 61/2 more years or so we saw each other on weekends 00:38:00maybe once a month,

and I matured from the guy reading comic books and the Sunday comics during that

time and we just kind of grew apart. So married 91/2 years but then we divorced,

and I swore I would never...I wasn't thinking of marriage again. But when I was

in Hawaii I found my wife there, who had a relatively similar upbringing. Her

dad went to UVA and law school and was an international tax lawyer. She grew up

around the suburbs of the Maryland side of Washington, DC. Her parents split and

she did one year at Taylor 00:39:00Allderdice in downtown Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, so

she had that connection too. And she was living in Hawaii sharing a condo with

another girl there, but had moved there originally with a boyfriend before. We got married. I asked her to marry me right after my divorce became final. She's extremely athletic, all the things that I loved about Hawaii. Hell, I got to be on two or three softball teams because they wanted her on the team. They didn't really care whether they got me on the team or not, but because of

her I got to be on a team. She's still extremely athletic, a cross-country coach

and what-not, so we've been married now for 31 years since we got married in

Hawaii.

David C: So you're a Hawaiian now?

Todd B: I'm a Hawaiian resident. They refer to you as a Kama'aina, but you're not Hawaiian. I have no 00:40:00Hawaiian blood. My wife is hapa which means half. Her mother is Japanese from Tokyo, and her dad found her and married her coming off the war. Mother...dad went back in the

military and went back to law school then and then the mother followed with a

2-year-old, the older brother in tow and pregnant with my wife. Hit San

Francisco in 1952 and somehow crossed the country. And you can imagine, 1952

what that must have been like for somebody of Japanese descent in this country.

She had been a translator so she could speak English enough to certainly get by,

but that just 00:41:00shows you the tenacity of the mother's side of the house. And the

dad was a photographic memory, a super intelligent guy. He just died a couple of

years ago. So my wife her upbringing was very intellectual, opera. She's well-

studied, well-versed and an extremely athletic family too, so yeah.

David C: Very interesting. It sounds like you really found your place and people...

Todd B: Yeah, Hawaii is great.

David C: [Laughs]

Todd B: You don't have to own 00:42:00winter clothes. It's expensive but it's a great place.

David C: Just to take you back to Tech, just briefly you mentioned Ring Dance and your first wife came down for the Ring Dance. Was that like a major experience for you or what was

that like?

Todd B: Let me back up a couple of points. My dad had been

in the German Club, and so my sophomore year I, and he didn't say much about it,

but I had somehow reached out to somebody and asked about it. I'm trying to

remember who, but somebody in the Corps of Cadets was a member of the German

Club and so I asked him questions, and so I got invited to come and learn about

it or whatever. And then you get invited to participate, so it was the closest

thing to fraternities that you could 00:43:00get, which were actually outlawed here on

campus at the time. There were frat houses off campus that the University

couldn't really do anything about at the time. So sophomore year starting to

connect with German Club and we put on dances. Social life had been a big thing

for me and the ability to stretch my wings with other than Corps Cadets, with

other than engineer students and to satisfy I think 00:44:00the service side, the

community service side of things. It was definitely social club, but the service

aspects of it, putting on the dances for the University was a big deal, was a

big part of I think why I really liked it, and so to this day I'm still

connected with the German Club in a lot of respects. So Ring Dance was not put

on by German Club, but having been a class officer I had the connection to it, a

lot of the planning of different things. I was actually on the Ring Committee

for designing the ring, so yeah, it was a big event. I think everybody, whether

you went to German Club dances or not you went to the Ring Dance. 00:45:00 The

Corps of Cadets of course we went in a strict white uniform and your sash and we

did a saber arch and all of that. And if you look back at the yearbook you'll

see the juniors, or I guess the seniors let go of the pig on the floor running

around, so it was a fun event.

David C: So you maintained connections with the German Club.

Todd B: Yeah.

David C: You maintained connections with the Boones obviously. What else has sort of kept you hooked into Tech?

Todd B: Um, you know, I donate to the German Club through 00:46:00the Foundation, but also to the

College of Engineering, and so I get the College of Civil and Environmental

Engineering publications and the College of Engineering publications. I think

that has endeared me to that part of the considerably because it's extremely

impressive what those parts of the University had been able to do that I connect

with. The tremendous use of research funds and really doing some cutting edge

research and coming up with some fantastic things that are valuable to society

as a whole. I really enjoy looking through those, and it's the accomplishments

of both the faculty and the seniors and graduate students, 00:47:00so I enjoy that

connection.

David C: What do you think about where Tech is now or Tech seems to

be heading?

Todd B: I can't help but be impressed. Hell, just driving in on 460

you see the Corporate Research Park. That has grown fantastically and I'm really

impressed with that. I'm also glad now to see the connections with the medical

side of things. You know when I was here the animal husbandry, the agricultural

side of things was big of course, and so it was a natural for the Vet School to

be the first foray into the medical side of things. But 00:48:00I often wondered why it

was taking so long to dive into the human side of medicine, so over the last

couple of years I'm glad to see that connection now as well.

David C: Any directions that you would prefer to see Tech go into or that would worry

you? I mean changing a lot, expanding.

Todd B: You know it's interesting, because when you talk to Mr. Boone who lives here and sees the changes on a day to day basis, "Oh they're saying they want another 6,000 students. They've got too many now and there's too much traffic and you 00:49:00go downtown and there's condos

and apartments being built." So there's certain aspects of growth that do not

necessarily always mean development is good. But what I do like is the ability

of what appears to be the ability of Virginia Tech and have done a really good

job from a master planning perspective. And the growth has been more deliberate,

controlled, planned, and I think that's the engineering side of me coming out,

because I have been connected with other projects where things seem to be put

together on not a shoestring budget, but in a last minute perspective and you

have to throw money at it tremendously to make it work. So 00:50:00I have appreciated

Tech's growth and maintaining the ambiance, the Hokie Stone, the look of the

campus. There's a few buildings that don't quite mesh, but even those are

changing over time as those buildings get demolished and others get put in their

place.

David C: Have you seen the new barracks going up?

Todd B: No. I plan to go through that tour this afternoon, and that will be interesting. Because those buildings were all old brick buildings and didn't quite mesh with the rest of

the Hokie Stone right across the street, so it will be nice to see things.

David 00:51:00C: Which barracks did you live in?

Todd B: Brodie, Brodie Hall.

David C: Brodie is no more. [Laughs]

Todd B: Yeah, right, right. I think Rasche was the first to come down.

David C: Rasche was first and see they were starting on Brodie I think.

Todd B: That's okay. That's quite all right.

David C: So my office is in Major Williams so I actually know a guy who is an engineer, He came

through engineering, came to the Corps and he works in engineering in this area.

He walks through Major Williams, "This is where my room was."

Todd B: We had gotten so small when I was here that we only occupied Rasche and Brodie and then I think it was 1973 when the first females came in the Corps of Cadets and then

they took over - they started in not Major Williams, but the one across from

them. I can't remember what the name of that hall was, because it's 00:52:00like a quad,

right, so you had Brodie here, Rasche, Lane. Major Williams was here, right?

David C: Well.

Todd B: Or was it over here?

David C: It's sort of right here actually.

Todd B: Well this is the Mall, so Rasche was like that, Brodie was like that, so this is Major Williams?

David C: Yeah.

Todd B: Okay. And so L Squad was over here. We had streaking when I was here.

David C: It was the 70s.

Todd B: Yeah. And in fact I think some of the women in this dorm even streaked

in their windows with the shades pulled down far enough that you didn't see

their 00:53:00face. That was kind of one of the... That would have been my junior or

senior year when that might have happened. [Chuckles] Some of your other

questions on here, let me go to some stories that occurred as a rat and some of

the things that they do to break you down and bring you together as a class. I

was off and the War Memorial Gym was where the swimming pool was, and it got

torn down, demolished between my freshman and sophomore year, so sophomore year

the swim team we actually drove to Radford and practiced at night at Radford.

The pool was 85 degrees. It 00:54:00sapped your strength. You add your travel time there

and back and the time in the pool and I think my sophomore year was one of my

toughest from a perspective of sleep deprivation and studying, which is when you

really start getting into your engineering classes, so I remember that being

kind of rough. But anyhow, as a freshman I'm off to swim practice and I

had been given special compensation to eat with the swim team. So we would go to

the dining hall right next to the gym, Monteith?

David C: Hmm, right.

Todd B: Behind that I think. And I was allowed actually in civilian clothes to eat

with the swim team, and then I would come back to the barracks. And of course my

fellow classmates had gone through formation, had 00:55:00marched to dinner, had squared

their meals, had gotten yelled and screamed at and probably got to eat you know

a third of their meal before time was up and you're back to your barracks. So

one night they got sent on a scavenger hunt I think they referred to it, so it

was kind of a wild goose chase, and it was to keep them out of the dorm, out of

the barracks enough time so that the upper classmen took our rooms and

dismantled them, and put all the mattresses in one room. Took our dress shoes

that we just 00:56:00agonized over getting the spit shines on them, beat the toes and

destroyed the shines. Took all the shoelaces and tied them together in knots and

put grease or something on the knots so you had a hell of a time getting them

off. Actually this would have had happened on a weekend when I was off swimming

somewhere with the team and came back. And my roommate had put the place back

together, had undone the shoelaces and put my stuff back. Didn't polish my

shoes. I mean hell, he was working on his own. But I missed out on all that

agony. I thanked my roommate Gary Gilbertson for protecting me that, but I was

totally livid. I think this was one of the things that was just like this is

totally stupid. Of course they don't do 00:57:00that hazing now and I think it's

probably good. You can accomplish what you need without doing that. But as a

group they had to put everything back, so they had to work together.

Another time would have been maybe a Thursday night even. We all get

called out at 10:30, you get let out of your rooms, the upper classmen did for a

break and then lights were out at 11 o'clock. So from 10:30 to 11 was kind of a

break time from studying or what-not. But they put all of us freshman rats in

one dorm room, so about a dozen of us. We were relatively small groups at that

time. Probably in our underwear, in our raincoats, our Corps of Engineer

raincoats. The heater turned completely up as high as you possibly can, with

rods of 00:58:00tobacco, chewing tobacco put in our mouth and made to do push-ups and

sit-ups. And it wasn't long before others were getting sick because the other

guy got sick. You know you just can't help yourself. So you remember the misery

too as a group and putting up with these kinds of things and shaving cream and

water on the floor and you know, it was gang showers also at the time. Oh, and

you had to yell 'flush' when you flushed the toilet if somebody was in the

shower 00:59:00because you could get scalded at that time, little things like that that

you remember. When I was a junior - no, maybe as a senior, I can't remember, but

upper classmen, another thing that I missed out on, the freshman in order to get

back at the upper classmen took all the furniture from my room, our bunkbeds,

our desks and what-not, and put it on the tennis court between the quads. I

don't know if the tennis courts still exist.

David C: It's not there anymore.

Todd B: And set it up exactly like it was in our dorm room. So my roommate again

had to put everything back.

David C: This was your junior year?

Todd B: I think so, so it was a way for the rats to pull 01:00:00pranks. But it was funny because the

dorm rooms had a strip of wood up close to the top of the ceiling and you were

allowed to pin stuff onto that. So you would actually nail or pin a

blanket and then you could pin posters and what-not onto the blanket on the

wall, and that was a way you were allowed to decorate your room. You couldn't

put holes in the wall. You couldn't tape anything on the walls. So even that was

set up apparently on the tennis court as well.

David C: That's pretty good.

Todd B: So it was pranks all the time. I was not involved with it, but I know while I

was here a group had gone up to VMI and they pulled pranks up at VMI.

David C: So when it was your 01:01:00turn, after you make it through your rat year and then

it's your turn to help train the next group of rats do you go easier on them?

Having been through it and having some sensitivity to that?

Todd B: Yes, it's interesting. At the end of your rat year you get turned and they really drill

you or put you through a lot of harassment. It was worse at VMI. They had to

fight. The freshmen had to fight their way up the stairs to the top floor, and I

mean fight their way, and once they made it to the top floor they were turned.

We didn't have to do that, but nevertheless we still had to go 01:02:00through a lot of

hell, and then all of a sudden at a set time you're turned. And the upper

classmen are all of a sudden trying to be your friend, shake your friend. And I

can remember putting up with some things toward the end of my rat year because

they would be standing there yelling at you. You're at attention. You're allowed

to say three things, "Yes sir, no sir, no excuse sir." That's the only three

answers you could give. Or how many chins do you have mister? Tuck your chin in.

How many chins do you have? 75 sir. And you would stand there and go you know

this guy is yelling at me telling me that my shoeshine looks horrible and I know

it doesn't, and his looks like he polished his shoes with a Hershey bar. And you

just go this is totally ridiculous. So my sophomore year I had a different

roommate. His name was Roger Williams. He was a farm boy from 01:03:00Suffolk County, a

peanut farm, a dairy farm, and he was immaculate. And he was so

impressive with the freshman because he would come out and he would inspect

them, look them up and down and all he had to say to them was, "Mister I know

you can do better than that," and he would move on. And they would try so hard

to please him and then this other guy in my company, Robert Nelson, he would

yell at them and scream at them and tell them they were terrible and they looked

horrible and you could see that they had no respect for him. And I think that

dichotomy you know impressed me, so my mode of operation was much more positive

motivation than the negative motivation, even through my whole career.

David C: So you took that 01:04:00directly into your command?

Todd B: Yeah, absolutely. Yelling at somebody, although I can lose my temper, but every time I would do that I would also find that I would lose control of whatever I was trying to do.

As a company commander and yelling at a private and start using swear words and

then he would just start swearing to me and I would, "You can't talk to me like

that." "Well that's the way you're talking to me." He was right, so yeah, so

definitely positive motivation works better. You catch more flies with honey as

they say. [Laughs]

David C: Yeah, very interesting. And you talked about, and I will be honest I've 01:05:00heard stories from just about everybody I've talked to about wanting to leave.

Todd B: Yeah.

David C: Usually it's the first night of rat year, but were there folks who didn't make it through?

Todd B: Oh sure.

David C: Was there anyone that was drummed out while you were going in?

Todd B: Oh God. Yeah. And also, and I don't remember names quite frankly, but yeah, we had

some of our brother rats leave the first week, probably two or three. And I

don't remember any of their names because I was having so much difficulty

learning what I was allowed to do and what I wasn't allowed to do. You had no

social connection with your brother rats that first week you know, you're just

doing push-ups or squaring corners. 01:06:00But yeah, we did lose some now that you

mention it. Drumming out, I think we... I'm sure during the four years

we did. I do not remember any details about it, but that also now that you had

me look back at that, that crafted my own personal integrity, which can get me

in trouble by the way, because I'm very much a black and white person and the

world is a huge amount of shades of gray. But we had the Honor Court and you did

not cheat. You did 01:07:00not plagiarize. The consequences were way too dire, although

we did have every company maintain a file cabinet full of past tests and study

materials and what-not that I honestly don't remember ever looking at it. I knew

it existed, and when you think back on it now that could be awful close to being

advocating for plagiarism or making it awful tough not to inadvertently

plagiarize. But that was helpful. They were very serious about not letting

freshman flunk out, and study time was sacrosanct. No upper classmen could come

into your room. About a half hour after you 01:08:00came back from dinner until 10:30

you were totally protected. No disturbance, nothing, and study time was big. And

if you started flunking classes the tutoring started. People were there to help

you. The materials were there to help you if you needed it. I guess my grades

were good enough that I never needed to go in and look at past tests and

materials, but I'm sure that played a big part in helping some others. But

integrity was a big deal I'm sure. My roommate my junior year, Bob Downs, was on

the court. He was one of the judges on the Judicial Court, the Corps of Cadet

Court, so it was a very important aspect of the Corps of Cadets.

David C: And you said you were a class officer?

Todd B: Yes. I was the Cadet Member at Large. 01:09:00That was another way for me to rub elbows with the civilian side of things at

campus and other things that I would never have been able to had I not reached

out like that.

David C: That's also a position that lasted throughout your career at Tech?

Todd B: I think - God, I don't remember when you get elected. I don't know if it was your sophomore year or junior year. It must have been sophomore year, because junior year we would have been heavily involved with the design of the ring and then planning of events and things like that.

David C: So you did it for three years?

Todd B: Yeah, and then you're still connected. Although I've got to tell you, this 01:10:00reunion today is the first one since my 5th year reunion that I've been to, because I've been living somewhere

else in the Army all these years.

David C: Not so easy to get back here from Hawaii.

Todd B: You know I think that's the one thing I would... I don't know

how Tech recruits kids quite frankly, because it's hard to get here. When you

fly to Roanoke it costs you $300 extra to fly there than Dulles or Reagan or in

this case I flew in to Charlotte and drove the three hours up, just because I

was going to drive an hour anyhow coming from Roanoke, might as well.

David C: When we stop recording I will talk about that too. [Laughs]

Todd B: Yeah. Okay. Let me see what other things. Oh, I love the spirit. 01:11:00The Corps would march

into the stadium, sit together during the game and then we would have retreat on the drill field afterwards. That tradition was one of those things that you get endeared to and always remember. And a story about walking, walking to the stadium, you know you leave the barracks, the dorm, and you're in your polished shoes, your white plants. We had the blue top. And I learned real quick you don't walk on the grass or you would get demerits, and so you had to stick

to the paths. So all the civilian 01:12:00students were walking across the fields and

stuff and you're like, "Oh I can't walk with your over there. I've got to go

over here." [Laughs] And so you learn those kind of little anecdotes as well.

Swim team ends at the end of February. All of a sudden you stop

training intensely and the swim team still would get together and do some other

kind of training, but you are used to eating in the dining hall and eating three

or four desserts and the pounds start going on 01:13:00right away. And so I think

probably my sophomore year based on the military side of things, and then

needing to keep the pounds off is when I started jogging, and I still jog to

this day, but would take off around campus. And that was probably one of my

favorite things to do was to be able to jog all over the campus and see places

and go places when I was allowed to do that just to keep in shape.

David C: That would have been when running was really catching on too.

Todd B: Yeah. It was a few years later I think that Jim Fixx died running a long distance run or

whatever, so yeah. I loved walking around the duck pond in the fall just to get

away, be by myself, see the fall colors, get away from the pressure of the upper 01:14:00quad, so I would do that a lot of times every chance I got. I think I've covered

almost all of my notes.

David C: Was there any question that wasn't on here that I should have put on here, any question I should have asked you?

Todd B: No. I even covered the pranks, yeah. No, I think it was great. I'm glad I asked you

for the preparatory questions.

David C: Yeah, it's helpful to review. You can sort of 'prime the pump' a little bit.

Todd B: Yeah. It allowed me to make some notes. Oh, the other aspect that the Corps of 01:15:00Cadets is really heavy into now, and that is the leadership aspects of it. It wasn't played up at the time, but I can tell you that I think I was well prepared for what I was going to get into

in the military. And it first dawns on you, somewhere in your junior

year you go to ROTC summer camp and we had open bay barracks at the time, double

bunkbeds and a sergeant or a captain is yelling at you and giving you a hard

time and telling you you have to learn how to make a bed and hospital tucks and

you have to shine your boots. And all these other civilian ROTC kids are there

and they are going, "Oh no, this is going to take me forever." And then the guys

from VMI and Norwich and Citadel we all look at each 01:16:00other and go, "What are we

going to do with our spare time?" This is nothing. Clean the barracks. Clean the

latrine, big deal. So it was way easier for us, so that was probably your first

introduction to what the Corps prepared you for. And then I never found

leadership to be a burden. It prepared you for being thrown in as a brand new

2nd Lieutenant in charge of 45 soldiers who knew more about life and knew more

about their skills than you did. And thank God I had a platoon 01:17:00sergeant, Sgt.

1st Class Archie, short black rotund sergeant who just took care of me and,

"Sir, we need to inspect the soldiers tonight because the Company Commander is

going to inspect all their gear tomorrow." "Okay, yeah, yeah, good idea Sgt.

Archie. Why don't you have them come in and set their stuff up at 5 o'clock?"

"Sir, why don't we make it 7 so the guys living off base can go home, get their

stuff and come back." "Yeah, yeah, good idea." It was going to happen at 7

o'clock whether I came or didn't come and whether I got involved or didn't. And

I swear he had performance objectives that said train the 2nd Lieutenant, and we

just got along really great you know. So yeah, that aspect was easy.

David 01:18:00C: Did you in your military career meet other Tech alums, or people that had

come through the Corps or gone to VMI or something and had that kind of

recognition?

Todd B: Oh absolutely, sure, and I'm meeting some of them today at

the registration and reunion stuff. Some of us are still close. A lot

of them are from Virginia. Probably my closest, well my college roommate just

retired a year or so ago from the Department of Commerce, and his dad retired as

an Infantry Lieutenant Colonel in the Army when he was here with me. I think

it's freshman year his dad had retired, and they lived in Fairfax and he's an

avid "Deadskin" fan and I was a Steeler fan. 01:19:00But yeah, we still keep in touch.

Bo Tucker, Edward Bowen Tucker, he was in another company but he was my

classmate and he was a civil engineering student also. And in the Army's

infinite wisdom he got commissioned in Signal Corps and he branch transferred

back to the Corps of Engineers after two years. We actually get a lot of history

majors in the Corps of Engineers believe it or not. But we keep in touch and

he's retired from the Army, but he's a City Engineer for Warrenton, Virginia. So

he's coming down and his roommate 01:20:00is coming down who is a navigator on C141s for

the Air Force, who I ran into at the back gate of Cadena Air Force Base in

Okinawa when we were both on active duty. "Gordon, what are you doing here?" So

yeah, you keep those ties for sure.

David C: Yeah. I will give you a couple more of my cards because I would love to talk to these other guys too.

Todd B: Yeah. Especially if you want to also talk to Dad Boone.

David C: I would love to talk to him, yes, absolutely.

Todd B: I tried to talk him into coming with me this afternoon over here to introduce you, but he, "Nah, I don't want to sit there."

David C: Well no, I'll come to him, absolutely.

Todd B: He's a 01:21:00storyteller too.

David C: Terrific.

Todd B: And I would love to read his transcript.

David C: We'll get his permission and then we'll make sure it happens. Yeah,

absolutely.

Todd B: Yeah, his stories have got to be really good.

David C: Yeah. Had a long view of this area.

Todd B: Well, I'll give you another story that's not mine. My coach, swim coach had been in the Corps of Cadets. God, I can't remember his name. But I think he had been in the Corps maybe like '64. He lived in Monteith Hall and told a story about freshmen flushing a M80, you know,

a large firecracker down the toilet and had blown it 01:22:00up and upper classmen

sitting on the toilets and the water just gushing out of other bathrooms. So

there were pranks all the time here.

David C: Thank you so much. Anything else?

Todd B: No. I talked a long time.

David C: No. This is terrific. This is really terrific.

Todd B: This is going to be a hard read.

David C: No, not at all. Not at all. It's really enjoyable. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate.

Todd B: This last story is, he was in my company as a freshman, but he was not my roommate as a freshman. He became my roommate my junior year, Bob Downs. I mentioned to you before that I applied 01:23:00early decision and I lucked out. He was the exact opposite. He did a huge amount of research when he was in high school on engineering schools. He knew he was going to be a

civil engineer. He wanted the very best, and in his comparison Virginia Tech did

not require all the humanities side that these other engineering schools did.

And they were more intense on the technical engineering classes, and so that was

his reasoning. He hated homework and some classes grade you not just on your

test results, but on your homework grades as well. So my diploma and my

professional engineering license actually should say 'Todd Partial 01:24:00 Credit

Barnes', but he got dinged on some classes and got a B or even a C because he

didn't do his homework. But he would take the exams. He would ace them and he

would retain it, whereas I had to do every homework problem. I had to just cram

and study and do the problems in order for me to be able to retain it. And a

story that I hesitate to tell this part, because he doesn't know this, but the

deal that we had was whichever one of us ended up with the highest grade point

average at the end got to commission the other one. So you would get

commissioned first and then you would turn 01:25:00around and then swear the other guy

in. And it meant so much to him, his grade point average, that I lied to him

about my final grades my senior year and let him commission me. He doesn't know

that. [Laughs] But it was neck to neck down, probably a hundredth or a

thousandth of a point in our grade point averages at the end of the time. But

he's brilliant, and he's a practicing engineer and he probably has forgotten

more than I will ever know about civil engineering.

David C: Great. That's a great story.

Todd B: That's the end

David C: All right. Thank you.