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From Getting Hired to Getting Ahead – Part I 

Compiled from Retiree Interviews, Winter 2008 

In retrospect, some retirees felt that getting hired at the Bureau of Public Roads had been 

relatively easy. Getting ahead, however, sometimes took a hand up, and several retirees 

looked back on the help they received in moving ahead. 

Getting hired or promoted in the Federal Government seems like a straightforward proposition. You submit your resume – or the familiar SF 171 of the past – then 

hope your name makes it onto the Certificate of Eligibles, and that you are close enough 

to the top to “make the cut.” In some cases, however, retirees reported they have had the 

benefit of encouragement from others – a hand up the ladder from someone on whom 

they had already made a favorable impression. 

Willis Grafe apparently made a good impression early in his career. He had left 

the Bureau of Public Roads before completing the training program: “I resigned and 

went to work for a surveyor out in Washington County (Oregon) and then I went to work 

for the Corps of Engineers.” He was working “on the design of the Dalles Dam, on the 

spillway section,” he said, when he received a call from the Region Office, which was 

then located in the Morgan Building. “They called me up and said, ‘When are you going 

to come back to work?’” He accepted the offer and they “put me back to work out in the 

bush. First step was Montana, Glacier Park, then the other projects.” 

Ray Westby had spent four years as project engineer on the Heart of the Hills 

project in the Olympic National Forest when he got a call from Ro Rogers, Division 

Administrator in Washington Division. For some time “the Regional Office used to do 

the inspecting of federal contracts,” 

he said, and he was accustomed to 

someone from Portland inspecting his 

project. “Somewhere in the late 1950’s 

they changed that and the division offices 

took that responsibility,” so when he went 

to Olympia to become an Area Engineer, 

inspections became part of his job. “I went 

in there as an area engineer 1959-1969. 

We did quite a bit of work in (Rainier) 

Park and up around Packwood....In fact 

that new bridge across Snoqualmie Glacier 

– Federal Highway built that.” 

 It was while he was in that job that 

Ray made a favorable impression on 

another manager. “John Mors was the big

wheel...in Portland,” he said. Later, “he 

took over N. D. Wood’s place as head of 

Direct Federal,” a position which was then 

known as the Director, Office of Federal 

Looking north along the east side of “Building C”, 

1965. John Bucholtz recalled that when John Mors 

came to Vancouver, he started making 

improvements to the facility, including closing off 

this cross street and building an addition to connect 

this building to Building D just west of the current 

Geotech Offices. WFLHD Archives. 
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Highway Projects, and reported to the Regional Administrator. “We had a job in the 

park...and they sent (me) a set of advance plans to look over this job,” he said. “So I 

went out and looked at it; and all I had to do was give it a seal. The road was in terrible 

shape.” Ray wasn’t ready to sign off, so he called John Mors. “‘John,’” I said, ‘this is 

not going to do the job, this is just going to get us in bad shape with the Park, because 

we’re just spending their money and not providing anything.’ And John said he wanted 

to come up there and look for himself. So I went with him up there and he agreed.” 

 After that, Mr. Mors asked him to come down to the 

Region, “supposedly as Construction Engineer for Direct 

Federal.” But that position was short lived, Ray remembered, 

because “after about six months, everything moved over here. 

John still reported to Mr. Phillips, who was the Regional 

Administrator at that time,” but all of the direct federal 

Mount Rainier. 

WFLHD Arcives, 25th

Anniversary Home Page 

Galleries.

construction responsibilities were moved to Vancouver. “That 

would have been 1970 or early ’71,” Ray said, adding that “when 

I came over here, I didn’t end up in construction, I ended up in 

preconstruction.” 

After John Mors retired in July 1978, Jim Hall was selected as his replacement. 

By that time, a new Regional Administrator was in place, and Jim recalled it was he, 

“Lou Lybecker...who called me and asked me to apply out here. I had no intention of 

doing that,” he said. “I hadn’t even thought about it.” 

Jim noted that there had been only one time in his career that he had applied for a 

job “that somebody hadn’t already told me I was going to get before I got it.” That job 

was “head of Direct Federal in Washington, and I don’t know why I did that.” In every 

other case, “somebody was looking out for me – or looking after themselves and picked 

me,” he said, or “asked me to apply before I did.” 

In some cases, Jim said, he would probably never have applied for the jobs. He 

had gone to work in the D.C. Division after the training program, working as an Area 

Engineer and steadily working his way up the ladder to a GS-12. “Washington Office 

had a job opening. Dave Gedney called me and said ‘We’re going to offer you this job, 

don’t turn it down.’ I would have definitely turned it down. I wasn’t ready to go to the 

Washington Office.” Soon he was asked to apply for yet another position. “Wes 

Mendenhall came over and said, ‘We’d like you to apply for a job in Region 15. You 

can be the head of the Gatlinburg office.’ That sounded good, so I applied. I went over 

to report,” he said, but they had changed their minds. “They said...‘We’re going to put 

you in charge of the Demonstration Projects and send Bud Darvik to Gatlinburg.’ If I’d 

have known that, I wouldn’t have applied. But I was there, so I did that job.” 

Jim Hall had already made his move to Vancouver when an opening on the BLM 

Design team provided the means for John Bucholtz to get a promotion. “Dave Heckman

was in charge of the group at that time,” John said, and “the chief designer in the section 

was going to retire. I was a 9 at the time, running a drafting department, (and) that was 

an 11 position. I had worked design for ten years prior to taking over the drafting 

department,” John said. He had also done some work in Ralph’s section doing some 

design work to help out when another recent hire “wasn’t cutting it. So I was doing part 
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time. I’d leave the drafting department and go...help him design,” including doing field 

reviews at the Grand Tetons National Park. 

Everyone knew he was going to apply for the job, he said. “Ralph Frame knew 

me...and he wanted me to apply.” Then the job disappeared. “They pulled that job. 

They weren’t advertising it....All of a sudden they advertised Chief of the Drafting 

Department as an 11. They wanted me to stay where I was. They didn’t tell me that, but 

that was it. So I applied for it, and of course I got it.” Eventually the other job was put 

on ad again, John recalled, and “Norm Trujillo took over that.” 

Whether they were being promoted or encouraging others to prepare for and apply 

for a job, many retirees still have warm memories of their experiences at the Bureau of 

Public Roads. As John Bucholtz noted, “I put 35 years in here – some people walk away 

and they never come back. I came back here on a contract for awhile. I suppose if they 

called me and said we need your help, I’d come back again.” 

If you have comments on this story or other stories to share, please email Marili Reilly at 

marili.reilly@fhwa.dot.gov.