<Begin Segment 22>

TI: So you, my notes I have that you worked there for thirty-five years at Boeing. I mean, any interesting events or stories about working at Boeing that you want to share?

KT: Well, I mean, it was a fun job. I had a real nice position. I wasn't in management, but I was this senior principal engineer. So under today's system, I would have been a technical fellow, that rank. Where instead of going into management, you could branch off into the technical fields and go up the ranks in the technical field. So I was at the top of my, for my skill code rating, I was the top Boeing person in that skill code rating. So I was number one, so anytime some problem comes up in that field, I would get calls from these different people wanting to get an expert's opinion. And they would usually call me, so I got in on a lot of these deals, and I was considered the top engineer. And my management told me, "No, we need you as a technical person because you know how to train engineers and they like you, and you have a knack for training." And even though I wasn't in management, I had my own office, I had all the perks of a manager, so I couldn't complain. My pay was good. [Laughs]

TI: So what was your area of expertise?

KT: Oh, environmental control system. I was the, actually, on the 767 airplane, I was the responsible engineer for the design and certification of the environmental control system. So that's a big field, you know, and in that field, I was also a designated engineering representative for the government. So I would pass on these thing, and every airplane that rolled down the deal for the environmental control system, I had to sign off on it. Because as a federal government employee, I was putting my name on that, the system was designed according to the FAAR regulation. So I had a very responsible position with the company.

TI: When, you know, I've talked to some other Nisei engineers, and some of them mentioned that they felt that the Niseis were sometimes taken for granted a little bit, that they weren't given, that they would do quality work, but oftentimes felt they weren't promoted as quickly as, say, a white engineer or worker. How do you feel about that? Did you have a sense of...

KT: Well, actually, I was, comment, they told me quite frankly that, "You know, you have a knack for speaking up. If you see something going not the way, you immediately step forward and speak up and state your opinion on that." And he says, "That's something we admire in you because other people of your nationality don't do that. They just quietly won't say anything. They may say something later, but they won't speak up." And for that reason, they said, they put me in the position because I wasn't scared to, I never held back. I would just tell 'em my opinion and state it. And because I would do that in a lot of these different meetings, when we had these joint get-togethers, the chief project engineer would call me out right in front of the group, said, "Okay, Ted, what do you think of all this?" And they'll ask me to speak up and state my opinion. So they treated me okay.

TI: So you felt that Boeing did well by you, I mean, that things worked out well. Okay.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.