ORAL HISTORY OF DAVID MOSBY

Interviewed by Keith McDaniel

November 18, 2016

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MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel and today is November 18th, 2016, and I'm at my studio here in Oak Ridge with Mr. David Mosby. David, thank you for coming in and taking time to talk with us.
MR. MOSBY: You're very welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: I appreciate it.
MR. MOSBY: Thank you for having me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. You have quite the history in Oak Ridge.You raised a family here. So we're going to talk about that but let's go back to the very beginning. Tell me where you were born and where you were raised and something about your family.
MR. MOSBY: I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. I have three brothers and a sister, sister’s older than I am, my brothers are younger obviously, and we grew up in Atlanta. My mom went to Spelman College in Atlanta, my dad went to Morehouse. Even though the campuses are right next to each other they never met.My dad was big friends with my mom’s brother, and my mom was from Florida and so her brother invited my dad to his house for a holiday, and that's where he met my mom. It's pretty interesting. They graduated.My dad went to the military, came back to Atlanta, and was only able to get a job working at the post office. Affirmative action came and-
MR. MCDANIEL: About what year was that when he got out of the military?
MR. MOSBY: It was probably about '55, 1955.
MR. MCDANIEL: Before desegregation.
MR. MOSBY: That's correct.
MR. MCDANIEL: Still segregated South.
MR. MOSBY: We lived in Atlanta. My sister was born first and then I came along.About the time I was maybe six or eight or so, we moved to Miami.My dad got a job with the Federal Aviation Administration, so we went to Miami.We stayed there for about six years.We came back to Atlanta, F.A.A. transferred my dad back to Atlanta and that's where we stayed. My mom and my brothers and sister all still live in Atlanta.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So basically you grew up in Atlanta?
MR. MOSBY: I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Pretty much, your teenage years.
MR. MOSBY: All my teenage years was in Atlanta. Had a recruiter come to my high school in Atlanta and talk to some of the college bound students from Tennessee Tech. I really loved the school, I loved the guy’s description of it. I did not want to go to Georgia Tech, because I would have had to stay at home and I did not want to do that.
MR. MCDANIEL: You were ready to get out of the house weren't you?
MR. MOSBY: Well, I recognized that I would stay in the same circle. I wouldn't expand, and I knew that going to college you get engaged with folks from, not only nationally but internationally. I knew that my options would've been more limited, even going to an international school like Georgia Tech, I felt like I would go to class, then I would go home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Then you'd go home, you wouldn't get the whole college experience.
MR. MOSBY: That's correct. My dad was really impressed with Tech. I never knew it was a big deal but my mom and dad had said, "You can go to Tennessee Tech."
MR. MCDANIEL: But it was a big deal for them wasn't it?
MR. MOSBY: I think it was, I think it-
MR. MCDANIEL: It was an out-of-state school.
MR. MOSBY: I was going to college and my dad was taking me to school.He said, "You know, I could afford to send you to Tennessee Tech, pay out-of-state tuition, room and board, books, cheaper, then I could've send you to Georgia Tech, and you stayed at home."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Well, I know my son as I told you earlier, my son is at Tennessee Tech, and he was looking at three schools, they were all, UT [University of Tennessee], Carson-Newman, Tennessee Tech. Tennessee Tech was by far cheaper, but anyway that's beside the point.
MR. MOSBY: I really appreciate the education I got at Tech, I think it was of tremendous value and-
MR. MCDANIEL: What did you get your degree in? Engineering?
MR. MOSBY: Yeah, Civil Engineering.
MR. MCDANIEL: When you were in high school, did you know what you were interested in, what you wanted to study.
MR. MOSBY: Kind of, sort of.My dad was a man about town of sorts and he would always have people over to the house of varying background.He had several engineers come over, and he was a big alumni at Morehouse, so he had a lot of the instructors come over. So I was familiar with a lot of the professional people.My dad sat me down one day and told me that he thought that if I wanted to write my own ticket, I'd major in engineering.Well, he really wanted me to become an architect, and then become a city planner and then a city manager. I recognized that engineering was something that I had a real liking for. I did a little checking up on engineering and it was all the things I wanted to do, especially in civil engineering you were working with your hands a little bit, you got to guide it and get outside. It was all the things I was looking for.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, well good. I guess it was obvious, you said, both your parents went to college, I guess there's probably no question as to whether or not you were going to go to college was there?
MR. MOSBY: That's correct. I had a part time job at Winn-Dixie, and that summer that I had graduated ... I really enjoyed the job and I thought it was a great job, I was really good at it.It was the time when they had the stock boys, or the bagging of groceries for each of the ... and then you take it out to the car. I would come home and have big huge pockets of change because they would tip you. I was really good at it, all of the cashiers there they kind of, I don't want to say they fought over me but they all wanted me to bag for them because that meant, I was so good at it, it was less bagging that they had to do. Towards the end of the summer, my boss, Mr. Gimmer called me over, he said, "Dave, you're one of the best workers I've ever had. I think you can go really far in this company.What I want to do is, in September, I'm going to transfer you to another store so you can become an assistant manager, and your career takes off from there." I said, "No, Mr.Gimmer, I'm going to college, I can't derail that plan, that's my ...", and so it was always in my mind that that was my path: to go to college.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's good. A funny story, just a sidetrack here, I told you my son at Tennessee Tech.He worked at Kroger here in Oak Ridge when he was in high school.For almost two years, he was there on time, he did everything he was suppose to, and when we took him to Cookeville, to Tennessee Tech, we got him loaded into his room and then we went to get him some food and things such as that.So we went to Kroger. It was busy and they didn't have a bagger available, so he just bagged his own groceries.The woman, you could tell she'd been there a long time, she said, "My, you know what you're doing," He said, "Well, I just finished working at the Kroger in Oak Ridge for two years, and then moving to college," She says "We need somebody like you.You need to get an application in," and he said, "No, I'm not going to work."
MR. MOSBY: You want to focus on the transition.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. MOSBY: That's a big deal.
MR. MCDANIEL: It's a big transition, so you went to Tennessee Tech and you graduated there in what year?
MR. MOSBY: 1980.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, so you got through it in '80, with a bachelor’s in civil engineering?
MR. MOSBY: Civil engineering, correct.
MR. MCDANIEL: What happened next?
MR. MOSBY: Well, I was working as a design engineer and really loved ... Let me step back a ... Before I graduated, my first year in college, my dad told me to make sure that I found the placement guy, and to see if I could get a summer job because they were working on the MARTA [Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority]project back then in the mid 70's.
MR. MCDANIEL: What was that?
MR. MOSBY: That was the transit system, the rapid train system.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's right, right.
MR. MOSBY: My dad said, that I could get a job, since I was civil engineer and it was mostly civil work, he thought I'd be a good fit. Well, I found the placement guy and I said, "Listen, my dad suggested that you can call somebody at the MARTA station in Atlanta, see about me getting a job down there." We started talking and he started talking about a co-op opportunity and I said, "Yeah I'll take a co-op opportunity." He said, "Okay." He'll try to find something out.So I guess about a couple weeks later I went back and he said, "Listen, I called and they didn't have any opportunities, but would you like to go Oak Ridge?" And I said, "Yeah, where is Oak Ridge?" After a year at Tech I came to Oak Ridge in 1975, and I worked for a year, I first worked at K-25 plant.
MR. MCDANIEL: You came and you worked for a whole year so it was a co-op time thing.
MR. MOSBY: Right. I went back to Tech, and then after another year I came back to Oak Ridge, and this time I worked at Y-12. Then I went back, came back for another summer, and then I graduated and I started working at K-25 as a design engineer. I really liked the people in Oak Ridge, I liked how friendly everybody was, I really liked the work, it seemed like my managers, or the management at the union core right at the time really valued their co-op opportunity, because they gave me all kinds of great work experience. I was designing beams before I had taken the class at Tech. I just thought it was a really good experience.
MR. MCDANIEL: It really helped you, it kind of got you ahead in your class work.
MR. MOSBY: The most important thing I think is it let me experience it, to see if I even liked it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Before you got full bore invested into it.
MR. MOSBY: There were several guys who also co-oped, and after that first year decided to get out of engineering all together because they didn't like it, so I advise everybody to do a co-op experience if that's available.
MR. MCDANIEL: When you came the first year, the first year of co-op you came to work at K-25. Who did you work with and what were some of the things you did out there? Who are people that you remember?
MR. MOSBY: My boss, the first year I was there, was a guy named John Corey. He was in charge of the surveyors, so they put me on the survey line and I had the best time working with those guys, it was a lot of fun. Hobrick Tench was a guy I worked with. Roy Alley was the survey chief crew, and then there were other guys you were just kind of on the crew.They would dispatch us to an area and we'd get measurements, elevations.We kind of do the planning for projects that were being contemplated. I really learned a lot from those guys about how you collect information, how you reduce that information down, and transmit it back to the engineer.So I got to see how that information made that journey all the way through. I just thought it was a really good experience.
MR. MCDANIEL: You got to see it from guys that did it every day and had been doing it for years.
MR. MOSBY: They were a rough, fun loving group and we just had a big time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Good. So the second year of co-op you worked at Y-12?
MR. MOSBY: That year, it was a more office type experience, they sat me at a desk.They gave me projects. I worked real close with a designer, and they would give me my own projects. I would have a project that I would take from the start to the beginning and I really enjoyed having that ...
MR. MCDANIEL: Confidence in you.
MR. MOSBY: Yeah. I thought I had some authority and I could do this or do that or whatever.
MR. MCDANIEL: Little did you know.
MR. MOSBY: Right, but I went back to school and I just had this air like, I really enjoyed my co-op experience.
MR. MCDANIEL: Like you said, when you finished you came back to Oak Ridge.
MR. MOSBY: I came back and I started doing design work and my friend, Paul Ewing, a guy who I met as a freshman, he co-oped in different places but we became real, real close friends,he decided to come to work in Oak Ridge.So he graduated about six months after I did and so he came to Oak Ridge.He called me one day and he said, "Dave, come over in here and help me at the Boys Club." I said, "Oh, Okay," I didn't know anything about the Boys Club-
MR. MCDANIEL: Now were you married? Did you have a family-
MR. MOSBY: No, I was-
MR. MCDANIEL: You're still single.
MR. MOSBY: He was married.His wife had an older son and I think that's how he got engaged with the Boys Club.So I went out and helped them. I really liked being around the kids and we just had a really good time.From that, I then started coaching a team, and then got on the Boys Club board of directors. I start looking real closely at community service-type ideas. I really had an affinity for it and I liked it a whole lot. One day my friend Paul called and said, "Dave, I saw in the newspaper where they were looking for applications for the Planning Commission." He said, "Come on let’s go down, let's get on the Planning Commission so we can start being in the big deal decision-making meetings." I said, "Sure, sure, sure, Okay." So I went down and applied and then they had the vote.Well, they didn't appoint me, found out my friend Paul never even applied. He just called me down there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? He wanted you to do that.
MR. MOSBY: I really liked what I saw that the Planning Commission was doing. I liked being engaged with developers, being engaged with contractors, and working to develop the city. I thought that was really, really cool. I liked that atmosphere.
MR. MCDANIEL: You were still fairly young, I mean-
MR. MOSBY: I was, I was-
MR. MCDANIEL: Just a few years out of college.
MR. MOSBY: Yes, I was probably in my mid-20's or something and I decided that I was going to try it again. I tried it again, didn't even get selected, and tried it one for time and I got appointed to the Planning Commission.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Okay.
MR. MOSBY: This was in about 1987 I guess, in the '86, '87 time frame, and I really had a good experience on the Planning Commission, I was meeting all kinds of people in the city I didn't know, and learning about things. I was really having a good time on the Planning Commission.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good. So you were in Oak Ridge, you were out of college, you were single, let’s talk about that for a minute. What was it like living in Oak Ridge as a single college graduate, young man?
MR. MOSBY: This is-
MR. MCDANIEL: And this is in the early ‘80's.
MR. MOSBY: I didn't recognize it at the time, but as I think back about it now I recognize that that was a time when the plants were hiring a really diverse work force, a lot of African Americans.So about that time-
MR. MCDANIEL: Which there had not been a lot of professional African Americans before.
MR. MOSBY: Correct, and most of the years after that, there was not a lot of hiring.So socially there were a lot of things going on that you could really get involved in.I'm not a really big social person but it was enough social that it kept me fully engaged and happy, and I was able to do everything I wanted to do.
MR. MCDANIEL: The reason I ask that is because Oak Ridge is a lot different to Atlanta, and I just wondered if you know, can you take the fella out of the city and put him on the farm and he'll be happy, you know?
MR. MOSBY: Well, I was driving home for Christmas break, from Tennessee Tech. I was going to leave about 3:00, it was about a five hour drive, I'd get there about eight. But something happened, I cannot remember what it was and I wound up getting a late start.So I didn't leave Cookeville until about 11 that night. By the time I got to 75- 85 split in Atlanta, it was 2:00 in the morning, and it was a traffic jam, traffic was backed up. I said, "I cannot take this, I cannot believe there are this many people in this small a space, trying to get all to the same place at 2:00 in the morning." I remember in Cookeville at 2:00 in the morning you could run down the street naked, there would be nobody-
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. MOSBY: Well, back then. I made the decision then. I said, that "I'm not a big city guy, I hate this traffic, I don't like being confined or constrained like that," and I think that's when I mentally made a decision that I wanted to be somewhere like ...
MR. MCDANIEL: Someplace smaller.
MR. MOSBY: Smaller, more wide-open.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, Exactly.
MR. MOSBY: I remember my dad when he first took me to Tennessee Tech, we went through Crossville. I had never seen wide-open spaces like that, with trees far as you can see, green spaces, not passing a car for five or ten minutes on the road. That was amazing to me-