Bob Haldeman Interview (23)

Using More Chilean Engineers

Swent: Were you hiring more Chilean management?

Haldeman: No. At this time we talked over this as an issue, in 1955 and

1956. I had some fifteen years in Chile, and I became very

convinced that the Chilean engineer, the professional, who was

always held to the third-rate level with the foreigners holding

the first- and second-level jobs, was just as capable, didn't

require a three-year contract, didn't have to have a wife who

had to go home every two or three years, didn't have to have his

children in special Calvert course schools, and was satisfied to

work a lifetime with the company.

Swent: And already knew Spanish.

Haldeman: Yes. So we decided that we would start to train the Chileans.

I was having a lot of problems with the foreign service people.

They were demanding more and overseas premiums, 20 percent over

salary, just to go abroad.

Sewell as a World Heritage Site & a ghost town

Swent: Were they able to get good engineering training in Chile at that

time?

Haldeman: Well, yes. Their schools were turning out good people. At that

time the steel industry, Campania Acero Pacifico, CAP, was

plowing right ahead. It was a very top-class, iron ore mining

and steel company with Chilean engineers. The Chilean power

company, Endesa, had excellent people in engineering, operation,

and planning. The Chilean oil company, ENAP, had excellent

engineers. Mr. Simian, ex-minister of mines (who was the best

man at my second marriage), was the man who was on the first

well that found oil in the south of Chile. He was a mining

engineer in petroleum.

So there were excellent people. Of course, these were in

Chilean companies , and in the American companies the Americans

had the top jobs because they didn't trust the Chileans, if you

want to put it that way. They didn't trust them with

purchasing, because they always thought they were crooked. Even

today it exists to a certain degree. Canadians come down here,

and they don't trust the Chileans to have the purchasing jobs or

in the accounting and controlling departments; they have to have

their own men. I don't mind having two men, one to make major

decisions and one to make sure he has the key to the cash

register. But as for the rest of them, Chile has plenty of

capable engineers.

So we accepted that, and started to work on it in about

1956 and 1957. As we go along here, I'll start to phase in the

results of it.

Index to Haldeman Interview