(Wireline 24) I am promoted to District Manager in Newhall, California

One day Max Taves the Manager of the West Coast came to Santa Maria and took me to supper. He told me that I was being promoted to be the Manager of the Newhall District. (with a substantial raise in salary) I was thrilled. I am on my way up the corporate ladder.

We moved from Santa Maria to the San Fernando Valley. Mike was a couple of weeks old. With both Kerry and Mike we moved while they were infants. We lived in the Granada Hills area. This was just over the mountains from Newhall. We could not find a place to rent in Newhall. After we moved I would sometimes drive by the McKinley School for Boys in Van Nuys, where I spent some time at age 8 or so.

Newhall was an interesting place. It is located at the very eastern end of the Santa Clarita Valley. This is a long narrow transverse valley that runs to the ocean at Ventura. Lots of mountains all around it. A city has been built in the area since I worked there called Canyonlands from the local topography. The Sheriff's Prison Farm is near. We sometimes went through the gate to log wells on the farm. The William S Hart Ranch

was in Newhall. I could look out my office window and up a little valley and see the location where they filmed Gunsmoke.

Part of our district was the Simi Valley. The drive involved going into the San Fernando Valley, turn right and go over a pass to the Simi Valley. There was located the fort where F Troop and Rin Tin Tin TV shows were filmed.

One well (a wildcat) was drilled on the ranch of Joel McCrea.

Before the well was spudded I was listening to the conversation of some geologists in the area. They were debating how deep a certain sand would be. Estimates varied from 5000 to 8000 feet. When the surface location for the well was graded the sand was found at the surface! The geology was not precise.

There were three trucks and crews in the district. Probably 15 people.

Pico Canyon was a very large field that was very shallow. The wells were about 500 feet deep. The wells produced for a very long time at low rates. A Standard Oil well completed in 1870 produced for 120 years until 1990.

The Newhall Canyon Field was very deep. 15,000 to 20,000 feet deep. We were busy and logged wells from the Simi Valley to Newhall to Santa Paula.

It was interesting being a Manager. I was amazed at the things that were told to me by the people who worked for me. They must have looked at me as sort of a father figure. At Christmas we had a party for staff and their families. I rented a Santa Claus suit and played Santa Claus. I tried to be a good manager.

Over the next year and a half business declined in the District. We moved trucks out and we were soon a one truck station.  And then the Newhall District was closed altogether and I was transferred back to Bakersfield where I had started with Schlumberger in 1951.