Recorded in Dundalk, Baltimore, for the Baltimore Museum of Industry, in conjunction with Bethlehem Steel oral history project.
Part of the "Be Here: Baltimore" project created by the Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture and the MuseWeb Foundation, created to share stories about the people and places of the city.
Talk about your work at Bethlehem Steel.
Speaker 1: So as time went on, I started thinking about other things because the steel industry started changing and I knew that the blast furnace was a dead end for me.
So, but the blast furnace made a man out of me. But then I went over to the coke ovens. The coke ovens was just as bad as the blast furnace. In 1996 the union went under the partnership agreement and they established new training procedures for workers and a lot of the colleges opened up. So I enrolled in the first computer class at Essex Community College that the union and company set up. Well, computers became second nature to me and one of the instructors, she said, "Mr. Morgan, you have a very good knack for computers. Why don't you learn programming?" And I thought about it and he said, "Look, why don't you be the person who programs the programs for the user?
So I thought about it and I started getting into the programming classes and I excelled, then I decided to take this knowledge back to the job. Once I took this knowledge back to the job, I knew that the blast furnace, I reached my limit with them. Then I left and went over to the hot mill, 68" hot strip mill. That was only the finished inside. The hot mill challenge this, because one of the first things I learned when I went over there was that they said that African Americans couldn't do those type of jobs. And that became a challenge to me.
Speaker 2: That was the internal type of culture?
Speaker 1: Yes. That became a challenge to me. Then I also noticed that engineers didn't talk to operational people. Electrical didn't talk to operational. Well, I started talking to electrical and talking to the engineers. But, by me being in college now and understanding and learning, and learning languages, I could talk on their level. When they said integers and consubstantiation and indexes. I know what they meant. I could break it down with them. When they said bowls and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: They were very open to me learning, especially once they knew that I had the ability to absorb and learn and understood. And then I started designing because I realized that the training was inadequate. So I started designing software and training. I thought to myself, why are they paying all this money to go outside contractors when you got talented people right in the mill? And everybody told me, "They're not going to pay you, and they're not going do this. They're not going to do this". Well, I would take my sketchpad and I started designing the mill. I started writing down in sketch and the mill and counting the boats, and everybody thought I was crazy. Then I would go home and at that time they was the software package, I'll call lightweight. I would go home and design 3D models of the mill. So when I went home designing this 3D model. Then I started writing the software to create the actual training for the mill.
Speaker 1: Yeah I have to finish school because I realized my education had to keep going, but the engineer started training me on the job themselves. So I gave a presentation, and the presentation that I gave was a finished product of the mill. I was competing against two companies, illustrations, landscape. Well, at the end of the presentation I told them, "If I've got a product here that could benefit the company, don't demand me because of the color of my skin." And they looked at the product. I had actually had a finished product. They brought it from me in 45 days...
Asset ID: 8240
