Arthur Morgan’s TVA-TSK Legacy
On April 9,2018 Barry Thacker will be the speaker at the Technical Society of Knoxville meeting. Parking in the Crowne Plaza garage is free. The meeting will end at 1:00pm. Visitors are welcome.
Tennesseans remember Arthur Morgan as the first Chairman and Chief Engineer of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), not to mention the founder of the City of Norris. Morgan hit the ground running when he accepted the TVA job in 1933 by recruiting associates from his Morgan Engineering Company—Albert Fry, Harry Wiersema, Barton Jones, Carl Bock, Charles Locher, Ross Riegel, Ned Sayford, James Bowman, Emerson Chandler, and Sherman Woodward—for technical leadership positions at TVA.
Many of Morgan’s associates became long-time Technical Society of Knoxville members with Fry and Wiersema serving as TSK presidents. According to TSK member Ned Sayford, Dr. Morgan called him when the TVA Act passed to say, “You are now the TVA engineering department—come on over,” which Sayford did at once.
Barry Thacker, PE, is a principal engineer at Schnabel Engineering, in Knoxville, TN. He is also the founder of the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit watershed-restoration group. Mr. Thacker holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering degrees in civil engineering from the University of Louisville. He is a recipient of the prestigious Hoover Medal bestowed by an international consortium of engineering societies, the joint ASCE/GBA Professional Practice Ethics and Leadership Award, and the Governor’s Outstanding Tennessean Award. McGraw-Hill’s Engineering News-Record magazine named Barry one of construction’s top-25 newsmakers in 2013.
Mr. Thacker recently taught eighth-graders at Norris Middle School about the legacy of their city’s founder, which he will present at the Technical Society meeting on Monday, 9 April 2018.