. They had several 180’s, a 185, and several AT-11’s. Ted Abrams is known as the father of aerial mapping. The Abrams Company is one of the largest mapping companies in the world. They had extremely large projects which kept the planes flying constantly. Some days it was not unusual to have five planes up. I would say that almost everything I know about photogrammetry I learned at Abrams.

(My donations to the Air Force Museum consisted of many items such as silk escape maps, blood chits, many photos of the Yalu and the bridges, Antung Airfield in China, etc. Our crew dropped thousands of propaganda leaflets over enemy territory. These showed a picture of North Korean prisoners being well treated, smoking cigarettes. On the back was a ticket to surrender and be treated well. Many Chinese soldiers soon were running toward the American lines waving these tickets of surrender. I received a nice two page letter from the director of the museum thanking me for the donation, which was placed on display. He said he had not seen nor heard of these leaflets, up to that point in time.)

A typical job was one that took us to Albuquerque, N.M. to map the Rio Grande for the U.S. Government. We mapped many projects of over 4000 sq. miles. Many projects consisted of entire counties. I soon learned that the people operating the Stereo Plotters were making considerably more money than personnel in the photo lab. I learned to operate the plotter, they had 13, and soon transferred over to the Photogrammetric Dept. After being in Lansing for 7 years and freezing all the time I was thinking of moving.

The man who hired me at Abrams was Jack Freeman. He was moving up to take over the sales department and I took his old position. He quit in 1968 and started a new mapping company in Columbus, Ohio. One night I received a phone call. It was Jack Freeman, offering me a job in a company that had no employees. They did have a stereo plotter and Jack said I would be Chief Photogrammetrist, in charge of that section, the flight section (although it had no airplane), and the photo lab, which did not exist. I realize it was a questionable move, from a big established company to one where I would be the ONLY employee. I took the job.

Finally I buzzed the area and soon saw two burning barrels, one at the beginning and one at the end of the runway. After a pretty rough landing I was met by several armed soldiers who placed me under arrest. I was there to work for the G&W Sugar Co., so the next day an exec from G&W explained everything and I was released.