#neal garver

Dear Gus,

Since I came to work at Garver four and a half years ago, I’ve been on the hunt for our founder’s unpublished autobiography, which I though probably got thrown away years ago during one of the company’s many moves. 

Neal Garver died in 1969, and his son retired from the company shortly thereafter, ending the family’s affiliation with the engineering consulting firm Mr. Garver founded. I had all but given up on the autobiography when someone with the last name Garver started commenting regularly on our company Facebook page. It turns out the woman commenting was married to our founder’s now-deceased grandson, and the autobiography was in her possession. 

Bryan and I went to her house today, interviewed her about the Garver family, and left with the autobiography. The woman in the photo is our founder’s mother.

Dad

Dear Gus,

I’m the unofficial historian at work, so for the last four annual meetings, I’ve recounted the history of Garver for all the new-hires. I’m finally getting to a point where I don’t have to read from a script.

“Neal Garver was born in Iowa. At the age of 28, he went to Iowa State University, where he earned a degree in civil engineering, which he used to get a job teaching at the University of Illinois...”

Dad

Dear Gus,

I’m excited to have a new intern on the team. Madeline is a senior at UCA and she’s going to help out three afternoons a week while she finishes classes. Out of the gate I’ve got her archiving old photos that are on loan to us from the Garver family.

Dad

Dear children,

Wren and I are spending the day researching company history at the Arkansas State Archives and the Butler Center. Here’s the broad strokes: Our founder, Neal Garver, founded the company in 1919. He’s the state’s first bridge engineer and signed his name to over 2,000 bridges. His son became the city of Little Rock’s first traffic engineer, despite holding a journalism degree from the University of Missouri. [Insert Little Rock traffic joke here.]

Today was a good way to earn a paycheck.

Dad