Betty: From the time I moved in the early 1960’s from Borax acquired Columbia Wax Company in Glendale to the gorgeous Corporate Headquarters at 3075 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, I always knew that the building at 630 Shatto Place had been Borax’s previous headquarters. But…..I knew very little about who worked there and where departments were located.
Enjoy some of the comments from the Borax alumni.
Howard and Carrie Cain: While I worked out of this building, I was very seldom in it. However, Carrie was and she said the front of the top floor was an outside patio for Mr. Gerstley and Pat O'Brien. Gerstley was on the left (facing the building) and O'Brien on the right. We parked under the building and the Agricultural people planted plants on the top outside. We had great Christmas parties with food, drink, presents and Santa Claus. Dave Parker and Fred Corkill use to see who could come up the most ridiculous presents such as huge urns. One time they put elephants in the parking garage. Dave Parker gave Mr. Gerstley a rubber life boat one time when he was going to England after the Christmas party. We seem to remember Sales and Purchasing took up the 2nd floor. Also Annie and Noreen O'Sullivan ran the switch board also on that floor.
On the second floor was the Accounting/Payroll/Insurance Departments. Insurance I believe was separated not by walls but by configuration. I cannot remember if any others were on this floor.
The third floor was for the executives as Carrie stated. I believe a reception desk and the telephone operations were nearby. Also included was the Executive Records area where everything except the very top confidential information was kept. Nearby was the Export Department with about 10 people. This included the Manager and four men who did all the booking of steamer space to all foreign ports. There was also one that booked shipments to Mexico which were mostly shipped via rail. Of course there were secretaries and clerks on the floor also. Engineering was also on third floor (I believe) but seemed to be scattered with some up on the fourth including Drafting. Perhaps 10 men total.
Originally the fourth floor was kept empty for expansion. I understand Pat O'Brien had quite a bit to do with the building and wanted a much stronger foundation poured to allow for growth upward if needed but the cost was prohibitive. And, as the company grew and all the space was used, a decision was made to move the engineers and draftsmen to a temporary location down Wilshire and across the street.
This space they soon outgrew when we merged with U.S. Potash. Perhaps all of the growth was due to the projected change from ‘room and pillar’ mining to the current open pit. Again they moved Engineering to offices on 6th Street, on the north side, one building from Vermont. They also moved the Agricultural Sales and Purchasing Department to Sixth Street. I don't recall what floor Purchasing was on prior to this move. I do not recall where the Sales Dept. was located. Originally TMT Sales was divided between Agriculture and the Package Department. Research moved to Anaheim in 1957. Wendell Childs worked there as well as Jim McFaul, Gene Ferguson and George Bartunek. Corporate left Shatto Place in 1963.
Wendell Childs: I started to work for Borax on Shatto in the early1950’s in the Accounting Department, working for Hightower on the 2nd floor. Data processing at that time was... IBM cards and key punch. I was helping to convert the inventory control system to data processing and I remember moving to Wilshire. That is about all the highlights that I remember.
Anne Pimbell: I started at Shatto Place on December 6, 1960. That was the year they stopped the Christmas Parties. Noreen and I were on the fourth floor along with Traffic, Distribution, Advertising and the Public Relations Department. The Executive Department as well as the Marketing Department was on the third floor. Geology and Land Departments were located in a building on Wilshire Boulevard. The Engineering and the Mail Room were in a building on 6th Street and Vermont. I remember that Les Marek used to have to bring the mail to the other locations, rain or shine! There was a parking lot across the street for employee parking. That is about what I remember but not sure if I got it all right. Good luck!
Dave Austin: On August 26,1956 I was interviewed and hired by Dr. L. M. Stahler, Manager of the Agricultural Sales Department, at the 630 Shatto Place building. Later we toured the building at 3075 Wilshire Boulevard while it was being built. I remember the building devoted a whole floor to IBM computer equipment and more or less built the whole building around it. I worked from my office at home and made sales calls around the L. A. area and the Western States so I was not in the Wilshire Office on a regular basis until 1988 and 1989 when I was Manager of Customer Service. I remember the beautiful Christmas trees that they always put up in the lobby.
Jay Bower: My memory of the Shatto Place building is an interview there for a job in Anaheim with Edgar Fajans. I think I also met at that time with Tom Cromwell, whom I had known previously from the Chemistry Department at UCLA.
Charles Bausback: There were several parties at 630 Shatto Place. Sigrid went to a Saint Valentine's Day Party there, and she invited me to two Christmas Parties. The Borax men from England would come when the company was having a party. Mr. Gerstley was dictating his book to Sigrid one day and he mumbled something that she did not understand. She asked him to repeat it and he still mumbled it. It sounded like "symbiosis" so she looked it up in the dictionary and discovered a word that was similar to it and the meaning was "a pre-existing condition." That fit into the sentence she was working on and she submitted it to Mr. Gerstley. He did not say anything and the book was published using her new found word. He then made a trip to Paris, France and I was invited to a Christmas Party at 630 Shatto Place that year. There was the usual gift exchange between the employees and at the end of it there was another gift for Sigrid. She said, "There must be some mistake, I already have received a gift." Mr. Gerstley then asked her to open it, and it was a gorgeous bottle of a very expensive French perfume! With it was a note reading, "Thanks for teaching me a new word."
Jim Gerstley Jr.: It’s been an awfully long time since I was in the building. I imagine it has been at least 50 years. I remember my dad showing me where his office was going to be. My Dad loved having a good view so I assume his office would be close to the top of the building.
Dave Wheeler: Shatto Place is where I had my initial interview with USB by Lloyd Fusby.
Bob Kunz: I started with the company on Shatto Place. However, I don't have answers to your questions! I was a salesman and didn't spend much time in the office!
Howard Steinberg: I started to work at Shatto Place on a Monday morning in early May 1954. Bob Kendall had joined the company the Friday before that Monday. Many years later when we were arguing over longevity bragging rights, I asked Bob why he started a new job (designing the Boron open pit) on a Friday. He said he needed the money.
I worked all alone at a six-foot folding table in the large empty room on the top floor. Aside from some folding chairs, the only other piece of “furniture” was a Ping-Pong table. It was used every lunch time. I’d been hired by Dr. Edgar Fajans, the boss of the lab located on the first floor. My assignment was to design the new organic lab located in a store front on Eleventh and Hope Streets in downtown LA and pursue the development of new organoboron products. The goal was to produce boron-containing chemicals and market them at a much higher price per unit of boron. I believe borax was $40 a ton (2 cents a pound) in those days.
Some names of people in the lab: Tom Cromwell (I spoke to him yesterday. He’s doing fine.), Don Hunter, Nelson Nies.
Company Christmas parties were held in “my office.” They started around lunch time and continued past quitting time. There was music, dancing, food, and liquor. Of course, this was well before drinking at Christmas parties was no longer socially acceptable. At the party in ’54, possibly ’55, Dave Parker presented Jim Gerstley with a present, a real live mule. I can’t remember how Jim got rid of the animal. The elevator seemed clean and without smell when I left the party.
Dave had some sort of a thing in giving Jim presents. One afternoon after golf at Death Valley, Dave and Fred Corkill, laughing nonstop, detoured through the stable. They created a patty of horse dung and took it back to the Inn. That evening it was served to Jim on a hamburger bun as his main course. I wonder if the waiter got fired.
One morning in February 1956, after the birth of my second son, I was visiting the first floor lab, and for whatever reason I didn’t park across the street and double-parked in the garage. I went around to everyone I knew and offered them a Sees chocolate (instead of a cigar). Later that day Edgar called me into his office. He was furious. Some idiot was double-parked behind Jim Gerstley’s Bentley when Jim wanted to leave. It was only when Jim learned that the idiot had been celebrating a birth that he didn’t fire him.
Jim Gerstley Jr.: Love these stories. The description of where my Dad's office was sounds right. I knew Pat O'Brien had an engineering background. Since my Dad often had executives over to our home, I met most of them at one time or another. It was a privilege to have known them.
I can imagine the wild parties at Shatto Place, though I was never invited to any. I'm happy to finally hear about them! I know the parties got pretty wild in Death Valley when the English executives were here. They loved playing jokes on each other. Sounds like the parties ended about the time my Dad retired.
One time I was invited with my parents to Fred and Blanche Corkill's house for dinner, along with some of the other executives. After dinner my Dad decided to teach me the game of pool. After we'd played for a little while, he looked at me inquisitively and says "I think you've played this game before". I had to admit that it was part of my college education. I don't know how it came about, but there was a terrific ‘esprit de corps’ among all the executives I knew.
Bob Keeland: I hired on at 630 Shatto Place in April, 1960 and spent about 3 years at that location prior to the move to 3075 Wilshire. My memory is a little blurred between the two buildings as to exact departmental locations.
Betty Peters: Was there a staff lounge?
Bob Keeland: Not that I recall as most of the troops lunched at the cafeteria in the basement of the Congregational Church on 6th Street or brown bagged it at their desk or in the park across from the Sheraton Hotel. Other choices were Woolworth's or various “holes in the wall” in the district including the Patio Sandwich Café which was demolished to make way for 3075 Wilshire.
Betty Peters: Where was the reception area?
Bob Keeland: I believe the reception area was adjacent to the switchboard on the 4th floor and the operators, Noreen O'Sullivan and Annie pulled double duty. Personnel was on the 1st floor next to the entrance.
Betty Peters: Did you park in the lot next to the building?
Bob Keeland: The Borax lot was directly across the street which I believe was on a first come basis; otherwise, one had to park on 3rd St. which was quite a walk. Clearly there was an incentive for most of us to be at our desks very early each morning. Executive parking was in the ground floor garage.
Betty Peters: Any memorable events?
Bob Keeland: Perhaps the most memorable events were the many California fires where the grinding, bagging and distribution of Firebrake retardant were coordinated from the Shatto office by Dottie Simpson who worked for Verne Stone. The crushed ore from the Death Valley Mine was stockpiled at a custom grinder who ground and bagged the product for transport to a various airports and emptied into the bins aboard "Borate Bombers" for drops over the fires; the most memorable being the Bel Air fire in Los Angeles. The entire process was quite an undertaking from the mine all the way through to the final invoicing!
