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two or three years until the material situation eased up with the war's end in sight. I believe Fran Suleski came out of our central production group and we moved him in with us on "4-14" which meant the fourth floor of Bldg. 14, the headquarters of what was generally referred to by the factory people as the "commercial department." Fran was an unusual and memorable guy with much to recommend him. He was a Colgate graduate where he'd played tackle on the varsity football team. He weighed around 200. He was perhaps 5 ft. 11 in. and his shoulders must have measured around two-feet across. As they once said in the classic style, he was built like "a brick backhouse." And along with all this, he was handsome, with a strong, square, well-chiseled face, dark hair and eyes and a tanned look. He was a hard worker, extremely energetic and fast moving. And combined with these assets he had a sharp mind and a lot of charm and persuasiveness. Fran hadn't traveled a great deal, his largest orbit probably having been that of the Colgate football team, and he loved to go to Washington and see the place where the big behind-the-scenes action was taking place. He and I made several trips down there together and not only was I proud of him as a GE associate but he made a fine impression on the people we did business with. Fran was marked for better things and when the pressure let up on the material situation, he left us for a different assignment and I think that eventually he was transferred to [[underline]] another Company location. [[/underline]]

Although we were struggling to get onto the routines of PRP, early in 1942 [[underline]] we weren't having any real material procurement [[/underline]] problems that I recall other than the usual miscellaneous headaches that had long been par for the course. However, [[underline]] on April 4th, [[/underline]] the War Production Board issued Limitation Order [[underline]] L97 [[/underline]] covering all locomotives except those for underground mining. L97 [[underline]] prohibited [[/underline]] both production and shipment of all such locomotives [[underline]] without specific authorization [[underline]] from WPB. In order to get such authorization, it was necessary to get a [[underline]] "sponsor agency" [[/underline]] in the government somewhere to certify to WPB that the locomotive was necessary to the war effort. Therefore on April 4, 1942 General Electric company was suddenly confronted with the necessity for [[underline]] getting WPB approval for around 400 locomotive [[/underline]] units before we could legally complete and deliver them to the customers who'd ordered them. And for most of them, this meant digging up a sponsor somewhere who'd certify to their necessity for successfully carrying on the war effort. [[underline]] To put it mildly this was a monumental job. [[/underline]]The simplest solution might at first appear to be to have called upon our customers to locate such a sponsor and press him to certify their need to WPB. But there was so much confusion about the whole thing when L97 was issued that is was difficult to find anyone who knew what to do located right in Washington let alone a plant out in the boondocks. The only way we could see for accomplishing this task in time to prevent either a costly and confusing mess in our