Milestones Vol. 17, No. 1 (Fall 2019)Download PDF Letter from the Editor2Afro-Americans for Black Liberation and the Fight for Civil Rights at the University of Houston By Robinson Block7Honoring the UH African American Studies Program’s 50th AnniversaryBy James L. Conyers12The Houston Manned Spacecraft Center: The Right Place with the Right StuffBy Calvin D. Blair19Making a Miracle – The Story […]
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Brownwood: From Neighborhood to Nature Center
With hurricanes regularly striking the Texas Gulf Coast, experiencing multiple hurricanes and tropical storms in one’s lifetime has become a rite of passage and a life marker for coastal residents. Even though Texans know how to prepare for these events, each storm has a unique trajectory and damage path, as Hurricane Harvey demonstrated in August […]
Keeping Honor Alive for the 95
In early 2018 archeologists located the skeletal remains of ninety-five individuals on a Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD) construction site. Buried in wooden caskets, the deceased are believed to be former slaves forced to work in sugar fields as convict labor on the Imperial Prison Farm. Texas leased out convicts from 1878 to 1910, […]
Letter from the Editor – OTC: A Golden Past, A Brighter Future
Anniversaries By Joe Pratt, Editor Emeritus As the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) celebrates its golden anniversary, we look back at its activities and reflect on how they have helped Houston emerge as “the energy capital of the world” while boosting the region economy. Anniversaries are obviously all around us, while I worked on this issue […]
OTC at 50: Bold Vision Led to Unimagined Success
By Joel Parshall Visionaries possess an extraordinary power to imagine what could be. Yet when a future unfolds that validates them, it may so exceed the original vision that even an extraordinary power of imagination is proved inadequate. The reality that happens vaults well beyond one’s wildest dreams. That could be said of the original […]
The Offshore Industry, Houston, and the Creation of OTC
By Joseph A. Pratt The time was ripe for the creation of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in 1969. The offshore industry was nearing the end of a long and productive era from 1946 to 1969, when ambitious and innovative industry pioneers and their companies laid the foundation for the future development of offshore technology. […]
Deeper through the Decades, An Interview with Carl Wickizer
Edited by Joe Pratt The Offshore Technology Conference has been a central forum for sharing information on the extraordinary technical changes that have allowed the offshore industry to expand its operations into deeper waters and harsher environments. Much of the early development of deepwater technologies can be seen through the career of Carl Wickizer (1931-2007), […]
Connecting the World: OTC as a Platform for Global Exchange
For the last fifty years, the Offshore Technology Conference has served as a platform for industry professionals to present and exchange advances in offshore technology. Due to its success and demand from a globally expanding industry, OTC has created three separate events to address region specific challenges. Starting with the Arctic Technology Conference, OTC has […]
“A Love Affair 50 Years and Counting”: OTC’s Economic and Cultural Contributions to Houston
By Debbie Z. Harwell The first OTC met at the Albert Thomas Convention and Exhibit Center downtown (now Bayou Place) with 4,200 in attendance, 125 papers presented, and 38,500 square feet of exhibit space occupied by 200 exhibitors. In need of more space, in 1973 OTC moved to the Astrodome complex, now NRG Park, where […]
OTC at 100: A Look Ahead to 2069
By Joe Pratt The fiftieth anniversary of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) offers a reason to look forward and backward. The waves of technological advances that have shaped the growth of the modern offshore industry began in earnest in the late 1940s. Looking back to the years after World War II, we see offshore pioneers […]