All Is Well: FORWARD

All my life I’ve been interested in my families—from my Grandmother’s (Gram’s) stories about the Brandenbergs back to the 1600s and the Vickeries on my Mother’s side, to the history of the Dells and the Bunns on my Father’s side. The main goal of writing this book was thus to preserve the story of my ancestors and my life for my family and future generations. I hope it will assist my grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, and beyond in understanding where they came from, and also what made Grandpa the person—sometimes that old grump—he is today. I also think the story found on the following pages may help anyone understand what life was like in America during the 20^th Century, and even before.

The process of getting my story out and to print showed me a few things—and even helped me. In particular, I’ve been able to do away with any bitterness I had towards my Father and understand the dynamics of our family better. Living in the 20s and 30s was surely difficult. I think back to before that, to my Grandfather Dell who started to homestead a ranch in 1893 and went on to raise 13 children. It would have taken a lot of hard work to make a living and keep a ranch and large family going. Writing my story helped me to understand what made my Father the way he was. It also allowed me to reflect back on the time when I gave my life to God, and see how much help that was to me. He’s been able to guide and direct my life in a way that’s kept me from doing things I shouldn’t do.

The people that had the greatest influence on my life are those to whom I dedicate this book: Gram, my teacher Mrs. Heare, Sheila, my first wife, and my wife Jane. In their own unique ways, these four remarkable women made me who I am today and stopped me from becoming a drunken cowboy (something that would have been quite easy for me to do). If Sheila and Jane both hadn’t been the most amazing wives, my life would have been entirely different—and not near as graceful nor enjoyable. Another unforgettable person in my life was Wally Walseth, my first boss at Mobil and the person who took a chance on me when he hired me as a roustabout in Worland, Wyoming. As the superintendent of the Intermountain West Region, Wally could have ignored me for the rest of my career, but he chose to not let status get in the way of our professional relationship. Wally inspired me and I never wanted to let him down. He also changed my life: if it wasn’t for him, I would have likely discontinued my career at Mobil due to, as he one day pointed out, uninformed decisions. I still remember receiving a Christmas card from him year after year for over forty years, and how he would take the time to make note of any promotions or things he read about me in Mobil World, the company’s magazine.

Wally also steered me towards an eventual career in human resources. In about 1965, after having worked with Mobil in various labor positions for about ten years, I made it my goal to become a human resources manager. I had harbored how I was treated my first day at work, and consequent days afterwards, for a long time, and I saw the same mistakes being made over and over again. This made me want to change the way Mobil hired and trained people, and I envisioned creating an orientation program to train and motivate people to want to do the best job possible. The culture within the company needed to change to make the people who came to work for us happier, and I ended up taking a pay cut for a few years so I could put my ideas into action. I wanted people to feel like they were a part of a team, and I eventually changed things so people could write their own objectives and appraisals—and Mobil became a different world. I was always keen to point out how, like any company, we were only as good as the people that worked for us.

Last year I spoke with Carl Goodman, a human resources consultant who worked for me at Mobil for 12 years before going out on his own. I kept in touch with him and others I’d been a boss to before I decided to retire. “Dick I wanna tell ya something,” he said. “There are three things we all knew about Dick Dell: we could trust you, you did what you said you were going to do, and you were a great developer of people.” Bringing out the best in people truly became my passion, and I really viewed human resources as the means for changing things for the better.

Life is a multitude of variations—some out of our control and many the result of our choices. This is an attempt to chronicle my path as best I can, and I hope you enjoy turning and reading the pages that follow.

Richard Dell, July 19^th, 2016