Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 103
The scope of operations of the company was truly national. We had work all over the
country, The most freewheeling opportunities came in the city of Santa Cruz, located on
the eastern plains of Bolivia. This was the frontier territory of the 1960s. By 1965 the city
itself still didn’t have potable water, sewers, or pavement. With the royalty income from
newly found oil and gas fields, enough funds became available to build this
infrastructure. I jumped to be part of the action and my firm became well known and
busy in the area. The work we obtained demanded my weekly presence there, which
also helped in getting more assignments.
The fame acquired by the well-known “Aggie Network” is well deserved. One really hot
afternoon in the Southern Hemisphere summer of 1967, I was doing some work in the
still un-opened jungle area north of the city of Santa Cruz. Dehydrated and exhausted
by working all day through cattle trails in this sparsely populated area, I passed by a
wall-less thatched roof shack with a sign proclaiming cold drinks inside. I went in and
met a burly oilman having a cold beer. We started talking and I found out he was a
Texan by the name of Dusty Peebles. He was a former Texas A&M student who now
worked for Gulf Oil Co. in a newly discovered oil field in the area. We quickly started a
friendship that gave me an opening to do consulting engineering work for his office,
mostly in soil mechanics. Without such an opening, Gulf Oil Co. would have hired this
service from somewhere in the U.S. and we would not have enhanced our services.
The US Embassy also had a significant presence in Santa Cruz due to the financing of
many projects under its portfolio. My good luck had it that the person who ran these
operations was also an Aggie, Sanford “Sandy” White. Red-headed Sandy was the
archetypical Aggie who opened his doors to anybody who had gone to A&M. He and
his family were comfortable in a sprawling house in an otherwise primitive jungle setting
and knew how to make the best of everything. His easy going and super friendly
manner made my relationship with him a most enjoyable one. I looked forward to my
trips to the area as much to accomplish my work as to see him.
Knowing that I was the first Bolivian-born Aggie to ever graduate from Texas A&M,
Sandy took a personal interest in me. He often went along with me in drives through
jungle roads we were helping the US Department of Defense build to relocate displaced
Okinawans who were being resettled in the area. Had it not been for him, I doubt my
firm would ever have been awarded the engineering contracts for those roads. During
one of those trips, I recall an instance where we had to stop his jeep to rescue a large
but very cute sloth that had fallen off a tree and was trapped in a side ditch. The Aggie
connection and interest in animal life works even in the depths of the jungle.
Between Sandy and Dusty and my two brothers, we quickly attracted a few more
Aggies working in the country and formed the unincorporated Bolivia A&M Club. We
held a yearly Aggie Muster every April 21 st and invited the entire American colony and
other sympathizers in whatever town we celebrated. We had the only Bolivian alumni
club of all American universities. Our group must have acquired a good reputation
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