MELBOURNE — As the grass grows high after a long winter, Gene Carr stays busy mowing lawns around the Melbourne community. His motto — displayed on his truck — is simple: “I mow ’em all, just give me a call!”
Carr did not start out in lawn care; it’s mainly something to keep him busy in retirement. He also did not start out in Melbourne. He is originally from a little farther north — Maryville, Missouri — but throughout his life, his career has taken him all over the world.
“I was an only child and I wanted to get off the farm, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it,” he said. “I ran into a buddy who was a year ahead of me, and he was going to engineering school in Kansas City, [Missouri]. I thought that sounded romantic, so I went.”
Carr’s mechanical-engineering degree led him all over the world, going from adventure to adventure. He started working at Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division in Kansas City, Missouri, working on spare parts for the equipment.
“That lasted only about six months before they lost the contract, and I was laid off,” he said. “I loaded everything up and headed to California. My best buddy in college worked for Oklahoma Public Service in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so I stopped by to see him, and he just said, ‘Why don’t you move in with me? The oil companies will be hiring.’”
Unfortunately, the oil companies weren’t hiring, so Carr took a job with Douglas Aircraft in Tulsa. He said he was hesitant to take the job because of his previous experience with that industry, but it paid off.
“I decided to take it as a temporary job,” he said. “That temporary job turned into a 30-year career.”
After two years, Carr decided he wanted a change of scenery, and he eventually made it to the destination he set out to reach after leaving Kansas City.
“The experimental-flight test group was romantic in my opinion, so I applied there, and they sent me to Santa Monica, California,” he said. “I was at the Air Force base working on experimental-flight tests.”
While there, Carr helped build a liquid-hydrogen facility, which he said was state of the art. His wanderlust started creeping in again, and he decided he wanted to move to Cape Canaveral in Florida, where he started his work with NASA.
“I was a launch-team leader on the first Saturn,” he said. “We had the fourth stage of the launch. It was the first restartable stage. The first stage would put it up, and the second stage would put it into orbit, and the third stage would put it into final orbit. Then it would shut down to check everything. If everything was OK, they’d start back up and head to the moon. I was a team leader on the Saturn’s fourth stage.”
Carr worked on launches until Apollo 13, the mission that NASA almost lost when an oxygen tank exploded. After that he worked other jobs — selling equipment and sealing roofs, for example — until he decided to take up an opportunity to go overseas.
“I always wanted to go overseas, and I kept seeing these ads,” he said. “I called, and they had an opening in Saudi Arabia.”
On his first trip to Saudi Arabia, Carr worked on sea-water treatment plants as a part of oil production.
“They don’t pump oil over there,” he said. “They inject water, and the oil floats up. Here they use pumps, but floating it is more efficient because you can get it all.”
He was in Saudi Arabia for 2 1/2 years before returning to the United States. He worked for a while in Houston before the Middle East called his name again, and he returned to Saudi Arabia to work in oil refineries. He was able to take his wife with him on the second trip, which he said was great.
Unfortunately, the project was canceled, and the couple returned to the United States. Carr worked a few more engineering jobs before landing in Melbourne.
“The same buddy from Tulsa told me, ‘You should call Douglas again. They’re hiring,’” Carr said. “That would be full circle, because that’s where I started.”
At that point, Douglas had merged with another company and was McDonnell Douglas Corp. Carr made some calls and was asked by recruiters at the company, “What do you think of Arkansas?”
“My daughter was at the University of Texas in Austin, and we were there,” he said. “We weren’t even up, and then the phone rang. My daughter told me it was for me, and it was them wanting me to go to Arkansas. I sat there on the bed and negotiated a contract.”
Carr was told he had to be in Melbourne by Dec. 1. The year was already almost gone. It was Thanksgiving already, so he and his wife had to quickly load up their stuff to move to Arkansas.
He worked at McDonnell Douglas until he retired in 1993. He said he and his wife love the Melbourne community, and after all of his adventures, it has been great to settle into a home and mow yards to pass the time.
“My wife and friends think I should be sitting in a recliner, but I feel better mowing,” he said.
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.