Dear Peter:
I have just spent several hours touring your website and revelling in the self indulgence that comes with seeing old friends and associates. There are a lot of good memories; we all put a lot into our efforts there, and most everyone who came away was a more "can do" person for the experience.
Mary and I, and our children, David , Stephen and Mona still look back fondly on our time at Panguna and what a fine experience it was for our family.
Sydney B. Lhotka, (and his wife Jana,) is in Concord, CA where he is still running his Financial and Tax Service business. Mary and I have been in Houston for over 25 years now, and I retired from Bechtel after several careers within the company, with 42 years of service, in July '99.
I haven't seen Ernie Wayland in many years now (15 or 20). He was in Houston in the early '80's. At that time he was handling the financial affairs of Gary Bechtel the younger of Steve Jrs. boys. At that time Gary headed up the Construction arm of the company, but then decided to leave the business, and go into car racing and as far as I know has had some success there. I believe Ernie followed him to Charlotte NC and continued to handle his affairs. About that time, Ernie lost his middle boy, a promising Accountant in Las Vegas, in a car accident and he took that very hard.
Following Bougainville I worked a job in Greenland out of Montreal and had several old Bougainville hands on that work; Jim Adamoli, Don Hotaling, (a young red-headed New Zealander whose name escapes me, who was the radio telephone technician), and the former Loloho Procurement man, Dwayne Miller. (That last one took some thought, but I believe it's correct.) I heard that he is now deceased.
A story about Dwayne; a number of expats were at Arovo one weekend, and Mary engaged Dwayne in conversation, centered around shortages of foodstuffs, and how she would love to be able to find some Lasagna noodles. Dwayne offered as how he thought he had some under his bunk, and next day a driver delivered some Green Lasagna Noodles to me at the Panguna Office with a note from Dwayne, explaining that they were green noodles, and their colour was natural and not due to the length of time they had been under his bunk !
Peter, I have thought of you fellows often over the years, and it's just "super" that you've put this website together, so that we can catch up on a time in our lives when we were all "just full of it!"
Kindest Personal Regards,
Lloyd McChesney
