From “Caterpillar Spray Valve, A newspaper for people at Caterpillar Tractor Co.’s San Leandro Plant, October, 1976” Bill Ralph counts 47 years At age seventeen Bill Ralph graduated from Hayward High School and came to work at Caterpillar as an apprentice. The date was November 5, 1928.

That was 47 years not counting a one year lay off. Ralph is now a tool and die maker and has his own glassed- in room right in the middle of the tooling area (section 66). Two years after starting his apprenticeship he was laid off, “I was the last one to go” says Ralph. “During the depression years of 1931-32 only a dozen men worked at Caterpillar.”

It was during those depression years that the plans for the diesel engine were expanded, pruned and refined and made ready. “The whole diesel engine was developed right here.” He says. “During layoff I went over to Chevrolet hoping to find a job. A thousand men were standing around. The boss was picking men he knew from these. He pointed to me, I couldn’t believe it. I later found that I was shortest one in the bunch. They needed someone in the pit to work on the bores in the body. This was piecework. Some days we worked eight hours. Some only 15 minutes. They only built cars for orders the got.”

Ralph also worked in the shipyards and drove a broken down bus for a resort on the Russian River. Called back to Caterpillar a year later, Ralph finished his apprenticeship. He was the last pre-diesel apprentice. The new diesel program was started with Bud Woolridge as apprentice training supervisor. “Alan Parry was about a year behind me in apprenticeship and Tony Pavak and Carl Dietz followed closely,” Ralph says.

After graduation Ralph started in precision grinding and was the first person to run the centerless lapper which is still being used. From there he went to the tool room. I worked the longest for Burt Griswold. He was my foreman in production before World War II. Later we were together again in the tool room.  “Byron Williford was superintendent of the assembly line. He gave me my tool checks. Someone had turned in the ones numbered 16 and I got them. They are marked CLBTC (C.L. Best Tractor Company).

“One thing I remember from way back then was the last model “thirty” tractor built. We had a funeral and a fellow played a violin as we marched out the door with it. In those days when a tractor came back with something wrong, men were picked right out of the tool room to take them apart and fix them up.

“The parking lot in those days was east of the factory were the BART tracks are now located. A house stood in the middle of the property and we just parked around it. Davis Street didn’t go beyond the Southern Pacific tracks. There was no pavement, just gravel. The pedestrian walkway crossing was an overhead walkway between what is now building F and the Employee Relations Department”.

Ralphs father had worked in a machine shop in Pennsylvania. The family moved to California in 1921 where his father planned to retire on a chicken farm. Unfortunately all the chickens died.

Ralph met his wife, Constance when he was delivering groceries. Her father was a jeweler engraver. The family had moved to Castro Valley were her father planned to raise chickens. “We’ve had lots of eggs for dinner,” Ralph says. Ralph and his wife have two sons and a daughter. The girl is a math major at Hayward State University. The boys are married and live in the East Bay. There are 5 grandchildren.

During 1939-40 Ralph built a home for his family. He did all the work except for the plastering. He carpentered, plumbed, electrified, painted; he did everything. His brother-in-law plastered.

For 15 years he was involved with Boy Scouts. In his daughters interest he assisted the 4-H club for five years. Photography is his hobby. Mrs. Ralph does the gardening.  Ralph helped start the credit union. He has been President and also served on the board of directors for 25 years. Last spring he suffered a heart attack. “On my walks I got to know every rose petal” he says.

Ralph doesn’t know how easy it is going to be to retire. How to keep occupied is the problem. You can’t take a trip or go fishing everyday. Perhaps retirement should start out as half work and half vacation.

“Caterpillar has always moved” Ralph says, “they have never stood still”. Maybe not always for the better but always trying to get better.