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AUBREY J
.
1 912-1 990
WAGNER
WRITTEN BY W. F. WILLIS
SUBMITTED BY THE NAE HOME SECRETARY
AUBREY ~ RED WAGNER who served the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA) for forty-four years, a record seventeen years on
its board of directors and sixteen of those years as its chairman,
died July 14, 1990, in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the age of seventy-
eight.
Wagner was born January 12, 1912, in HilIsboro, Wisconsin.
He received his B.S. degree, magna cum laude, in civil engineer-
ing in 1933 from the University of Wisconsin. It was also in that
year that he married the former Dorothea l. Huber of Sioux City,
Iowa.
In 1934 he began his long and distinguished career with TVA,
which had been created ayear earlier. His first assignmentwas as
an engineering aide in the General Engineering and Geology
Division, where he worked in the navigation program and
assisted with the planning and construction of Tennessee River
navigation facilities. Later he also worked on transportation
economics studies that were intended to develop the fullest
possible contribution of low-cost transportation to TVA's total
program for integrated resource development.
In 1948 he was named chief of the Navigation and Transpor-
tation Branch, where he was responsible for general planning of
TVA's navigation program, including both engineering matters
and economic studies involved in the growing commercial use of
the newly improved Tennessee waterway. Wagner was appointed
239
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240
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
TVA assistant general manager in 1951 and general manager in
1954. In this capacity he was the agency's chief administrative
officer.
In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed Wagner to the
TVA board of directors. When Chairman Herbert D. Vogel
resigned the following year, Kennedy designated Wagner as
chairman. When Wagner's first term neared an end in 1969
without a reappointment, he prepared to leave. However, Presi-
dent Richard Nixon reappointed him at the last minute, and he
returned to serve another nine years longer than anyone else
who had been chairman.
During his tenure, Wagner gained a degree of respect and
personal loyalty among rank-and-file TVA employees that was
almost unprecedented for a large organization. He was called
"Mr. TVA" by many, and historians say his influence on TVA's
direction and programs is equaled only by that of the first board
of directors. He is remembered for his tireless energy, never
letting up until he accomplished what he was trying to do.
Although he could be very stubborn when he was convinced he
was right, he would listen to others and worked hard to gain
broader perspectives. He was a builder who always kept the big
picture in mind. He never saw TVA's projects as ends in them-
selves but as tools to create good jobs and build a better quality
of life for the Tennessee Valley.
Wagner was a special friend of the small towns and rural areas
of the Tennessee Valley, and he made sure that TVA worked
closelywith the people of these areas to increase their economic
opportunities. Because he was disturbed by the migration of
many of the area's young people, who often had to leave their
homes and families to find work outside the Tennessee Valley, he
was proud of TVA's role in reversing that flow by stimulating
economic expansion and helping to create good jobs for the
people of this region.
Elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering
in 1973, Wagner was a member of the President's Appalachian
Regional Commission, President's Council on Recreation and
Natural Beauty, President's Council on Cost Reduction in Gov-
ernment, Engineering Advisory Committee of the Tennessee
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AUBREY J. WAGNER
241
Technological University, the Tennessee Governor's Science
Advisory Committee, National Advisory Council for the 1974
World Energy Conference, Advisory Committee for the 1972
United Nations Conference on Human Environment, Atomic
Energy Commission's Senior Utility Steering Committee, and
member and vice-chairman of the Breeder Reactor Corpora-
tion.
Wagner traveled extensively overseas as a consultant and
adviser on resource problems. For example, in 1964 he partici-
pated in a river development conference atAswan in the United
Arab Republic. The conference was sponsored by the Forc3
Foundation and concerned the multipurpose applications of
the Aswan High Dam. He was the keynote speaker and a partici-
pant in the Lahore, Pakistan, Seminar on Problems of Public
Enterprise, which was sponsored by the Pakistan National Insti-
tute of Public Administration. He also served as a lecturer for the
Agriculture and Natural Resources Session at the Salzburg
Seminar in American Studies.
Wagner received an honorary doctor of laws degree from
Newberry College in 1978 and an honorary doctor of Public
Administration from Lenoir Rhyne College in 1970. He received
the N. W. Daugherty Award from the University of Tennessee in
1969, the Distinguished Service Citation from the University of
Wisconsin in 1962, the Lambda Chi Alpha Order of Achieve-
ment in 1970, and the Walter H. Zinn Award of the American
Nuclear Society in 1978. In 1979 Wagner was named Chapter
Honor Member of Chi Epsilon, in 1981 Engineer of Distinction
by the Tennessee Technological University, and in 1978 a Hon-
orary Lifetime Member of the American Public Power Associa-
tion. He was the author of more than thirty-five publications.
After his retirement in 1978, Wagner's keen interest in the
work of TVA continued, and on many occasions TVA ant!
countless other organizations called on him to share the benefits
of his experience. Today people who travel the Valley can see the
legacy he left behind. Yet his legacy resides in more than TVA's
concrete and steel. It lives on in the hearts and minds of the TVA
employees. He challenged them as individuals and as an organi-
zation to build a TVA that would mean great things to the region.
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
He had confidence in TVA, and he instilled that confidence in
others. That attitude of confidence and a "can-do" spirit still
serves TVA well today.
On September 13, 1991, the towboat "Red Wagner" was
christened. That boat was chosen to carry his name because it is
a workhorse for TVA, day-in and day-out, like Red was for TVA.
As John B. Waters, TVA director, said at the christening cer-
emony, "I know what this boat can do . . . because last summer it
served as the 'flagship' for my river inspection tour. That 'Voyage
for the Valley' took me the full 650-mile length of the Tennessee
River . . . and this boatnever missed a beet. Redwas like thatfrom
the time he joined TVA. Some of his earliest work at TVA
involved surveying the river banks for the dams that would
follow, so it is appropriate that his name travel the river system
that he helped build."
Red Wagner is missed by everyone who knew and admired
him. But his legacy continues to be a vital force throughout the
Tennessee Valley.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
technological university
