Part of the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project (MS-00818)

Part of the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project (MS-00818)

Part of the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project (MS-00818)

Part of the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project (MS-00818)

Dr. Richard V. Wyman was born in Painesville, Ohio, and lived there until he joined the navy in 1943 at the age of 17. His father got into real estate and insurance in Painesville. Richard's mother graduated from Ohio State with a degree in home economics, worked until she married, and then devoted her life to her family. In high school, Dick took college prep classes. A month before he graduated he joined the Navy and was sent to college part of the time. He got out of the Navy in 1946 and continued on in college with help from the 52-20 club, a type of GI bill. He studied geology in the night school division of Western Reserve. He met his future wife Anne during this time and they were both admitted to Michigan State grad school. After graduate school, Richard and his wife moved to South America where he had been offered a job. His wife eventually taught grade school there, K through 8. They moved back to Prescott, Arizona, where Dick was offered a job with New Jersey Zinc. Art Still then hired him to work for Western Gold and Uranium and the Golden Crown Mining Company, so Richard and Anne moved to St. George, Utah, with their son Bill. In 1959 Dick met with Don McGregor who hired him to build the Marshmallow Tunnel at the Nevada Test Site. He also built the Exchequer Tunnel for the Sunshine Mine in Idaho, and a tunnel in Merced, California. Eventually McGregor asked him to return to the Test Site to work on Project Pile Driver. In 1969 Herb Wells offered Richard a job at UNLV teaching in engineering. He taught statics, strength and materials, surveying, field mapping and geology. He later added engineering economics, engineering management, economic geology, field geology and mineralogy. Richard took a couple of terms as chair of science and engineering, sharing that responsibility with Herb Wells, Bob Skaggs, Ray Martinez, and John Tryon. The program eventually had three civil engineers and could apply to ABET for accreditation. Dick was chair at the time, motivating the faculty to gather everything they needed for the inspections. In the '80s, the Engineering Advisory Council helped the faculty develop a plan for a new engineering building. Faculty members worked with the architect to make sure those classrooms and labs had everything they needed. After moving into the new building, civil engineering forged ahead, creating a PhD program. Over the years, Dick saw the splitting up of the old College of Science, Math, and Engineering into separate disciplines and watched the number of graduates increase from 10 to between 30 and 50. After he retired from UNLV in 1992, Dick did ABET evaluations for about eight years.