This is an edited transcript of an oral history interview of Robert Murphy conducted by Volker Janssen. Topics mentioned in the interview include: Skunk Works ; production engineering; security and classification; labor unions; workforce demographics. Robert Murphy was born April 17, 1930, in Hoosick Falls, New York. After graduating high school in 1947 he joined the air force and went through aircraft mechanic training. He worked as a mechanic on the Berlin airlift, and then as a mechanics instructor. After discharge from the air force in 1952 he went to California and got a job at Lockheed in Burbank, installing hydraulic and fuel lines. He worked his way up to flight-line mechanic in Palmdale and then in 1954 joined Lockheed’s Skunk Works. He worked as a mechanic supervisor on the U-2 aircraft, including stints at bases in Japan and Turkey, and then on the A-12 and SR-71, and finally on Have Blue and the F-117, eventually rising to head of manufacturing at the Skunk Works. He retired from Lockheed in 1986 at age 55. [Object file name], Aerospace Oral History Project, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
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