THE CHILDHOOD THAT HELPED SAVE AMERICA'S WILDERNESS. In 1858, a boy was born to a wealthy merchant family in New York City. He was frail, nearsighted and asthmatic, and much of his boyhood was a contest between sickness and health. His name was Theodore Roosevelt. When he was twelve, his parents introduced him to the rigors of the Northeastern forests. Young Roosevelt's health not only underwent a remarkable improvement in the fresh air. He also discovered a love of nature that became a lifelong passion. Some thirty years later when he was our twenty-sixth President, this early enthusiasm alerted him to a great danger. Our Western forests were being reduced so rapidly they might not survive even a few more decades. While vested interests were determined the government should not intervene in this destruction, the average American still believed the West was sufficiently vast to endure indefinitely. Roosevelt knew better and he acted swiftly. By Executive proclamation, he created twenty-one new Federal Forest Reserves in just ten days. A total of some sixteen million acres were permanently set aside in six Northwestern states. Theodore Roosevelt not only preserved a huge landscape of enduring beauty; he also assured the nation a continued source of water power, as well as timber and mineral reserves. At Union Carbide we have a special appreciation for his contribution because
foresight is an integral part of our success in managing our 4.7 billion pound hydrocarbon production facilities. More than 1300 miles of pipeline, for example, link our processing plants not only to our suppliers but also to many of our Gulf Coast customers. A storage capacity of nearly thirteen million barrels effectively cushions us against temporary hydrocarbon shortages and assures our customers their needs will be met. Major research advances have continued to expand our production capacity in the face of political uncertainty. Our Advanced Cracking Reactor pilot plant is designed to operate over an extremely broad range of feedstocks, including raw crude oil. Depending upon availability, we will easily switch from one raw material to another without interrupting production. In fact, to assure ourselves of a longrange supply of ethylene, propylene and benzene, weVe developed resources which stand unmatched today in both flexibility and reliability. You see, when it comes to hydrocarbons we don't want anyone saying we failed to see the forest for the trees.
PEOPLE PLANNING THE FUTURE. UNION CARBIDE Chemicals and Plastics
