| Notes |
- Gene was born in Petersburg, Virginia on January 7, 1930 at the Petersburg Hospital. The hospital at that time was located at the intersection of Washington Street and Madison Street. He is the oldest of the two children born to Arthur and Lillian Cogle Barlow. His brother, William Maurice is three and a half years younger.
Since Gene's birthday was in January, he began Elementary School in February 1936, shortly after his 6th birthday. At that time, one could begin school in September or February, depending upon age. Having begun school shortly after his 6th birthday, he was usually the youngest in his class. When he was seven, the family moved to Colonial Heights, just across the river from Petersburg, and Gene began the second part of the second grade, designated as 2H. Grades were identified as 2L and 2H, or whatever the school year may have been.
Gene attended the Colonial Heights Elementary School through the seventh grade. While in the sixth and seventh grades, he was on the school Safety Patrol and was promoted to Lieutenant in the seventh grade. In those days, the Safety Patrol was a much more coveted position than in modern times. One was elected to a position by the entire student body.
Upon leaving the elementary school, Gene attended the Bolling Junior High School in Petersburg. At that time, the only school in Colonial Heights was the one elementary school. Bolling Junior High was what is known in the nineties as an Intermediate school and consisted of grades six, seven and eight. Having already completed the seventh grade, students from Colonial Heights only had to attend the eighth grade and then went to Petersburg High School. While in Junior High, Gene played the part of Scrooge in the Christmas play and then became interested in the band since he had been taking private trumpet lessons. He stayed in the band through the first year of high school but was not a good musician and really didn't care too much for that type of activity. Before the beginning of his second year in High School, his friend, Charlie Willis, encouraged him to try out for the football team. Gene did and really liked it. He played on the Junior Varsity the first and second year on the team and was substituting for varsity players frequently during the second year.
During those times, high school only consisted of three years and one's total schooling was only eleven years. So, Gene's second year on the football team was in fact to be his last year. Having found football to be exhilarating and fun, he made a decision! First, if he were to graduate from the 11 year system on time, it would have been shortly after his 16th birthday and he believed that was too young, especially if he were going off to college. So what to do. He conferred with his coach, and some of his teachers. A plan was developed for him to fail in several subjects, preventing him from graduating, but letting him remain eligible for the football team. The results, Gene remained in high school, played two more years on the varsity and graduated shortly after his 18th birthday. While in high school, he was on the baseball team and was a member of several clubs. In his senior year, he was elected President of the Varsity Club. Also, during this time frame, he took flying lessons and he and a friend subsequently bought an airplane.
In February of 1948, on week after graduating from high school, he entered Randolph Macon College. Not having a clue as to which direction to go in an education, he somewhat floundered for two years and at that point learned that he was about to be called into the military. In August of 1950, Gene enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. Since he loved flying and had a pilot's licence, his intent was to apply for the Flying Cadets Corps upon finishing basic training but that wasn't to be. There was a six month waiting list and then no guarantee that one would get in. He learned that he had been selected to go to the Air Traffic Control School so that was fine with him. In fact, it was more than fine since that decision launched a long and satisfying career. After completing technical training in Air Traffic Control, in March of 1951, Gene was assigned Furstenfeldbruk,a base in Germany, to begin on the job training. That assignment was another blessing in that at the time, our country was engaged in a war in Korea and many of the military went to the far east. After being in Germany for six months, volunteers were requested to be assigned to a base in England. He decided to do that and was assigned to Lakenheath, an Air Force base in East Anglica, not to far from Norwich. He spent a little less than a year and a half there and then transferred to RAF Sculthorpe, another U.S. base north of Lakenheath, near the North Sea. During the stay at Sculthorpe, he was promoted to Staff Sargent and selected as Tower Chief. In April of 1954, Gene received orders to rotate back to the U.S. and at the time, had four months left on his four year enlistment. After returning, the Air Force made him an offer. If he would re-enlist, he would be promoted to Tech Sargent and reassigned to a base in the U.S. If he would not re-enlist, the Air Force said that it would be too costly to reassign him for just four months and would offer him an Honorable Discharge. Gene asked that if he re-enlisted, would they reassign him back to England. The answer was no because at that time, only one tour overseas at a time was permitted, so Gene elected to be discharged.
After returning to civilian life, Gene went to work for his father in the automobile business. He had saved his money and went searching for an airplane. Within a few months, he found a 1946 Cessna 120 with only 650 hours total time on the aircraft. That's analogous to buying an 8 year old automobile with only 33,000 miles on it. He loved the aircraft and flew every weekend. Then in late 1954, he met his future wife, Shirley Williams. He had known her before and if fact, had taken her flying when he was home on leave from England around Christmas of 1952.
Gene and Shirley were married in October of 1955 and moved into one of his father's houses in Colonial Heights. Gene had never liked the automobile business and Shirley was not crazy about her job. They talked about their options and Shirley encouraged Gene to apply for a job with the Civil Aeronautics Asministration as an air traffic controller. Long story short, all the paper work and interviews were done and he was sent a telegram to report to the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center at Washington National Airport. That was the beginning of a long and extremely satisfying career. Shirley was able to get a government job as well and was selected to be the secretary to the Chief of the Control Tower at National Airport.
Gene proceeded through the training process at the Center and was ready to begin on the job training. Then fate entered the picture again. Shirley was pregnant with their first child, Lisa, and in her eighth month, would have to resign. About the same time, a developmental controller position became open at the Control Tower at National. Gene bid on the position and was selected, again another move in August. Shirley did not return to work for many years so that she could stay home with their budding family. The Civil Aeronautics Administration was reorganized and the name changed in 1958 to the Federal Aviation Agency, (FAA). In 1958, Gene and Shirley bought their first home in Vienna, Virginia and in 1961, their second daughter, Mary, was born.
In due time, Gene was qualified as a full performance radar and tower controller and loved the work. He would tell people that he couldn't believe that he was paid to have so much fun working. In 1962, he was selected to be part of a team to study and develop new air traffic control procedures for the Washington area airspace. In 1964, he was promoted to a Team Supervisor position and remained in that position until 1969 when he was selected to be a Watch Supervisor at the Washington Dulles Control Tower and Radar Facility. In early 1972, Gene was requested to become part of team to organize the operational portion of the planned air show to be held at Dulles in the summer of 1972. The show was billed as a transportation show and called TRANSPO 72. It turned out to be the largest air show ever to be held anywhere. Gene's assignment was monumental in that he was responsible for designing air traffic procedures for handling the anticipated influx of aircraft throughout the duration of the show, oversee the design and publishing of all the necessary aeronautical charting required and a multitude of other tasks. He worked part time on this project for about eight 8 months and full time for six months, some of the days being 18 hours of work. When the show began, he was responsible for running the air activity from the control tower. This was done from 8:30 in the morning to 7:30 in the evening for ten consecutive days. This was a project that he throughly enjoyed but commented that he didn't believe that he would want to go through it again.
In 1973, Gene was selected to co-chair a working group of controllers and supervisors to develop air traffic control procedures and routing with the objective of improving traffic flow and efficiency to the major airports in the Washington Metro area. A caveat was that there was little or no funding to make any major changes in navigational aids and such. In early 1974, the task was completed and was deemed a worthwhile effort.
In 1974, while at work one day, Gene received a phone call from a former supervisor who was then the Deputy Director of Air Traffic Control. He asked Gene to come to work for him in the FAA Headquarters in Washington. Gene and Shirley talked it over and as much as he loved his work, he thought it only fair to get away from 18 years of shift work and take a day job, so the decision was made to accept the offer. One week later, in August again, he was on the job as a specialist in the Terminal Procedures Branch. This branch developed new air traffic procedures nationwide as well as clarify existing procedures to the field. Gene was there about a year when again in August, the Director of Air Traffic asked him to work as his Special Assistant. He did that until he bid on a position in Houston, Texas. The position was that of Deputy Manager of Houston tower and approach control. He was selected and reported on July 5, 1976.
After nearly eighteen months at Houston, Gene did not have the job satisfaction that he had experienced before. Again, he and Shirley talked it over and decided a change was necessary. At that time, Lisa was at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and Mary was with them in Houston. Gene made a call to his former boss, the Director, and that was all that it took. Gene reported for duty back in Washington at his old job in procedures. This was January 1978. Shirley and Mary came along about a month later after the house was sold. Shirley did not work at all during the stay in Houston and took a part time job back in Virginia as a school secretary. She worked part time until Mary went to college at the University of Richmond, then she went to full time.
After a few months back in Washington, the Director asked Gene to come up again and work as his Special Assistant until they could find someone to fill the position. This position was used to provide an overview for those specialists who had aspirations of moving back to the field in a management position. Exposure to the Air Traffic Service from the top was invaluable to someone going back to the field. About a year later, Gene was still in the position and along about that time, the Director retired. Three directors and around seven years later and still in the Special Assistant position, Gene retired from the FAA on January 3, 1986.
Another former boss had retired and had formed his own company. He had a contract with the FAA to train air traffic controllers throughout the nation. In November of 1987, he called Gene and asked him to come to work for him. Again Gene and Shirley talked it over and decided it might be fun and some travel might be involved. Gene was hired as an Operations Manager with oversight for the company training in Anchorage, Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Chicago. It turned out to be a lot of fun and when the company won a contract to train Russian and Chinese controllers, Gene was assigned to develop a ten week training course to be held at the University of Alaska and the University of North Dakota. Considerable travel was necessary and Gene took Shirley along on four of the trips to Alaska. They both fell in love with Alaska. Gene retired from that job in April of 1995 at the age of 65. Shirley continued to work until just before "August" of 1995 when they moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Gene and Shirley love it in Fredericksburg and are very involved and attached to their church, the Fredericksburg Baptist Church. Gene stays busy with several hobbies, work at church and helping others less fortunate. His hobbies consist of photography, picture framing, genealogy and associated research, computers, and simulation flying on the computer. Both daughters are married with families. Lisa has two girls, Rachel and Hannah and Mary has one girl, Jessica Marie and one boy, Nicholas Cole.
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