R: No, although I had taken nearly all the hours required. But Dean Matherly said, "I
 have got this call from Fort Myers, they asked me to recommend someone for the
 chamber job, and I have recommended you."

P: This is directing the chamber?

R: Executive director of the Lee County Chamber of Commerce, as it was called. Dean
 Matherly had so much influence, I found out much later, that although the
 committee thought they knew whom they were going to hire, when Matherly
 recommended me, they felt an obligation to interview Dean Matherly's candidate.
 They owed that much to him.

P: They were probably former students.

R: I am sure some of them were [former students]. So I said to Mary, "Here is what
 happened." Then a couple of days later I get this call [asking], "Will you come down
 for an interview?" So we start driving down to Fort Myers, and we drive and we
 drive and we drive. Mary says, "Where are we going?" We finally get here, and, of
 course, the car was not air conditioned, nothing was air conditioned, and it was
 hotter than Hades.

 So I stopped at a little motel and ask them if they have a day rate. I went in and
 took a shower and got dressed and went to the chamber office. I probably should
 not make this part of the record, but I am going to. A fellow named Tony Dwyer
 was the chamber executive officer, and I asked for him and I say, "How do you do?
 I am Alan Robertson; I am here to be interviewed for the job." He said, "I do not
 know what you are doing here, you are just wasting your time. They are going to
 hire my good friend from Key West [Florida], and [Dwyer keeps talking] so on, and
 so forth."

P: What a welcome. [Laughter]

R: I said, "Well, all that may be true, all I know is the committee invited me down for
 an interview and I am going to go to the interview." He said, "Well, they are waiting
 for you up here at this address." I go up there and I have the interview with this
 group of prominent, local citizens, and we have a very good interview. I say to them,
 "You know, if you are looking for a kind of a hail fellow, well-met, slap-them-on-
 the-back, big cigar type, you do not want to talk to me. If you are looking for
 someone who will really research things, who will really try to work with people, who
 will be involved in what you think you need for the community, then I would like
 very much to leave the academic world and pursue a career." So we talked and
 talked and talked, and they thanked me, and they had asked me where I was staying,
 and I told them I had gotten this motel for the day rate and my wife was with me
 because she wanted to see the community. So when I got back to the motel, the
 hotel owner is waiting for me and he is all excited.



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