Tales from the Morgue: 1965: Public Works Director George Dieter Back In Uncle’s Town

August 22, 1965

By Hugh Morgan

It was only natural for George Dieter to move to El Paso in 1962 to become the City’s public works director, probably the highest appointive position in the City government.

He had his roots in El Paso. But he did not know how strong they were until recently when he found that his great uncle, John Philipp Dieter, was a member of El Paso City Council in the 1880s.

His great uncle was a partner in an import and jobber firm. He arrived in El Paso from his native Germany in 1873.

In 1901, the great uncle brought Dieter’s father from Germany to El Paso. Dieter’s father remained in the Sun City until 1906 when he went to San Francisco to enter the construction business. He later moved to Austin and formed a construction firm.

His son George was born Feb. 15, 1918 in Austin. He attended Austin high School and the University of Texas where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1940.

It was a long road that Dieter trod before arriving in El Paso.

After graduation, he worked for a steel company in Houston as a design engineer. He joined the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers in September 1941 at Galveston and helped to build airports and Army camps.

In August 1942, Dieter became an engineering cadet in the Army Air Corps. In December while he was still a cadet, he was married to Nancy Jane Phelps of Austin.

Dieter was commissioned an officer on Feb 22, 1943. Trained in engineering maintenance, he worked at various air fields in the U.S. before being sent to the South Pacific. He served at Iwo Jima and Saipan.

MAKES VISIT

And then Dieter made his first visit to El Paso but he did not stay long. He was discharged from the Army at Ft. Bliss on April 1, 1946. And he returned to work for the Galveston, Tex., office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

As a project engineer, he worked on such items as dams in Coleman, San Angelo and Whitney, Tex., and military construction at Big Spring and Lubbock, Tex.

In 1953, he had fulfilled his goals as being a project engineer for the corps, so he decided to do something else. He became director of Planning and Traffic Department for the City of Lubbock.

In September 1956, he became public works director in Waco, a job he held until he came to El Paso, where he takes the same intensive interest in the City as his great uncle.

Dieter is in love with El Paso, its progress and its potential.

He has a unique combination of traits that suits him for the job. He knows his engineering trade, which is so vital to his position as the man in charge of all the technical departments in El Paso, including overseeing all the bond issue projects approved last year.

And it may appear that he becomes nervous but this is not the case. He has an overabundance of patience and he does not mind spending hours listening to a person’s complaints or hearing a detailed explanation of some project.

Dieter has one precious quality. He has a wonderful sense of humor, which he depends on often. At times, seems everybody in town wants to talk with him. On many occasions he has had more than 20 telephone slips waiting for him after a two-hour absence from his office.

ANSWERS CALLS

But Dieter takes pains to try to get these calls answered and to see that everything in his area of responsibility is going smoothly.

All of this does not detract from his interest in other segments of community life. A quietly but deeply religious man, he is the church librarian at the First Baptist Church. He is also active in other church affairs.

He belongs to numerous professional societies and associations.

Dieter also is an outdoorsman. He has a cabin in the Gila wilderness of Southern New Mexico where he spends his leisure time hunting and fishing.

Dieter’s real first name is Philipp. But since having the same name as his father, he has been known by his middle name of George.

The Dieters have a 15-year-old son, who has the name of Philipp G. Dieter III and also have a daughter, Pamela Jane a senior at Baylor University, who was married this summer.

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