Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2007-010-008
Tom Katus served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanganyika from 1961 to 1963 on a road surveyor project (Tanganyika I). Katus had an engineering degree from the South Dakota School of Mining. His group trained at Texas Western College in El Paso. They met President Kennedy at a Rose Garden ceremony in August 1961, then helped set up the Peace Corps Outward Bound training camp in Puerto Rico. The group also had in-country training with an emphasis on learning Swahili. Katus worked under a British regional engineer based in Morogoro. He and fellow volunteer Jerry Parsons did field survey work, such as basic road mapping and market surveys, as part of a feeder road development program. After his tour, Katus founded Volunteer Training Specialists, Inc., which provided training to 2,000 Peace Corps volunteers destined for Africa. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, September 15, 2006. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).