Vagabond Years

About the Book

Allan Wilson Cates grew up in the poverty-stricken hills of North Arkansas in the 1940s and 1950s. At age sixteen, he joined the U.S. Army, and after serving two years, he hitchhiked north in search of work. It was 1956, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t have to answer to anyone. For the next 40 years, he built airports, dams, and hydroelectric and nuclear power plants from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the Bering Sea. While he started as a nonskilled laborer, he’d end up overseeing teams of engineers and retired from the apex of management with the University of Texas System, in Austin, Texas. In this memoir, he looks back at his magnificent career as well as the adventures he enjoyed visiting more than seventy countries. Join a man who worked his way to the top—and had a great time doing it—and see places you’ve only dreamed of visiting—with Vagabond Years.

About the Author

Allan Wilson Cates grew up in the poverty-stricken hills of North Arkansas. He served in the Army for two years, and after leaving, worked in ten states within ten years. He focuses on that time in Vagabond Years.