Clair Palmer - Sewer Pipe Sailor

Clair Palmer

(That's Clair, front & center)

All of our wine educators are interesting people. For that reason, I've encouraged each of them to share their stories with us.

The (short) Autobiography of Clair Palmer

Born in Culver City, California, but lived all over the state in interesting towns like Turlock, Oakdale, Modesto, Tracy, Manteca, Alameda & Oakland – All in 10 years. I saw a lot of different grade schools. My father was a carpenter and went to where the work was during the depression. Finally Oakland, he drove to Richmond to build Victory/Liberty ships. He was a Joiner Supervisor. But we moved during WWII and it took us four weeks to drive to Seattle because of the wartime gasoline rationing - The coupon book.
Grew up in the Seattle area and fortunately the Korean conflict put me in the Navy, and I spent 10 years, most of the time in submarines - Sewer Pipe Sailor. I was stationed in Pearl Harbor on a submarine and I met my true love, Audrey on Kalua Beach. She was in the Islands going to the university of Hawaii for a Public Health Degree. We were married at Mare Island in the beautiful St. Peters Chapel, which was the second oldest chapel in the Navy. We had three daughters over time, and we are still married after 54 years.
When I got out of the Regular Navy, the GI Bill got me through the University of Washington with a forestry chemical degree.
I stayed in the Seattle area working for a chemical company for six years, but like my father, moved on. I got interested in Agricultural Chemicals and spent the next 35 years working in the industry. I was hired in New York city as the first American in BASF’s United States group – Myself and a German Ex-patriot. My job was placing experimental agricultural chemicals in all state universities that had an Ag-Chem program, and setting up an Ag-Chem research farm in Greenville Mississippi. From that job, I then moved into Product Management and Sales Management. I worked all the states either in R & D or sales except Alaska. But a clever head-hunter convinced me there was gold in them hills, and I moved on. This time my job was the World Ag Chem market. I had an office in Brussels, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo with people who could communicate with the business, because I do not speak any language besides English. Working rice in Asia was a challenge since not one word was close to anything I have heard before, so I smiled a lot. Bananas in Mindanao, Central America, the Caribbean and South America for protection from Nematodes, was probably the most interesting business. But this all came to an end with consolidation of the Ag Chem business. I ended up in Florida at an Ag-Chem research farm ten houses later (if you move enough, you don’t have to paint the house).
I retired from three companies. Finally the odyssey is over and I transferred myself to Napa, California, and now I will have to paint a house… besides play a lot of tennis.