The One-Man Think Tank at USC

Sixty-five years after he invented a problem-solving technique that remains a valuable tool in government and industry, C. C. Crawford is still hard at work. The USC scholar turned 89 on Sunday.

He developed the Crawford Slip Technique while teaching at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh in 1921. It involves the meticulous organization and manipulation of data--literally beginning with the writing of bits of information on separate slips--and has been used in hundreds of studies for groups including the Air Force and major corporations and universities.

Most recently, the white-haired professor emeritus, who first taught at USC 60 years ago, employed the technique to help the university’s dental school develop a course on dental ethics.

Time has not dimmed his view of the seriousness of his task.

“My mission is a national one to improve the national economy so we can get our work done with less cost, delay and trouble and can compete in the world,” he said recently at his white-stucco hilltop home south of Baldwin Hills. He and his late wife built the two-story, five-bedroom house in 1930.

‘Want to Help’

“Millions of our people are doing tasks they don’t know how to do and our employers don’t know how to teach them. I want to help the big companies to get what’s known by one person written down so that it can be learned by anyone who follows in that job.”

He strives to reach that goal by working as a consultant with the USC Productivity Network, part of the School of Public Administration, which helps organizations improve their efficiency.

Two years ago, at age 87, he helped teach a class in the school, and he still visits weekly to teach and consult. (His age is not a record for the campus. According to the USC Emeriti Center, which aids retired faculty and staff, an emeritus professor of biological sciences, Irene McCulloch, worked on campus this year until she stopped at age 100. A spokesman said, however, that the center makes no tabulation of ages of older faculty.)

Crawford keeps busy away from campus, too. At his home he trims the ivy and the trees and works in his immaculate wood shop, and a few months ago he climbed out a narrow second-story window to repair the roof below.

“Last summer I went by his house and he was . . . painting it,” said Gilbert Siegel, a professor of public administration and director of the Productivity Network.

Crawford also does a great deal of consulting work from his house. The professor carries out most of his creative work for the Slip Technique in a first-floor room that is lined with books.

Often when an organization is on the telephone asking him for help, he sits in a reclining chair, using the position to put his mind in what he calls “mental low gear.” Then, sliding a table in front of him, he writes ideas one at a time.

Ideas ‘Like Kleenex’

“Each idea I write is like Kleenex,” he said. “It pulls the next one into place.”

When he runs out of ideas, he bands the notations together and may rest on a bed in the room. Later he gets up to write more thoughts. The octogenarian never gets criticized for lying down on the job; he only wins praise and new contracts.

Afterward, he takes the notes downstairs to a narrow room with a long table where he files groups of thoughts in cardboard boxes with slotted shelves he created.

Nearby, a six-foot wall shelf holds the results of his past classifications of ideas: 19 books and scores of instructional manuals he authored.

The manuals include a Korean War publication written to teach aerial combat to pilots at nine Air Force bases.

Life-or-Death Effort

“I saw men dying in fighter training because of not knowing how to make a pullout from a dive,” he said. “It was my biggest experience because I was using every ability I had . . . in a situation that meant life or death.”

A 1975 study attempted to aid team delivery of primary health care at the Los Angeles County Health Services Department while a 1979 investigation recommended improvements in the development and acquisition of weapons at the Defense Systems Management College at Ft. Belvoir in Virginia.

Organizational effectiveness has been Crawford’s major concern since he arrived at USC in 1926, the year the football team started its rivalry with Notre Dame. He recalls that year’s campus well.

“The whole college was in a state of decay,” he said. “The bookstore was across the street in a red shack-like building that looked like a barn. The dental school was at Exposition and Figueroa and had many resemblances to a barn also, including a padlock on the front door when it was closed for the weekend.”

Years Away From USC

Crawford remained at USC until 1956, when he became a private management consultant for 10 years--a move he came to regret.

“That was possibly a wrong move,” he said. “As an independent I did not get the leads I would have if I had been connected with the university.”

He retired for a few years, resumed consulting in the mid 1970s and rejoined USC in 1982 when the School of Public Administration asked him to run a study.

The Productivity Network developed from that experience, and Crawford has helped put on numerous workshops and classes.

“He’s amazing,” said Siegel, 56. “I’ve done weekend workshops with him. He has to take a nap once in a while. But basically at the end, I’m pretty tired and he’s in pretty good shape. He’s indefatigable.”

Crawford, who was widowed in 1963 and was divorced from his second wife a decade later, says he would enjoy sharing his life with a woman.

‘Welcome a Good Marriage’

“I would still welcome a good marriage if I could find a woman who had the same kind of mission I do (in my work),” he said.

But the professor, who is childless, gives the impression that he won’t be unhappy if Miss Right doesn’t materialize. His work is his passion.

“I get a thrill out of each of them (projects),” he said. “The same kind of thrill that a parent gets out of having a baby. I feel pretty good that I can do something that is worthwhile that nobody else can do. . . .

“You know how they say ‘Go along with me. The best is yet to be?’ Well, my best is right now. I dreamed up this USC Productivity Network. The university has adopted it. We’re expanding it. . . . (This interview) is a step forward to let the world know that it exists. That’s a pretty good monument.”