Truckin' on the Western Branch

Herb Haneman Jr. Herb Haneman Jr., President and CEO of Western Branch Diesel, grew up in West Norfolk. His father built the family home, a Cape Cod bungalow, down the street from Western Branch Diesel, the company that the senior Haneman and Roy Sorrell started in 1946. When the company started, they bought surplus U.S. military engines to rebuild and sell to the marine market—fishing and oyster boats. I loved growing up in West Norfolk. Kids were always outdoors. A fair number of us played on the water. We had little runabout boats and our parents knew we could handle the water. West Norfolk had two grocery stores, West Norfolk Baptist Church and a Methodist church. The social life was in the churches. We played informal sports, pick-up games. We were free to go out to play after dinner until we heard the 9 o’clock gun at the shipyard. It would be nice if kids today had the security and freedom that we had here. Back then people looked out for each other.

Herb Haneman Jr. Images by Sheally

Western Branch Diesel. Images by Sheally

After Churchland High, Haneman enlisted in the Coast Guard for four years and traveled extensively during his service. He was drawn back, however, to West Norfolk by his love for his father—and engines—and his dream of working at Western Branch Diesel. By then the company had 80 employees. He lived with his parents, went to a Norfolk business college and worked at Western Branch Diesel as a technician, a trainer and a salesman. He was just 28 when his father died and he took on a managerial role. “Then West Norfolk residents worked at Virginia Chemicals, the shipyard, Dunn Marine, Associated Naval Architects, and Western Branch Diesel,” he said. “Western Branch Diesel’s heritage is marine but our business is big generator sets—engines 2000–3000 HP—and occasionally small home generators. The coal industry has an impact on Hampton Roads, and we help mine the coal in West Virginia that is shipped from ports here.” William Alton “Al” Spradlin William Alton “Al” Spradlin, now Chesapeake’s General Registrar, joined Virginia Chemicals in 1961, his first job out of the Army, working as a research lab assistant. Today he is the last surviving member of the former Virginia Chemical’s upper management and its self-appointed historian. Spradlin, who grew up in the Newtown section of Portsmouth, married Mary Jane Sullivan, from West Norfolk, in West Norfolk Baptist Church where Damon Wyatt was the pastor. Her father, David C. Sullivan, and grandfather, William W. Sullivan, worked at the smelter and kept the plant running when the Eustis family, along with other management families, left West Norfolk for the winter. David Sullivan was a teenager when he started working for his father in the SO 2 (sulfur dioxide) plant. He died of a heart attack in the plant just a month short of his 60th birthday, never having worked anywhere else.

Mary Jane Spradlin lost her uncle, William Sullivan, in an accident in the zinc sulfate plant. Several workers cleaning out a large tank were overcome with a residual gas. Sullivan went into the tank and rescued two of the workers. When he re-entered the tank to get the third worker, he was overcome and both men died. Sullivan

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