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| Number 45, January 2003 |
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| 60 years of ORNL (and counting) |
| Have you ever asked: Why do they call it that? |
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| Lab Notes |
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| Two from Lab take Legislature posts |
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Have you ever asked: Why do they call it that?
If you’ve worked at ORNL long enough, you’ve encountered a place that, frankly, makes you wonder how it got its name or why anyone would ever call it that. Names are like those little yellow note pads: Sometimes they stick, sometimes they don’t and sometimes they wind up in odd places.
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| Whatever Gen. Leslie Groves was saying to this assembly, you can bet it didn’t contain the word “uranium.” |
ORNL Reporter checked on some of the more intriguing nomenclature, both official and otherwise, encountered on the campus or on the reservation. We won’t say that this is an authoritative list, but the stories and reasons behind some names are interesting.
Building numbers. Every structure at ORNL has a number. It helps us find our way around (when we can find the number) and gives the operations staff a specific reference for a particular place.
ORNL once had a different numbering system. According to ORNL Ombudsman and historian Steve Stow, the first building numbering system at ORNL reflected the system at the Hanford site in Washington. The Graphite Reactor was a pilot plant for the Hanford reactors. What is currently Building 3019 was numbered 205 (it’s entombed within 3019). The Graphite Reactor building, currently 3001, was 105.
| All of the code names confused the enemy at the time, and now confuse historians. |
At some point that changed. The current assignor and chronicler of building numbers is ORNL Engineering’s David Smith. According to David, there is rhyme and reason, up to a point, to how structures are numbered.
“Building numbering zones are set up in a grid,” David explains. “For instance, First Street west to Highway 95 and Bethel Valley Road to White Oak Avenue would be 1000-1499.”
David says buildings inside the zones are assigned numbers essentially at random; they don’t necessarily reflect specific points on a grid. “I just take the next number in order and use it, so you could have, arbitrarily, buildings 1000 and 1499 sitting right beside each other. That’s why you sometimes have two adjacent buildings 500 numbers apart.”
Could he, like the phone company, run out of numbers? Sure. “In the 7800-7899 area, we’ve got three numbers left. Those are SWASA (solid waste storage area) numbers, for every trench, every hole in the ground,” David says. “We started using A-B-C, but we try to avoid that.”
David has no idea why, on a campus where even manholes have their own numbers, Buildings 4500 North and South, two of the Lab’s largest and most populated structures, have the same number.
“Building numbers are more for me and you,” David says. “There are also property numbers for each building that are even more specific.”
For the record, the buildings on the Spallation Neutron Source site, which is carved from the 0900 area, will be numbered in the 8000s. On the main campus, the privately funded facilities will be numbered 5700, 5600 and 5800. The state-funded JICS/ORCAS’s number is 5100 and the federally funded Research Support Center will receive 5200.
X-10, Y-12, K-25. Two of the mysterious numbers assigned to the three Oak Ridge sites probably don’t mean anything—they are just random numbers.
“No one seems to know where the name Y-12 came from,” Steve Stow says. “Y was a designation for Los Alamos, but may have also been a notation for uranium. ORNL was site X—possibly for experimental—but the 10 is a mystery.”
Steve discounts the map-coordinate theory. “They never stuck numbers on Hanford (W) and Los Alamos (Y). X-10 and Y-12 most likely were random assignments.”
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| Cold War’s over: Russian visitors pose before the Katie’s Kitchen “silo.” |
K-25, on the other hand, may stand for Kellex, a company formed to run the facility, and shorthand for U-235. “K-25” is attributed to an early manager of K-25, Clark Center. More about him later.
Y-12, the Y-12 National Security Complex, has hung onto its wartime name. Although X-10 is not a preferred name, ORNL is still regarded in some venues as X-10, particularly around the original main campus. K-25 became the East Tennessee Technology Park, eschewing its old name altogether in favor of reindustrialization.
Steve explains some of the numerology of the Manhattan Project: “Plutonium-239 was referred to as ‘49’—the last numbers of element 94 and isotope 239. We see a lot of reference to 49 in documents. Twenty-five was the secret designation for uranium-235— the last numbers in element 92 and 235.”
Steve notes with interest that many building numbers at Y-12 start with 92, which is uranium’s atomic number.
Those secret-decoder-ring numbers were used because Manhattan Project employees were forbidden to even speak words like “uranium” or “plutonium.” A former researcher recalled in the bicentennial issue of ORNL Review (1976) that, on a morning bus ride, his pregnant wife was severely remonstrated by a guard for speaking the word “rhenium,” which the officer mistook for the U-word. He likely didn’t know the difference, but where in 1944 but Oak Ridge would someone be talking about “rhenium” on a bus at seven in the morning?
The late Glenn Seaborg, in a 1989 article, noted that at Berkeley the words “silver” and “copper” were substituted for forbidden “neptunium” and “plutonium.” That backfired: When it became necessary to use real copper, they had to refer to it as “honest-to-god copper.”
All of this surely confused the enemy at the time, and now confuses historians. It can be noted that a regional sausage company advertised its secret ingredients in the 1960s: “X, Z and Y9D.” No telling where they got that.
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| Last one in’s a rotten egg: The Bulk Shielding “swimming pool” Reactor. |
Noms de guerre. Other early appellations for the Oak Ridge area include
- Kingston Demolition Range: The first reference to the ORR.
- Manhattan District
- Clinton Engineering Works (items with CEW tags can still be found around the Lab).
- Dogpatch: Li’l Abner was a popular hillbilly-themed comic strip at the time, situated in the mythical, rustic and poverty-stricken Dogpatch. In several contemporary accounts, government officials sometimes referred to the Oak Ridge site as “Dogpatch.” That’s unfortunate, but Washington has nicknames, too.
Fuel Recycle. Signs for years on Bethel Valley Road at EGCR Access Road pointed to a “fuel recycle” facility. What was actually being referred to was the Robotics and Process Systems Division’s home in Building 7600. The domed structure was originally built for the Experimental Gas-Cooled Reactor and the Liquid-Metal Fast-Breeder Reactor. Those reactors were canceled, and the facility was turned over to the Fuel Recycle Division, which was later renamed Robotics and Process Controls and still later named the Nuclear Science and Technology Division. The building actually had reactor control rooms that were never used as such.
Graphite Reactor, X-10 Pile. The Graphite reactor was originally called “X-10 Pile.” Enrico Fermi and his crew originally “piled” uranium fuel and graphite, which moderated the neutrons, in carefully calculated geometric arrangements. Early instruments would signal “pile on” if the reactor was working. Piles came to be called reactors, which sounds more dignified. As other reactor designs evolved, the use of graphite became an identifiable trait of ORNL’s air-cooled pioneer, thus its name.
Calutron. E.O. Lawrence designed large mass spectrometers for enriching uranium and coined calutron from California University cyclotron. Two national labs in California are named for Lawrence (Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley), so it paid off. The calutrons worked so well they installed 1,152 of them at Y-12, and a remaining few were cranking out stable isotopes for ORNL as recently as a few years ago.
| Although some Lab conveyances resemble golf carts, the “country club” has never had a golf course. |
Swimming-pool reactors. “Swimming” is not what you’d want to do, but a series of reactors built at ORNL in the 1950s were nicknamed “swimming pool reactors” because they were situated in tanks of water for cooling and neutron moderation, similar to the High Flux Isotope Reactor.
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| Chow line at a Clark Center Park picnic. |
The Bulk Shielding Reactor was built for the 1950s nuclear airplane project for research into lightweight materials for shielding. With traditional heavy shielding, even an atomic-powered airplane would likely never get off the ground. The two-megawatt BSR was placed in a pool-sized tank of water, where it could be moved in different areas to test radiation effects on materials.
A smaller reactor, more formally called the “pool critical assembly,” was placed in a corner of the BSR. It was a duplicate of a model that stole the show at an international nuclear power conference at Geneva in 1955. The Swiss actually bought the one at the conference for themselves, but duplicate parts had been made and it was assembled in the tank at the BSR.
The BSR proved to be a very safe design that served as a prototype for many university reactors (few still exist), but they were never used for aquatics, at least not on purpose.
Old Salty. The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment is still called Old Salty, no doubt because of the salt fuel that powered the reactor. “Working at Old Salty today?”
Ramsey Drive. The road from Melton Valley Access Road over to Robotics is named for Mansell Ramsey, an early ORNL operations manager who, according to retired Deputy Director Murray Rosenthal, was very adept at getting things done. Lacking the capital funds for the badly needed road, Ramsey found a way to get the road built anyway, which caused “something of a fuss.” The road came to be called Ramsey Drive, and it still, deservedly, bears Mr. Ramsey’s name.
Lagoon Road. Why this road is called lagoon is a mystery we couldn’t solve. Facilities and Operations staff members speculate it led to holding ponds. At least it isn’t called Creature from the Black Lagoon Road.
Clark Center Park. Often mistakenly referred to as “Clark Center” or “Clark Park,” but there is no geographic place called Clark Center and there is no “center” as such at the park. Clark E. Center was a high official of the Oak Ridge facilities in the early days, and the park was named for him. He was the first Union Carbide manager for all three Oak Ridge sites, coming orginally to work with gas separation at K-25, which he is credited with naming (see above). Center was known to be good with people; he was liked well enough to have a very nice park named for him.
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| About the only sign of Park City is Ernie Shepherd’s initials. |
Park City. When the government people arrived in Bethel Valley in 1942, some of the residents likely had a sinking feeling of déjà vu. They had already been forced to leave their homes to make way for the Norris Dam project or the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In fact, they ruefully called the area, located east of the Lab, “Park City.” As a kid, Ernie Shepherd and his brothers carved their initials in a beech tree, which is still there. Park City is not.
Sandia Road. Steve Stow notes that there is a Sandia Road in the Melton Valley area of the ORR. In the 1960s, researchers from Sandia National Laboratories did thermoconductivity tests on shale in the area, thus the name.
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| The New Frontier, Buiding 2013, was torn down last year. |
New frontier. The recently demolished Building 2013, an early structure that served many purposes, was established in the late 1950s or early ’60s as a central maintenance office—a new idea at the time, according to Atomic Trades and Labor Council Vice President Ed Mee. Maintenance until then was mostly localized among facilities. Support staff referred to it as the “new frontier,” which was also the rubric for a Kennedy Administration theme. The building was referred to as the new frontier until it was torn down last year.
Little Red Schoolhouse. So called because Building 2517 has been the home of ORNL’s training organizations and apprentice programs—the Lab’s center of learning. Ed notes that it was even painted red at one time.
Green door. The ORNL Fabrication Shop, Bldg. 2525, has always had green doors, so it was called the “green door.” Behind the green door is . . . machinery.
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Bootleg shop. The “bootleg shop” was a shop in the 7000 area that had machines, lathes and heat-treating furnaces. “Several craft worked out of there—it was called the bootleg shop because you could get just about anything you wanted made there,” Ed recalls. “If a place couldn’t make something, they’d say, ‘send it to the bootleg shop.’”
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| The New Frontier, Buiding 2013, was torn down last year. |
Ed notes that the large silver-solder sculpture that until recently hung in Building 4500-North’s conference room 240 (formerly the Chem Tech conference room, renamed Tellico) was made in the bootleg shop by request. Fred Hudson was the welder-artist. “He built it in between jobs,” Ed says. “He’d splatter that stuff and mount it until he got what he wanted.”
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| Building 2001, the “Winter Palace” |
Country club. For whatever reason—possibly the Lab’s campus-like atmosphere compared with the more factory-like settings of the neighboring facilities—ORNL is still to this day referred to by some as the “country club.” Although some of our conveyances resemble golf carts, the Lab has never had a golf course. Horseshoe pitching, however, was once a favorite lunchtime sport.
Winter Palace. When UT-Battelle won the ORNL contract competition in October 1999, members of the transition team moved into the Quonset-hut-styled Building 2001. That rustic milieu, accented by cold drafts, rust and peeling paint, earned it the sarcastic sobriquet, “Winter Palace.” On the bright side, that hard winter helped inspire the Lab’s current modernization campaign.
So now you know. —B.C.
For the original ORNL staff, getting here was half the fun
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One of the foremost issues for ORNL employees, if you ask them, concerns transportation. For most of us the commute to and from work is a daily ritual, and we place great importance on its going smoothly.
As we learned in January, one modest snowfall can result in a major transportation event. On a more routine basis, modernization, revised access controls and other changes have affected transportation around and inside the Lab.
Last year, when staff were asked what their chief safety concerns were, traffic on Bethel Valley Road, the two-lane strip that serves ORNL commuters, was ranked number one. The move toward an open campus, with private vehicle parking inside the fence, has resulted in a culture change affecting nearly everyone at ORNL.
A parking council has met for more than a year to try to plan for the loss of old parking spaces, creation of new ones and the generally new way of doing things, including changing traffic patterns around the Lab. They are still meeting, and still planning.
Sixty years ago, planners were faced with a sudden influx of people that had to get to hastily built work places. In 1943, ORNL was a nascent industrial site shrouded in secrecy. The East Tennessee countryside had few good roads. As the industrial mobilization for World War II headed into its climax, even if you had an automobile, you would be lucky to have gas or tires, which were both rationed.
Parking shouldn’t have been too much of a problem because there weren’t so many cars. People rode buses. If you worked at ORNL during the Manhattan Project, chances are you took a bus every now and then, if not all the time. And not just to work. You took a bus practically anywhere you went.
The late George Parker, a chemical engineer who came to work here in 1943 from the Chicago team, described “atrocious” buses that shuttled employees back and forth to work. Some were tractors with trailers equipped with benches, which riders dubbed “cattle cars.” Local historian and Y-12 retiree Bill Wilcox writes that the conveyances were people movers from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
Buses not only took workers to their jobs—the new Oak Ridgers rode the bus to Knoxville, the nearest big city, where their muddy boots earned them the resentment of fastidious merchants. Workers were bused into Oak Ridge from places that are still far away—Chattanooga and Jellico.
Retiree Grady Whitman, who worked at Y-12 starting in 1944, rode the bus. “I didn’t have a car until 1947—gas and tires were rationed,” Grady says. “All you had to do is stand on the corner and a bus would come by. Oak Ridge had the sixth largest bus system in the country. You could to go the terminal and go to the plant or to Knoxville or anywhere in the surrounding area.”
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| Fuel and tires were rationed during the war, and gas lines were probably common. But it was full-service. |
“They called it the Roane-Anderson Company, which was responsible for buses and housing—fall-guys for the Army, I guess,” Grady says.
So what if you did have a car? Maybe if it was new it was a 1940 Ford V-8 sedan, with a three-speed gearbox and hydraulic brakes. Or maybe it was a 1936 Chevrolet, a box-shaped staple of the road that cost about $600 new.
Thus equipped, you had won just half the battle.
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| Motorists who drove on site into controlled areas had to have a sticker on their windshields, affixed to the vehicle exactly as shown. Such a system would be impractical today, as windshields no longer have centerposts. |
“There weren’t any paved roads in Oak Ridge,” Grady says. “It was dusty. No stoplights. MPs (military police) directed traffic during rush times. Some 22,500 people worked at Y-12 alone—it was a mob.”
Local newspaper columnist and ORNL retiree Joanne Gailar lived with her husband at Cove Lake, near Lafollette, and rode their share of buses to X-10 and K-25, where he worked.
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| Back in the Manhattan Project days, many workers endured the long, bumpy bus ride to the X-10 site. So these folks are this issue’s honorary employees. Cool hat. |
“They weren’t all cattle cars. You could take a bus anywhere, but some did drive,” Joanne says. “When we lived at Cove Lake, one man, named Lesh, drove to work. Gas was rationed at the time, and ‘Is this trip necessary?’ signs were everywhere.
“But we all envied Lesh because he had a car.”
Employees could either ride a free bus or drive to X-10, but many rode the bus, according to the Laboratory Protection Division’s 50-year history. Sometimes, according to that record, employees would “forget” they drove in and ride the bus home in the evening. Or maybe they’d rather leave the driving to others after a bad trip in.
“Employees rode the bus from Knoxville and surrounding areas to work, a trip that often took two or three hours because the drivers would lose their way on the continuously changing road system. Staff members recall leaving work at midnight and not getting home until around 5 a.m. because of bus breakdowns, road washouts and other misfortunes,” according the 1993 document by Lab Protection’s Harold Greene and Margie Skipper, both now retired.
| Some recalled leaving work at midnight and not getting home until around 5 a.m. |
Wouldn’t that be nice: Forget worrying about where to park and paying for gas that just went up—just take the bus to work from town. Or grab a nap if you wanted to.
Public transportation has just about vanished from all but the biggest cities and resorts. In Oak Ridge, the only evidence of the once-bustling bus terminal is a street by that name. We don’t ride buses anymore. We love our cars—our air-conditioned, sound-system equipped, comfortable and reliable major investments. Particularly in light of the deprivations of those who preceded us, we should enjoy our vehicles.
Someday these times may be called the “good old days.”—B.C.
Post-Manhattan ORNL saw the future
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Even in the forties, ORNL was regarded as a place that was destined to grow. As can be seen from a 1948 issue of ORNL’s newspaper, The News, planners had designs on what would become the east parking lot long before the Lab’s current modernization campaign.
This architectural sketch, from an angle across Bethel Valley Road looking southwest, shows the preliminary design for what is now the 4500 complex. Building 4501 appears to have happened pretty much according to this plan. Buildings 4500 North and South essentially followed the plan, except that in this drawing the wings face in opposite directions. As built, the buildings’ wings face in toward each other. White Oak Avenue is depicted as a boulevard that runs between the two buildings, a plan similar to what’s in store for Central Avenue.
Not much else went according to this plan. The northernmost building that angles off to the east of 4500 North became the east parking lot. The larger building angling at extreme left sits roughly where Building 5500 now is, although, interestingly, Buildings 5505 and 5510 are laid out in about the same angle as the sketch’s.
The original 4500-North, built in 1952, had only four wings. The easternmost wing—the J and K corridors—was added later. In the hallway, you can see where they join if you look closely.
The east parking lot, of course, is now a construction site for the Lab’s new east campus. The current flagpole parking lot, long a site planner’s preferred piece of real estate, is the site in this sketch for two large buildings that were never built .
“It’s always fun to picture the future,” says Modernization Coordinator Tim Myrick. “ When I look back at our plan from two years ago, it’s amazing how much we changed from that plan even in that short time.”
There are more clips from The News on page 6 of the pdf version.—B.C.
Yesterday's papers
For a look at some news clips from the first year of Reporter's predecessor, ORNL News, click here.
OutstandingUT-Battelle received an “outstanding” rating from DOE in January for its fiscal year 2002 stewardship of ORNL. It’s the first Big-O the Lab has received since ORNL started receiving its own rating, apart from the neighboring two Oak Ridge facilities, in the mid-’90s.
The ratings are determined from three categories—science and technology; operations and environment, safety and health; and community service. Progress on the Spallation Neutron Source and the High Flux Isotope Reactor upgrade were factors in the S&T marks. The modernization campaign boosted the operations and ES&H rating. The Lab received a perfect score for community service in light of its support for science education and new business startups in the region.
“It is difficult to overstate what this accomplishment will mean to the Laboratory’s reputation,” said Lab Director Bill Madia, who noted that an outstanding ranking is not lightly bestowed. “This ranking puts us among the elite, and I want to thank the entire Laboratory staff who made it possible.”
Second million tastes mighty fine
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| Dessert was on ESH&Q Director Kelly Beierschmitt. |
Usually at ORNL, particularly at fund-drive time, when pies are present someone’s going to take one in the kisser. Not so on January 14. We actually ate them.
The apple-pie feast was to celebrate 2002’s second million hours without a lost workday-away case. The last time the Lab racked up two millions in one year was in 1993. Leadership team members, spurred on by ESH&Q Director Kelly Beierschmitt, donned aprons and served slices of pie to Lab staff members to celebrate their doubly-good record of working safely.
Lab managers increased emphasis on safety on the job early last year in an effort to bring down accidents and costs associated with the resulting absences, which were in the upper tiers among the labs.
Kelly singles out the craft organizations for “leading the charge in creating a safer, healthier work environment.”
Operational Safety Services Division Director Carol Scott has numbers showing the progress made last year. “Comparing calendar year 2002 with 2001, we saw a 16 percent reduction in recordable injuries and a 26 percent reduction in lost-workday cases,” Carol says.
Keep working safely.
CEO rides learning-curve crest
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| On a chilly day, Bill Madia (left) takes Battelle CEO Carl Kohrt on a tour of east campus construction. |
Carl Kohrt, in town for business last month, took a tour of the privately funded facilities, which even on the coldest day of the year were buzzing like a beehive. Bill Madia and Engineering’s Gerry Palau escorted the hard-hatted and very engaged Battelle chief executive officer through the cavernous structure on January 24.
Kohrt made a get-acquainted visit to ORNL almost exactly a year ago. He had a great time on that trip but says this most recent trip was even better.
“Then it was good to be learning so much,” he says. “Now I know how fortunate I am to be here. It’s exciting to know and see the quality of content—the assets, resources and people.”
Battelle, he said, is “thinking creatively” on ways to help maximize the scientific investments of the national labs it manages or co-manages for the benefit of the nation. “That’s what we’re focusing on, and I think we’ve made some great progress.”
Kohrt also says Battelle is exploring ways to more efficiently and effectively get its technologies to the marketplace and is refocusing on its industrial sector, a challenge in the current financial climate.
Getting that first year behind him, he says, has both up and down sides. “I can no longer say, ‘Gee, I just got here.”
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| The old post’s exterior could get a sprucing up this spring. |
Sentried portals once protected the approaches to Oak Ridge. Some of the guardhouses have been renovated in recent years, but the one most prominent to ORNL employees, the station at Bethel Valley Road and Illinois Avenue, has remained in an abandoned state.
Hopefully, not for much longer. Team UT-Battelle, once some property details are worked out, aims to organize a volunteer 60th anniversary project for this spring to renovate the exterior of the building. That will involve some roofing, paint and landscaping. The building’s interior won’t be redone; that might be a future project.
Team UT-Battelle’s Bill Pardue, who is ironing out the details, says the parties he is working with think it’s a great idea. If you’re good with a paintbrush, trowel or hammer, stay tuned.
Tornado wrap-up
ORNL staff members contributed nearly $16,000 to victims of the Nov. 10, 2002, tornadoes that struck Cumberland, Morgan and Anderson counties. The homes of two Lab staff members were destroyed along with numerous others.
Community Outreach Manager Brenda Hackworth says that eight agencies that assisted victims in the stricken areas received $1,000 contributions from the fund. They include the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Association, the Medford and Briceville volunteer fire departments and the Anderson, Roane and Morgan county rescue squads.
The remaining funds were divided equally among employees or employee family members directly affected by the disaster. Rebuilding is already well under way. The recipients have expressed their appreciation, Brenda says, and Team UT-Battelle again thanks the Lab employees who again came through in a time of need.
| —Reported by Bill Cabage |
Two from Lab take Legislature posts
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| Montgomery |
Two ORNL employees are serving in the 103rd Tennessee General Assembly and have received their committee assignments.
Richard Montgomery, of the Engineering S&T Division, is serving on the Commerce and Education committees. He also has been elected minority whip by the Republican Caucus. Richard’s 12th District includes much of Sevier County.
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| Hackworth |
Jim Hackworth, who works in ORNL’s Facilities and Operations organization, received committee assignments to the Commerce Committee and Consumer and Employee Affairs Committee and was appointed assistant majority whip.
Jim will also serve as a commitee officer, secretary, to the Consumer and Employee Affairs Committee. A committee-officer assignment is unusual for a freshman legislator, but the retirement of a large number of legislators created the opportunity.
Rep. Dennis Ferguson, who is married to ESTD’s Teresa Ferguson, will serve as secretary for the Commerce Committee and will continue to be a member of the Health and Human Resources, Fiscal Review, and Education Oversight committees.
Agreement to boost ORNL, UT collaborations
A memorandum of understanding between UT-Battelle and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, aims to expand collaboration opportunities for ORNL research staff members. Under the MOU, ORNL researchers can become UT faculty affiliates associated with specific departments.
The faculty affiliate appointments will expand collaboration opportunities for about 1,500 ORNL research staff and will benefit both institutions, says Deputy Director for Science and Technology Lee Riedinger. ORNL faculty affiliates may serve on departmental committees; participate in symposia, academic conferences, speaker programs, and lectures sponsored by the department; and serve as co-principal investigators on research proposals from the UT academic departments to third-party sponsoring agencies.
As a UT faculty affiliate, ORNL research staff will be provided electronic access to scientific journals in the UT Library. UT faculty affiliates are being given a UT network ID, which provides access to selected electronic library resources through the UT Library. For ORNL staff who are not faculty affiliates, the ORNL library staff will provide inter-library loan services between the libraries.
Appointment as a UTK faculty affiliate is determined by an ORNL employee’s category in the ORNL SAP system. ORNL staff with a status of research professional (RP) or research manager (RM), or on a postdoctoral fellowship will qualify for UT affiliation. Other ORNL staff will not be given UT affiliation.
For more information, contact Library Manager Kaye Johnson, 576-0846.
VITA offers tax return help
Need help to fill out and file your tax return? Confused about all the changes in the tax law?
Free help is available through VITA, the IRS-trained Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, now open at the Oak Ridge Mall. VITA’s volunteers will be available from 3 to 8 p.m. every Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. No appointment is necessary. Free electronic filing is available.
Those seeking help in preparing their income tax returns should bring their tax packages, their W-2 forms, 1099 statements and other tax records, including last year’s return, with them. ORNL retirees John Murray and Mike Lundin are the Oak Ridge coordinators of this free public service.
New Staff Members
ORNL is growing. This new feature lists new employees at the Lab. Welcome all.
Shengjun Yin, Computational Sciences & Engineering
Gayle Green, Spallation Neutron Source
Volker Urban, Chemical Sciences
Jerry Dean Martin, Fusion Energy
Gregory Scott McIntyre, Human Resources & Diversity Programs Directorate
Melissa Bryant, Logistical Services
Angela Galyon, Logistical Services
Judson Hightower, Legal Services
Christian Cardall, Physics Division
Tracy Brummett, Metals & Ceramics
Chris Cantwell, Operational Safety Services
Steven Carter, Computer Science & Mathematics
Gregory Pike, CSMD
Mariehelene Cousineau, SNS
Timothy Edgemon, M&C
Laura Lewis, Logistical Services
ORNL people
Corporate Fellow Tom Wilbanks, of the Environmental Sciences Division, has been appointed to the Board of Earth Sciences and Resources of the National Research Council. Tom will advise the board on applying social science and technological knowledge and perspectives to sustainable development issues—particularly in the areas of solving energy challenges in developing countries and understanding responses to climate change concerns.
Larry Satkowiak has been named deputy program director for nuclear nonproliferation programs. He will be responsible for directing the Laboratory’s existing programs, managing program strategies and coordinating the relationship with nonproliferation customers.
John Sheffield was recently named senior fellow by the Joint Institute of Energy and Environment, a collaboration of ORNL, the University of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Bob Shelton, director of program management for the Engineering S&T Division, has been appointed the new director of the JIEE, succeeding John.
ORNL received two of five excellence awards from the nine-state, 40 federal laboratory Southeast Region Federal Laboratory Consortium. ORNL also received one Honorable Mention Award. Winners of Excellence in Technology Transfer awards were “Automated Image Retrieval System for Semiconductor Yield Improvement,” by Regina Ferrell, Shaun Gleason, Bruce Jatko, Tom Karnowski, Ken Tobin and Bobby Whitus, and “Carbon Composite Bipolar Plate,” by Ted Besmann, Tim Burchell, John Henry Jr. and James Klett. Honorable mention went to “Expression Data Clustering Analysis and Visualization Resource (EXCAVATOR),” by Dong Xu, Ying Xu and Victor Olman.
ORNL office: P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6146, Building 4500-S, Room F-60, MS 6146
ORNL help line (ethics; fraud, waste and abuse; quality; ES&H)
576-9000
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Bill Cabage, lead editor, ORNL, 574-4399 (cabagewh@ornl.gov)
Deborah Barnes, associate editor, 576-0470 (barnesds@ornl.gov)
Ombudsman: 576-7802
DOE inspector general hotline: 1-800-541-1625