Manager, AEC Dayton Area Office

Sometime in late March of 1976, Vince Vespe called me into his office, and said, “Herm wants to see us.” Herm, was Herm Roser, the Albuquerque Operations Office Manager for the Atomic Energy Commission. Vince was my supervisor in the Weapons Development Division where I had the responsibility of coordinating the “process development” activities of the National Weapons Labs, that is Sandia Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California.

Herm wasted no time, he said, “Andy, I would like for you to take over the Manager’s position at Dayton." The offer was completely unexpected by me. But I accepted.

As Manager, DAO-AEC

With Senior Staff                                              Inspection by Tom Clark

So I came home and told Isabel, “We are moving to Ohio!” She did not say much, but the look in her face told me she was not happy about it. Having been an Air Force wife she knew she would do what she had to do. So we talked it over and decided I would go by myself and after school let out in June, Monica, Cissy and Isabel would follow. I so advised Vince.

At the Weapons Development Division, when Vince broke the news, to the other members of the Division there were some obvious expressions of surprise, anger and disappointment. Apparently at least two of the five other members of the staff had had their eye on the opening at Dayton.

I think that, to ease the tense moment, Vince then asked me. "Since you are going by yourself at first, Andy, which of your many cars are you going to take. Your ’58 Dune Buggy, your ’73 Olds, your ’57 Ford Thunderbird, or that old truck you have parked out there?" I couldn’t answer just then, but I said, “I’ll leave the Olds for the family here.” The Office Wise Guy was heard to comment, "It doesn't matter which car he takes, he'll never find the Mound!"

Then early in April, on a cold cloudy morning I set out in my ’57 blue T-bird. At Shamrock, Texas I ran into real bad weather and also busted a fan belt and got it replaced at a filling station along the way. When I got to Miamisburg, Ohio the next day it was very foggy and I was very tired, I checked into a Motel, called the office and told the Acting Manager that I would be in the next morning. I knew that the T-bird was sick, so I requested that I be picked up.

In June Isabel and Monica went up with me on a house-hunting trip. It was a bad time of the year to go. The Miami Valley industrial smut was really heavy and Monica turned out to be allergic to it. She was miserable. So they came home to Albuquerque and we planned on having them come up in August before school. They never did. We decided it would be a two-year assignment; with me coming home every other weekend. I purchased a two-bedroom townhouse and that was that.

Shared My Story - Entertained the Troops

One of the first problems I faced, which had been ignored by the previous managers, was the contaminated Miamisburg City water wells. Our tritium operations had been leaking tritium into the acquifer and had contaminated the water used by the City of Miamisburg. I decided to go public and so informed the Contractor, Mansanto Corporation. It was unbelieveable the excuses they had for not doing so.

The second major problem I dubbed the "Lost Plutonium caper." Mansanto could not account for the amount of Plutonium we had. We were short a significant amount but not enough to make even a small nuclear bomb. You can imagine how nervous some of the corprate diehards got over that situation. Again, I decided to go public. The problem became political, but my boss, Herm Roser, Albuquerque Operations Manager backed me. So we had a press conference. The Mansanto big wigs did not want me to even be present at the press conference. That is when I took charge. I announced it would be an ERDA press confernce; and it was. We explained what the material looked like and its danger.

A report that appeared in the Miamisburg News on June 29, 1977 indicates that I made the right decision in letting the public in on our problems. "A cooperative attitude between City, Mound Lab - Until recently Mound Laboratory was that "spooky" place on the hill where, people thought, all scientists did was secret experiments with the atom. Not so-- and Mound Lab has maded a concerted effort to keep people informed, to be as open as possible. ...Jose A. Chacon, Area Manager, of the Energy Research and Development Administration, gave an overview of the seven plants operated by ERDA and ERDA's relationship with the Department of Defense."

"Chacon, as he showed slides of each of the plants and explained their activities, employment and other petinent data, emphasized "Pretty much, we tell it as it is. There is not so much that we have to keep classified now -- we try to let people know what we do."

"Research," he said, "is a spin-off of weapons work, Sandia, for example, is a weaponization Laboratory, but multi-facted. At Mound, 75 to 80 percent of the work is weapons oriented -- a necessary function to maintain security

Post-Plutonium Caper Press Conference

Me armed with slides and                                             and with Mansanto's Big Wigs

Before I left Dayton I did something that did not endear me with Monsanto but did indeed with management at the National Labs. I had heard several barbs directed at Mound Lab to the effect that it was not a National Laboratory and should be called something else. Someone suggested Facility and it stuck. I was blamed by Monsanto and praised by the National Labs for having the courage of changing the name. So one of the last things I did was change the name of the Mound Laboratory to Mound Facility. It was called such until it was closed in 1995.

I Had Pretty Good Press During My Watch

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