ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Sandia National Laboratories has expanded its partnership with Pacific Scientific Company to manufacture, test, and supply vital components for national defense weapons systems. Sandia and Pacific Scientific officials celebrated the expanded partnership at an April 16 event -- "Partners in Progress, Partners in Peace" -- at Pacific Scientific's Energy Dynamics Division in Chandler, Ariz. The event recognized the long-term relationship between the two organizations and the expanded work.

Sandia has placed more than $7 million in purchase orders and contracts with Pacific Scientific to support system surety and stockpile maintenance.

The Energy Dynamics Division has been instrumental in designing and developing special-purpose ordnance devices for Sandia for about 40 years, beginning with Unidynamics-Phoenix, a company that Pacific Scientific acquired in 1993. Unidynamics was Sandia's first supplier to develop the facilities and quality standards to provide high-reliability components for integration into Sandia's applications.

Sandia's Manufacturing Development Engineering (MDE) program was developed in recent years to allow the Department of Energy (DOE) to secure high-quality weapon components from industry instead of running its own -- often more costly -- operations to produce components. Sandia is a multiprogram DOE lab.

"Expanding our MDE partnering with Pacific Scientific's Energy Dynamics Division will ensure that the nation's strategic systems remain viable, safe, and ready, while keeping our costs down," said Sandia's J. Leonard Martinez. "Pacific Scientific has long been one of our most valued suppliers." Martinez is Sandia's vice president for Defense Programs Products and Services.

Tom Walsh, president of Energy Dynamics, acknowledged the mutual benefit of the partnership and noted that "as individuals, and as an organization, we strongly believe in the Sandia mission, and we are committed to supporting its success." He added that the basic strength of the relationship is the fundamental belief in joint problem solving in a "blameless environment."

Components that will be developed and manufactured through the Pacific Scientific/Sandia partnership will replace aging components in the strategic weapon inventory. The components include explosive actuators and gas generators. Sandia has a major role in the DOE program for certifying the continuing safety and reliability of these components and many others used in stockpiled weapons. Although no new weapons are being developed, components in existing ones are being replaced with better, safer devices as needed or at the end of the components' design life.

Pacific Scientific is a division of the Danaher Corporation, a multi-industrial corporation with worldwide facilities. The Energy Dynamics Division specializes in designing and manufacturing electro-explosive devices for defense and commercial aerospace applications.

With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia National Laboratories is operated by a subsidiary of the Lockheed Martin Corp. and has major research and development responsibilities in national security, energy, and environmental technologies and in economic competitiveness.

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