Kimball Prince, Sandia's General Attorney from 1955 to 1959.

Sandia's Corporate Archives receives many internal and external requests for information. One interesting request was for information on the earliest known history of Sandia. Completed by Kimball Prince in June 1960, "Sandia Corporation: History of Formation" exists only in the original typewritten manuscript. A graduate of Harvard and New York University Law School, Prince was General Attorney for Sandia from October 1955 to June 1959 when he was appointed Assistant General Attorney of Bell Telephone Laboratories. Prince completed "Sandia Corporation: History of Formation" after his departure from Sandia. The manuscript contains a chronology of Sandia events leading up to October 5, 1949, when Sandia Corporation was formed preparatory to taking over Laboratory management on November 1, 1949. The last line of the book's foreword reads, "…I am truly indebted to Monk Schwartz [Sandia President from 1960-1966] who first suggested that this kind of a compilation should be made and have him to thank for stimulating me to a most interesting piece of research…" [signed] Kimball Prince. We are fortunate to have this historical document in the Corporate Archives.

We received a new collection from retiree Arthur McMullen, who now resides in Durango, CO. He was a Sandia employee for 30 years, retiring in 1980. The collection includes materials on McMullen's work in antenna development; he worked on many projects including telemetry antennas for the Redstone and the Honest John rockets. During the Readiness Program in the 1960s, McMullen was responsible for the many antenna systems required for data acquisition in Sandia's C135 aircraft. In another project, McMullen helped design a microwave system that successfully linked a classroom serving Sandia California and Lawrence Livermore with the University of California Davis. This Educational Television System allowed many of the Labs' employees to earn graduate degrees.

Art McMullen checks out an antenna set-up at Barber's Point, Hawaii (circa 1964).

Retiree Robert O. Woods donated two models-a Strypi rocket (an egret illustration decorating its nose) and a Nike missile. We plan to use these models in a future exhibit. Woods retired in 1997 with over 30 years of service. During his career at Sandia, Woods designed instruments for upper air research, fielded air pollution experiments, designed optical and mechanical instrumentation for military satellites, designed X-Ray instrumentation for satellite astronomy, and designed robotic high-precision tooling for production.

If you have materials you believe are appropriate for the Corporate Archives, please contact Archivist Myra O'Canna at 844-6315.

In September, Myra O'Canna attended the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. Over a thousand archivists from all over the world were in attendance. Electronic records continue to be a major session topic. Although electronic records are fragile and transitory, they document and provide evidence just as textual materials. The National Archives and Records Administration presented a chronology of NARA's work in electronic records. The agency has made major strides in the processing of electronic records, but there are still no definitive answers regarding long-term preservation of these records. Government agencies are also concerned with issues regarding e-commerce and electronic filing (tax returns and social security benefits). NARA has to consider the implications of electronic signatures-will the agency have to become a software museum in order to verify validity of electronic signatures through time.

On August 4, 2000, Shirley attended a Photograph Preservation Workshop, sponsored by the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board and taught by M. Susan Barger, Ph.D at the University of New Mexico Zimmerman Library. Some of the topics were: brief history of photography, identifying photographic processes, accessing the condition of your collection, environmental considerations, storage of photographic collections, pest management and housekeeping; and policies for handling materials.

The Corporate Archives Still Photo Collection is a valuable resource available to all Sandians. Call Shirley Morris at 844-7404 for historical or current photographs, or you can access the C-Quest Database.

Recorded Information Management Department 09612
Mail Stop 0612
Fax: 844-2621 and 284-2782
Manager: Anna Nusbaum, 845-9440, awnusba@sandia.gov
Corporate Historian: Carl J. Mora, 844-8011, cjmora@sandia.gov
Corporate Archivist: Myra O'Canna, 844-6315, mlocann@sandia.gov
Research Historian: Rebecca Ullrich, 844-1483, raullri@sandia.gov
Research Assistant: Michael Anne Sullivan, 844-7496, masulli@sandia.gov
Archives & Still Photo Clerk: Shirley Morris, 844-7404, samorri@sandia.gov