California campus celebrates 70 years

On March 8, 1956, Sandia grew in ways that would only be discovered over seven decades at the Labs’ second principal site in Livermore, California.

Sandia California is marking its 70th anniversary, reflecting on its start with a small group of employees focused on coordinating nuclear weapons projects with the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch — now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — across the street.

The site is now home base for more than 2,000 workforce members.

“In honor of this anniversary, we celebrate the legacy and imagination of the thousands of people who have created technical breakthroughs supporting national security,” said Associate Labs Director Toby Townsend, who leads the Deterrence, Science & Energy Division that stewards the California lab. “While the site and its workforce have performed work that no one may ever know about, we know it has kept the nation safer for decades. I hope when you consider all the innovations we’ve developed over the last 70 years, you’ll have the same sense of pride as I do.”

In addition to Sandia California’s early collaboration with LLNL on nuclear deterrence, the campus became home to the renowned Applied Biosciences Laboratory, Micro and Nano Technologies Laboratories and Combustion Research Facility.

The CRF was one of Sandia’s first facilities located outside fenced areas in what is now part of the Livermore Valley Open Campus, allowing collaboration for the first time with industry and universities as well as international collaborators.

Sandia California’s mission work has proved innovative, including inventing the first extreme ultraviolet lithography machine to advance microchip manufacturing, creating organic glass scintillators to detect nuclear material at ports and borders and defending against cyber threats to national security.

Livermore’s employees are also stewards of the site’s natural resources and habitats, including raptors and protected species like the red-legged frog and tiger salamander.

Throughout the Bay Area, Sandia California engages in community outreach for educational success, family stability and community leadership.

Site leadership and employees will honor the 70th anniversary throughout 2026, celebrating the Labs’ contribution to national security in the past and for years to come.