Publications Details
Bridging the Cold War and the 21st century: chronicling the history of Sandia National Laboratories
A historical perspective is given for Sandia National Laboratories from its beginnings as a small engineering group at an offshoot of Los Alamos Laboratory to a facility of 7000 people at its main facility in Albuquerque, another 1000 people in Livermore, California and test ranges in Tonopah, Nevada and Kauai, Hawaii. The Sandia army base became the Z division of Los Alamos and $25 million construction program began the structures that would carry out a test program for nuclear weapons during the cold war. Bell System/AT&T stewardship of the site continued from 1949 to 1993, when Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin) was chosen as the new contractor. Management decisions, personnel, and political aspects of the Laboratory are presented up to 1997 and forecasts are given for future policy and programs of Sandia.