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Ray Powell is shown in 1985 with Governor Bruce King
Ray Powell is shown in 1985 with Governor Bruce King at a testimonial dinner held to honor Powell's community service.

Ray Powell was a Sandia Vice President for 26 years. He was first employed at Los Alamos in 1944 and transferred to Sandia in 1947. Powell held many community and government positions, including Director of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce (1964-1972) and Chairman of Governor's Job Task Force in 1983. After retiring in 1985, Powell was the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 1986, losing to Republican Garrey Carruthers. He was Chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico from 1988 to 1995.

The work of dedicated Sandians like Dick Bice, Ray Powell, and Harry Kinney contributed to the modernization of city administration and bringing it up to national professional standards by applying sound engineering and scientific methods to dealing with Albuquerque's needs. Clyde Tingley had accomplished a great deal for the city and the state in the 1920s and 1930s, but in the postwar period he represented the outmoded politics of a bygone era. And Bice's efforts helped to enhance the city's cultural life and historical awareness, contributing to the quality of life that Albuquerqueans enjoy today.

STAFF NEWS

Research Historian Rebecca Ullrich was hired as a regular Sandia employee in April, ending her life of contractor servitude. She now splits her time between historical and records management activities, serving 1/2-time as the DP records analyst. In the part of her personality that remains devoted to history, she has drafted a proposal for a photographic history of Sandia to be considered by Arcadia Publishing, attended the History of New Mexico course at the New Mexico State Archives and Records Center, and revised the historic building information regarding structures in Tech Area I in support of DOE's compliance with Sections 106 and 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Ongoing responsibilities include research and writing on various topics of Volume II of Sandia's technical and administrative history, answering reference questions from both inside and outside of Sandia, and preparing materials for a new history exhibit called "The Art of Science."

Michael Anne Sullivan, Research Assistant
Michael Anne Sullivan, Research Assistant

The History Program would like to introduce its new research assistant---Michael Anne Sullivan. Michael Anne is finishing her Ph.D. in U.S. History and Comparative Women's History at the University of New Mexico. She has been assisting Rebecca Ullrich and Carl Mora in their work on the second volume of Sandia History. She has been helping to research the activities in city government of Sandians like Harry Kinney and Dick Bice in the 1950s and 1960s. Michael Anne has also been collecting information on Melvin Merritt and Luke Vortman of the weapons effects division, focusing on their work with chemical explosives for Project Plowshare, a Cold War program to develop peaceful uses for nuclear weapons.
Dorris Tendall
Dorris Tendall worked as a physicist at Sandia from 1952 to 1979, one of the first women on the technical staff. She worked on problems in radiation protection, drag of block forms, crater scaling, and Plowshare projects. She was project scientist for the Sandia Nevada Test Site Seismic Net in 1964.
Her favorite historical discovery is the 23-year career of Dorris Tendall, a physicist, in the weapons effects division. We would like to welcome Michael Anne to Sandia-we are happy to have such a knowledgeable and energetic research assistant.

Paper Presentation Corporate Historian Carl Mora presented a paper titled, "Sandia and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, 1974-99" at the Southwest Oral History Association meeting in Long Beach, California on April 28-30, 2000. He discussed the oral history techniques employed in the writing of his history of the project, Sandia and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, 1974-1999 (SAND99-1482).

 

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Last modified: January 12, 2005