Story (09-28-2004)

A look at the history of the "Ad Building" — Part 1

Y-12's resident "historian," D. Ray Smith, has kindly provided a synopsis of the history of Building 9704-2, commonly referred to as the "Ad Building." The building demolition was completed last week. As we prepare for the future, we'd like to take a look at the past. In Part 1, Smith submits a history prepared by Bill Wilcox, Y-12's former Technical Director, now retired.

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By Bill Wilcox — Building 9704-2's role as the Y-12 Administration Building (for 50 years) began in January 1954 with the appointment of John P. Murray as Y-12 Plant Superintendent. He was the first Y-12 Plant Manager to have offices there. Some of the top people over the years served at all four locations — Y-12, ORNL, K-25 and Paducah — (like Clyde Hopkins) or at least two or three (such as Gordon Fee and Ken Sommerfeld) — the contracting arrangement made for unusually excellent management development expertise, all in the government's Oak Ridge Operations business arena.

The gradual increase in Union Carbide's responsibilities illuminates the change in usage of 9704-2 over the years. During the 18-year tenure of Clark Center as big boss of all the Oak Ridge and Paducah facilities (1947 to 1964) he maintained the corporate offices in Wing A of the big four-wing K-25 Admin Building. But Center was followed after his 18 years in the top boss spot by Dr. Clarence Larson, who had started in chemistry research at Y-12 (one of the California gang), moved to ORNL, and then to the top corporate job.

Dr. Clarence Larson was the first of the Union Carbide executives to make the choice to have his corporate offices not at K-25, but at Y-12. It seemed logical perhaps because that year the original K-25 "U" was being shut down (no longer needed because of Portsmouth); the K-25 plant operations were quite mature. Y-12 by comparison was the site of more activity, more people, and it was also physically much closer to his government "bosses" uptown than either ORNL or K-25. So Y-12 Plant Manager Roger Hibbs made room for Larson and his top staff in 9704-2. The first floor, east end, of the north wing was handsomely (by our standards) redecorated for Dr. Larson, with even a small garden area in a small walled-off area outside his windows so he did not have to see all the delivery trucks coming to the H building's cross corridor.

The four-plant law and personnel offices moved into the south wing first floor, and 9704-2 housed both admin staffs for the Y-12 Plant and the corporate offices from then on: Larson for four years (he left for Washington to serve on the USAEC) when in 1969 Roger Hibbs took corporate charge for 15 years, followed by the major change in contractors from Carbide to Martin Marietta in 1983 with Ken Jarmolow for four years, Clyde Hopkins for five, and Gordon Fee for four, etc.

The other significant change in 9704-2 occupants took place during the late 1980s when the government (DOE-ORO) decided they wanted to have an on-site presence at each of their facilities to make space available in the main Admin buildings for their people. At Y-12 this meant 9704-2. Over the years that presence has grown from the beginning two or three offices to a much larger need.