Richard L. Holt

EG&G Research Corporation

EG&G is a fantastic technical giant, working in many highly specialized areas of technology.  I was working away at TRW in Washington, D.C. when the Vice President of the company headquartered in the Boston area contacted me and presented me with a proposal that was too good to pass up, a chance to run a company, to be the Chief Operating Officer of a major technical corporation, a Division of EG&G composed of very high level Physicists, Mathematicians and Computer Scientists.  The first call I made after receiving the probe from EG&G management was to my former high school roommate, basketball teammate in high school, and roommate in college, Zolin Burson.  Zolin, a Physicist, was the Chief of Nuclear Safety and Accident Investigation for EG&G under contract to the Atomic Energy Commission at the Nevada Test Station near Las Vegas.  Zolin gave the company nothing but high marks for its people, and its policies.  I accepted the challenge because EG&G was giving me a chance for a whole new thing for me.

I was asked to take over the operation of one of their most productive companies, Wolf Research and Development.  I wasn't new to Wolf, having been friends with the Physicist that started it in Houston, Bill Wolf.  At the time he had six employees, all Physicists, working on trajectory calculations for manned flight.  I was with NASA in the Mission Control Center and had a lot of contact with Bill because his work was with one of our groups. But I had lost track of how large they had become and how much the spread of technology had influenced their growth.  Bill was still with the company but in another part of the corporate structure.  A gentleman had been hired as the President of Wolf Research in Bill's place, a retired Navy Captain who had much of the same background in the military that I had in my past positions, Capt. John Dudley.  But Capt. Dudley needed help;  he was in poor health and could not push the way he had previously.  Thus the need for a younger man, namely Dick Holt.  Bill Dudley stayed home most of the time and kept in touch by telephone.  I acted as the Executive Officer would in the Navy, keeping things going for the Captain. 

The Company had over 400 Physicists, Mathematicians, Electronic Engineers, and Computer Scientists in it.  The list of tasks they were working on was mind-boggling.  We had the high altitude Earth Resources Aircraft Program, taking all kinds of data and interpreting that data.  We were involved in atomic safety programs, analyzing data of all kinds.  We were heavily into the NCI cancer effort, establishing data analysis for much of the etiology of the disease.  I was excited about joining them, and even my senior boss at TRW where I was working at the time, was excited for me.

Columbia River Nuclear Generation Plant

Our scientists were involved in nuclear safety studies wrapped around the generation of nuclear power from the many generators in the U.S.  The cooling systems, the fall-out problems if an accident should occur, the potential for sabotage, and many other issues associated with these new facilities for the generation of electrical power.

Nothing was too far fetched for us to be involved in it.  The rules of physics are very broad; everything in the world and in our universe follows the rules of physics, and anything that could be studied about these laws was within our purview.  I guess I have to admit that was why I had majored in this subject in college, because I was curious about what made this world and the universe tick.

At Wolf Research I had physicists, electronic scientists, nuclear scientists, computer scientists, medical scientists and many other fields of science represented in our staff.  I loved mixing with this kind of group.

It was while working at Wolf that we won a major contract with the National Cancer Institute to begin the analysis of a monstrous mound of data concerning evidence of the formation of cancer in employees of the railroads in the U.S. over some 50 years.  I mixed daily with the Director of the NCI and his key scientific staff.  I had a whole staff of my own of MD's and PhD's that dove into the data to come up with scientific reasons for cancer being so prevalent in railroad workers.

It happened that this all happened right at the moment that President Nixon wanted to start his major thrust into solving the threat of cancer in the U.S. and even abroad.  His chief science advisor was a friend of mine.  He dropped the word in the right ears, and that word led to my being called by the management of EG&G, saying that the White House was requesting that I resign or take an extended leave from EG&G and rejoin the Feds at the NCI as the Assistant to the Director.  My job would be to bring into the enclaves of the NCI my years and experience in planning for and running major technical efforts with Federal funds.  There were none in the ranks of bioscientists that had the right kind of background, and along with myself, six others were to also be assigned to the NCI, each of us with some similar experience, but also with complementary experience.  My expertise was in data collection and analysis along with communications systems.  But I sure didn't know very much about cancer and stated that fact to anyone that would listen.  It didn't matter.  I was asked/told that I was soon to become a Civil Servant again, but this time starting at the GS-16 level and soon thereafter promoted into the ranks of the Federal Executive Service.

Even to this day I marvel how quickly I climbed the ranks in the Civil Service structure.  God was with me all the way.  I had worked hard to get where I was, and always tried to respect those that worked with me.  It had paid off.  Here I was, entering the NCI in just 10 years from wearing the uniform of the US Army;  starting at the GS-9 level in 1960 and now at the "thin air level" of GS-16+.  All this by a kid from Panama who used to dip his toes into the Panama Canal and loved it!

I quickly found out how to identify how important you were.  It was all in the furniture!!     I was given an office big enough for five, my own private secretary, and my desk looked like an aircraft carrier landing deck.  I had all mahogany furniture, leather couches and chairs, and even a credenza behind my desk where there was a coffee maker and other goodies placed thereon.  Wow!  I couldn't believe all this.

I went on leave-without-pay from EG&G and signed on with the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health, Education and Welfare (old name).