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| The EG&G Corporation, a large company dedicated to research of all types, primarily in the atomic energy field. One division, Wolf Research, was heavily involved in cancer research. |
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EG&G/Wolf Research Corp
TRW was asked by EG&G, a major DOD contractor for atomic weapons and testing, to allow me to take a leave of abscence to run one of their major technical sections under the name Wolf Research. I had known this company when they began in 1963 in Houston, so I agreed to make the move. Wolf was a company of about 400 Physicists, Physicians and Computer Scientists at the time. I was able to successfully bid and get contracts with the govenment to make the company grow.
I had to work closely with parts of the White House staff, and got to be known by that staff for work I was responsible for. One area of importance at that particular time was the development of a massive effort in the biomedical research area under the National Institutes of Health, the development of a National Cancer Program. The budget of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) was to grow into a major expenditure and the Cancer Institute had no one that could plan for that growth.
So the White House reached into other sectors of technical work areas and tapped six people to join the Civil Service staff at the NCI to plan the budget and science that would become part of the National Cancer Plan. I was one of those six, even though I could hardly begin to even spell "cancer".
EG&G gave me a leave of abscence to join the NCI.
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In 1931 MIT professor Harold Edgerton (a pioneer of high speed photography) partnered with his graduate student Kenneth Germeshausen as a small technical consulting firm. The two were joined by fellow MIT graduate student Herbert Grier in 1934. Bernard ("Barney") O'Keefe became the fourth member of their fledgling technology group.
The group's high-speed photography was used to image implosion tests during the Manhattan Project. The same skills in precisely timed high power pulses of electricity also formed a key enabling technology for nuclear weapon triggers. After the war the group continued their association with the burgeoning military nuclear effort, and formally incorporated Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc. in 1947.
During the 1950s and 60s EG&G was heavily involved in nuclear tests as a major contractor for the Atomic Energy Commission. EG&G made extensive use of the Nevada Test Site for weapons development and high-technology military testing, at Nellis AFB. EG&G has shared operations responsibility for the NTS with Livermore Labs, Raytheon Services Nevada, Reynolds Electrical and Engineering (REECO) and others.
Subsequently EG&G expanded its range of services, providing facilities management, technical services, security, and pilot training for the U.S. military and other government departments. EG&G built a variety of sensing, detection and imaging products including night vision equipment, sensors used to detect nuclear material and chemical and biological weapons agents, and a variety of acoustic sensors. The company also supplied microwave and electronic components to the government, security systems, and systems for electronic warfare and mine countermeasures.
During the 1970s and 80s the company, then led by Barney O'Keefe, diversified by acquisition into the fields of paper making, scientific, marine, environmental and geophysical instrumentation, automotive testing, fans and blowers, frequency control devices and other components. In the late '80s and early '90s most of these divisions were sold, and on May 28, 1999, the non-government side of EG&G Inc. (formerly NYSE: EGG) purchased the Analytical Instruments Division of Perkin-Elmer for US$425 million, also assuming the Perkin-Elmer name. (NYSE: PKI) At the time EG&G was based in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and made products for diverse industries including automotive, medical, aerospace and photography.
In August 2002 the defense and services sector of the company was acquired by defense technical services giant URS Corporation. URS' EG&G division is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland and employs over 11,000 people. During its heyday in the 1980s EG&G employed close to 35,000.
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While working in the Washington, D.C. area, I became known, through mutual friends, to the management of EG&G which at the time was looking for someone to become the Chief Operating Officer for one of its major research divisions, Wolf Research, which had done a lot of consulting for NASA in Houston. I was asked by the President of EG&G, Dr. Ken Germeshausen, with the permission of TRW management, to consider taking over the operation of Wolf, a company that had been started by Dr. Bill Wolf whom Dick knew from his NASA days.
Wolf was involved in some very interesting work, including Earth Resources data collection and data reduction a project involving high flying aircraft and satellites which were involved in collecting data on pollution. I had a friend that was actually involved in the flights of the RB-57 aircraft which was flying at or above 65,000 feet taking data from cameras and other data collection devices, and analyzing that data to predict where earth resources were being wasted or destroyed. I later hired him to run that portion of Wolf Research when he bacame available.
I took over the operation of the company which consisted of some 400 physicists, mathematicians, computer analysts, and data collection specialists. The company was located right next to the University of Maryland and very near the Goddard Space Flight Center.
Soon after taking over the operation of Wolf, the company won a major contract with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a division of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The contract called for data collection and analysis for cancers caused by pollution from all types of smoke, primarily through exhausts from smoke stacks from railroad engines. In setting up this contract, I foundmyself working with staff from the NCI, especially the Director of the NCI and his staff. This led to other discussions on my considering becoming a consultant to the NCI for a lot of other areas of work. Because of all the work involved in running Wolf, I didn't have time for this, so the Director of the NCI went to a friend of his in the White House who pulled strings to get me relieved of some of his work at Wolf so as to work more closely with the NCI, especially the Director's office.
Ultimately, the NCI and the White House contacted my parent company, EG&G which had other research contracts with the NCI and the NIH, who were asked to allow me to take a leave of absence to come to work full-time for the NCI.
I was offered a position back in Civil Service in the Director's Office as one of his assistants at the grade level of GS-16 which is at the top of the government pay scale. I finally accepted this job and told the NCI that I would commit only two years to the assignment, through the preparation and installation of the National Cancer Plan which had not yet been started. What a switch! I hardly knew how to spell "Cancer", but I soon learned!
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