Over its three-quarters of a century history ORNL has employed many people in the area. It stands to reason several families have contributed more than one member to the Lab's work force -- in some cases multiple generations of the same families. This year's 75th Anniversary planners asked staff members earlier in the year if they had parents, grandparents or relatives who worked at the Oak Ridge facilities. Many responded -- some offered fairly detailed histories.
Bonnie Nestor, who works in the Office of the Laboratory and has supported all the Lab Directors since Bill Madia, was preceded at ORNL by her dad, C.W. (Bill) Nestor. Bill came to ORNL in 1953, spent a year at the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology and returned to ORNL after a brief time at the Livermore Radiation Laboratory (later named Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). His research activities included reactor physics, developing early computer codes and the ORNL Mathematics Panel. A Bill Nestor recollection: "In around 1960, as a very junior reactor physicist, I was asked by Paul Kasten, my supervisor in the Reactor Experimental Engineering Division (as it was named then) to be present at a meeting the next morning in the conference room of Bldg. 9204-1, where our offices were. The purpose of the meeting was for me to discuss some neutron cross-section data that I had recently acquired. I showed up the next morning, as directed, to find I was across the table from Alvin Weinberg, the Lab Director, and Dr. Eugene Wigner (just your usual, run-of-the-mill Nobel Prize winner), with no one else in the room. I survived." Bonnie's mom, Sibyl W. Nestor, worked in the ORNL Research Library. Bonnie's daughter, Laura Nell (Johnson) Arneson, was an intern under the late Gerard Bunick in the Biology Division. Her son, David Nathaniel Johnson, was a subcontractor in the Information Technology Services Division for two years.
April Denning, an administrative assistant for the Research Accelerator Division, has antecedents that go back to her great-grandfather, Bert Denning Sr., who worked at ORNL during the Manhattan Project as a mechanic. Grandfather Bert Denning Jr. was an ORACLE instrument technician. April's mom, Katherine, was secretary to future White House Science Advisor Jack Gibbons and was once graciously kissed on the hand at a Gatlinburg physics conference by rocket pioneer Wernher Von Braun.
Another four-generation family: Fleet & Transportation Services' Preston Daniels is the son of Integrated Operations Support Division secretary Paula Irizarry. His grandfather, Paul Brackett, was a security guard and his great grandfather, Martin Hunter, was a machinist.
Facilities Management Division's W. Brence Gilley's great-grandfather, Raymond D. Stokes, was an ORNL maintenance foreman. Another great-grandfather, Berlon G. Green, was a steam power operator. Grandmother Phyllis Green was a secretary for seven division directors. His father, John, and mother, Kahra, worked at ORNL until they took the recent round of voluntary separations.
Five generations are represented here: Kayla Dean, a summer intern in Nuclear Science & Engineering, is the daughter of Requirements, Documents & Records Management Services' Mary Dean. Her grandfather, Tom Burdette, was a subcontract quality assurance manager. Great-grandfather Earl Burdette was a lead engineer for the ORACLE computer, and great-great-grandfather Herman Burdette was a janitor supervisor. Earl is remembered for predicting in the 1960s that "that there will be a day when your TV will be a computer."
Chemical Sciences Division's Victoria Distefano's ORNL kin includes an aunt, Kathy Floyd, a computer programmer; grandfather Jim Distefano; grandfather Harley Ross, who won ORNL's first IR 100 (Later R&D 100) award; grandmothers Shirley Distefano and Ginger Ross, both administrative assistants, and grandfather Jackson Richard, a former Research Reactors Division director.
Daniel Jacobson, whose work was prominently featured in June's Summit supercomputer rollout with Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Gov. Bill Haslam and the IBM and NVIDIA CEOs, is the son of Bruce Jacobson, retired deputy director of ORNL 's Center for Biotechnology.
Benjamin M. Mellon, an IT technologist at the Solution Center, is the son of Michael Mellon, who was a forestry laborer and material clerk at ORNL; the grandson of George Mellon, a material clerk; and nephew of glass blower Elder Mellon. Michael Mellon worked with retired environmental compliance officer Bill Alexander on a project to collect historic relics from around the Lab, which were put on display.
Harold Dodds Jr. was a University of Tennessee professor and part-time employee in ORNL's Computer Science Division. His father, Harold Dodds Sr., was an electrician who worked in the earliest days of ORNL, Y-12 and K-25.
Jeffrey A. Long, Nuclear Materials Control & Accountability team lead in the Laboratory Protection Division, is the son of Claude Long, who worked in the ORNL finance organization for 28 years. Jeff started at Y-12. "As I was telling Dad about my new job at Y-12, I mentioned my general foreman’s name. In our discussion, we discovered that my general foreman’s son was one of Dad’s direct reports. So, while I was working for his dad at Y-12, he was working for my dad at ORNL."
Kimberly Miner, a senior administrative assistant in Global Security, is the granddaughter of Dona Farmer, a teletype operator in the World War II era.
Christopher Stevens, Mechanical Properties & Mechanics group manager in the Materials S&T Division, is the son of Brenda K. Stevens, who was a reproduction manager.
Robert Joseph III's grandmother, Cleo Joseph, worked with the reproduction office's strippers (editing with cut-copy-paste). Robert is a research staff member in the Reactor & Nuclear Systems Division.
The Laboratory Shift Superintendent Office's Kay Traughber is the daughter of Thomas Carter, who worked in the Plant & Equipment (later F&O) organization.
Electrical facility engineer Phillip Lawlor's father, Kevin Lawlor, also worked with electrical systems during his time at ORNL.
Logistical Services' Daniel Franklin followed his father, utility mechanic Roger Franklin, to ORNL.
Sydney N. Murray Jr. and Sydney N. Murray III are both ORNL staff members in the Neutron Sciences Directorate's Research Accelerator Division.
Curt Porter is a senior technician in the Nuclear Security & Isotope Technology Division. His father, Curtis E. Porter, worked in nuclear material processing at the Lab from 1983 to 2011. “One neat thing we got to do while we worked in the same building was support the tennessine project. I worked at the time in the control room that performed the hot cell activities and separations and Dad worked in the glovebox for the final “cleanup” of the Bk that was used." Curt's career was inspired at a family day when he played with robotic manipulators. "I thought this is what I’m going to do when I grow up cause it’s like a game. Then lo and behold, my first job here was working the robot arms," Curt says.
Chemical Sciences Division's Valinda Hubbs' daughter, Jennifer Hubbs, is a administrative assistant in the Contracts Division. Valinda's husband, Hugh Ray Hubbs Jr., was a security inspector and her father-in-law, Hugh Ray Hubbs Sr., was a pipefitter, all at ORNL.
Information Security team lead Pamela Rohde followed her father, Ray Cooper, a health physicist who retired in 1992, and grandfathers Clyde Cooper and Cecil Clark, to ORNL.
Brother and sister Anna Zerr and Benjamin Cagley work at the Lab; Anna is a subcontractor in the Population Distribution & Dynamics group and Benjamin is a team lead in the Research Accelerator Division. Their father, Elmer Cagley Jr., was a boiler maker at ORNL. Their uncle and aunt, Benjamin and Betty Cagley, worked at the Lab, as well.
Recently retired internal security coordinator Deborah Barker has five relatives with ORNL connections: her father, Karl W. West, was an electrical engineer in the Instrumentation & Controls Division who worked on the High Flux Isotope Reactor in its early days; her mother, Jean T. West, was a stenographer in the Solid State Division; and her son, Steven Barker, is a space manager in F&O. Her husband's uncle, Lindsey "Sky" Barker, worked in Personnel from 1950 to 1972 and his aunt, Mildred Joyce Barker, was a secretary in the Health Physics Division.
The Nuclear Security & Isotope Technology Division's David J. Snider is the son of James W. Snider, a retired chemical engineer. David says he picked up some contamination as a toddler when his dad wore shoes home after a stack release of ruthenium-106 in 1958. James performed the survey himself. David believes he's outlasted the beta emitter's one-year half-life.
The Nuclear Security & Isotope Technology Division's Kevin Gaddis joins his brother, Ryan, of the Office of Technical Training. Their grandfathers at ORNL contributed to the Apollo Project: Raymond R. Gaddis designed instrumentation used in the Saturn V rockets. Glenn A. Ellis designed the soil sampler used for the moon missions.
Michael Leuze, recently retired team lead in the Computational Biomolecular Modeling & Bioinformatics group since 1988, is the son of Rex Leuze, who worked in the Chemical Technology Division from 1945 to 1987.
The Communications Office's Bill Cabage remembers his father, Harold Cabage, worked at Y-12 briefly in the late 1950s as a machinist. His dad recalled the pyrophorous nature of the material they worked with. His uncle, Ralph Cabage, also a machinist, worked at the X-10 site briefly during World War II, but left when he learned he was being transferred to Y-12 because he "heard they were working with beryllium."
Communications' digital media specialist Jenny Woodbery is the granddaughter of Al Sutton Jr., who worked in the Chemical Technology Division from 1954 to 1989.
Communications' media relations manager Morgan McCorkle is the daughter of Dennis McCorkle, who still occasionally works at the Lab with Bruce Warmack on sensors and embedded systems. Morgan is the granddaughter of the late Calvin Burwell, who was a member of Laboratory Director Alvin Weinberg's long-range planning team and a chemical engineer whose interests included nuclear plant siting policy (published in Science) and nuclear desalination systems. Burwell continued to work with Weinberg during their post-ORNL years.
Brandon Kendrick of the Research Reactors Division has three relatives who worked at ORNL. His maternal grandfather, Charles Miller, was a health physicist. His father, Bryan Kendrick, worked in the Business Services Division from 1978 to 2012, and his mother, Cindy Kendrick, was a user agreements manager and Community Shares supporter from 1984 to 2017.
Center for Computational Sciences staff member Stephen McNally was preceded at ORNL by his grandfather, J. Rand McNally Jr., who worked in Stable Isotopes and Physics & Thermonuclear divisions. The elder McNally began at ORNL in 1948, although Stephen believes his grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before coming to Oak Ridge.
(New) The father of the Research Accelerator Division's Eric Breeding, Swan Breeding, was a chemical operator and a supervisor in the radiation waste arena at ORNL for nearly 40 years. -- Compiled by April Denning