I grew up at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/cheneworth/2674798931/ ) then operated by UCCND. I hired in the week before Christmas in 1966 at the age of twenty and witnessed the shutdown of the historic plant in 1985. When the last gaseous diffusion cell was silenced in the K-33 building, we felt as though we were at a funeral. This commemorative pin was given to all on the payroll in 1984 when Union Carbide abandoned us to the ravages of Martin Marietta Energy Systems and thus began my quest for an early retirement. I spent the next 15 years working at the sister Y-12 Plant (affectionately known as the Bomb Factory) with everything in place to accomplish that goal except one major piece, how to continue paying the bills. When I finally discovered how to do that in 1999, I was outta there.
From Dad's Lincoln Memorial University Scrapbook
